Once a Midwife

by Patricia Harman

  “Get me my vet kit, Bitsy. It’s in the Model T. If we relieve the fiery pain it will help him not go into shock.”

  “What else can we do,” Bitsy wants to know. “Should we try to get him to the hospital in Torrington?”

  “Let me think. They can’t do much for him. I’m pretty sure there’s no anti-venom medication, and the ride on the bumpy roads might just spread the poison. All they would do is keep him from going into shock. If we can do that, we may be better off staying here. Not everyone dies.”

  “Oh, Lord, help us!” Bitsy starts to fall apart. Just like any mother, she’s as strong as a lioness if there’s something she can do to save her child, but dissolves in a puddle if she’s helpless.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I say in my midwife voice. “Talk to him, Bitsy, talk to your boy.”

  Ten minutes later, after Dan has given him a shot of morphine to stop the pain, and so far the boy is still stable. Bitsy sits with her son’s head in her lap, looking like a statue of Christ’s mother holding the dying Jesus.

  “Can you tell us what the course of a viper bite is, Dan?” I ask.

  “Well, initially there will be swelling of the injured area, then it will turn purple or blue. That’s the poison spreading. The venom affects the circulatory system. There will be massive edema. Blood volume falls when that happens, and this may result in shock or renal failure. In the worst cases renal failure is the cause of death. I’m going to go over to the house and use the phone. I’ll call Boone Memorial. See what they advise.”

  “I’ll go get the medicine, if you can find some anti-venom,” Bitsy says. “The motorcycle is fast. Anywhere within four hours of here, I can be back in half a day. Anywhere.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” Dan says grimly, touching Bitsy’s shoulder.

  When he returns, the news isn’t good. “The only place to get anti-venom,” he tells us, “is in Australia, and it’s just in the experimental stage, but I remembered an interesting story. A couple of years ago, Loonie Tinkshell’s sheepdog got bit by a copperhead. Loonie told me that possum are immune to viper bites. I never had a way to look that up, but Tinkshell went hunting, killed him a possum, and made the dog eat the whole thing.”

  “Did the dog live?” Bitsy wants to know. We’re taking turns spooning saline-sugar water into Willie’s mouth to keep him from going into shock.

  “Yeah, by golly the dog lived.” Daniel chuckles. “But I doubt it was the possum.”

  Suddenly, Bitsy stands up. “Will you sit with Willie, Patience? I may be gone awhile.”

  “Sure, but where are you going?” She opens the door and a wind blows it back until it slams on the log wall.

  “Possum hunting . . . Coming, Dan?”

  The Heart of the Matter

  Ma!” Willie moans, and his face begins to twitch.

  “She’ll be back soon.” I try to soothe the boy. “It’s me, Patience, the midwife.” I don’t know why I say “midwife.” It’s hardly relevant, yet I’m doing what midwives do, supporting, comforting, and protecting him as best I can. “Be a brave soldier, Willie.”

  Thirty minutes later there are voices outside, and when the door opens, Bitsy stands there with a dead opossum held upside down by the pink hairless tail. Its white-and-gray fur gleams in the lamplight. “How’s Willie?” she whispers.

  “Ma?” Willie opens his eyes and reaches out for her.

  “Stay awake, Willie. I want you to eat some of this critter’s heart.”

  “We should cook it,” Dan advises. “We need to cook it. It may have parasites.”

  “No,” Bitsy disagrees. “Willie needs to eat some of it raw, right now, to get the full benefit. Cooking might ruin it. If he gets parasites, we’ll deal with them later. Give me a scalpel or a knife,” Bitsy demands, plunking the carcass on the counter.

  I rummage through my bag until I come up with a pair of sharp scissors. My friend doesn’t even go outside to skin the animal. In fact, she doesn’t even skin it. She just cuts through the soft white fur, digs under the ribs, and pulls out a piece of dark shiny meat. Then she chops it into little pieces. I hold out a placenta bowl to keep the blood off the floor.

  “Here, Willie. Wake up again. It’s your Ma, Bitsy. I need you to eat this animal’s heart. Dr. Hester and I just killed it, and it’s still warm. After you finish this part, we’ll cook the rest. Think of it as medicine.” She puts the bowl down on the rolling table, picks up Willie’s head, and feeds him with her fingers.

  Slamming the door behind him, Daniel silently takes the small white animal with the pointed nose and pointy ears outside. It’s clear he thinks giving the boy a piece of raw possum heart is like witch doctoring and probably unhealthy. He’s had enough of this foolishness. But is it foolish? I take a clean cloth and wipe the boy’s chin.

  A short while later, Daniel reappears with the possum cleaned, chopped up, and cooked in a frying pan, and I give him a smile.

  Bitsy again feeds the possum to her son, but this time with a fork. She didn’t give birth to him, but conception and childbirth don’t make a mother; the heart does.

  Dan’s so proud of his cooking, I have to take a bite. Not bad! A cross between raccoon and pig.

  Sunflower

  The recovery of Will Proudfoot was not without difficulties. We fed him saline and sugar water by the spoonful all the first twenty-four hours and he ate as much possum meat as he could stand. Finally he got stubborn and demanded cookies and milk. It was then I knew he was going to survive and now he just limps a little, like before.

  This evening while the kids are taking swimming lessons with Mr. Cross down by the river, I take a walk by myself. Mr. Draft Resister shouldn’t care. He’s on his tractor cutting hay.

  Again, I follow Salt Lick as it rushes over the water-worn rocks. Here and there little minnows flash in the shadows. There’s an endless clear sky and a wind that rattles the willow leaves, but I hardly notice. Like an old horse, I have blinders on.

  On a whim, I cut through the woods and begin to climb Spruce Mountain. Only when I’m halfway up do I remember the black bear. Maybe this wasn’t so smart. I stop to look around.

  Nothing seems amiss. No movement in the bushes. A chickadee sings from a red sumac bush, and a brown-and-white cottontail inspects me with big eyes. Surely the bunny wouldn’t be sitting out in the open if a bear were around.

  I decide that the risk is small and climb farther until I find the flat rock that looks out over the valley and lie down on it. Far below, the Hope River runs through the valley. There’s the red barn, the Baby Cabin, and our stone farmhouse with the sunflowers growing on one side. I used to think of myself as a sunflower, beautiful and strong, but a wind has swept over the mountain and blown the sunflower down.

  Daniel parks the old green tractor in the farmyard and stumps across the yard, head down in thought. Sasha and Three Legs come out to greet him and Dan leans down and gives both dogs a pat.

  My feelings are so mixed. I still love him, but I’m full of sadness and shame too, afraid of what people will think when they hear of his resistance to the war. Then there’s the anger. I once admired my husband; now he seems weak, even self-indulgent in his refusal to sign the draft registration forms.

  Dan has his pacifist friends to talk to at Ahimsa House, but I have no one. I never even talked to Becky about it and I haven’t told Bitsy. How would she react? What would she think of Daniel’s position? I know he’s not really a coward, but people will call him one or that other dreaded word from the Great War: slacker.

  “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters,” I say out loud to myself, lying on the rock, staring out at the green meadows.

  “He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake,” a man answers. I hadn’t even heard him coming up the mountain, but Dan lies down beside me taking my hand.

  “Yea, though I walk through the v
alley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,” we say together. “For thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”

  “Is that true, Daniel? Can we walk through the valley of the shadow of death together? I’ll tell you the truth, I’m afraid. If you go to prison, I’ll be alone here with the kids. I don’t know if I can do it. Take care of them. Take care of the farm. I’ve depended on you all these years. We were a team.”

  “We still are a team, Patience. Everything will be okay.”

  “It will?”

  He holds me in his arms, my cheek over his heart, and I take comfort in the sound of its beating.

  35

  August 23, 1942

  Square Dance

  The last few days, since out prayer on the mountain, Dan and I have felt closer. I know he’s taking a drink or two, but I’ve stopped nagging and he’s stopped playing mournful songs on his harmonica. Even Danny seems to be coming around. He’s quiet, but not so surly.

  Yesterday, he and his father went on a long ride on the horses over the mountain. First they checked on the house on Wild Rose Road. It’s technically still our house, but if the Blums come back after the war is over, Becky and Isaac can move back in.

  “Danny and I stopped at Hazel Patch on our way home,” Dan tells us at dinner. “Mrs. Miller asked if we’re going to the Red Cross square dance at Arthurdale this week.”

  “I forgot about it. I suppose we should.”

  “Do us kids have to go?” Danny asks.

  “No, buddy,” Dan says. “It’s for grown-ups. We’ll call Mrs. Stone. Maybe she’ll come to our house to babysit. Willie can stay the night if Bitsy wants to go.”

  NOW HERE WE are driving down Salt Lick Road in the Olds, with Bitsy in the back, on our way to the dance. The Millers and the Jacksons from Hazel Patch are in the vehicle behind us. When we get to Arthurdale, we see that the parking lot in front of the inn is jammed. This is a good thing for the Red Cross, because in addition to the raffle of Mrs. Miller’s sunflower quilt, they’re charging fifty cents a head to get in.

  The Arthurdale Rural Village is the New Deal experiment that Eleanor Roosevelt championed during the Great Depression. Each unemployed miner, from the poorest part of north-central West Virginia, was given a house and four acres of land to raise food and livestock. There are now some 165 cottages, a metal shop, pottery shop, woodworking shop, the beautiful inn where Eleanor had a room held for her, and a general store. Several small factories were planned but never took hold.

  The idea was great, but well-meaning government do-gooders made so many mistakes that they eventually dropped the whole project. Now all the homes are privately owned and since the war started, the former miners are back digging coal.

  “It’s a good crowd,” I comment as we enter the inn, which is decorated in red, white, and blue bunting. “There must be fifty people on the terrace and another fifty in the dining hall.”

  Tables are arranged around the edge of the large room and up front there’s a small country band setting up. I’m surprised when I see Mr. Roote standing there, fooling with the microphone. He must be the square-dance caller.

  Just then, the band starts up and Mr. Roote shouts into a microphone, “Welcome, ladies and gents, to the Union County Red Cross Social Hour and Benefit! We’re going to start you off with a lively tune, ‘Old Zip Coon,’ and while the fellows limber up their fingers, y’all get into squares of four men and four women.”

  I do a quick count of our group. There are seven of us altogether, three couples and Bitsy. We need another man, and I look around for a willing subject, someone who doesn’t mind dancing with a mixed colored and white group. I’m surprised when Loonie Tinkshell strolls over.

  “Can I join this lively crew?” he asks, taking the spot across from Bitsy.

  “Sure,” Dan responds. “Ever done this before?”

  “Never!” Loonie says over the music.

  “Now, let’s get started,” Mr. Roote yells. “Just follow my commands and let her rip. If you’re the couple nearest the podium, you’re Head Lady and Head Gent. If you’re toward the terrace you’re the Foot Gal and the Foot Man.”

  Next to us is another group trying to get organized and I’m surprised to see Daisy Spraggs and her husband, Earl. “Daisy!” I yell over the noise. “How are you?” But I don’t need to ask. She laughs and waves, flashing white teeth. Her blond hair is shiny and tied back with a ribbon. She appears lively and alert and has put on some weight. “Look, Bitsy.” I point to the woman who all but slept through her labor and delivered a baby who almost died from opium addiction.

  “Howdy!” Bitsy calls back and waves, clearly as pleased as I am.

  “Ready now!” Mr. Roote interrupts the socializing.

  A few people who must know what they’re doing shout, “Yes!”

  “Okay! If you make a mistake, just keep on dancing! Here we go now!” The band starts up and everyone claps along.

  “Honor your partner,” the caller shouts, and Dan and I bow and curtsy. Always one step behind, we follow the singsong instructions. We’re like a herd of lambs crossing the road without a sheepdog, but we laugh and laugh.

  Auction

  An hour later, having learned how to do the Virginia Reel, the Red Wing Dip, and Oh Johnny, we break for refreshments. At a long table covered with a white tablecloth, Mrs. Wade and Mrs. Goody serve refreshments.

  “Hello,” I say. “The benefit seems to be going very well.” None of them answers. What’s their problem? Were they offended by our group’s loud, undignified laughter, the fact that Loonie danced with a Negro, or have they heard about Dan’s refusal to register for the draft?

  At a separate table, Lilly Bittman, Ida May, and Ida’s sister-in-law, Annie, serve lemonade out of a fancy Depression glass punch bowl for five cents a cup. Even though she’s blind, Lilly uses a matching ladle and can dip and pour without spilling a drop.

  “Don’t forget to bid on Mrs. Miller’s quilt!” Annie tells everyone. “We have a real auctioneer from Delmont.”

  “Where’s Lou Cross tonight?” Reverend Miller asks as we stand enjoying our lemonade, waiting for the auction. Dan and Mr. Jackson have wandered out on the terrace to look out across the pleasant parklike grounds.

  “Lou had to work. The second-shift foreman broke his arm cutting down a dead tree on his farm.” Bitsy informs us.

  On a table near the podium, in addition to Mrs. Miller’s beautiful quilt, along with a dozen cakes and pies, there’s a fancy silk shawl, donated by Ida May, a new family Bible still in the box from Gold’s, and an electric butter churn donated by Sadie at the feed store.

  “I wouldn’t mind having that butter churn,” I whisper to Bitsy. “But I’m sure it will be too dear.”

  A man wearing a white cowboy hat and a gray suit steps up to the microphone and pounds a wood gavel. “Ladies and gents. Quiet down, now! We’re going to raise a little money for the Red Cross war effort. As you know, the organization provides comfort and aid to the armed forces and their families all over the world. In times of conflict, they produce emergency supplies for the medics and teach first aid. So folks, don’t be shy. Get out your wallets and let’s hear some bidding. I’m going to start with this electric metal-and-glass butter churn. It’s been used, but there’s a lot of life still in her. Isn’t this a beauty?

  “Do I hear three dollars? Three dollars now, now three, now three, will ya give me three?”

  I’m surprised when the crowd stands silent and no one raises their hands, so I yell out, “One buck!”

  “Okay now, folks! Loosen up. It’s for the GIs, the men fighting for our freedom. Let’s try two. Two-dollar bid, now two, now two, will ya give me two? Will ya give me two, just two greenback bills?”

  “One twenty-five,” says Judge Wade.

  “One fifty,” says Bitsy, giving me a grin.

  After a few more minutes of trying his best, the auctioneer suddenly closes the bidding, probably realizing not many people st
ill make their own butter. “Sold for one fifty!”

  “What are you going to do with a butter churn, Bitsy?” I ask. “You don’t even have a cow.”

  “I bought it for you!” she whispers.

  “Oh, Bitsy!” I say, and hug her. “You are the best!”

  The auctioneer goes on with the sale as Bitsy pays her money and puts her name on the churn.

  “Next is this beautiful red, white, and blue freedom quilt!” He pounds his gavel again and holds the quilt high. “A brand-new coverlet, made by Mrs. Mildred Miller. Would you like to come up here, Mrs. Miller?”

  Mildred steps up and the room goes quiet. I see a flicker of surprise in the auctioneer’s eyes when he sees the color of her skin, but he continues without missing a beat. “Tell us, ma’am, how many hours did it take you to make this beauty?”

  “I’d say about three months,” Mildred says into the microphone. “This is just something I wanted to do to help raise funds for the Red Cross.”

  “Well, let’s start the bidding then. Do I hear thirty dollars? Thirty dollars, now thirty, now thirty, will ya give me thirty for this beautiful freedom quilt?”

  “Thirty bucks,” calls a voice from the back. It’s B.K. Bittman.

  The high bids are way out of my league, so I look around for Dan. From a distance, I see that he’s still on the patio and I wind my way toward him, but stop when I see Martha Wallace, the tall young woman who came to the last meeting of the Pregnant Ladies Society.

  “Hi, Martha. You’re getting bigger.” I indicate her round belly with my eyes. She’s standing with a gray-haired man with the same square jaw, who I take to be her pa. “Hi, I’m Patience Hester, the midwife,” I introduce myself when the girl says nothing. “Martha’s planning on coming to the Baby Cabin on our farm to have her baby.”

  “No, she’s not,” the gent responds, looking down at me and I’m taken aback.

  Turning to Martha, I wait for clarification, but she just licks her lips and turns away, covering her belly with her hands as if protecting it from evil.