Once a Midwife

by Patricia Harman

  “That’s what I wanted to tell you,” Mr. Lloyd says. “There’s no charge.” He points toward the lighted marquee above us. FREE TODAY. SPENCER TRACY IN BOY’S TOWN AND DONALD DUCK IN THE WISE LITTLE HEN.

  “Luella and I wanted to give the community a lift after what’s happened.” He rips off six tickets and hands them to Dan.

  “Thanks, Lloyd,” Daniel says. “That’s real neighborly!” The kids jump up and down.

  “Now we have to hurry and get our errands done.” I try to get us organized. “Let’s split up. I’ll go to Bittman’s Grocery, sell our eggs, and get the coffee and sugar, and you go to the farmers’ supply to buy chicken food,” I say to Dan. “I’ll meet you and the children there.”

  “Sure,” Dan says. “Let’s go, kids, and don’t beg in the store.” The prospect of the free motion picture seems to cheer him.

  When I get to Bittman’s, I’m surprised to see more red-white-and-blue bunting draped around the glass door. “Do you like our decorations?” Lilly asks me, her pale, sightless eyes staring at nothing. She’s been blind since she had a fever her first year of life.

  “They’re really nice,” I compliment her, and put my basket of eggs on the counter. Though Lilly can’t see, she still helps tend the store, knows where everything is by feel and has all the prices memorized. “All I need is a five-pound bag of white sugar and a pound of coffee. There are four dozen eggs.”

  B.K., whose short dark hair sticks up like he forgot to comb it, measures out a pound of coffee. “People are saying because of the war, the government will probably start rationing sugar like England did last time.”

  I frown. “Oh, yeah. I didn’t think of that. I’d better take another five pounds, then.”

  “I have some peppermint candy canes in the back,” Lilly says. “Do you want me to lay some aside for the children’s stockings? A penny apiece.”

  “No, I’ll buy them now. Can I get a dozen? With all the worry about the war, I haven’t done a thing to get ready for Christmas.”

  My next stop is the dry goods store, where Mr. Gold is standing behind the counter, wearing his trademark red suspenders and wire-rim glasses, the same kind as my specs.

  “Mrs. Hester,” he greets me. “Would you like a free flag?”

  “Really? Sure.” He gives me a miniature stars-and-stripes, like the one hanging on the store’s door.

  “Gosh, thanks. I noticed in your window display you have some balsa-wood airplanes. Can you tell me how much?”

  “You mean the models? They’re a dollar for the whole set, a good deal. There are two American Mustangs, two Hellcat Bombers, and a British Spitfire. That would be enough for your whole brood, wouldn’t it?”

  “That’s what I was thinking, with one to spare. I also want some colorful felt to make some stuffed animals. Can you sell me several different colors off the bolt? I don’t need very much.”

  “I can give you a half yard for twenty cents each and throw in one extra if you buy three colors.” Joseph Gold frequently offers a bargain and always gives me a good deal.

  “Sure,” I say, not in the mood to haggle. My intention is to make stuffed Peter Rabbits for the girls, similar to the design I saw in one of Becky’s issues of Ladies’ Home Journal, so I choose pink, yellow, red, and blue. A glance at my pocket watch reminds me that I need to get going.

  Mr. Gold observes me and quickly wraps up my package. “Going to the picture show?” he asks.

  “Yes, I’m meeting my husband and children at the feed store and then we’re off to the movies. Did you hear the tickets are free? I imagine the house will be packed.”

  “We saw Boys Town when we lived in Pittsburgh with my brother during the hard times. It’s nice to be back in Liberty, where we know everyone.”

  I take my basket and hurry out the door just as the schoolteacher, Marion Archer, comes in. She’s a talker and there’s no getting past her.

  “Oh, Patience. How nice to see you! I wanted to talk to you about the school holiday program.”

  “I’m sorry, but I have to run. We should talk later.”

  “Yes,” she says. “Maybe next week. Susie seems to be having a some difficulties.”

  Difficulties! What could she mean? I stop at the Olds to put my packages in the trunk and then hurry on to the Farmers’ Lumber and Supply, where I find Dan chatting with one of the feed store workers, the red-haired young man I saw in the park and later at the America First meeting.

  “Yep, I’m going to enlist as soon as we get through spring planting,” he says. “My mother’s alone on the farm since Pop died, with just my sister and younger brother. I’ll enlist in June, unless the draft gets me sooner.”

  “Isn’t there some sort of deferment for a man whose mother depends on him, Patrick?” Dan asks.

  “To be honest, I don’t know. See, I want to get into it, Dr. Hester. I’d go right now if it weren’t for Ma.” He flashes a big grin. “I can’t wait. If the war’s over before June, I’ll actually regret it.”

  “Me too,” Danny says, looking at Patrick as if he were already a hero. “I hope it lasts a long time. Then I can join.”

  IT TAKES THE usher some time, in the nearly full theater, to find seats where we can all sit together, but after a few minutes of shining his flashlight up and down the rows he locates six in the middle of the front section.

  Struggling over legs and feet we finally sit down, with Daniel and me in the middle, the girls next to me, and Little Dan next to his pa. Then Susie whines that she doesn’t want to sit next to a stranger, so Sunny agrees to a switch. I touch Mira’s leg to get her to stop kicking the seat in front of her and return in my mind to what Mrs. Archer said.

  Great way to end a conversation . . . with the teacher informing me Susie has problems. What could she mean? Am I not helping her enough with her homework? Am I not giving her enough love? I break two of the candy canes in half, give one piece to each child, and then break the third in half to share with my husband.

  Dan gives me one of his crooked grins and takes my hand. It’s so nice to see him smiling. Since the war started, there hasn’t been much of that lately. The ushers go up each aisle seating latecomers, then the lights in the theater go down and the blue velvet curtains open. A squadron of Japanese bombers roars across the screen to great fanfare and a newsreel begins.

  “Mommy!” Susie squeals as she reaches out for me with both arms.

  “Come here, honey,” I whisper, and pull her into my lap.

  The movie camera in Hawaii pans to a housing development of one-story stucco houses. One bungalow is intact, the next one destroyed, the third is on fire. It’s clear that the bombing was random.

  The narrator, in a clipped, excited voice, tells us how orderly the citizens reacted, as ambulances wail on the big screen. Nowhere is there panic. Nowhere do we see wounded. Nowhere do we see parents running through the streets with their bleeding children. Nowhere do we see all eight U.S. Navy battleships sunk in the water or the damaged destroyers or the shattered airfield, and I realize this film is a piece of propaganda.

  The scene shifts to American planes battling the Japanese in the air, a real dogfight, with patriotic music in the background that gives the viewer the impression that, even though it was a surprise attack by the enemy, we were the victors. I shake my head in disbelief. Everyone must know that 2,400 Americans died and another 1,700 Americans were wounded. I look at Daniel and he stares back. Everyone in the theater must know it’s a lie.

  9

  December 18, 1941

  Telegram

  A sad thing happened yesterday, but I was so tired I didn’t write about it. With all the talk about the attack on Pearl Harbor, and after seeing the bombs and fighter planes in the newsreel, I was looking forward to a quiet, normal evening meal with my husband and children . . . but that’s not what happened.

  Just before dinner, Daniel was called out to the Pettigrew farm, for a horse that tore its leg on a barbed-wire fence, and when he retur
ned I could tell something was wrong.

  “Can you talk about it?” I asked, thinking maybe he had to put the animal down.

  “While Isaac Blum and I were at the Pettigrews’, Sheriff Hardman brought them a telegram,” he tells me while we’re in the kitchen and the kids are still bunched around the radio.

  “Was it some kind of summons for back taxes or something? The Pettigrews are pretty well off; if they didn’t pay, I’m sure it was an oversight.”

  “No, nothing like that. Blum and I were on the porch, saying goodbye, when the sheriff showed up. His face was grim. You know what he’s like. Even if you told a good joke, he wouldn’t smile.

  “Mrs. Pettigrew opened the yellow envelope and fainted right there. Her husband, Walt, caught her before she hit the floor, and Blum cradled her head. I picked up the piece of paper and I couldn’t help reading it.

  “It was one of those letters they used to send during the Great War. ‘The Navy Department deeply regrets to inform you that your son, James Edward Pettigrew, Seaman First Class, U.S. Navy, was lost in action in the performance of his duty and in service to his country . . .’”

  “Oh no! Was he at Pearl Harbor?”

  Daniel nods, his face as still as the air before a storm. “The first casualty of Union County. He was on the U.S.S. West Virginia. They’ll start listing the dead and wounded in the paper now, like in the last war.”

  “Did the parents know he was stationed in Honolulu?” I asked.

  “No, the last letter they got was from San Diego at the big naval base. God, it was so sad. Think if it was Danny?”

  My husband goes out to wash up on the back porch and I bring him warm water from the wood stove. I’d like to hold him and let him hold me, but he’s already scrubbing the horse blood off his neck.

  By the time I get the fire in the heater stove banked, Sasha outside to do his duty, and the lights turned off, Dan is already asleep.

  I think of the long day and all the children’s talk of war. It’s becoming an obsession. Dan said not to tell the kids about the Pettigrew boy, but maybe we should, just to bring a little reality to the situation. I don’t know Mrs. Pettigrew, but I would like to hold her in my arms tonight, absorb with my body some of her pain. I have said this before, but I’ll say it again. You bring children into this world. You care for them. You love them and sometimes they die. Life is too hard.

  Orphan

  Sleep comes in fits and pieces and as I lie in bed watching the midnight moon cross the sky, I think of all those I’ve lost. I was born Elizabeth Snyder, in Deerfield, a small town north of Chicago and a few miles inland from Lake Michigan. My mother was a teacher, my father a first mate on a freighter hauling iron ore across the Great Lakes from Wisconsin.

  As a little girl, I attended the Congregational church, where Mama played organ and Papa sang in the choir when his ship was in port. I sang and played the piano too. I was an avid reader, a treasured only child, and then, when I was fourteen, everything changed.

  My father’s ship, the Appomattox, on its last run of the season across Lake Michigan, foundered in a November fog. The freighter, the longest wooden ship on the Great Lakes, carrying a load of iron ore, was grounded on a sand bar in the mist. Papa was the only crewmember who died, swept overboard by a ten-foot wave.

  When the representative from the shipping company brought the news, Mama looked at me and said, “At any minute your life can change. Remember this. Between one breath and another, the song can stop.” She was right.

  In our first months of grief, things went from bad to worse. Mama was shocked to learn that we were destitute. Our savings were gone, gambled away by my father in high-stakes card games out on his freighter. Because of his debts, the bank foreclosed on our home and we moved to a rooming house in Deerfield. Those were hard times.

  Fortunately, Mother was able to retain her teaching position, but our quarters in the rooming house were cramped and her pay minimal. I was taken out of school in the eighth grade and sent to work with Mrs. Gross, the seamstress.

  Only two years later, Mama developed a cough and came down with consumption. She was spitting up blood when she died. Because I had no family left, I was shipped to Chicago to stay with Mrs. Ayers, the widowed sister of our solicitor, and worked as a laundress in her small inn. A year later, Mrs. Ayers found a new husband and shipped me off to St. Mary’s House of Mercy, an orphan asylum for the impoverished. Mrs. Ayers cried a little when I left, but I wasn’t her responsibility, not even kin. I understood that.

  Now here I am, two or three lives later . . . having been an orphan, a wet nurse, a nanny, a suffragette, a union radical, a widow, a midwife, and now a mother of four. One thing I’ve learned . . . strength grows when you feel you can’t go on, but you keep going on. Sometimes you don’t have a choice.

  December 20, 1941

  Morning Interrupted

  Want some help?” I ask Dan as I finish my coffee at the kitchen table. He’s sterilizing the milk buckets. First he washes the metal receptacles with soap and water, then he rinses with cold and finally pours boiling water in them again and swishes it around.

  “No, I’m almost finished.”

  “Can we talk about Christmas?”

  “Sure,” Daniel says. “More coffee?” This is a pleasant ritual, a break that we take whenever we can, after the stock are fed and watered, the milking done, and the children on their way to school on the bus. It doesn’t happen often, but both of us are happy when it does.

  “What’s there to talk about?” my husband asks.

  “Well, we have what’s left of the sixty dollars from Opal’s birth and the seventy buried in the tin box under the willow. What do you think we can spend on presents this year and what should we buy?”

  “I don’t need to buy anything. I already have it covered,” Daniel tells me.

  “Okay . . . I didn’t know that. I bought a few things in town. What are you making?”

  “You think I’d tell you? Have you been a good girl this year?” He smiles his old lopsided grin.

  “Mostly,” I say, realizing he’s flirting. (We haven’t made love since Pearl Harbor. That’s how we think now. There was before the attack and after the attack. The bombs changed everything. . . .)

  “Maybe we should go upstairs and talk about it.”

  “Talk about Christmas?”

  “Talk about if you have been a really good girl,” Dan says, rising from the kitchen chair and taking my hand. He stops in the pantry, reaches up on the top shelf, and grabs a small bottle of rum.

  Patting my butt the whole way, he scoots me up the stairs and we fall into bed together. For an hour we are no longer Ma and Pa. We are no longer midwife and vet. There is no war looming over us like a dark cloud. We are just Daniel and Patience celebrating our love, only the two of us, warm and strong and beautiful.

  10

  December 22, 1941

  O Tannenbaum

  Yesterday afternoon, while I was upstairs working on my presents, Daniel went up the mountain and chopped down a seven-foot spruce. Most people in the Hope River Valley don’t put up their tree until Christmas Eve, but I feel if we are going to take a live tree down, we might as well enjoy it for a few days.

  After a simple supper of pancakes and buttermilk, Dan brought in the box of lights and glass balls and we all took turns putting ornaments on and then we had the lighting ceremony.

  First we turn off the electric lights, then everyone sits on the sofa, and we pretend to roll the drums. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

  “Ready?” Dan says.

  “Ready!” we all yell.

  When he puts in the plug, everyone’s as silent as if we’d just seen the northern lights.

  “The colors make my heart warm,” whispers Mira.

  There are now only three more days until Christmas and I’m frantically knitting new socks for Dan. I’ve also made cookies for the Blums and the Mattocks. A few years ago, Christmas got to be so much work, we collectively decide
d to stop exchanging gifts between the three families. There’s one more thing though. I want to get something really special for Bitsy, and that involves a trip to town.

  Just after I return from the henhouse, I get a call from Becky Blum. “I have to go to Stenger’s Pharmacy to get a few things for the infirmary at the CCC camp, do you want to come?” she asks.

  “That’s perfect. I was just thinking I need one more present.”

  “OK. I’ll pick you up in thirty minutes.”

  “Gosh,” I say to Sasha, our beagle. “I’d better hurry!”

  AS WE ENTER Liberty I’m surprised to see a new billboard, just before the bridge over the Hope River. It’s a picture of a smiling farm family, a little towheaded boy, a man in overalls, and a pleasant-looking young woman in a simple pink housedress. AMERICANS ON THE HOME FRONT, DO YOUR PART! it says along the bottom.

  “What’s our part?” I ask Becky. “I put the flag Mr. Gold gave me on the kitchen door and the children and I say our prayers for the soldiers every night.”

  “Haven’t you heard? The mayor says we’re supposed to start saving scrap metal and rubber to be reused by the military. They’re desperate for the raw materials to make tanks and bombers.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Maybe I’d better start reading the paper again. It gets me so down. I don’t want to hear about each battleship lost or how many men die. Things aren’t going so well for us.”

  We pull into a spot right in front of Stenger’s Pharmacy. “I’m going over to Gold’s Dry Goods,” I tell Becky.

  “Okay. I’ll meet you back here,” she responds.

  When I enter Gold’s, the owner is engaged with the fellow Dan and I met in town last time, Billy Blaze the newspaperman, and while I stroll around, I listen to their conversation.

  “You know, I’d enlist right now. It’s what every patriotic fellow should do,” the man of about thirty explains. “But I have asthma and bad knees. Anyway,” he says, “who else in this little backwater town would run the paper?” Today he wears a sweater vest and a tweed sport coat as if he’s a hot-shot reporter in some city like Pittsburgh.