These Healing Hills

by Ann H. Gabhart

  Betty might be stern and more than a little prickly at times, but she loved the babies.

  “What a fine boy you are,” she cooed. “You’re going to grow up strong and able. I know a fine boy like you will. Come on and let us hear you cry. It’ll be music to your mama’s ears and to mine too.”

  “Is he all right?” Lurene whispered. She sounded scared.

  The poor girl was so young. Just a slip of a girl, as Fran’s grandmother used to say. But she had borne the long labor with the resigned fortitude evident in many of the mountain women.

  Fran let out a soft breath in relief when Betty answered, “He’s a little worn out from his trip out into the world, but he’s going to be fine, Mrs. Nolan. Just fine.”

  As though to prove it, the baby’s cries grew louder. Fran peeked over at the baby waving his arms in fury and had to smile. That’s the way, she thought. Swing out at the world. She turned her attention back to Lurene.

  They wouldn’t leave until they had given her instructions on basic care of herself and her baby. Then they would come back often in the next few weeks to check on both mother and child. Lurene was fortunate to have her brother’s wife, Stella Abrams, nearby to help her. The sister-in-law brought them supper last night and promised to come back to cook breakfast after she saw to her own family.

  Mrs. Abrams had offered to fetch Fran a change of clothes when Fran showed up soaked to the skin. No way could Fran wear anything the tiny Lurene might have in her wardrobe. But when Betty’s frown grew darker at the suggestion, Fran thanked her but refused. Her clothes would dry. She did set her boots with her wet stockings draped over them by the woodstove in the kitchen. She didn’t care how much Betty frowned. Feet needed to be dry.

  And the fire in the stove had to be kept up regardless of the heat in the cabin so they could have the hot water they needed. Fran had taken a pan of that water out on the little back porch that slanted a bit precariously away from the small house. She brushed off her damp clothes and combed her hair into place.

  Then she scrubbed her hands and arms until they were red. Cleanliness was essential in healthy births. Last, she washed the apron she’d worn while working on Ben Locke’s cast. After she wrung as much water out of it as possible, she draped it around her neck. It too would dry on her, and the apron made her feel like a nurse. She hoped it would convince Betty too, who had looked horrified when Fran showed up disheveled and looking worse for the wear.

  “What in the world happened to you?”

  Betty had put her fists on her hips and glared at Fran as she slid down off Jasmine. Fran handed the reins to young Mr. Nolan, who looked glad to have something to do besides wait for his baby to make an appearance.

  “A rattler on the trail spooked Jasmine, and when she dived off the trail down an incline, I lost my seat. She ran off and I had to chase after her through some rough country. Then I got caught in the storm.” Fran tried to shift the conversation. “Did it hit here? The lightning was awful where I was.”

  “It stormed,” Betty answered shortly. “And I guess you were lost.”

  “I did get a little off trail.”

  “Why didn’t you look at your map?”

  “The map was in my saddlebag on Jasmine. Luckily, I happened across Woody’s brother headed home from the war. He had found Jasmine and caught her. Then he was kind enough to point me in the right direction.” Fran saw no need in going into details about her meeting with Ben Locke. If Betty found out about her standing shoulder to shoulder through the storm in that bowl-shaped cave or about her cutting the cast off the man’s arm, she’d have to hear it from Ben Locke.

  The Nolans’ house was small with only two rooms, but it had porches and was spotless, as though Lurene had prepared for the nurses to be there. When the young mother had looked up from the bed and saw Fran, such a smile lit up her face that Fran didn’t regret her eventful trip there.

  Through the long night of labor, she’d sat by the girl, letting her grip her hands during the worst contractions while Betty napped in a rocking chair and Lurene’s husband paced the night away on the porch. Now and again he tiptoed inside the house and poked his head in the bedroom door, but he seemed afraid to come nearer. Having babies was women’s work.

  Now at the sound of the baby crying, the young father peeked through the door again. Fran glanced around at him. “You have a son, Mr. Nolan.”

  He let out a whoop and ran back outside to jump off the porch. Out the window they could see him running around the yard, sending the hens, fresh off their night roosts, squawking out of his way. His hound dog joined in with a howl.

  “Good heavens.” Betty frowned.

  But the young mother smiled as color crept back into her cheeks. “Ira gets in a whirr. My pa says he surely ain’t the silent type.”

  “A new son is reason to get excited.” Fran looked at the girl over the sheets draped in a tent over her legs.

  “That’s sure enough so.” The girl moistened her dry lips. “If I weren’t so done in, I’d be out there shoutin’ with him.”

  “No running around like a banshee for you.” Betty gave her a stern look. “You need to rest and let your body recover. Remember, you’re a mother now. You have to think of your baby and what’s best for him. A healthy mother is necessary for a healthy baby.”

  “Yes’m. I aim to be the best mother I can be to my little feller.” Lurene twisted her head to peer at the baby Betty was efficiently bathing while ignoring his protests.

  “You’ll make a fine mother.” Fran patted Lurene’s leg, then massaged her abdomen to help her pass the afterbirth.

  After all was taken care of, Fran gave Lurene a few sips of water. Then they helped her to the pot before they settled her back in the bed, now with clean sheets.

  Betty placed the baby, bathed and wrapped in a blanket, in his mother’s arm. The look on Lurene’s face brought tears to Fran’s eyes. Then when Ira came in, hat in hand, to shuffle over to the bed with a look of wonder as he touched his baby’s face, she wanted to go over and hug them all. Instead she turned her eyes away and continued to clean up. This was their private moment.

  The love between the young parents failed to move Betty. She gave the father a hard look. “You did wash your hands after you touched that dog out there, didn’t you?”

  He jumped away from the bed and scurried to do as Betty said. She called after him. “With soap.” Then she shook her head and muttered something under her breath that Fran couldn’t make out. That was just as well.

  After a breakfast of eggs and biscuits with fresh-churned butter and blackberry jam, Fran and Betty watched Lurene nurse her baby. Sometimes that was simple and sometimes a baby needed encouragement to latch onto his mother’s nipple. This baby had a good sucking instinct.

  “If I have trouble, Stella says she’ll help me.” Lurene looked over at her sister-in-law, who had brought her toddler girl with her. “She says she can help nurse him if I don’t have enough milk, being so skinny like I am.”

  “Skinny doesn’t matter. You just need to be sure you eat more than cornbread,” Betty said.

  “Yes’m. I remember what you said about the collard greens and eggs. We most always have a plenty of eggs. And Ira, he’s good at bringing home game for the table. Fish out of the river now and again and squirrel and rabbit. We eat fine.”

  They wrote down the little boy’s weight, six pounds four ounces, and the name Lurene and Ira picked for him.

  “Ira Leonard Nolan. After me and her pa,” Ira said with a burst of pride. “She wants to call him Lenny.”

  After telling Lurene they’d be back in a day or two to check on her and the baby, Fran and Betty headed back to the center. As Jasmine tripped along behind Moses, Fran tried to pay attention to the trail since she’d have to come back up it soon, but it was all she could do to keep her eyes open.

  “Don’t fall out of the saddle,” Betty told her. “You wouldn’t be much help with a cracked head. We have clinic tomorrow.” />
  “Nobody is expecting a baby tonight, are they?”

  “Mrs. Perkins up the way is a few weeks out. And Mrs. Tipton has been having some worrying signs of not carrying her baby to term. But with good fortune, we might get a full night’s sleep.” Betty looked back at Fran. “You should have napped when you could last night.”

  “The poor girl was scared. The least I could do was hold her hand.”

  “That’s noble thinking, but you have to take care of yourself too. A tired nurse-midwife can make a mistake. A sleepy nurse-midwife can fall off her horse.” Betty shook her head. “And we’ll still have tasks to do when we get back to the clinic.”

  “I need a bath.”

  “Best milk Bella first.”

  Bella. Fran hadn’t once thought of the cow. “Poor Bella. Her bag will be ruined, going without being milked for a whole day.”

  “Don’t worry about that. The folks around the center will see to her. Your talkative friend, Woody, might have even come down and milked her.”

  “He says milking cows is women’s work.”

  “A lot of things in these mountains turn out to be women’s work.” Betty made a face at Fran over her shoulder. “But you say Woody’s brother came in from the army.”

  “Yes.”

  Betty slowed Moses as they stepped their horses into the creek to make the final leg to the center. The water was up a little after yesterday’s rain, but still only hock high for the horses.

  After settling Moses into a walk beside Jasmine, Betty asked, “Is he like Woody? Ready to talk your arm off?”

  “Not at all. He seemed very serious minded.”

  “I suppose the war might make a man that way. More soldiers will be coming back to the mountains.” Betty laughed a little. “Guess that might mean a baby boom for us in nine or ten months. If you’re still here.” She looked over at Fran. “Have you thought about what you might do after you finish your training?”

  “I wouldn’t mind staying in the mountains a while if there is a need.”

  “That would be up to Mrs. Breckinridge, you know. Whether she thought you were capable.”

  “And that might hinge on what you tell her.” Fran didn’t see any reason to avoid that truth. Betty was the one who would report to Mrs. Breckinridge.

  “I suppose it might.” Betty kept her eyes on the creek bed in front of her horse. “I can’t fault your nursing ability or how you help babies into the world. It would be good if you could stop getting lost every time you go up in the hills. A lost nurse-midwife is no help at all.”

  “You’re right. I need to learn the area. Get to know the people and where they live.”

  “It’s all right to get to know where they live, but it’s important to keep a separation. You are not one of them. You can never be one of them. Heaven forbid to even consider being one of them.” Betty shivered at the thought. “In a way you have to admire their obstinacy. Even when it infuriates you that they won’t listen and learn better ways. They do endure. But no, I’d never want to live their life.”

  “Do you ever think about going back to New York?”

  “I consider it from time to time. But I hear most of the mothers there want doctors to deliver their babies in hospitals, and midwives aren’t welcomed. That doesn’t mean I might not take a long break and go see my folks. Who knows? I might even find a man not scared off by a woman who says what she thinks and doesn’t play flirty games. The soldiers coming home from the war might be ready for that.”

  “They might. Do you want to get married?” Fran had never thought about Betty pining for marriage. She seemed so capable and independent.

  “It’s something to think about at times.” Betty swished away a horsefly. “What about you? You’re a nice-looking woman. Didn’t any guy ever ask you to get married?”

  Fran started to think of some way to change the subject so she wouldn’t have to answer, but why not talk about it? Betty didn’t know Seth. She did know Fran wasn’t married or engaged. “One did. Before the war.”

  “Oh dear.” Betty looked distressed. “Did he get killed?”

  “No. Just found a woman he liked better over there.”

  “Then you’re fortunate to be rid of him.” The creek narrowed and Betty kicked Moses to get him out in front again.

  Fortunate. Maybe she was. She wouldn’t be here in the mountains if Seth had stayed true to his promises. She would have missed learning how to catch babies and participate in the miracle of birth. She would have never gotten to know these mountain people with their enduring spirit and love of family.

  Fran looked at the hills rising around her and at the clear water trickling past Jasmine’s legs. If not for Seth’s betrayal, the mountains would have stayed just a name on a map to her instead of a place of beauty that sometimes left her breathless. Even so, she still felt the stab in her heart and the emptiness of thinking she’d never find love.

  It was better not to dwell on that. To just do as Grandma Howard used to say. Live one day at a time. That was what the Lord promised and only that. And today she had helped a sweet young woman birth her baby. She’d seen looks of love. She’d heard the cry of life. And before the day was over she’d be clean again.

  She felt even more blessed when they got to the Beech Fork Center to see Jeralene, the neighbor girl who had worked at the center prior to Fran being there, smiling in the doorway. She had milked the cow and had a pot of soup beans on the stove. A courier had also come while they were away to bring supplies and a few letters. One for Fran. The first letter from her mother in weeks.

  Fran stuffed the unopened envelope in her pocket and took care of the horses.

  Then she carried a graniteware wash pan of warm water to her small bedroom to clean up. They didn’t have a tub, but a washrag did the job. She pulled off her tie and boots. When she unhooked her pants, the envelope crinkled in her pocket. She pulled it out and stood in the middle of the room to read her mother’s letter.

  Dear Francine,

  I do hope you are ready to come to your senses and get on a train back to Cincinnati. I am sure you could still get your old nursing job at the hospital. I can’t imagine you wanting to stay on with those hillbillies. I fear for your health, even for your life. But you are aware of how I feel about that, so I will tell you the news I have.

  Seth is home from the war. He did bring that English girl with him. I can’t deny Cecelia has a pretty face. She looks like some kind of doll. But trust me. Nobody wants to live with a doll.

  The thing is they aren’t married. She came over here to meet his parents and to see what America is like. She’s very English. She won’t fit in at all with his family. Not at all. Seth will see that. She will see that. Most important, Seth’s mother will see that! So I’m telling you to come home right away. Seth can be yours again. I know he can. Then you can have that family you always dreamed of having. That would make me very happy.

  You know I’ve always just wanted the best for you.

  Your loving Mother

  Fran blew out a long sigh and tossed the letter on the small table that held the coal oil lamp. Her poor, deluded mother. She supposed she would have to answer the letter sometime. But she definitely wasn’t packing for home.

  Home. As she stripped off her shirt and wrung out the washrag in the water that had cooled to lukewarm while she was reading the letter, she thought about how it would be nice to have a long soak in the bathtub back at her mother’s house where a person turned on a tap and warm water poured out.

  Here everything was more of an effort. Water had to be carried from springs, drawn out of a well, or caught in a rain barrel. Fires had to be built to heat that water. The only shower a person was likely to find this far out in the country was under a waterfall.

  But effort was rewarded. Tomorrow at clinic, people would line up with their various ailments and she and Betty would do their best to help them all. She would make time to go back up into the hills to see baby Ira Leonard and to chec
k on Sadie.

  She would see the sun set behind the mountain and listen for the whip-poor-wills after dark. And she would be right where she needed to be. Perhaps she was home.

  17

  September 6, 1945

  Ben hammered down a loose piece of the tin roof. The tin almost burned his hands, but the paint to seal the roof went on better when it was hot. They needed to get it done before another rain. The day he came home after that storm, his mother had three buckets under drips in the house. The roof had been prone to leaking ever since Ben could remember.

  He sat back on his knees, ignoring the heat to look out across the hill. From the roof, he could see all the way down to where the Robinsons’ house poked up out of the trees. That was where the girl Woody was sweet on lived. The shadow of a buzzard floating past up in the sky skimmed over him, and a cardinal trilled out its song from the edge of the woods.

  Home sights and sounds. But in spite of how good it felt to be home, he couldn’t deny being a little restless. He needed more, but he hadn’t figured out more of what.

  Woody let out a yell to bring Ben’s attention back to the roof. Woody was brushing on the paint, and from the looks of it, he had almost as much silver paint on him as on the tin.

  “It’s hot as Hades up here.” Woody swiped his forehead with his sleeve and left a smear of paint in his hair.

  The boy was willing, but he had a hard time staying focused on a task from beginning to end. That had to be why so many things around the place needed work. Things that would have been kept up if Pa hadn’t died.

  “We don’t lack much. After I hammer down a few more nails, I’ll help paint.”

  “We should wait till sundown or a cloud to shade the roof or something. A body could die of heat prostration up here.”