Finest Kind

by Lea Wait

  “I’ll ask Nabby who spins the yarn she uses.”

  Mother looked pleased that she’d thought of knitting. “Your brother has been well these past days. He hasn’t had any fits, and he’s been able to swallow egg and a little bread with water.”

  Frankie was lying on the floor, his eyes wide open. They had never been sure Frankie could see anything more than light, which he turned toward. But he could hear their voices, and he moved his head when he heard his name. What would life have been like for all of them if Frankie were like other six-year-old boys?

  He would have been able to play marbles, and bring in water, and help find oysters and pick apples. He’d be planning to go to school with Jake in six weeks. Jake could have taught him to read and cipher.

  And Mother wouldn’t be so tired and pale, and unable to leave the house for more than a few moments.

  But even if Frankie would never be like other boys, maybe there was some way to make his life, and that of his family, easier. Maybe Granny McPherson had a remedy.

  Surely Frankie needed more help than anyone.

  19

  Saturday morning Jake added branches and logs to their woodpile while Mother baked bread and stewed apples with the little sugar they had left. Then she straightened the house as best she could, put on a good dress, and sat, waiting for Father.

  He arrived late Saturday afternoon, weary as always, carrying bundles of food and candles. This Saturday he had a letter for Mother that had been left at the post office in town.

  Jake pumped water for Father to use to wash up as Mother sat quietly, reading the letter over and over.

  “What does your sister in Framingham have to say?” asked Father, drying his face and neck.

  “Elizabeth and the rest of the family are well,” said Mother. “Annie Pease and Aaron Brown are engaged, and little William just got over the measles.”

  “That’s good,” said Father, sitting at the table and sipping the cold water Jake had left him.

  Mother put the letter on the table. “Nathaniel, I miss seeing everyone. So much.”

  “Maybe next summer Elizabeth could visit us.”

  Mother looked around the room. “No, Nathaniel. They know we were hurt by the Panic, but they don’t know we’re living like this.”

  “I’m doing better at the mill. I’ve asked for more responsibilities there, so perhaps soon I’ll be earning higher wages.”

  “Still. Wiscasset will never be Boston.”

  “No. But Maine is a state with possibilities, and I won’t be operating saws at the mill forever,” said Father.

  “Jake planned to go to college.”

  “And he still can! Just maybe a few years later than we’d hoped.”

  Jake had been listening from Frankie’s corner, where he was lightly stroking his brother’s arm. “I’ve talked to the schoolmaster for the local district school, Father. He’s agreed to help me with history and Latin after regular hours.”

  “That’s good, Jake.”

  “Mr. Holbrook says there are tutors and an academy in the village where students prepare for college.”

  Father sighed. “Maybe by next year we can afford a school like that.”

  Jake took a deep breath, and glanced at Mother for support. How would Father react to the rest of his news? “And that’s not the best of it! Mr. Holbrook’s given me a job.”

  “At the school?”

  “At the jail. Mr. Holbrook’s also the jailer for Lincoln County. I’ll work there every other day, beginning Monday.”

  “At the jail! With prisoners?” Father pushed his chair back and got up from the table. “I can’t allow my son to work at a prison!”

  “I’ll be safe, Father. I will. Mr. Holbrook’s wife and children live in the house connected to the jail. You pass it every weekend.”

  Father sat down again, heavily.

  “With the money I earn I can buy some of what we need,” said Jake.

  “Are you saying I’m not providing for my family?” said Father.

  Mother interrupted him. “Jake’s almost thirteen, Nathaniel. Many boys his age bring home wages. Perhaps he could put away some money for school. He’s been working so hard to help us.”

  “If I were earning more money, my boy wouldn’t have to work when he should be studying.”

  “I’ll be studying, too, Father.”

  They were all silent for a few minutes.

  “I’m going for a walk,” said Father.

  Mother rose to go with him.

  “Alone,” Father said.

  20

  Monday morning Jake got up with the rooster, made sure the chickens had fresh water and ground oyster shells and the little corn he’d found in the garden, and picked a wagonload of apples for Mother to peel, core, slice, and string.

  It was almost seven when he rapped on the jail door.

  A woman who was clearly in the family way opened the door, pulling a blue shawl around her shoulders. The shawl matched her eyes. He’d never paid attention to eyes before, but Mrs. Holbrook—it must be Mrs. Holbrook—had beautiful eyes. What color were his mother’s eyes? He wasn’t even sure.

  “Jake?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Jake realized he was staring at her. “I was expecting Mr. Holbrook.”

  “He’s already at the jail, giving the inmates their breakfasts. I’m Mrs. Holbrook.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” said Jake. “I’m here to help.”

  “So I hear, and we can use you. Mr. Holbrook doesn’t allow any of us to enter the jail without him, or even to open the door.” She gestured at the large iron door inside the entryway. “While you’re waiting for him, I have some chores for you to do,” she added.

  Jake followed her through the sitting room and dining room, and then into a warm kitchen filled with the smell of rising anadama bread. Jake’s mouth watered, although he’d already eaten three slices of bread at home. Perhaps when he or father bought some cornmeal, Mother would make anadama bread too.

  “I’ve been baking this morning, so the wood box needs filling,” said Mrs. Holbrook. “You’ll find the woodpile beyond the outbuildings. Bring the wood in and fill the box next to the stove until no more will fit. I’ll be upstairs with the children. When you finish, pump enough water to fill the large basin next to the stove so I can heat water for washing. When you have a little one there are always clouts to wash.” She patted her rising stomach. “Carrying water is difficult for me now.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Jake, blushing at her reference to the baby to come, and thinking of the clouts his mother washed at home. Frankie would always need to wear them. Mrs. Holbrook’s little girl and her baby-to-come would learn to use chamber pots and privies.

  “If Mr. Holbrook hasn’t returned by the time you finish, call up the stairs to me.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Jake. He wondered why she hadn’t asked Ed to fill the wood box. He had thought all his work would be in the jail. Clearly he was to do whatever the Holbrooks needed done.

  Their woodpile was twenty times bigger than his. How could his family keep warm this winter?

  But his home had only one fireplace. The Holbrooks had a large stove in their kitchen, another in the dining room, and the one he’d warmed his hands at in the living room. There might be more stoves in the rooms above. Plus, Jake realized, there must be stoves on the jail side of the building as well. Even prisoners had to have warmth in the winter, and the Holbrooks’ woodpile had to supply both their home and the jail.

  After filling the wood box, Jake took a bucket and filled the basin from the pump in the kitchen.

  He’d forgotten the ease of not having to go outside to pump water. He’d also forgotten the luxury of having a maid bring a filled pitcher and a basin to his room so he could wash when he woke in the morning. It must have been heavy work for his family’s maids in Boston to lug water up two flights from the kitchen, and then to remove the waste, along with the slops in the chamber pot.

  How
those maids would laugh to see him now. Jake grinned a little to himself. Pride and status seemed unimportant in the face of hunger and cold.

  “Jake? Have you finished the jobs my wife needed done?” Mr. Holbrook entered the kitchen holding a stack of dirty tin bowls.

  “Yes, sir. The wood box is full, and the water is ready to be heated.”

  “Good. I’ll introduce you to the jail, and its inmates. That’s where most of your work will be.”

  Mr. Holbrook opened the thick iron door just inside the main entrance to the building.

  “The jail is built so I can enter it from the first floor of the house,” explained Mr. Holbrook. “I keep the keys with me whenever I’m to home. If I’m away, they’re in our kitchen, on a high shelf No one but me, or Sheriff Beals, should ever open the main door. You will only work in the jail when I am here.”

  “Yes, sir.” Jake had no desire to go into the prison alone.

  The air inside the jail was heavy with dampness. Rock walls and floor held moisture far longer than wood. As Mr. Holbrook locked the heavy door from the inside, Jake looked at the stone steps that led up and down. The jail was on a hill, so the lowest floor of cells was lower than the first floor of the house, and almost like a cellar. On the wall along the stairs hung an assortment of leather and iron restraints, and ropes of different lengths.

  Mr. Holbrook watched him. “Are you all right with this? No one but you and I, or lawyers, doctors, and close family of the inmates, come here.”

  “How many prisoners are there?” Jake asked.

  “I’ll show you.”

  Jake followed Mr. Holbrook down the stairs. At the bottom of the steps was another thick iron door, barred and locked.

  The door creaked as Mr. Holbrook pushed it open for Jake. A cold iron stove stood in the corner of the granite hallway.

  “Later in the fall one of your jobs will be to keep the stoves going,” said Mr. Holbrook.

  Jake wondered how cold temperatures would have to be to justify fires. The floor felt cold to him now.

  “Who’re you talking at, Holbrook? Someone got a visitor?”

  A woman’s loud voice came from behind one of the six iron doors that lined the passageway. Jake shook, from either cold or fear. He wasn’t sure which.

  Mr. Holbrook ignored the voice. “This level of the jail is the coldest in winter, and the dampest, so we keep prisoners here who’ve committed the most serious offenses.”

  “There are six cells,” said Jake, almost whispering. He felt as though he were in church. His voice echoed against the stone walls.

  “Yes. Usually we have one person in each cell, but when there’s an emergency, like when a dozen sailors got drunk and started to tear up Whittier’s Tavern last month, I put as many in a cell as can fit.”

  “Who’ve you got there, I’m asking?” yelled the voice again. “Is that my son, come to get me out of this place?”

  “It’s not your son, Margaret,” called Mr. Holbrook. “It’s Jake Webber. He’s going to help me keep this place in order.”

  Margaret’s voice got softer, and then rose shrilly. “Is Jake young and handsome, then? If I’m bound to stay here longer, a young handsome face would ease the aggravation of dealing with such as you!”

  Jake tried to smile. “Who is she?” he whispered.

  “Margaret Flanders,” said Mr. Holbrook. “Margaret’s a regular guest here, right Margaret?”

  “Three meals a day, and if you’re nice, Holbrook brings a blanket or two,” agreed Margaret’s voice from the second cell on the right. “But I’m tired of his hospitality. I want to go home!”

  “In another week, Margaret,” said Holbrook. To Jake, he added, “Margaret likes fires. We have the pleasure of her company several times a year, after she burns someone’s barn down. She’s from Waldoboro.”

  He opened the cell next to Margaret’s, which was unlocked. It was empty, a cold dark granite box. The only light was from a small barred window high on the outside wall, just above ground level.

  “You will scrub the cells, empty the slop pails, and wash down the bedsteads to keep bugs to a minimum. The inmates won’t be in their cells while you’re cleaning them. I’ll either move them to the outside yard or, in bad weather, to an empty cell.”

  “I can scrub cells.” At least he wouldn’t have direct contact with the prisoners.

  Holbrook hesitated. “The cleaning will not be pleasant. In some cells you’ll find food and slops on the floor or the bed. We change the pallets in spring, but they have to last until then. And if an inmate is ill, or angry . . .” He shook his head. “Just do the best you can. And keep your eyes open for anything that shouldn’t be in a cell—a weapon, or even a sharp spoon. If you’re in doubt about anything, remove it and show it to me.”

  Jake nodded.

  “You’ll also deliver meals to the inmates. They can be pushed through the small wooden doors at the bottom of the cell doors.”

  Jake noted the small sliding doors that were just narrow enough for a tin dish. “The prisoners are supposed to push their dishes back into the hall when they’re finished, but often they do not. Those you’ll find when you clean the cells.”

  “I can do that,” said Jake softly. The tasks did not sound pleasant, but they didn’t sound impossible, either.

  “So you’re telling the boy all he has to do, Holbrook,” came another voice, this one young but rasping. “Are you also warning him about the evils we inmates can be telling him? Quite an education we could give a young man!” said the voice, chuckling deeply before the chuckle turned into a cough.

  Jake looked at Mr. Holbrook, questioningly.

  “Thomas Wilson’s a thief. Only eighteen but old in prison experience. It’s his third trip here.” He walked over to the cell beyond Margaret’s. “Thomas, that cough sounds worse. Are you in need of the doctor?”

  “Not much he can do for me,” said Thomas. “A warm drink would help somewhat.”

  “I’ll try to make the time to get you one,” said Holbrook.

  He unlocked the door and led Jake back to the stairway. “Thomas has been coughing for three weeks now. He’ll be with us for another six months. Winter may be hard on him.”

  “A doctor visits here?”

  “Dr. Theobold comes once a week. More often if I send him a message,” said Holbrook. “I do what I can for those here between the doctor’s visits.”

  Jake looked at him. “I imagined a jailer would be . . . tougher . . . with the prisoners.”

  “I can be that,” agreed Holbrook as they climbed the stone steps to the second floor. “Depends on the prisoners. Those we’ve got now aren’t the violent sort likely to knife me in my bed, even if they had the chance. You’ll see. Jails are used to store people who aren’t welcome in the community. Only some are dangerous.”

  The second floor was much like the first, with six more cells, but it was slightly warmer. “I’m thinking to move Thomas Wilson up here,” Holbrook shared. “Less dampness than on the first floor.”

  There were two prisoners on the second floor: David Douglas, age twenty-two, confined for six months on larceny charges for stealing small items from a mercantile store where he worked in Litchfield. And Westley Barter, age twenty-one, from Nobleboro. The courthouse and jail for all of Lincoln County were in Wiscasset.

  “Westley Barter’s a sad case,” said Mr. Holbrook. “Martha Clarke, the young woman he was smitten with, gave birth, and in the birthing the midwife asked her who the baby’s father was, as is the law. She swore the father to be Westley, and he hasn’t denied it. But as the responsible man, he has to provide for Martha and the child. At the time the baby was born, Westley was living in the poorhouse in Nobleboro, which made the citizens of the town legally responsible for his obligations. They refused to help Martha, so Westley was sent here.”

  “But if he’s in jail, how is he to support his child?”

  “The good citizens of Nobleboro aren’t concerned about that, nor about Mar
tha and the baby. Westley is here for four months, or until he can think of a way to get money to his family.” Mr. Holbrook shook his head. “Martha brought the baby here once to see him, but Nobleboro’s a day’s ride, and she had to talk a neighbor into bringing her. I doubt she’ll be back soon.”

  Jake was silent. “I remember Father saying debtors went to prison in the old days.”

  “Those days aren’t so far in the past. There are still men like Westley Barter who end up in the county’s facilities.” Mr. Holbrook led the way to the third floor of the jail.

  There the floor and walls were of wood, not of stone. Four large rooms, two on each side, lined the center hallway. Jake looked through the barred windows opening into each room. Two rooms were empty. In the third a man was curled on a pallet and didn’t move. In the fourth a man paced from one side of the room to the other, reciting nursery rhymes over and over.

  “And then there are these poor souls,” said Holbrook. “Charles Umberkind and David Genthner.”

  “What’s wrong with them?” whispered Jake. “They don’t look right in the head.”

  “That’s the truth,” said Mr. Holbrook. “They’re lunatics. Crazy people. You never know what they’ll do or say—to themselves or to each other. Who knows? Maybe their fathers were drunkards or their mothers didn’t want them but they were born anyway. There’s no way to know what causes insanity. Sometimes one of these people will come to their senses and can be released. Others stay here for a time and then go to the asylum up to Augusta. Be especially careful in working with these prisoners.”

  He followed Jake down the stairs. Jake looked past him, up to the top floor. “Who is up there?”

  “No one now,” said Holbrook. “That’s the contagion ward, where we confine children or adults who have sicknesses. It’s also used to isolate sailors who’ve been on a ship where there’s been disease.”

  “How long do people have to stay there?”

  “Until they die. Or until Dr. Theobold is sure they won’t spread the disease to others in Wiscasset.”