Authors: Deborah Hopkinson
Dr. Snow unwrapped one of the glass vials. “I am going to
test the water. As I told Reverend Whitehead, I’ve developed a theory about how cholera spreads, which I feel sure is sound. Now I need clear and definitive proof to convince others.
“The Broad Street epidemic could provide the evidence I must have to make a case that is beyond doubt,” the doctor went on. “There is no time to waste. It is Sunday. We have only four days and much to do.”
I’d thought Dr. Snow could help Bernie, but he didn’t care at all about him—or anyone else. I looked down at his bag and felt like kicking it.
“So you don’t have special medicine in there? You’re supposed to be one of the best doctors in London, maybe the whole country.” I clenched my fists in frustration. “I thought you could make folks better.”
“I know how you feel, lad,” said Dr. Snow. “I can never forget the first time I watched cholera devastate a community, sweeping through houses like a terrible windstorm.
“The sad truth is that I have no medicine. No one does—yet. Do I believe that someday we will find a cure and that we can make progress against epidemics like this? Yes, I fervently hope so. But it will take time and work.”
I turned away and started to stomp off. Dr. Snow called me back.
“Eel, there is something we can—something we must—do,” he said. “This swift, fierce epidemic is a chance to show how the disease spreads.”
Dr. Snow’s next words startled me. “And I could use your help.”
“What can I do? I’m just a mudlark.” I was sure he was making fun of me.
“If we can bring evidence to the committee on Thursday night, we might be able to prevent more people from getting sick. We might be able to save lives.”
“But … but … that’s not good enough,” I cried. “Bernie is dying
now
.”
Dr. Snow opened his mouth. I didn’t stop to listen.
I scrambled up the stairs and pushed open the door of the room. Florrie had her arm around Betsy, who was sleeping. Bernie lay on a pallet in the corner.
“Oh, Eel,” whispered Florrie when she saw me.
Her eyes looked large and frightened, though she wasn’t crying. “He’s goin’, poor little thing. He’s calling for his papa. Sometimes he’s awake, and then he slips off a bit.”
“Have you been all alone?”
“Mrs. Lewis was just here. But she has her own troubles. She lost her baby yesterday,” Florrie said. “Fanny weren’t even six months old, poor dearie.”
She looked behind me at the empty doorway. “You didn’t bring ’im, did you?”
I shook my head. “Dr. Snow said there’s nothing he can do once someone has it.” I felt hot tears sting my eyes. “He’s out there, though, down at the pump.”
“What’s the pump got to do with anything?”
“Dr. Snow thinks the blue death spreads by some kind
of invisible poison in the water, rather than by bad air,” I told her.
Florrie stared at me. “Is the water from the Broad Street pump bad somehow?”
“Dr. Snow’s not sure yet. He wants to test it,” I said. Then I stopped. What if he was right?
“I never drink from there myself,” I said slowly, looking at the bucket and ladle in the corner. “But have you drunk from that pump in the last few days?”
“A little.” Florrie swallowed hard. “A neighbor came by and brought a jug of milk. Bernie wouldn’t touch it, so I gave it to Betsy. But I drank some water.”
“Dr. Snow could be wrong,” I said, trying to make her feel better. “But it might be best not to drink any more.”
Just then Bernie whimpered.
“Go over and talk to him, Eel,” Florrie whispered. “He looks up to you something fierce.”
Bernie’s small hand felt dry as paper. His cracked lips looked sore. His skin had a bluish tint. You could see his ribs heaving up and down from the effort to breathe.
“Don’t be scared, Bernie,” I said softly. “Your pa’s lookin’ after you.”
Bernie opened his eyes and stared at me. He gave a hoarse gasp. Then his little body gave up fighting.
I stood in the hot, close room, looking down at Bernie’s still form. Anger surged through me. “It ain’t fair.”
Florrie drew the sheet over Bernie’s face. She nodded toward the corner, where Betsy lay curled up with a napping Dilly. “I’m glad I didn’t wake ’er. It don’t seem right that in three days she’s lost her whole family. I hate that I can’t do anything. But maybe
you
can, Eel. Maybe you can help your Dr. Snow somehow.”
We went into the hall. Florrie said she would fetch Mrs. Lewis and ask her to keep Betsy. “I think she has an aunt somewhere. I ’spect Mrs. Lewis will know how to reach her.” Like Rev. Whitehead, she had dark shadows under her eyes from lack of sleep. “I need to get home.”
I cleared my throat. “Be careful how you go, Florrie.”
“You too, Eel.”
Dr. Snow was still standing before the pump, making notes in a small black book. He took one look at my face and said, “I’m sorry, lad.”
I stared down at my feet and pushed at a cobblestone with my toe. I wouldn’t cry in front of Dr. Snow, not in front of any swell like him.
“Sorry for running off …,” I mumbled.
A few families passed by us, but the stream of refugees was a trickle compared to Friday afternoon. I figured most everyone who could leave had already gotten away. I looked into the dark, empty windows around us. Were there still children like Bernie lying inside, suffering, with no one left to help them?
“Eel, I’ve been studying cholera in other parts of London, but this epidemic is different,” Dr. Snow said urgently. “It’s come on fast, and is confined to one neighborhood. That makes me suspect a direct link with a single water source.
“I meant what I said. This might be the best chance I’ll ever have to prove my theory. And I do need your help.”
“But … what could I do?”
“I can’t stop all my other work. So I need an assistant. You know these streets and the people who live here,” Dr.
Snow explained. “More importantly, they know you. You’re not a strange fancy doctor they’ve never seen before.”
“True enough. I’ll never be a swell like you,” I said. Then I shook my head. “But I can’t exactly make out what you want me to do.”
“Well, for one thing, talk. I will need you to help me visit homes and talk to people.”
“You mean, warn them about drinking the water?” I thought of Florrie, and how she had drunk water from the pump.
“Warning will be part of it, yes. We will also need to ask questions to determine if the Broad Street pump really is to blame for the cholera.
“Don’t worry. I’ll guide you and tell you what to ask,” Dr. Snow reassured me.
Then he added, “And naturally, I’ll pay you.”
Dr. Snow would pay me just to talk to people. I could use the money. But I wouldn’t help Dr. Snow for that reason. I would do it for Bernie’s sake.
“What do you say, Eel?”
“All right,” I agreed. “I’ll do it. Though I’m not sure how talking to people can prove anything.”
“You’ll see,” Dr. Snow promised. “But we must start at the beginning. The first thing I want you to do is to close your eyes.”
It must be, I thought, a sort of test. Of what, I couldn’t say. I didn’t know how to pass it either. So I just shut my
eyes. What I saw was Bernie’s small face, etched with pain, which made me quiver. I had to take a great gulp of air to calm myself.
As I did, Dr. Snow took me by the shoulders and moved me so I was facing a different direction. “All right, now open your eyes and tell me what you see.”
What I saw was the Broad Street pump.
“Now, Eel, I want you to pretend you are seeing this neighborhood for the first time,” Dr. Snow instructed. “What would you say about this pump? Just tell me everything that pops into your head.”
“Well, a pump is one place that people in the neighborhood get their water, though some also get it piped into their houses these days,” I said slowly. “It pumps water up from a well, and folks use that water to cook with and, of course, to drink.”
He nodded. “Go on.”
“Uh … this here is the Broad Street pump, but it ain’t the only one in the vicinity. Most people use the pump closest to them, though not always. I mean, it’s a matter of taste sometimes,” I said. “The Broad Street pump is known as a good one; the water isn’t too murky. Though I never drank from it when I worked at the Lion.”
I stopped and felt my cheeks get hot. “Uh … but I don’t work there anymore.”
“Are you in the habit of drinking from any other pumps around here?” Dr. Snow asked.
I had to think about that for a minute. “Well, I stop at Bridle Street sometimes, or Warwick Street, on account of that pump is near the park in Golden Square. I like to wash off my legs and sit in the sun to dry, especially if I’ve been mudlarking, which is rather a dirty business.”
Dr. Snow smiled. “Can you name some of the other pumps in this area?”
“There’s one on Vigo Street. Oh, and there’s the Little Marlborough Street pump, but everyone tries to avoid it.” I wrinkled my nose. “The water smells awful bad.”
“Now, you said you didn’t drink from this pump when you worked at the Lion,” said Dr. Snow. “Why not?”
“We had our own water, which was delivered from the New River Company to make ale. We had a well too,” I said. “I think most of the men—there were about seventy workers—just drank ale. I never got in the habit of stopping at the Broad Street pump because I always had a jug of cold, clear water waitin’ for me at the Lion.”
“Very good, Eel. Now, what else can you tell me about this neighborhood?”
I frowned up at him. His dark eyes seemed kind enough, but they held a challenge: was I just an ignorant mudlark, or was I worthy of helping in this important work?
“Well, like I said, we have lots of families, squeezed together close, and lots of little shops and businesses too,”
I said. “There’s the brewery, of course, and other tailors besides Mr. Griggs. We have a bakery, a furniture maker, a greengrocer, a jeweler, a bonnet maker. I know a shop that sells trimming for ladies’ hats, a dressmaker, and an engraver. Oh, and an umbrella maker too.
“Besides the Lion, I guess the Eley Brothers factory is the largest business. They make those percussion caps, the little metal part of a firearm that contains the gunpowder,” I said. “Then there’s the St. James Workhouse over on Poland Street.”
Just thinking about the workhouse made me shudder. Rev. Whitehead and Dr. Snow might be nicer than most swells, but I couldn’t trust them with the truth. If they knew it was just Henry and me (and him not even eight years old), they might think the best place for us was that very workhouse. It would feel like being in prison, stuck in with hundreds of men, women, and children, all put in separate dormitories and made to do what everyone else did, day after day.
All at once I thought of something. “Dr. Snow, there must be more than five hundred folks in that workhouse, but Reverend Whitehead hasn’t mentioned anything about the cholera there, and Charlie the coffin man didn’t need to go near it.”
“Hmmm, interesting,” mused Dr. Snow. “You’re doing well, Eel. Anything else?”
In front of us, a hearse stopped, pulled by a horse so skinny its ribs showed through. Two men, with handkerchiefs
tied over their mouths, brought a wooden box into a house across the way.
I took a breath and kept talking, almost as if my life depended on it. And perhaps it did.
“Excellent observations,” said Dr. Snow when I’d finally run out of words. “Now, while you were with your friend, I drew some samples from the pump. I’ll take them home to look at under the microscope. Though I’m afraid that up to now, I haven’t been able to see cholera material in water. No one has.”
“So what will you do to prove the cholera comes from water?”
“We will have to use other means to prove my theory. We’ll have to rely on the Four W’s.”
I frowned. “Never heard of them.”
“These are four questions that must occupy us in trying to understand—and stop—this outbreak. If we ask the right questions, we may just find the answers. Can you guess what they are?”
I must have looked bewildered because the doctor smiled and said, “Just use your common sense. That’s always the best place to start.”
“Uh …” I hated to look stupid in front of Dr. Snow. I had to come up with something. “Well, could one of those
W
’s be
What?
Because we want to know:
What
is going on?”
Dr. Snow beamed, just as he had when I’d captured his
guinea pig the first time we met. It made him look younger somehow. “Yes indeed. We must start by asking, What is going on? What is the disease?”
“Well, that’s easy. It’s cholera: the blue death.”
Dr. Snow nodded. “We are sure it is cholera in this epidemic. But doctors may not always know. Many times in history, people were confronted with a disease and did not understand what it was. Now, can you guess what the next question is?”
I stared blankly. Then I noticed that Dr. Snow had begun looking curiously at the houses, craning his neck as if to peer inside. This must be some kind of hint.
“Who?”
I exclaimed. “The second question we should ask is,
Who
is getting sick?”
Dr. Snow nodded. “Very good. Go on.”
I kept thinking. What else would I want to know if I were Dr. Snow?
“Well, seems like you might want to ask
where
folks are,” I began slowly. “
Where
do the people who are getting sick live?”
“And not just where they live, but where they work or go to school,” Dr. Snow agreed. “Even where people go to eat or drink can be important.”
I counted them on my fingers:
What? Who? Where? …
I tried to think of another
W
. I shook my head. “I give up.”
“
When
did they fall ill?” Dr. Snow said, beginning to walk off.
I turned over the Four
W
’s in my mind.
What? Who? Where? When?
“Dr. Snow, I think you’re missing one,” I said, hurrying to catch up. “Maybe it should be the Five
W
’s. Maybe we should also ask
Why?