Once a Midwife

by Patricia Harman

  “You have a nice place here,” the man says as he gets in the truck after the lumber is unloaded and stacked inside the barn. “Felicia and I are saving for a little farm. Nothing big. Just a few acres.”

  “Wait, I have to pay for the lumber. Cash on delivery, Sadie said.” Martino turns with a slow smile.

  “It’s already paid for. Felicia and I paid your bill.”

  “No, I can’t let you do that. Why would you do that? You could save that money for a farm.”

  “You saved our baby. You saved my woman. If you hadn’t come walking out of the woods, she could have bled to death. I know nothing of childbirth. Anyway, your lumber only came to sixty dollars. Do you know how much we would have had to pay if we had the baby in the hospital? Eighty. We also stayed here for two days at the Baby Cabin. So we thank you. I gotta go now.” The man salutes us like he’s in the army and drives away.

  “So all that lumber and tin roofing were free?” Danny asks, his eyes big.

  “It was a gift. Sometimes, Danny, when you’re down and out, gifts come to you in the strangest way.”

  December 16, 1942

  Dear Patience,

  I know this will be the first Christmas that I won’t be home, but I’ll think of you every day. Thank you so much for holding our family and home together. That’s my one regret about being incarcerated, that I’m not there to help you. Truly, I think you suffer more than I do.

  Please, Danny, Sunny, Susie, and Mira, be good.

  Your loving father and husband

  P.S. Do not open your presents until Christmas morning!

  Inside the envelope are five little paper packages with our names written on the top.

  “So, Pa’s not coming home?” Danny says sadly when I show the children their gifts.

  “Writing the letter to the warden was a long shot, kids. Maybe I shouldn’t have encouraged you, but at the time I thought why not try.”

  “That’s okay, Mom. In a way, it’s good to quit hoping,” Susie says philosophically. “At least we have presents.” We all look at the little white packages and wonder what they could be. Then each of us places our gift from Dan on a branch of the Christmas tree.

  53

  December 17, 1942

  Help on the Way

  The days are warm again. It’s so warm it makes me wonder if another storm’s brewing, so I have each child bring in an extra armload of wood. During this noisy process the phone rings.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Hester. This is Sheriff Hardman.”

  “Morning, Sheriff.”

  “I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry I can’t go with you back to the Moundsville Prison until after New Year’s. I’m sure you wanted to see Daniel.”

  “Thanks, Sheriff, but the truth is I’ve been too busy to think of it. The last storm caused some damage here and I’ve been trying to get a few presents made for the kids . . .”

  “Well, there’s something else . . .”

  “Yes . . .” I say, wondering what the problem could be. Danny hasn’t been to town, so he couldn’t have gotten into another fight.

  “I heard from Mr. Gold that you’re interested in hiring some POWs to help on the farm.”

  “I was asking about it. Do you think that would be a mistake? I know they use them at the woolen mill now. I really need to get the roof back on the barn before another storm blows the rest off.”

  “No, it’s okay. I just wanted to tell you the POWs don’t come with an interpreter. Do you think you can handle that?”

  I swallow hard, thinking of the two young German soldiers at the house with the blue door. “The Rootes drew pictures of what they wanted done; I could do that. Do you know how I sign up for the service?”

  He gives me a number at the courthouse and then adds, “I think it’s good you’re doing this, Mrs. Hester. Just, please, if you can, have Mr. Maddock or some other man with you. You know what I mean? You being a woman and all.”

  The sheriff’s paternal attitude about my being female vexes me so much I dial the number immediately. “United States Employment Agency,” a woman with a voice like Minnie Mouse answers. “This is Ada Mullins speaking. How can I help you?”

  “Ada? This is Patience Hester. What are you doing at the courthouse?”

  “I forgot to tell you, I work here now while my sister takes care of the baby. I’m the whole United States Employment Agency in Union County. Mostly I just handle the POWs. Send them out to their jobs and arrange guards and transportation.”

  Abruptly she changes subject. “Ollie’s coming home soon. He lost his arm at Guadalcanal.” I feel sick as I remember the young man with the tattoo of the American flag on his biceps and wonder if that was the arm that was amputated.

  “Oh, Ada. I’m so sorry. Did you just hear?”

  “The Red Cross called two days ago. That’s why I hadn’t gotten a letter from him. Of course I feel terrible to think of his body being injured, but I’ll tell you the truth, Patience. I’m just glad he didn’t get killed and he will make it back to West Virginia. On some of the islands the casualties were twenty percent. At least he’s safe now. He hasn’t seen little Dorothy since she was born. . . . So what can I do for you?” She suddenly becomes quite professional.

  The abrupt businesslike change catches me off guard. I’m still trying to digest what she’s told me about poor Ollie . . . “Well, some of my friends are using the German POWs on their farms and I thought I would ask, if it’s safe, could I get a crew to fix our barn? We lost half the roof during the white hurricane, and as you probably heard my husband was sent to prison for refusing to register for the draft.”

  “Sure, I can get a crew out there in a day or two. Some of the prisoners are carpenters by trade.”

  “The Rootes had a couple of fellows that did good work, Eckhart and Leopold, big blond fellows. Do those names ring a bell?”

  “I know exactly who you mean. How many days will the job take? I’ll try to get the two you mentioned and probably two more, but remember, they don’t speak English and I have to find transportation and guards. The guards don’t stay, you understand. They just bring the POWs out and pick them up.”

  “And I’m supposed to pay you forty-five cents an hour for each man . . . is that how it works?”

  “The guards will leave you a paper form. The POWs fill out the number of hours, you sign, and you pay me at the courthouse. Also, you’ll need to give them a good midday meal. They work eight A.M. to five P.M. There’ll be a consent for you to sign, of course.”

  “Okay, that’s fine. Can I ask you something else, Ada?”

  “Ask away, honey.”

  “Does it bother you, working with the enemy and your husband being a soldier and all? Don’t you feel angry toward the German men?”

  Silence hangs on the telephone wire. “No,” she finally says in almost a whisper. “My mother was a German. She immigrated after the first world war. I don’t tell many people that.”

  “My husband’s grandparents were Germans too,” I say. “Dan even speaks German. I don’t tell anyone that.”

  54

  December 19, 1942

  Work Crew

  When the house is quiet and the children are in bed, I take out my journal. Since Dan left, I write less frequently, probably because I’m too tired. I’ve also stopped listening to the news on the radio. The details of the battles blur, and without Dan to put little pins in his map on the closet door, none of it makes much sense.

  There are attacks and counterattacks, losses and victories from Europe to Africa to Asia. I can tell that there have been a few more Allied victories lately. At first things were going very bad for us. Even the kids have settled down and, except for the Air Force fighter planes flying over, the war is more background to our life than the reason for living.

  This morning, bright and early, Bitsy brought Willie over in the motorcycle sidecar because the German POWs were coming to fix the barn roof and she thought maybe he could help carry boards. Mr.
Roote promised he’d come over later to be our chaperone.

  Promptly at eight, an army truck arrived, with the POWs riding in back. I recognized Eckhart and Leopold right off, and Danny and Willie ran over like they were old friends. The U.S. military policeman, got out, introduced Eckhart as head carpenter, had me sign a consent, and left.

  The children and I stood in the yard as the German men saluted me. “Frau Chef!” they shouted in a military way, which I figure meant woman chief or possibly woman cook, I’m not sure. Then in English they intoned with a strong accent “We greet you as a friend.”

  Will and Danny saluted back with big smiles. “We greet you as a friend,” they said, and though I’d warned my son about being sociable with the POWs it touched me. If only world peace could be achieved so easily. We greet you as a friend. But I am naïve. People have told me this all my life.

  I point to the hole in the roof and the pile of lumber and tools in the barn, then hand Eckhart a box of nails that Sadie sent over with the wood. Finally, I show them a picture of the barn with little stick men sitting on the roof with hammers and saws. I’m not much of an artist, and we all laugh about that.

  One of the POWs points at the farmhouse and I follow his gaze to the side porch, where the three girls sit on the steps. “Schwester?” the man called Leopold asks Danny.

  “Sister. Yes!” Danny grins.

  Leopold, clearly pleased he knows a few words in English, bows to the girls and repeats his salutation. “I greet you as a friend.”

  He turns to his fellow POWs and they all bow and copy him with big smiles. “I greet you as a friend.”

  Mira gets it right away. “We greet you as a friend,” she says with a curtsy.

  “Enough pleasantries! On to work, men.” I point to the roof and hand Leopold a hammer and big yellow tape measure that says Farmers’ Lumber and Supply on it, then I head back toward the house.

  “Let me know if there are any problems, Danny,” I say over my shoulder.

  “Right, Ma!”

  “Ma. Mutter!” says Leopold with another big smile.

  “Girls,” I order briskly as I step up on the porch, “I need you in the house.” This is not true, I just fear for my little ladies with these young enemy soldiers around. Probably, I’d feel the same if they were a bunch of young American GIs, and I realize that part of my not wanting to hire the POWs is because I’m not comfortable bossing men. My whole life’s work has been with women, and I have always left handling tradesmen, mechanics, and carpenters to Dan. Now I’m the Frau Chef!

  “Oh, please let us watch, Ma,” Sunny begs.

  “We’ll be good. We won’t move from this porch,” promises Susie, who I’m surprised to notice has grown in confidence since her father was imprisoned. I’d imagined she’d get more anxious, but she’s actually risen to the occasion and has become my main helper.

  “We won’t talk to them either,” vows Mira.

  “Okay,” I agree. “It is fun to watch, but I’ll check on you from the window and if you move an inch off the porch I’ll see and you’ll be in big trouble.”

  By ten, Mr. Roote arrives, gets out of his shiny red car, and limps over to the barn. I go out to meet him. His stroke has left him with a small disability, but he got off lucky. Watching him limp, I realize that my leg hasn’t hurt since the weather improved. That’s something to be thankful for anyway. With missing Dan, I’ve hurt more on the inside than out.

  “Howdy, Leopold. Howdy, Eckhart,” the old man yells up to the carpenters.

  “Howdy!” all the men shout down, pleased to be using English. Then they point to me and salute again, “Frau Chef!”

  “How they doin’?” Mr. Roote asks me.

  I stare up at the hole in the roof. All the ragged boards have been removed and the men are beginning to replace them with fresh lumber. “Looks great so far.”

  “Well, what can I do to help?”

  “Why don’t you come in the house and have a cup of joe with me. Basically, I was just a little scared of the Germans and wanted someone around. I’m not sure there’s really anything to do, but keep us company.”

  “That’s fine,” Mr. Roote says. “I was getting in the missus’s hair anyway. She’s doing some kind of Christmas thing.” The girls are bored with watching the workers, so they busy themselves inside making cranberry chains for the tree.

  “Do you have plans for Christmas Eve?” the old man asks. “Mrs. Roote wants to go into Liberty to see the mayor light the courthouse tree and look at the Baptist nativity scene.”

  “We’ve never done that before.” I consider the invitation. “But with Dan gone everything’s different. Maybe the kids would like it.”

  Before I get to answer, there’s a knock on the door.

  Hannah

  Hannah!” I exclaim, stepping out on the porch. The very pregnant woman is crying. “What’s wrong? Where’s your husband, John?”

  “Dead!” is all she can manage to say.

  “No!” I call out. Mr. Roote stands abruptly, almost knocking over the kitchen chair, and joins us outside while the girls gather around.

  “He was drafted last September. I was alone at the house this morning when the Western Union man came, and I almost collapsed as he handed me the envelope. I was so devastated, I couldn’t even sign.” She holds out a crumpled yellow paper and I scan the words, hoping she’s misread and her husband’s only missing, like Ida May’s brother. Unfortunately, she’s all too correct.

  The Secretary of War desires me to express his deepest regret that your husband, Corporal John F. Dyer, was killed in action on December 4, 1942, in France. A letter follows.

  Homer Webb, Acting Adjutant General

  I hand the telegram to Mr. Roote and fold Hannah into my arms. Outside, the German crew has stopped working and stare at the very pregnant sobbing woman. Danny comes over and turns off the ignition of Hannah’s late model blue DeSoto.

  “Where’s your mom, Hannah? Where are the kids? Come in and sit down,” I say. The young woman grips the white wooden porch rail, breathing heavily, and it’s then that I realize . . . she’s in labor.

  “Susie, get Mrs. Dyer a cup of tea.”

  “I’ll go talk to the POW boys. Do you want them to keep working?” Mr. Roote says.

  “Yes, I guess they should. Their ride doesn’t come until five o’clock and I was hoping they could finish the job.”

  Hannah rests her head in her arms and cries as if her heart is broken, and it is . . . as broken as the barn roof—shattered, destroyed. It’s so easy to talk about war in the abstract . . . whether it’s justified . . . who started it . . . who fights it . . . who dies a hero, but this is what war looks like sitting at my kitchen table.

  “Your mother. Can I call your mother or John’s mother? Where are your children?”

  “They’re at school in Liberty. My mother lives near Oneida, just this side of the Pennsylvania–West Virginia border. She’s in Pittsburgh today at a big Red Cross meeting. I have no way to get hold of her. John’s parents are in Huntington, visiting the old man’s ailing sister. They probably didn’t get their telegram yet. Now we’ll have to change the blue star on our banners to gold. . . .”

  “I’ll pick up your children from school,” Mr. Roote says. “I’ll take them home to the missus and tell them you’re at the Baby Cabin having your baby, but I won’t tell them about their dad.” Here Hannah starts crying again. I pull a chair close and put my arm around her shoulders. In the presence of true grief, words are useless, like pebbles dropped in a deep, dry well.

  December 20, 1942

  Baby boy, Lincoln Dyer, born to Hannah Dyer, at 7:15 P.M. in the Baby Cabin.

  This was Hannah’s third baby, and labor was intense and lasted four hours. The poor woman had just received a telegram from the war department that her husband, John, had been killed in action, and I’m sure the shock of it started her pains. Tears flowed the whole time.

  In her other deliveries, she and John danced
through every contraction, but this time she didn’t ask for music and there was no joy. As her labor progressed, I held her and we swayed together. Sometimes I’d hum a tune and I kept coming back to “Goin’ Home.” Bitsy and Lou taught me the song when we listened to it on a recording by Paul Robeson, the famous American Negro singer.

  I was worried that Hannah might hemorrhage or have some other complication after receiving the shocking news of her husband’s death, but all went well with the delivery. No perineal tears. Placenta delivered intact. Estimated blood loss, one cup.

  Afterwards, while Hannah was nursing the baby, she looked over. “What was that tune you kept humming?” she asked. “I never heard it before. Are there words?”

  I sang the first verse for her. “Goin’ home, goin’ home, I’m a goin’ home.” She listened as she nursed her new baby. “It’s not far, jes’ close by. Through an open door. Work all done, cares laid by. Goin’ to fear no more.”

  Hannah took a deep breath and let out the air. “John is home now, looking over us. I can feel him. The whole time I was in labor, I felt your arms around me, but they were his arms. Will you call my mom for me now?” she asked. “She should be home.”

  I quietly left her and the baby, and after I phoned her mother, I went to the gazebo near the willow trees. It was a warm night, with high clouds skimming past the half moon. I cried a long time, for Hannah, for John, for their kids, for all of us in this dark and troubled world.

  December 22, 1942

  Dear Dan,

  There are only a few more days until Christmas and I hope you receive your parcel by then. I mailed you three books and more drawings from the kids. Thanks for the little white packages you sent each of us. They’re sitting in the branches of the spruce tree, which is decorated in lights, our old ornaments, and cranberry chains made by the girls.

  Getting the presents you sent considerably cheered us. The children were hoping you might come home for a few days, and I will admit I encouraged them to write the warden, but later I realized it was cruel to get their hopes up. Anyway, they’re now reconciled to your not being here.