The Reluctant Midwife Page 4

  It’s interesting that, though I was terrified, some of what I’d seen Patience do in the tent with the hobo girl came back to me and I was proud that Bernice didn’t tear. It was her first baby, a healthy male infant, weight unknown. Only a small amount of bleeding. They went on to Torrington to her mother’s home with the cord still attached and the placenta nestled in Mr. Norton’s hat.

  5

  Wild Greens

  Today I cannot be sure, but I think the doctor reacted when our new dog, Three Legs, licked his hand. It may have been reflex, but he appeared to reach up and ruffle his fur.

  I shouldn’t really call the golden mutt our dog. He’s really mine. I feed him and I take him in and out of the cottage to do his job, but it’s Isaac he’s taken a shine to. The vet says it’s sometimes that way.

  At first I was horrified to be given a pet. We scarcely have enough food to feed ourselves, but what could I do? The veterinarian and midwife are our benefactors and I wasn’t in a position to argue. Daniel led Three Legs right up to Blum, who sat in the gray, weathered rocking chair staring into space. Then the vet took Isaac’s flaccid hand and made him stroke the dog’s big yellow head.

  “See,” he addressed the canine. “This is Dr. Blum, your master. Do whatever he says.” Here he winked at me, acknowledging the irony . . . since Blum never says anything.

  It’s been more than a week since we moved into the little house at the end of Wild Rose Road and we are slowly getting adjusted. I’ve replaced the glass in the broken window and repaired the roof. Patience and Dr. Hester generously brought over a box of linens, dishes, a rocking chair they found in the barn, and two braided rugs. They also gave us a basket of meat, eggs, milk, and bread, which we needed badly.

  Now, Dr. Blum and I sit on a wooden bench on the porch while I sort through the dandelion greens I’ve picked for our midday meal.

  “It seems wrong that I have to eat the weeds that other people pull out of their front yards . . . like I’ve failed somehow,” I say to my mute companion.

  Blum’s expression is as blank as the blue sky, but I shrug and keep talking. “I know there are people poorer than us, but just look at you. You’re wearing some of Daniel’s old work clothes, a flannel shirt with a hole at the elbow and frayed denim pants. I’m wearing a pair of stained slacks and an old sweater, torn at the waistband.”

  I stop myself and stare out across the fields. . . . “No, that’s wrong. I have to stop feeling so sorry for myself and try to look for the positive.

  “For example, look at the base of the old oak where daffodils are blooming in clusters, and in the distance see how the river glimmers in the morning light. There is always the Hope.” I think this is funny, and when I look over at Blum, for a moment he appears to share my amusement, but I’m probably wrong.

  Job Hunt

  “Okay, Dr. Blum,” I start out at breakfast. “I can’t put it off any longer. This morning we are going into town to find some kind of work.”

  To get ready for my job-hunting expedition, I settle on a brown skirt, a yellow middy, and brown flats. My town clothes are a little out of date, but of good quality, and I worry that I won’t look as desperate as I truly am. I also worry about the doctor, unsure what I will do with him if I do get a job, but decide I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. At the last minute I spiff him up too, with a shirt and a tie.

  Our trip into Liberty is uneventful until we cross the Hope River. Just before the bridge, a large newly constructed billboard confronts us.

  “JOBLESS MEN KEEP MOVING. WE CAN’T TAKE CARE OF OUR OWN. —LIBERTY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.” I read the sign out loud and cringe, wondering how people will respond to a jobless woman. As in most small towns, people get employment through family and friends, but we have no family and not many friends.

  The first stop I plan to make is the grocery store, which thankfully is still open. (So many of the stores are not.) As I cross the bridge, a sleek red Packard with a silver winged goddess on the hood comes up behind us and honks. Why such a hurry?

  On Main Street, I pull up to the curb and watch as a driver in black exits the Packard and opens the back door. A woman of about fifty, wearing a white coat and hat, gets out and waltzes into Ida May’s House of Beauty. She trails a fur stole, and it occurs to me she could be a movie star, but then why would she be in Liberty?

  “Okay, Dr. Blum. I have to go into the general store. You must stay here. Do not move from this seat! Do you understand?” I slow my speech, pounding out each word, take his chin in one hand, and turn his face to mine. “Do you understand? Don’t move!” Of course he makes no response, and why do I think he would?

  The little bell on the glass door of Bittman’s Grocery rings when I open it, but there’s no one behind the counter and many of the long wooden shelves are bare. “Hello!” A man wearing a clean, worn brown apron steps out of the back carrying a case of canned pork and beans.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Bittman,” I say, and put on a bright face. “Do you remember me, Becky Myers? I was the home health nurse in Union County a few years ago.”

  “Yes, of course. My wife, Lilly, went to your baby classes with our first child, and you were friends with Mrs. Blum. I was sorry to hear of her death and . . .” Here he hesitates. “And the doctor’s infirmity. Mr. Linkous was in and told me what happened.”

  The grocer is a tall, lean thirty-year-old with arms so long his wrists show at his cuffs. He has brown hair and brown eyes, and at a distance could be a ringer for the actor Gary Cooper.

  “Infirmity is putting it nicely, because he can’t speak or do anything for himself. I hoped by bringing him home, he might heal, but so far, there’s little change.”

  Bittman clears his throat and squints. “I heard about the mix-up with the bank and the doctor’s house, and we are right sorry for that. Mr. Linkous feels bad too.” He looks around the empty grocery. “You probably noticed, we’re one of the last places open . . . but we’re still holding on.” Here he picks up a rag and starts wiping the counter, studying the pitted wood as if there were some spot that needed polishing.

  “The doctor and I are living in Patience Murphy’s old place. . . . I’ll need a few pounds of white beans, a small ham bone, and a tin of lard . . . two pounds of flour and an onion. How much will that be?”

  “One dollar and five cents. The ham bone is only nineteen cents a pound, a good deal.”

  I make my purchases, still trying to get up my nerve to ask about work. Silence swallows the air between us. Finally, I spit out the words. “Do you know of any jobs, Mr. Bittman? I don’t mean just nursing, anything at all. I’m our sole support now. . . .” I trail off and then add, almost under my breath, “I would even work in trade, take barter instead of cash. . . .”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Becky. There’s no work anywhere. You see how it is. Even able-bodied men can’t find anything. Half the county has moved on. . . . Hey, Junior,” he calls. A little kid with red hair sticks his head though the open door of the back room.

  “Bring out that box of apples for Miss Becky.”

  “No, please. I can’t afford them.”

  “Oh, there’s no charge. They’re headed for the trash or Mr. Mintz’s pigs. Bottom of the barrel went bad and spoiled, but if you cut off the rotten places you can make some nice applesauce. I’ll carry them out to your car.”

  “Well, thank you. Thank you so much. I’m sure we’ll love them,” I murmur as we load the crate into the trunk. Bittman stares at the doctor through the passenger window, then taps the glass.

  “Howdy, Doc.” When there’s no response, he taps again and then shrugs. “You take care now, Miss Becky, and don’t be a stranger.”

  Three blocks down Main we pull up to the curb, this time at Stenger’s Pharmacy. I repeat my instructions to my mute companion, this time shortening the command: “Stay!” Like he’s Three Legs the dog. “Stay!”

  Another Try

  As if the six-inch gap will entice passing customers in, the
front door of the pharmacy is propped open. “Mr. Stenger?” I call, pushing it wider and looking around. Except for a scrawny orange cat on the counter, the shop appears vacant. “Mr. Stenger?” I call again louder, and a short, round man with a balding head and one lazy eye comes out of the back carrying a bucket and mop. He wears a long white cloth coat with a crooked red bow tie, and the store smells like carbolic acid and something sweet, probably Lilly of the Valley Toilet Water. (I used to buy it here in better days.)

  “Oh, hello. I didn’t hear you come in. . . . Is that Becky Myers? Nurse Becky! I heard you were back.” He leans his mop against the wall, moves toward me, right arm outstretched and I shake his soft hand. My hands were soft once too, but as I look down I notice a little grime under the nails. Without hot running water, I’ve become a country girl.

  “What can I do for you?” Stenger asks. “Is the doc all right? I heard he’d suffered some sort of fall.”

  “No, not a fall. We don’t know of any injury. Some of the specialists at Johns Hopkins thought he might have had a stroke. Others say it’s catatonia, a neurological condition brought on by hysteria or maybe shock.”

  “I know about catatonia. Part of my training was at the State Asylum for the Insane in Weston. You’d see those people, the catatonics, walking around carrying a doll or dancing with a broom. It’s like they’re ghosts.”

  “Yes, that’s what he’s like, a ghost of himself. It’s pitiful really.”

  The pharmacist shakes his head and leans on the counter. “So what can I do for you, Miss Becky?”

  “I need to find work.” I don’t lead up to it this time, just dive right in.

  “Whew! You and everyone else in the good old USA. Papers say twenty-five percent of the nation is unemployed, but in West Virginia it’s worse.” He indicates the headlines in the Charleston Gazette on a newspaper rack in the corner: UNEMPLOYMENT REACHES 80 PERCENT IN UNION COUNTY.

  “That’s like no jobs at all. Eighty percent! Most of the mines have shut down. . . . Hear about the strike in Toledo?” He pushes last week’s paper across the counter. AUTO-LIGHT STRIKE IN TOLEDO. 2 DEAD. 200 INJURED, reads the headline. “Six thousand union strikers fought fifteen hundred National Guardmen.”

  “Listen, Mr. Stenger, I know it’s bad all over, but I’m desperate. Can you think of any work at all?” The pharmacist turns back to his mop and bucket. “I wouldn’t ask you, but we’re almost out of money. We have no supplies put ahead and. . . .”

  In better times I would never have gone on like this. Mr. Stenger sets the mop aside and reaches under his white pharmacist coat for his wallet.

  “No, I didn’t mean that! I have never asked for handouts. I just need a job.” He pulls out a two-bit piece and forces it into my hand. I have no choice but to accept it or the coin will fall in his bucket.

  “Don’t tell the missus,” he says, going back to his work. “You see what even a trained pharmacist has come to—I now mop my own floors.”

  “I could do it. I would be glad to.”

  “The store is closed now, Miss Myers.” He rings the water out of his mop and swishes it across the wooden floor, almost chasing me out, and we’re both so embarrassed I don’t say good-bye.

  Despite the fact that this twenty-five cents will help keep us going for another week, it burns in my hand, and my cheeks burn too. How embarrassing! And Mr. Stenger’s calculation of my ability to get work is more dismal than I imagined. I blink back the tears, ashamed by my weakness, and step off the sidewalk.

  That’s when it hits me. The passenger-side door of the Pontiac is half open and Dr. Blum is gone.

  Lost

  “Mr. Stenger!” I run back to the pharmacy and pound on the glass door. The pharmacist opens it, but holds the orange cat back with one foot. “The doctor! He’s disappeared. I hate to ask you, but can you help me find him? He could get run over or hurt by someone who doesn’t understand his problem.” I wring my hands like a heroine in a silent movie.

  “Now, now, Miss Myers. Don’t cry. Liberty isn’t very big. We’ll find him.” He slips off his lab coat, locks up the pharmacy, and joins me on the cracked walk. “He can’t have gone far. You head down to the courthouse and ask the fellows on the steps. I’ll head up toward the church.”

  Frantically, I hurry along past the closed sweetshop, the closed dry goods shop, and the volunteer firehouse, but Isaac has vanished! How many times have I wished to be free of him, now he’s gone! I should have been watching him closer.

  Embarrassed, I ask the men lounging on the benches if they’ve seen a strange fellow in a white shirt and tie, with a vacant look, walk by. They all shake their heads and look at me funny so I turn and run back to the car.

  Where could the doctor have gone? Like Mr. Stenger says, Liberty’s not a very big town. You can pretty much see the length of Main by standing out in the street. Could he have wandered down an alley?

  Just then I spy Mr. Stenger leading the doc by the arm in my direction.

  “Where did you find him?”

  “He was in the soup line down at the Saved by Faith Baptist Church, three blocks away. The fellows weren’t sure if he smelled the hot food or just wandered there by accident, but one of the drifters gave him a cup and pushed him in line. They could see there was something wrong with him, thought maybe he was deaf and dumb.” The doctor still carries an empty tin cup and there’s food on his face.

  Stenger eyes the cup. “No one knew he was a physician, thought he was a bum just panhandling through town, until he got up to the front of the line and two of the church ladies serving food recognized him. They’d heard you were back so they sat him in a chair with a cup full of beans and that’s where I found him.”

  “He fed himself?” I ask, amazed. “He hasn’t done that since he took his spell.” Stenger doesn’t get the significance. “You fed yourself!” I say to Blum, almost laughing, but he doesn’t seem to hear.

  “Well, all’s well that ends well,” Stenger intones as he opens the glass door to his store and then says brightly out of habit, “Come again, Miss Myers.”

  On the way out of town I make a point of going past the church to see the soup line. There are dozens of fellows, mostly white with a few colored mixed in, and I’m happy to see that the African Methodist Episcopal and the Saved by Faith Baptists have joined forces and serve all races.

  I study the men as we drive by: thin, hollows under their eyes, cheeks sunken in, clothes greasy and torn, and I wonder where their women are. Staying with the children and kin, I imagine. But the men must leave home and keep on looking for work. They can’t stop. Whatever it takes, just like me, they must find work.

  The Joes in the line turn to stare at our vehicle, and one tall fellow in overalls waves with the stump of an arm. That’s Holly Wetsel, I realize. One-Arm Wetsel! The doc saved his life a few years ago when men from the sawmill carried Holly to the clinic in the back of a pickup. He’d run his hand through the roller and crushed it so badly it couldn’t be saved. Isaac amputated the torn stump and stopped the bleeding, while I provided the anesthesia. He didn’t charge a cent for the surgery. That’s how he was . . . generous when you didn’t expect it, but otherwise a skinflint.

  As we pass the church, Isaac turns. His face doesn’t change, still the blank stare, but there’s a shift of the head in what looks like a nod. Maybe he’s thanking the men in the soup line. . . . I take a deep breath. Not likely.

  6

  Horse Shoe Mine

  “Thanks for coming with me, Becky,” Patience says as we bump in her Olds down Salt Lick Road. “It’s a lot more fun to have a pal at a delivery and also safer if something goes wrong.” I’m bracing my feet against the floorboards wondering how I got into this.

  Thinking it over, there wasn’t much choice. Blum and I were at the Hesters’ returning their push mower when Patience got a call and the person on the phone mentioned blood. Then when Patience asked me to come with her to the delivery, what was I going to say? “No thanks,
I’m busy?” She clearly thought I’d be happy to attend, as if assisting a woman in labor was a big honor.

  Daniel gently led the doctor off to the barn. “Come on, old buddy. I got something to show you. We’ll leave the birthing to the ladies.”

  “I get so tired sometimes,” Patience goes on as she expertly bounces around another hole in the gravel road. “But since Mrs. Potts died, I’m the only midwife in Union County. . . .”

  “When we get there, can you sort through the birth satchel and resterilize the scissors and whatever else we’ll need? I just had a delivery yesterday and didn’t get around to it. This is Thelma Booth’s fourth child. She’s been calling me every few days with one thing and another.”

  Patience takes a sharp left and passes a wooden sign that reads HAZEL PATCH.

  “You know about Hazel Patch? That’s where Reverend Miller and his Negro followers live. It’s a village of about a hundred folks who migrated up from the southern part of the state to work the Baylor Mine, until the cave-in in ’24, when seventeen of their men were killed, seventeen men and two boys.

  “They say you could hear the trapped men calling for help, but no one could get to them through the boulders. They screamed for a week and then the cries got weaker, and then they stopped. Those who weren’t killed won’t go underground again, no matter what, and now make a living as subsistence farmers.

  “I spent a lot of time in mining camps,” Patience goes on. “Did I ever tell you? I was married to a union organizer for the UMWA, the United Mine Workers of America. The camp we’re going to today isn’t unionized. It’s abysmal. The houses are little more than the shacks that the hoboes build under the bridge in town.”