American Struggle

by Veda Boyd Jones

  They called on Dr. Drake at midafternoon, but he wasn’t there.

  “He must be at the pesthouse,” Rob’s father said. “Let’s go see if Miss Ruthann’s feeling better. Then we’ll see if Dr. Drake’s home.”

  The Davis sisters had not gone to church with them that morning. Miss Ruthann had fallen a couple of days earlier; Miss Clara had told Uncle Anthony that morning when he had gone to take them to church, and she was feeling poorly. Miss Clara hadn’t wanted to leave her sister alone.

  “Ruthann’s resting in bed,” Miss Clara said, once they were seated in the parlor. “She’s not doing very well.”

  Emma glanced around the room. Pictures hung on newly whitewashed walls, and the furniture shone with polish. Who would have guessed that six months ago this room had been underwater?

  “Is there anything she needs that we could bring her?” Rob’s father asked.

  “She’s partial to apples,” Miss Clara said.

  “I’ll bring in some early apples on market day,” Emma offered.

  “That would be real nice of you, Emma,” Miss Clara said.

  They visited a few more minutes, and the children and their fathers walked back over to Vine Street.

  Dr. Drake still wasn’t there, but they sat on the porch and waited, and within a few minutes, Emma saw the doctor’s horse and buggy down the street. Rob’s father pushed himself off the porch step and walked out to the street. The others followed.

  “We heard there were four deaths by cholera in Shantytown,” Anthony said before Dr. Drake could even climb down off the high seat.

  “That was by yesterday evening. There were eight more today.” “Eight more?” Rob asked. “Eight?”

  “And I have seven severe cases in the pesthouse. I’m going back there in a few minutes.”

  “It’s spreading fast,” Emma’s father said as they walked to the porch.

  “Yes. The invisible cholera insect is breeding at an alarming rate. I can almost see them hovering above that filthy area.” Dr. Drake leaned against a column on the front porch. His features were drawn, and he looked as if he hadn’t slept in days.

  “You can see them?” Emma asked.

  Dr. Drake closed his eyes a moment before he answered. “No. In my mind I can see them, and when my eyes are open, I can imagine them as a vapor rising from the filth and garbage. I’m afraid they won’t long be content to remain in that area.”

  Rob’s father cleared his throat. “I know that you said this isn’t contagious, but it’s hard to convince people of that. Patricia is fearful. She’s covered our yard with lime, and she doesn’t want Rob and Sue Ellen to go back to school. Our family outside the city feels the same way.”

  Emma and Rob looked at each other. They hadn’t known their mothers were thinking of keeping them away from school.

  “Fear is a powerful emotion,” Dr. Drake said. “It could predispose a body to be attacked by a malady.”

  A frown formed on Anthony’s forehead. “Are you saying that if a person is fearful, she has a greater chance of getting the cholera?”

  “Any violent emotion could weaken a body’s constitution,” Dr. Drake said. “And fear is one of the strongest emotions.”

  “They wouldn’t let us go to the river to make our observations,” Rob said. “They’re awfully afraid of this.”

  “I imagine they’re afraid not for themselves, but for their families,” Dr. Drake said.

  “But the fear is still the same debilitating emotion. Is that right?” Father asked.

  Dr. Drake nodded. “What are you thinking, Anthony?”

  “I’m going to send my family out of Cincinnati. To the country,” he said. “Rob, how would you like to spend a few weeks on the farm with Emma?”

  CHAPTER 9

  Country Life

  On Monday morning, Rob, Sue Ellen, and their mother packed their clothing and some bedding, and their father loaded up the wagon. They arrived at the farm before lunchtime.

  Emma felt a satisfied sense of having been right about something before even the grown-ups had figured things out. Just a few days before, she had said to Rob, “How can you stand it in town with the cholera around, the thieves and fires and floods and filth and pigs everywhere, and the smell? You’d all be better off if you lived outside the city where we do.”

  She practically saw Rob’s hackles rise. “I notice you always make it to town for the Independence Day parade. And when the circus came to town last year, you were there. And you always hang around after school and after church. You’ve been pretty fond of the library lately, too, ever since Dr. Drake got you so interested in bones and such. So if Cincinnati’s such a bad place, why don’t you just stay away?”

  Emma had put her nose in the air. “I’m not saying Cincinnati’s all bad. I’m just saying that the country is obviously a safer and healthier place to live. I’d think you could see that.”

  But Rob had refused to see reason. Emma grinned at him as he climbed down from the wagon, but no answering smile softened his face. Instead, he looked grim and discouraged, as though coming to stay with her family was some sort of terrible imposition.

  Mama came out of the house and stood next to her on the porch. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said to Rob and his family.

  “We hate to put you out like this,” Rob’s mother said.

  “You know you’re welcome here anytime for as long as you like,” Mama said. She reached for a valise. “What’s happening in town? Anything new this morning?”

  “People are dying right and left,” Aunt Patricia said. “Rob, take this bag.” She turned back to Mama. “I couldn’t rest easy with the children in school and the cholera lurking who knows where.”

  “The fresh air out here is just what you need,” Mama said. “I’ll put you and Anthony in the front bedroom.”

  “I’m not staying,” Rob’s father said. “But I’ll be back on Sunday when the shipyard’s closed.”

  “Anthony, is it safe?” Mama looked worried.

  “I’ll be fine. My men need their pay for their families, so we have to keep the shipyard open. We’ve spread lime all around the yard, so we’ll be fine.” He smiled reassuringly at Rob’s mother.

  “Well, come on then,” Mama said. “Let’s get you settled. Then we’ll at least have something to eat before you go, Anthony. Or can you stay until tomorrow?”

  “No, I’ve got to get back.”

  They carried their belongings inside and gave the horses water. Then Mama fixed the noon meal. As soon as Papa came in from the far pasture and they had eaten, Uncle Anthony hitched the horses to the wagon and headed back to town.

  Patricia stayed on the front porch until he was around the big curve out of sight. Emma saw her wipe away a tear before she took a deep breath and smiled at Rob and Sue Ellen. Her lips looked tight, though, as if she was fighting to keep them from trembling.

  “Father will be okay, won’t he?” Rob asked.

  “He’ll be fine. He said he would, and he will,” his mother said. “And every minute he’s away, I’ll implore God to help Anthony keep his word.” She took another deep breath and turned toward the front door. “Let’s see if we can be of help to Kristen.”

  But there wasn’t much for the Etingoffs to do. “Emma did the morning chores already, before you got here. You can help her tomorrow morning,” Mama told Rob. “If you’d like, the two of you can walk down by the creek. Maybe take measurements like you did in town.”

  That sounded like a good idea, so Emma and Rob took their pencils and notebooks and walked down to the creek. Sue Ellen tagged along for something to do.

  They walked through a field where dead cornstalks crackled in the breeze, then through a brushy area, and finally to the creek. It wasn’t a river, and it couldn’t compare to the mighty Ohio, but Emma had always liked the gurgling sound the water made as it rushed around an area of built-up rocks, the place where they always crossed the creek.

  “We need a good place to d
o a measurement,” Rob said in his I-know-more-than-you-do voice. “It has to be the same place each time.” Emma watched him pick up a long stick and gingerly step near a steep bank where the water flowed by only a foot from the top. There was no flood pole to use as a measure, so he stuck the stick in the water. It was deep here, at least deeper than the three-foot stick he’d found. He lay down on the bank and wagged the stick around, thrusting his hand into the cold water, but the stick still didn’t touch bottom.

  “I need a longer stick. Maybe a pole.” The water was deceptively clear but deep. He looked around under nearby trees, but he couldn’t find a stick that was strong enough and long enough for his measuring stick.

  Echo, Emma’s pet crow, fluttered down on her shoulder. Emma stroked his breast with a finger and then shook her head at Rob. “I already have a measuring place. We don’t need another one.” With Echo still clinging to her shoulder, she showed Rob the huge chestnut tree downstream whose trunk was submerged in the water.

  “The creek’s eaten away the bank on this side, so I measure how high or low it is from this notch on the bark.” She pointed her finger. “This is the normal height. Right here.”

  “Right here,” Echo mimicked.

  Rob looked like he would have liked to argue, but what could he say? “Your bird talks?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “He fell out of a nest as a baby, and I fed him worms and milk until he was stronger,” she said proudly. “Echo repeats what I say.”

  Echo was just one of the many things about the country that was better than the city. Surely, even Rob would see that now. “The cholera won’t come out here,” she boasted. “We don’t have the filth you have in town.”

  “Why do you have to remind me?” he asked in a low voice. “I hate thinking about my father and Dr. Drake being in the city with the invisible cholera insects.”

  His words made Emma feel guilty. “I wish you could see the insects,” she said. “Then people could swat them, smash them, and kill them so they wouldn’t harm anyone. How can people fight something that’s invisible?”

  At supper that night, Rob’s mother said, “We want to make ourselves useful, Kristen. What can we do tomorrow to help out?”

  Mama and Patricia discussed the work that needed to be done around the farm. Then Mama turned to Rob, “And you can help Emma with early chores by gathering eggs.”

  Emma helped Mama make a pallet for Rob on the floor of the front bedroom. His mother and Sue Ellen shared the big bed. Both families gathered for a good-night prayer, and Rob whispered one of his own for the safety of his father and his friends in Cincinnati. Emma felt guilty again for being so impatient with him. He couldn’t help it that he had grown up in town—and he certainly couldn’t help being born a boy while she was a girl. In her heart, she said a prayer of her own and asked God to help her be kinder to her best friend.

  Before daylight the next morning, she tiptoed into the front bedroom and gave Rob a nudge on his shoulder. He didn’t move, so she gave him a shake until he groaned and clutched the pillow over his head. “Time to get up, sleepyhead,” she whispered. “You’re supposed to help with the eggs this morning. Father will take them to market tomorrow.”

  Rob nodded and dressed quickly. In the kitchen, he took the basket that Mama handed him.

  “We appreciate your help, Rob,” she said as she put a piece of wood in the cookstove. “Emma, you show him what to do, and then you can do the milking. I’ll have breakfast ready when you finish chores.”

  Emma and Rob walked to the henhouse, Emma holding a lantern in front of them. During the day, the hens ran loose in the yard, but at night they were closed in to roost. The door squeaked as she opened it, and the hens clucked at the disturbance.

  “You just shoo the hens off the nests and collect the eggs,” Emma said. “It’s not hard.” She set the lantern down and pointed at the first nest on the side opposite the door. “Go ahead. You do that side, and I’ll do the other.”

  Emma kept an eye on Rob as she collected the eggs from her side of the henhouse. The hens made a racket, but they ambled off the nests, and Rob collected several eggs. But the fourth hen he tried to move must have awakened on the wrong side of the nest. She wouldn’t budge when Rob poked at her. Instead, she pecked him—and Rob jerked his hand back with a yelp. He tried it again, and she pecked him again, harder this time.

  Emma bit back a giggle, and Rob glared at her. “I’m bleeding!”

  “Want some help?”

  Rob shook his head. “I can do it,” he said between his teeth. He moved on down the row. “I’ll come back for the tiger chicken.”

  He successfully ousted all the other hens except the reddish-colored one that had pecked him. A few hens milled around the room, and others returned to their nests. He tried to move that grouchy hen again, and she attacked. She ruffled her feathers and flew at him. Rob yelled and stepped back, narrowly missing the lantern. He threw his arms up to block the hen—and hurled the basket into the air. The eggs plopped down on the ground, every one of them broken. The hen landed and pecked at Rob’s shins. He pushed past Emma and ran outside, slamming the door behind him.

  Emma pushed the door open. “Are you okay?”

  He nodded, looking shamefaced. “I’m sorry about the eggs.”

  “I’ll clean up the mess,” Emma told him. “Old Red can be moody. I should have taken her side of the henhouse.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rob said again to Papa when he came in from the barn.

  “It’s no matter. There will be more eggs tomorrow before I go to town.”

  And there was no shortage of eggs for breakfast. Mama and Patricia had fixed smoked ham, potatoes, eggs, biscuits, and ham gravy, and the children ate their fill.

  “We have a surprise for you children,” Mama said as she set four lunch buckets on the table. “You’re going to school. We got permission for you to attend the country school. Mr. LaRose is the teacher, and he said you are welcome to come as long as it’s unsafe for you to go to town school.”

  Emma and Rob looked at each other. Emma wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing, and she could tell Rob wasn’t sure, either.

  Mama laughed. “Go on with you now. You would have been bored doing chores around here all day, and you know it.”

  So Sue Ellen, Emma, Rob, and Emma’s younger brother, Timothy, set off for the one-room schoolhouse a couple of miles down the road.

  CHAPTER 10

  The One-Room Schoolhouse

  Above the autumn-colored leaves of the trees, Emma could see the peak of the belfry on the little one-room schoolhouse. She’d been here before for harvest suppers and other community gatherings, but not for school. The line that divided the town school district from the country school district was the western property line of her parents’ farm. Emma’s next door neighbors went to the country school, while she went to school in Cincinnati.

  It felt funny to be going to school here. But she knew Rob and Sue Ellen felt even stranger, so she marched down the road and into the small, dusty building as though she didn’t have a qualm.

  Mr. LaRose stood at the front of the room behind the desk. He was a little man with a deep frown line between his eyes. It got deeper when he looked at Rob and Sue Ellen. “I don’t know you.” Emma made introductions.

  “We don’t know how long we’ll be here,” Rob explained. “When the cholera is gone, we’ll go back to Cincinnati. Maybe next week,” he said, but Emma knew that wasn’t likely.

  “I suspect there will be more who flee from town before you get to go back,” Mr. LaRose said. “Take a seat, please, everyone.”

  Emma glanced around and saw that there were several other students, some younger and some older than she. They all shuffled into the seats, clattering the connected desks.

  “All right then,” Mr. LaRose said. “Let me hear how you read.” He had Sue Ellen read from a book and then Timothy. “You two may stay seated next to each other,” he said. “You r
ead at the same level.”

  Mr. LaRose took the book and moved down the aisle. “Your turn,” he said and had Rob read a section. “You’re very good.” Mr. LaRose had him read from a more advanced reader, then another. “Sit in the back with the older boys.” Mr. LaRose pointed with his ruler.

  Rob slid onto a bench in the back as Emma began to read. She was eager to prove to Mr. LaRose that she could read as well as Rob, but in her nervousness, she stumbled over a few big words. “All right then,” Mr. LaRose said when she had finished the paragraph. He moved her back a few seats behind Timothy and Sue Ellen, but not as far back as Rob. Emma’s face felt hot as she took her seat.

  Mr. LaRose pulled the bell rope, and the clanging brought a few more chattering students inside. Emma’s neighbor two farms down sat next to her; she watched as a tall, lanky boy of at least fifteen sat down by Rob. Another boy, this one burly, sat on his other side. “Who are you, Shorty?” she heard the tall boy ask. “Rob Etingoff from Cincinnati.” “I think Shorty fits you better,” he said. “I’m not short. I’m just not as old as you.” “Oh yeah?”

  Emma stopped listening to the conversation behind her as the teacher tapped his long stick on his desk.

  Mr. LaRose wrote on the board and started different sections of the students on assignments. Then he turned his attention to the younger children and their sums.

  When Mr. LaRose finally got to the back half of the room, he passed out books to Rob and Emma and gave the older students reading assignments. When everyone had finished, he asked them to help the younger students with their reading. Emma immediately claimed Sue Ellen and Timothy, and Mr. LaRose nodded his approval at her.

  At noon, the four cousins sat on the schoolhouse steps in the sun. Emma pulled out some biscuits and cheese and apples from her pail, and she handed out portions to her brother and Sue Ellen and Rob.

  “Hurry and eat, and we’ll go play prisoner’s base with the others,” she said.

  Some of the students had stayed inside to eat, and others were also eating their meals outside. As soon as they were done, they organized the game.