Once a Midwife

by Patricia Harman

  “That’s the Civil War. He was just twenty-one,” I say. “Not much more than a kid. . . .”

  “He was lucky to make it home. Most men died on the battlefield or from disease in a prison camp. . . . Come on, kids. You can help put flowers on the soldier’s grave. We’ll pretend that Private Jefferson was your cousin from long ago.”

  Later, as we chug up Wild Rose Road on our way to the small graveyard we established behind the house with the blue door, the first thing I notice, when we park and get out, is that Becky and Isaac have whitewashed the picket fence.

  The beautiful enclosure around the front yard was handmade by Dr. Blum as a present for Becky before they married, and each stave has a flower carved at the top. There are also new poles and wires. After all these years, the Blums finally have telephone and electricity coming into the house.

  “Come on, kids,” Daniel says as we get out of the Olds and troop past the barn. “Keep up. Dr. Blum, Nurse Becky, and Sally aren’t home. They went to the parade in Torrington. Get off their porch, Danny!”

  A large limestone marker at the entrance to the cemetery says HONORING THE HEROES OF THE HOPE RIVER WILDFIRE, 1935. There are eight people buried here; all died in the fire, including Willa and Alfred Hucknell, Susie and Sunny’s parents and their baby brother, Alfred Jr.

  No one would notice the three small wooden crosses in the corner. Two are for the babies I lost and one is for a premature baby someone left in a cardboard carton at Becky’s Mother and Baby Clinic during the Great Depression.

  After we scatter flowers on the graves, the children can run and play. Dan and I pull a few weeds around the gravestones then sit in the grass looking down toward the Hope.

  “I like it up here,” I say. “The soil isn’t as good as our farm, but the view is better.”

  Dan takes my hand and we lie down on the warm earth. I imagine our two bodies buried next to each other. “I want to be with you always,” I say, rolling over to rest my head on his chest. He touches my hair, brushing it away from my face. “Will you promise to find me in heaven?” I ask. “Whoever gets there first has to wait and watch for the other. Promise?”

  I’m serious, but he makes a joke. “Are you sure we’ll both get there? I curse quite a bit.” I can see his grin without looking.

  Summer

  25

  June 3, 1942

  To Bind the Wounds

  Today Dan went to a meeting with Judge Wade to discuss his refusal to register for the draft. I was hoping to be there, but he said it wasn’t my business. This hurt a little, but I decided to go to the Red Cross meeting instead.

  At the Methodist church our project again was to roll bandages, a simple, tedious task that’s apparently helpful to medics. While we worked, the women discussed something that happened in town two days ago.

  Ida May, the town hairdresser, begins the story. “A young man from Berkeley Springs, who’d just been drafted and received orders to be sent to the front, went home to say goodbye to his ma and pa.

  “I got this straight from Jim at Jim’s Tavern. The fellow snuck off the train when it stopped to unload at Liberty and came into the bar. Jim said the soldier tossed back three drinks and kept saying over and over to himself, ‘I won’t go. They can’t force me.’

  “Finally, he asked the barkeep where the john was. . . . I swear this is the truth. . . . He walked down the back hall, went straight to the latrine, and everyone in the tavern heard a crash.

  “Jim was the first to get to the door. The soldier had shoved both his hands through the window glass.

  “One-Arm Wetsel ran for the sheriff. Hardman bandaged the soldier up, threw him in the squad car, and went roaring out of town for the hospital in Torrington, siren wailing. Word is that the fellow nearly bled to death. By the time they got there, he was unconscious. The doctors saved him, but he’ll never use his hands again.”

  “What a coward!” Mrs. Wade declares.

  “Disgusting,” Mrs. Goody snaps. “What some people will do to get out of their duty!”

  “I think it’s just sad,” I interject. “We don’t know the fellow’s whole story. We don’t know what he’s seen or heard about war. We don’t know what made him so desperate.”

  The women all look at me as if I had just thrown the American flag on the ground and stomped on it.

  To escape their cold stares, I push up my glasses and begin to furiously cut my first piece of gauze, but stop short when Mrs. Goody, the chairman and preacher’s wife starts the Red Cross prayer.

  “Lord, we give this gift of bandages to bind the wounds of our loyal soldiers. Protect them in battle. Bless them for their courage.” She emphasizes that word, courage, as commentary on the young man they see as a gutless coward. “Keep them safe as they fight for our freedom,” she goes on. “In Our Savior’s name, Amen.”

  “Amen,” we all say.

  To lighten the mood, Lilly Bittman begins to sing a popular tune by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra, “On the old assembly line. On the old assembly line. Everything is hum-hum-hummin’? On the old assembly line.”

  Ida and Mrs. Wade spread more fabric and get out their scissors. Everyone rolls the bandages as fast as they can. We may differ in our opinion of the young soldier, but we are united in our will to bandage the wounds of those who fall in battle. “On the old assembly line,” Ida and I come in, singing harmony like the Andrews Sisters. “On the old assembly line . . .”

  “SO WHAT HAPPENED at your meeting with Judge Wade?” I ask when Dan picks me up.

  “It was okay,” he says, twisting his mouth.

  “Okay as in you aren’t in any trouble?”

  “No. Okay as in, I explained my position and the judge listened. He’s going to do some research. I’m the only objector to military service in Union County so far.”

  “Will you fill out the registration form?”

  “No,” he says firmly without looking at me.

  “I don’t understand, Dan. What’s the big deal? Just fill out the stupid form! It’s not likely you’ll be called.”

  “That’s what Judge Wade said. He feels I’m putting him in a spot. Other people on the draft board are pushing him to report me.”

  We cross the stone bridge over the Hope and Daniel stops in the middle. Below, two men fish in the rapids. One man catches a golden trout and shouts with joy, “Hot-diggity!”

  “I’m sorry, Patience . . . I never wanted to cause you pain.” He turns in his seat to face me. “If I’d known I was a pacifist when we decided to marry, I would have told you. If I’d known there was a war looming, bigger than the Great War, I wouldn’t have had kids.”

  We look in each other’s eyes for a long time, then I sigh. “The Creator puts people in your path for a reason. It couldn’t have been any other way and I can’t imagine the world without our beautiful children.”

  “You’re right,” Dan says. “It is what it is. We’ll be okay. We may bleed a little, but we won’t die.”

  June 8, 1942

  Double Trouble

  This morning while I was trying to get the hang of using our new Hoover vacuum, I heard a car bump across the wooden bridge over Salt Lick, coming fast. Soon after, there was a knock at the door and when I answered, a short, very plump auburn-haired woman and a thin man wearing coveralls were standing on our porch. “Are you the midwife of Hope River?” the woman asked as she closed her eyes and rubbed her belly.

  I didn’t wait around for introductions. It was clear what was happening. “Let’s go back to the Baby Cabin,” I said as I took her arm. “I’m the midwife.”

  Thirty minutes later a small, lively female baby was born without difficulty. That was easy, I thought. I’m getting to like these fast deliveries. But when I palpated the woman’s abdomen to see if the placenta had separated, I was in for a surprise.

  “Oh!” I exclaimed, in a most unprofessional way. “There’s another one!”

  I have delivered twins before, but never without an assistant, a
nd I considered calling Dan or one of the girls for help, but there wasn’t time. The bottom of the second baby was already coming.

  “Here,” I said to the father, handing him a swaddling blanket. “Hold your baby. Another one is coming bottom first, and I order you not to faint.”

  The man plunks down in the rocking chair, embracing his first baby.

  Thirty minutes later, a second female infant is born in a whoosh. I don’t even have time to perform the breech hand movements; she just squirts out. After I deliver the two separate placentas and make sure both mother and babies are stable, the father finally speaks.

  “Thank you. My name is Howard Wilson, and this is my wife, May. It’s her third delivery. Sorry we didn’t have time to properly introduce ourselves. We were visiting her cousin in Liberty and he’s the one that told us about you. Tell you the truth, I thought this was false labor. My wife received care from a doctor in Mountain Ridge. How come he didn’t know she was carrying twins?”

  I shrug, looking at the two beautiful infants resting on their mother’s chest. “Sometimes one is lying on top of the other, so you can only hear one heartbeat. I imagine the doc just thought you had one very large baby. It happens. I have adopted twin girls myself and their mother, before she died, told me they were a surprise too.”

  There’s a knock at the door of the Baby Cabin. “Patience,” Dan calls. “Everything okay? Do you need hot water or anything?”

  “No, we’re good,” I yell back, laughing.

  June 8, 1942

  At 4:30 P.M. and 5:00 P.M. twin girls were born precipitously in the Baby Cabin, to May and Howard Wilson of Mountain Ridge. The first infant weighed 5 pounds 15 ounces. The second, 5 pounds. Both babies appeared to be a few weeks early, but breathed right away. Two placentas delivered spontaneously ten minutes later and bleeding was brisk until I gave May a spoonful of Mrs. Pott’s tincture. Estimated blood loss, three cups. The babies are not identical because they each had their own sacs and placentas, though they look very much alike. Present for the delivery, other than me, was the father, Howard, whose face was as white as chalk.

  Later that evening, after our children and Dan crowded into the Baby Cabin to see the new babies, the mother named her new girls Sunny and Sue, a great honor. Mr. Wilson gave us thirty dollars, the most I’ve ever been paid. The doctor in Mountain Ridge, he informed me, would have charged a lot more.

  26

  June 11, 1942

  Fall from Grace

  Have you heard about this?” I toss the newspaper across the table to my husband. The children are off at school and this is our hour of time together.

  “Japs Slay and Torture Prisoners on the Long March to Bataan,” I read the headlines of the Liberty Times out loud, hissing out each word like mustard gas. “Did you see the photos?” Two American men look out at us from skull-like faces. Both are naked except for khaki shorts and every rib shows in their chests, literally skin and bones. “You telling me this is just propaganda?”

  “No, that’s real,” Dan says.

  “And do you still feel this war isn’t worth fighting? It says here that American men were butchered; heads were chopped off. The Japanese forced the prisoners to sit for hours in the hot sun without water,” I run on like a racecar out of control. “If a soldier was too weak to march, they just shot him. You want men like that ruling the world? I wouldn’t even call them men.”

  “That’s the trouble, Patience. They don’t think we’re human either. Seventy-six thousand U.S. soldiers surrendered in the Philippines after months of fighting and the Japanese believe no true man would ever surrender; therefore we’re subhuman and deserve to die. That’s just how they think.

  “When the white man came to America he treated red men like they were subhuman. America was built on the backs of black slaves . . . Of course, what’s happening in this war makes me sick,” Dan goes on. “But killing each other only makes more hatred. God said, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ He didn’t give us any exceptions.”

  I didn’t mean it to happen, I really didn’t, but when I stood up my coffee spilled and it seemed like I’d thrown it. “Well, you make me sick, Dr. Hester, with your pious platitudes. How would you feel if that were Danny or the girls being force-marched through the hot sun? Look at those men! Have you no outrage?” And then I ran upstairs.

  Now here I sit, my jaw stiff with fury, flipping the pages in my journal, almost ripping them as I continue to write . . .

  Downstairs, the kitchen door slams and when I stand and look through the window, I observe my husband slump across the farmyard and get in his Model T. Just as well, I think. I don’t want to talk to him anyway.

  When Dan and I don’t agree, it leaves a sinkhole between us, and I’ve slipped over the side and fallen in. We’ve never before diverged on something so fundamental, so important. I pace the creaking wooden floor, then finally go out for some air.

  Above me, three blue jays call to one another and the little creek laughs at my side. How can a person be this sad on such a brilliant summer day? No one in our family is ill or injured. We have plenty to eat. We have good friends. Bombs aren’t dropping on us, but I don’t have Daniel. Europe’s war has become our war.

  Carefully, I cross the creek on flat rocks and enter the forest. Then, I plop down. White trillium bloom among the dead leaves and it’s the trillium that breaks me. Lying on my back on the forest floor, I let the tears come. I can’t stop them.

  I’ve often retreated to nature for solace, but never with such sorrow and a sad song comes out of me, minor in key, but solid and round. I have been lost before and come into these woods to lay my body down. Above me, a golden finch hops on a branch.

  I have been lost before and come into these woods to lay my body down. And You have taken me in arms of light and sang to me. Rocked me gentle in the limbs of trees. You have taken me in arms of light and sang to me. And wiped away my tears with bits of leaves.

  June 12, 1942

  Mutiny

  Hester has been gone for twenty-four hours. If he was off doing vet work and ran into an emergency, I’m sure he would call. (Note: I have reverted to calling him Hester as I did before our marriage, a sign that our bond is weakening.) While he’s been gone, I’ve covered for him with the children, saying he’s traveling from farm to farm helping with lambing, but Danny is on to me. He knows enough about vet work to realize that by June most of the lambs have already been born.

  In truth, I’m worried and can’t imagine what’s become of Dan. Once, years ago, Isaac Blum disappeared in the night. It was during his silent phase when he refused to speak or even take care of himself. Daniel knew Isaac could drive a tractor, but no one realized he could drive a car all the way to West Penn Hospital in Pittsburgh to retrieve a specialist’s report that Becky badly needed for one of the sick CCC boys.

  “Mama?” Mira wants to know. “When will Papa be home?”

  “Pretty soon, honey. I wouldn’t be surprised if he made it for supper.”

  But Daniel doesn’t make it for supper. He doesn’t make it for bedtime. When I put away my journal, he’s still not home.

  At four in the morning, I hear Sasha bark and the Model T pulls into the drive, but I pretend to be asleep when Dan enters our bedroom.

  “Patience? You awake?” I keep my eyes shut. “Were there any vet calls? I went to Philadelphia to talk to some Quakers about refusing to register for the draft.”

  Here I pop up like a jack-in-the-box. “What the hell, Daniel! You went all the way to Philly? I was worried! The whole time you were gone, I lied to the kids and said you were out lambing. For all I knew you’d had an auto accident or maybe were just sleeping off a bender in a ditch. If you weren’t home by this morning, I’d made up my mind to go the sheriff.”

  “Well, I’m back.” He strips to his underwear, doesn’t even put on pajamas, and slides under the covers. I close my eyes again and back away from his warmth even though there’s nothing I want more than to lie next to him.


  “I shouldn’t have blown up at you yesterday. I was very sad afterward,” I say, looking up at the ceiling. “I just hate it when we aren’t in harmony.”

  “I’m sorry too, Patience. I’m not trying to be stubborn. You know what the Great War was like for me. The slaughter of horses, the slaughter of men. And I killed too, many times. I’ve told you I would never do it again.”

  “Not if Danny and the girls were threatened?” I whisper. “Not if I were threatened? You wouldn’t defend me?”

  Dan rests on his back, his hands behind his head. “The Quakers asked me that same question. Would I use violence to defend my family?”

  “And what did you say?”

  “I said I didn’t know, but that I intended to never kill a human again.”

  “Some would say you aren’t much of a man if you won’t defend your family or country.” I take a deep breath, feeling anger boil up again. “I’m sorry I said that . . . Let’s go to sleep before we get in another fight. I’m just disappointed. It’s the first time I’ve ever been disappointed in you.”

  “I am who I am, Patience. That’s what I told Mr. Ross in Philadelphia. I might not be Amish, or a Mennonite or a Quaker, but I’m Daniel Hester, once a soldier, now a pacifist.”

  “Pacifist. That’s a dirty word to some. People around here will have a hard time buying it, since they’ve seen you in a few fights.”

  Dan doesn’t respond and I take his hand under the covers. Our fingers find their familiar place, curling around each other; they can’t help it. Finally he speaks. “Fists are different, Patience. Unless you’re a raging lunatic, you don’t kill someone with your fists. . . .

  “I told you I’ve shot men who were supposed to be my enemy. I didn’t tell you everything. One day, in the last war, we got orders to storm a German platoon that was hiding in a bombed-out school. This would have been toward the end of the war.