The Midwife's Tale (17 page)

“She’d throw me right quick!”

“Not if I’m riding her, too,” she countered. She mounted Grace and patted the saddle behind her. “I’ve got her steady now,” she assured him. “Climb up.”

He hesitated, but limped toward her by circling around to avoid the horse’s head. After a few awkward attempts, he finally managed to get his foot into the stirrup. Martha grabbed hold of his puny arm and helped to hoist him up behind her. He was barely astride when he grabbed her shoulders. Hard.

“Put your arms around my waist or we’ll both fall off if Grace stumbles. That’s it. Now, hold on. We’ll go slow and easy and let Grace lead us,” she suggested as she nudged the mare with her knees. “Horses see better in the dark than we do.”

“Like I said, they’re useful. At times,” he murmured. His grip around her waist tightened as they started off. His body was stiff. The farther they rode, however, the more he relaxed. When he laid his head against her back, she smiled, but kept her hands steady on the reins and her comments to herself to let him sleep.

As she rode, the sky grew cloudy, and the temperature began to drop. There would be rain before morning. She could feel it in the air. They passed several farms before the old Rhule homestead finally came into view some fifty yards up the road. She brought Grace to a halt. The boy stirred, then settled back against her while she studied the old house Will and the other boys now called home.

Memories both joyful and sorrowful quickly surfaced. Bertram and Zena Rhule had come to Trinity just before Grandmother Poore retired from her calling, so she had delivered their first child. Martha had been there, too, and delivered the next two children herself. She had watched them grow. She had tended to them when they got sick. She had prayed with them at Sunday meeting.

And she had helped to prepare them all for burial, as united in death as they had been in life.

Long abandoned, the single-story dwelling now blazed with light that silently spoke of new life, of a new beginning here for Will and boys like him. She had no idea what Reverend Hampton and his wife looked like, but she knew their spirits. Anyone who would devote their lives and resources and energies to care for orphaned boys deserved admiration and respect, along with an abundant dose of help and understanding.

The journey to redemption in body and soul for these boys would be difficult, and Martha pledged at this very moment to do what she could to ease the way. Perhaps that was what the gift of Will had been—an invitation to take part in their journey.

She nudged Grace forward. “Will? It’s time to wake up. Will?”

He stirred and leaned back from her, but his hold around her waist tightened the closer they got to the house. She had to pry his hands apart to dismount, and tethered Grace to a hitching post near the door before she reached up to the boy.

His gaze was still sleepy, but fear found ample room to enter. He immediately masked it with that false, brittle bravado she had come to expect. “I don’t need no help,” he insisted, and stiffened when she steadied him anyway during his awkward dismount.

“Is there anything you want to say to Grace before you go inside?”

He straightened his shoulders and sniffed at the mare. “Guess she ain’t too dumb if she found this ole place. She’s still ugly, though,” he added.

Fully ready to reprimand Will for hedging his apology with another taunt, Martha was interrupted when the front door suddenly opened, spilling light outside that was blocked only by the couple standing there.

Martha stared openly, mesmerized by the surprising images that stared back at her. She took a deep breath, set her disbelief aside, and waited to see how this unusual set of guardians would welcome Will home.

13

T
he two people standing in the doorway could not be Reverend Hampton and his wife. Impossible. Absolutely impossible. They were old enough to be grandparents, not guardians for a group of orphans!

As best as Martha could judge, the woman was nearly sixty, with a thin braid of red hair tinged with gray that hung over her shoulder and fell to her waist. Neither fat nor thin, she stood at average height and might have been considered quite ordinary. Until you looked into her eyes. Pale, pale green, they were simply remarkable in color and were so large they nearly overwhelmed her features.

The woman’s companion, a portly man of approximately the same age, watched her with a guarded but warm expression on his face. He had a full, milk-white beard, but not a hair on top of his head.

“My dear boy!” The woman rushed forward to enfold Will in her embrace. “We were so worried about you,” she crooned before dissolving into a fit of weeping.

Will held himself as stiff as one of the rocks he had just climbed. When he finally struggled free, the man’s expression turned into a stone mask that brooked no argument. “We’re thankful you found your way home,” he murmured to the boy. “For now, I think it’s best if you get right to bed. We’ll discuss your misadventure in the morning.”

Will lowered his head and kicked at the ground with the toe of his shoe.

“Speak up, boy.”

“Yes sir.”

“I’ll tuck you in. Poor lad. What a fright you must have had all day,” the woman crooned as she led Will into the house.

When the man cocked his head and looked at her with upraised brows, Martha smiled. “I’m Widow Cade. Martha Cade.”

He extended his hand, and she found his grip quite strong for a man his age.

“The midwife. Of course! I’m Reverend Hampton. Thank you for bringing Boy home.”

She nodded, but found it odd that he referred to Will as Boy. “I’d like to have brought him home sooner, but . . .” She paused, unsure exactly how much she should tell the man.

He chuckled. “I quite understand. Boy has a quick mind and an even quicker tongue, along with an unusually independent nature. I’m just glad he’s home safe. Please come in. My wife, Olympia, should be able to join us shortly.”

Martha stepped into the single-story dwelling, where a low fire burned in the hearth and a pair of kerosene lamps on the mantel provided ample light. With a quick glance around, she realized the interior had changed little from what she remembered. Straight ahead, the large kitchen ran the full depth of the house. To her left, there had been two bedrooms, but the door had been closed and blocked any view she might have had of them.

The minister waved his arm and pointed to the rough planked table with benches along all four sides that sat in front of the hearth in the middle of the room. “Won’t you have a seat? Until we enlarge the house and have a parlor, I’m afraid this is the best I can offer you.”

“This will be fine,” she assured him, and removed her gloves and laid them on her lap as she sat down on the bench facing the fire.

He took a seat at the head of the table facing the front door and gazed at her gently. “I hadn’t heard you were back home. How is your daughter?” He tugged on the end of his beard and shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t seem to recall her name.”

Martha drew in a deep breath. “Victoria. I . . . I pray she’s well. As hard as I tried, I never did find her to bring her home,” she admitted.

Try as she might, she found no censure in his dark eyes, only compassion and understanding.

“She’ll come home. Until she does, Olympia and I will keep her in our prayers. And you, as well.”

Gratitude tightened around the ache in her heart. “Thank you,” she whispered. She cleared her throat, anxious to turn the subject away from her own troubles. “You seem to have taken on quite a task,” she suggested, also curious as to why he had not pressed her for details about Will and her return home with him.

He chuckled. “The Lord calls us. Whether or not we answer is up to us, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s true, but—”

“But what in heaven’s name is an old retired goat of a minister doing with a crew of recalcitrant orphans clear out in the middle of God’s good country?”

She blushed.

He laughed out loud. “You’re not the first one to be surprised. I could hardly believe it myself, but Olympia was quick to remind
me that my ministry never did require a church. After thirty years as a prison chaplain, I was ready for a small cottage near a fine lake. I do love to fish.”

He paused and let out a small sigh. “Seems the good Lord had other ideas. Some years ago, one of the inmates I ministered to told me he had grown up as an orphan. After his release, he wrote to me from time to time. Made a little fortune for himself in New York City, as it turned out. When he died last year, he left his entire estate to be used to establish an academy in the countryside for orphan boys, provided I would agree to act as the boys’ guardian and run the academy.”

“With six orphans under your care,” she offered.

“Actually, we have seven now that Boy is back. We left the city with ten. Unfortunately, we lost a few on the way.”

“Lost a few?” Had the children taken ill and died or had they truly run away and gotten lost? In either case, he seemed to regard their loss rather callously, something that did not bode well for Will or any of the others.

His expression sobered. “Three ran off. One left when we were only a day’s journey out of the city, and another disappeared three days later. The last one left us just east of Lancaster.” He shook his head. “I knew I couldn’t force any of them to remain with us, so I set the conditions before we left for Trinity. Each of the boys is free to stay or go. They make the choice, and they know they’re always welcome to come back if they do leave, as long as they agree to follow the rules while they’re here.”

“But they’re only children,” she argued, making a deliberate attempt to keep her voice even and nonjudgmental. As pious as the minister appeared to be, his attitude toward the children was too callous for her to accept his views as valid. “They can’t just come and go at will. They need supervision. They need guidance and protection.”

“They do,” he countered, but he made no attempt to explain how he could allow children to simply leave of their own accord to wander about the countryside on their own without either the guidance or protection he was required to provide as their guardian. “I’m grateful to you for helping one of our boys to come home. I hope the experience didn’t harden you against what we’re trying to do.”

His troubled gaze suggested that his experiences with neighbors and townspeople had not been all positive. Despite her reservations about his attitude toward the boys, she did not want to make his mission here more difficult. “Not at all,” she assured him, and quickly recounted the events that had begun with finding Will in the loft and ended with her bringing him home.

He listened, nodding from time to time, but never interrupted her. When she finished, he cocked his head. “You call him Will?”

She nodded. “Yes. He told me that was his name.”

He shook his head. “He’s never told us his name. Not even the other boys know it. He must be especially fond of you.”

She let out a chuckle. “Hardly. He seems to make a very strong effort to insult me and even my horse—”

“Because he’s not sure he can trust himself to let someone else care.”

“I . . . yes . . . I think you might be right. At least you know his name now, and you can call him Will instead of Boy.”

He narrowed his gaze, thought for a moment, and shook his head. “I don’t think that would be wise. At least for now. He might take your telling us as some sort of betrayal of his trust. He’ll tell us himself when he’s ready.”

On the one hand, Martha could not quite believe he could be that patient, that understanding, especially when working with children like these. On the other, she simply could not accept that he could just dismiss those children who had run away. Given
his status as a man of the cloth and his experience counseling prisoners, however, she dismissed her concerns and focused on the sacrifices he was making to help Will and the others at the academy. “It’s very complicated, isn’t it? He’s only a child—barely eight, I’d venture—yet he acts so . . . so old at times.”

“He’s closer to six or seven, as far as we’ve been able to determine. We think he’s been on the streets for better than four years.”