Once a Midwife

by Patricia Harman

  I was so impressed by the pacifist’s testimony to the court a few weeks ago that I vowed I would publish it. We may not agree with Daniel Hester, but we must admire his courage. . . .

  Under a photo of my husband, standing tall and proud in the courtroom, Mr. Blaze has printed Dan’s statement, word for word.

  I wipe my eyes as I look at my husband’s brave face, and this time I leave the newspaper on the table, for Danny and all to see.

  The kitchen door opens, something is pulled across the floor, and then . . . “Mom!” Sunny yells. “Come down here, can you!” Then laughter.

  I put my journal under the mattress and limp down the stairs.

  “Surprise!” they all yell, pointing to a six-foot spruce in a bucket in the corner by the parlor window.

  After supper, I get down the decorations and we put up the lights. I try to act cheery, I guess we all do, but finally Mira begins to cry and then we all sit down and admit how much we miss Daniel.

  “I can’t believe he won’t be here for Christmas,” Sunny says. “Papa is always here and he gets such fun presents, like the pony last year.”

  “The warden should let him out for one day!” Danny grumbles. “It’s not like he’s a murderer or anything. He just wants to make the world better.”

  Here I wipe away my own tears. It’s the first positive thing I’ve heard Danny say about his father in a long time.

  “Maybe if we all wrote the warden a letter and begged . . .” Susie thinks out loud. “Can we, Mama?”

  “I guess so. What could it hurt?”

  So that’s what we did. The four kids wrote the letter, with Susie as scribe because she has the best penmanship, and I put it in the mailbox this morning.

  December 10, 1942

  Dear Warden,

  We miss our pa. His name is Daniel Hester. Can you please let him come home for one day for Christmas? He didn’t do anything bad, like rob or kill. He is a good man and only wants to make the world better. Also, our mother is having a hard time after the storm. Many things need to be fixed, like the roof on the barn that blew away in the white hurricane and we don’t have much money. If you are a father maybe you can understand. We try to be cheerful but our hearts are sore.

  Thank you and have a Merry Christmas.

  Danny, Sunny, Susie, and Mira Hester

  December 14, 1942

  A Gift in Time

  Hello,” I answer the phone in the kitchen.

  “Is this Mrs. Hester?” a woman’s voice says. “Mrs. Stone here. I mean Mrs. Roote; I can’t get used to my new name.”

  “Mrs. Roote! Well, congratulations. I heard the news about your marriage. Is Mr. Roote better?”

  “Yes, honey. He’s doing right well, but I have a favor to ask you.”

  There’s a pause . . . “You know we’d do anything we could . . .”

  “Well, this is a big one. We want to rent your little house on Wild Rose Road. We’ll pay whatever you need and I’ll pay to have a bathroom put in by those POW boys. Sheriff Hardman says a few of them are pretty handy carpenters. Mr. Roote is improving, but he still drags his foot and I don’t think he’d do well with only an outhouse.”

  “But I don’t understand. You and Mr. Roote have big farms and nice homes on the other side of the county that already have indoor plumbing.”

  “We sold out last week, honey. It’s just too hard to keep up with everything. Charley’s stroke brought us up short, made us think about life. We won’t be here too many more years and we don’t want to spend our time mending fences and cutting hay.

  “Also, where we live now we’re so far out of town that during the white hurricane we realized if something happened we have no one to call on. We don’t expect you to adopt us, but we’d like to live near people who are friends. What do you think? Would two hundred dollars a month be enough?”

  Two hundred dollars a month! I almost choke. Since the Depression we’d been renting the house to Becky and Isaac for ten dollars a month.

  “I wouldn’t think of it . . . I mean, yes you can rent and yes you can have a bathroom put in, but not for two hundred dollars a month. That’s way too much.”

  “We’d want to move in before Christmas and to use the barn and the pasture too and bring a few livestock. Charley thought two hundred was fair.”

  “How about one hundred a month.” I still can’t believe it!

  “Certainly not. Houses in town are going for two hundred. I won’t go any lower than one fifty.”

  And that’s how it happened. I can now afford to buy Christmas presents!

  “CHILDREN,” I SAY the next morning, “I have a few errands to do in town and I want to go alone.”

  “Are you Christmas shopping?” Susie wants to know.

  “I’m not telling.” I smile. “But here’s something you can do while I’m gone. I already told you that Mr. and Mrs. Roote are going to move into the house with the blue door. I asked them if they would like help getting settled and they said yes. Mr. Roote offered to pay you.”

  “Hot-diggity!” Danny shouts. “I mean, I would anyway, but money is nice.”

  “The thing is,” I go on, “there are German prisoners already at the cottage, painting and making an indoor bathroom out on the back porch. Sheriff Hardman says they’re harmless, but I don’t want you talking to them. You stay by Mrs. Roote and carry her boxes. Willie is coming over too.”

  “Do we girls have to go?” asks Sunny. “It will be boring.”

  “No, you girls can stay here.” I rethink my plan. Do I really want my little princesses around the horrible Nazis?

  “But then we can’t get any money!” Mira complains.

  “I’ll write down some jobs for you and pay you each a dime if you do them well.”

  Now everyone smiles.

  AT GOLD’S DRY Goods, I run into Ada Mullins with her baby, a dark-haired cherub bundled up for the winter in a green woolen snowsuit. “Can I hold him?” I ask. “I haven’t seen you for months. How’s Ollie?” I remember the handsome young man with the Victory tattoo who was inducted into the army the day after his child was born.

  “I think he’s fine,” she says in her sweet childish falsetto. “He’s not allowed to say where he is, but I get a letter about once a week. It’s been two weeks this time.” She shows me a photo of her husband, handsome in his uniform, proud and brave, and I tell her he’s probably just too busy to write, then when she leaves I wander the aisles of the dry goods store until I locate the punching bag and gloves for Danny.

  “How you doing out there, Mrs. Hester?” says Mr. Gold. “You fare okay in the storm? It’s been a heck of a winter and people say it will get worse.”

  “We’re holding on, but the wind blew the back half of the barn roof off. I’ve moved the cows and horses up front. We can make do until I can arrange a few men to come out.”

  “You mean the POWs?” he asks.

  “No, I wouldn’t do that. . . . Have you heard much about them?”

  “Well . . .” He draws out the word. “I said before I wouldn’t trust them, but several of my customers have used them for cleaning stables and constructing rock walls. Haven’t heard of any problems.”

  “I know what you mean, about not trusting them. I’ve thought of the Germans as the enemy for so long, I wouldn’t be comfortable around them. Are there any local men you’d recommend? Dan used to take care of this sort of thing.”

  Here he screws up his face and rolls his eyes to the ceiling. “Not really, so many fellows have gone to war.”

  In the end, in addition to the punching bag, I get the girls each a puzzle and a book of paper dolls and then a large set of Lincoln Logs for the whole family. I also pick up some Tootsie Roll Pops for their stockings and two used books for Dan to read in his lonely cell. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck.

  “Nice choices,” Mr. Gold said. “Pearl Buck is from West Virginia, you know, down around Hillsboro, south of here. She was the first w
oman to win the Pulitzer Prize.”

  “Really! Maybe I better read her book myself before I take it to my husband.”

  “How is Mr. Hester, anyway? They treating him okay? Take the books for free; tell him they’re a Christmas present from Mr. Gold.”

  “Well, thanks. At a dime apiece I should get a few more. They’d be nice gifts. Can I buy some red and green wrapping paper too?”

  Now I’m getting carried away, but I can’t help it. I will soon have money from Mr. and Mrs. Roote and the books are such a bargain. In the end I purchase one each for Lou, Bitsy, and Willie, and several for the kids, all different reading levels.

  As I pay for my purchases I make note of a two-quart canning jar on the counter. It’s decorated in red, white, and blue, and on the side there’s a photo of a woman with two small children in her lap. “I gave a man!” the caption says. “What can you give to help win the war?”

  Her eyes look right at me and I believe in her pain; it’s not propaganda. When Mr. Gold gives me my change, I put the three quarters in the jar and then I open my pocketbook and put in three more.

  Parade

  My next stop is Bittman’s, but as I enter the store Lilly pushes past me feeling for the door, “Here they come!” she cries, and Little B.K. follows. When I turn, I see in the distance a parade of men marching, four abreast, through the town. They’re all dressed in heavy blue pants and jean jackets with “POW” stenciled on the front. Dark blue knit caps cover their heads. No shiny medals and polished boots now.

  “Eins, zwei, drei, vier! Eins, zwei, drei, vier!” one of the soldiers calls in a clipped military style. “Eins, zwei, drei, vier!” which I take to mean “One, two, three, four!” Their eyes are fixed on the road ahead, and two U.S. soldiers guard them with guns.

  “It’s the Germans,” Lilly whispers, as if I wouldn’t guess. Behind the small battalion Sheriff Hardman follows in his squad car, lights flashing, siren off.

  “Sometimes they sing.”

  “Sing what?”

  “We don’t know. No one speaks German,” Lilly tells me. “It sounds like a marching song. They’re real good.”

  “Where are they going?” I ask.

  “To small farms on the edge of town that lack manpower because the father or sons have gone off to war. The Wallaces have them cutting and stacking firewood at their place because this time of year there isn’t much farming. They’re using them at Vipperman’s Woolen Mill too. People who live in town are jealous. They’d like to get a hired hand for 45 cents an hour, but the program is just for agriculture or manufacturing.”

  “Mrs. Roote has two carpenters from the prison out on my farm on Wild Rose Road right now, building an indoor bathroom for her new husband, Charley. She and Mr. Roote sold their big places and rented my little house and ten acres. She said two soldiers in an army truck brought the men out early this morning. The guards only spoke about three words in German, but when Mr. Roote drew a picture of what they wanted done, the POWs got right to work.”

  We watch until the prisoners and Sheriff Harman cross the stone bridge over the Hope, then all the German soldiers break into song.

  The tune is familiar, something Dan bangs out on the piano, but I can only catch one word “Erika,” which is repeated at the end of each stanza and that makes me wonder . . . could Erika represent the men’s sweethearts at home? Funny, to think of these hardened Nazis having sweethearts just like regular Joes.

  In the grocery store, I pick up some coffee with my ration stamps then stop at the newspaper rack. WV PILOT TAKES DOWN FOUR NAZI PLANES read the headlines. “I’ll take one,” I say, and plunk down a dime. Back in the Olds, I scan the pages for an article about Bitsy and Lou’s celebration and find a whole page with photos.

  The article is titled LOCAL COUPLE CELEBRATE MATRIMONY and it features pictures of people dancing and giving toasts. There’s a cute one of Lilly serving cake and one of Lou kissing Bitsy. There’s even a photo of me giving my short toast.

  “Lou Cross, prominent local resident and manager of the Vipperman Woolen Mill, and Bitsy Proudfoot, hosted a lavish celebration of their recent marriage at the schoolhouse in Hazel Patch,” the story says. There is no mention of the racial issue.

  “Present at the event were Judge Wade and Mrs. Wade, Mr. and Mrs. Linkous, Sheriff Bill Hardman, Mrs. Patience Hester, Louis Tinkshell, Marvin Zipperman, Mr. and Mrs. Stenger, Ida May Cross and her sister-in-law Annie, the Reverend Miller and Mrs. Miller, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson . . .” and on and on. As is typical of small-town newspapers, Billy drops every name he can think of, because each name in print means another few papers sold to the families.

  Before I leave Liberty I make a last stop at the Farmers’ Lumber and Supply Store, to get an estimate of what the materials will cost to repair the barn roof.

  I’m happy that the place isn’t busy. In the parking lot, there’s only a lumber truck unloading timbers and a pickup that says Delmont Coal.

  “Hi, Sadie,” I call as I enter the store. The short, stocky woman in coveralls and a plaid flannel shirt looks up from the counter, where she’s thumbing through a tractor catalogue.

  “Howdy, Patience. We sure do miss having the vet around. I heard Junior Wilson lost a calf the other day. Dr. Hester could have saved it. . . . What can I do you for?”

  “I just need to price some lumber. Part of our barn roof blew off in the white hurricane.”

  “Do you know what you’ll need?” I hand her my lists of joists, one-by-eights, and tin roofing sheets and she adds up the numbers. “That would be about sixty-seven dollars. You pay cash on delivery but it may not be until after Christmas. The fellows that used to work in the lumber yard and do deliveries for me have all gone to war.”

  52

  We Greet You as a Friend

  The first thing I see when I go up Wild Rose Road is Willie and Danny on the front porch of the Rootes’ new home drinking hot chocolate. They’re sitting with the POWs laughing it up, as friendly as anything, with the enemy.

  At first I am furious. I told Danny to stay away from those men, but when I approach, the POWs jump up and salute me. “Madame,” they say in broken English. “We greet you as a friend.”

  Danny grins a lopsided grin just like his pa’s. “We taught them some English, Mom. Isn’t that a gas?”

  Before I can reprimand him, Mr. Roote comes to the door. “Well, look who the cat drug in! Did you see our new auto? Traded our extra one in. No new cars are available since all the auto builders have switched to making jeeps and tanks.” He indicates a shiny red auto parked on the side. “It’s a 1940 Chevy, but doesn’t have a scratch on it. Come on in and see what the German boys have done.”

  I am astounded. All the walls downstairs have been given a clean coat of white paint. Mrs. Roote has installed a wine-colored carpet, an almost-new blue sofa, and two matching chairs. There are shiny antique tables and pictures on the walls. In the kitchen the POWs have built a wall of shelves for Mrs. Stone’s collection of white flowered cookie jars, and on the back porch is the almost finished new bathroom, complete with a claw-foot tub, a commode, and a small sink.

  “They did this all in one day?”

  “Well, two days,” says Mrs. Roote, “Eckhart and Leopold are great workers. The two guards who brought them told me these Germans were employed as carpenters before they were drafted into the Kraut army.”

  Outside there is singing. The same song I heard before. The marching song about Erika.

  “DANNY,” I BEGIN on the way home. “Do you remember I told you not to talk to the German soldiers?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, how come you disobeyed me?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “I saw you Danny! You were sitting next to them and listening to their songs. You taught them a few phrases of English.”

  “But you also told me always be friendly and kind to people, so I was going by the earlier rule.”

  “Don’t try to be funny. These are Nazi soldier
s. I don’t want you to be friendly to them.”

  “Not all Germans are bad. Some are just regular guys who got drafted and had to fight or be executed. I wish I’d learned more German words from Pa.”

  “Well, I’m going to ask you again, please respect me and stay away from the POWs.”

  Danny is quiet for a minute, clearly sulking, and then he begins to hum the German marching song . . .

  December 15, 1942

  Martino

  What’s that?” Danny asks standing up from the table before we’ve finished our noon meal.

  “Oh, probably just more airplanes from the new Air National Guard Airport in Delmont. They fly over here every day now, remember?”

  He goes to look out the back door. “There’s a Delmont Coal truck in the drive. Did you order coal, Mom? Pa left us with five cords of wood, enough for the whole winter.”

  “No, certainly not. It must be a mistake.” I jerk on my jacket and hurry out to confront the coal man before he unloads.

  “Sir,” I call to the driver, who’s backing toward the barn. “Hey, mister!” The man finally hears me, stops the truck, and looks out the side window. It’s Mr. Ricci! He opens the door of the cab and climbs down.

  “Good morning, Miss Patience.”

  “I think there’s some mistake. I ordered lumber from Farmers’ Supply, not coal.”

  “No mistake. I brought you your lumber.” He points to the back of the truck bed.

  “Oh . . . Sadie said it might be a week or more.” I laugh. “We saw the sign on the side saying Delmont Coal. Do you work for Farmers’ Supply now . . . and the coal company too?”

  “No, just the coal company, but I was at the feed store yesterday when you were there. The manager told me your barn roof blew off and you needed some lumber, but they didn’t have a deliveryman, so I thought I’d bring it.”

  By this time, all the children are out in the drive. “Do you remember Mr. Ricci, kids? He and his wife came here after Mrs. Ricci had her baby in a coal truck on the top of Hogback Mountain.”

  “Nice to meet you,” the children respond.