Blessed Assurance

by Lyn Cote

  Lee grinned to himself. How many men after dinner would discuss milk fever with a lady?

  “Yes, I’ve often wondered why milk is good for children Linc’s age, but harmful to infants.”

  “And the factor of the time of year is significant also, don’t you think? Milk fever comes with the warm weather.”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you ever heard of Louis Pasteur, a French scientist?” Dr. Gooden asked.

  Lee answered silently, Yes, I have. What about him?

  “He believes disease is spread by bacteria. A microscope, have you ever seen one?”

  “I know what it is.”

  Now Lee’s interest had been caught, too. What was the man’s angle?

  “Looking in the microscope, Pasteur has identified bacteria, which he says are alive and cause disease. He has experimented with heating milk to boiling. With thirty minutes boiling, all the bacteria in the milk are destroyed.”

  “Then if mothers boiled the milk before they gave it to their babies, they could destroy the bacteria which causes the diarrhea?” Jessie sounded excited.

  Good question, Jessie. Lee caught the ball and tossed it back to Linc.

  “But what about the warm weather? How does that make the bacteria worse?” Jessie’s interest came across clearly.

  Lee strained to hear the answer to this question. He had to admit the widow knew how to delve into a subject without dithering about the constraints of polite conversation.

  The doctor’s voice showed his excitement at Jessie’s interest. “Look around you. When the weather warms, everything grows. Why not bacteria?”

  Lee caught another ball. “Good pitch!” He tossed the ball back to the boy.

  “A lot of physicians,” the doctor said, “don’t want to deal with all the new ideas in this century or bother to read the foreign journals.”

  “That’s wrong.”

  “At least short-sighted. I want to direct a hospital that trains doctors in the latest discoveries, newest medicines. The old doctors won’t change, so teaching new doctors must be my goal.”

  Lee heard the enthusiasm in the man’s voice and pitied him. His passion for the innovative would make him an easy target for lesser men.

  “I knew when we met you were different from other doctors.” Jessie leaned forward, her voice eager. “I believe you were sent to me by God.”

  “Me, how?”

  You walked right into that one, Doc. Lee grinned and tossed a faster ball back to Linc, who yelped happily as he caught it.

  “Will you consent to be the doctor to Susan’s people?”

  Silence fell on the porch.

  Lee grimaced to himself. Go ahead, Doc, talk your way out of this one.

  “This is a deep concern of yours, isn’t it?” Dr. Gooden asked.

  Tell her you can’t do it, Doc.

  “I was terrified that night. My skills are inadequate and I haven’t found them someone who has the skills they need.”

  “But, why are you responsible for them?” Dr. Gooden asked.

  “My husband, Will, worked for abolition. He enlisted in the U.S. Sanitary Corps to succor wounded soldiers. What good is freedom to Susan’s people if they can’t even find a doctor who will treat them?”

  Lee felt his face draw down and become stiff, grim.

  “What’s the matter, Mr. Smith?” Linc gazed at him with the ball poised to throw.

  Chagrined, Lee felt exposed. “Nothing. Toss that ball here, sport!”

  Dr. Gooden replied, “Some problems are too big for one person to solve. Your late husband didn’t end slavery all by himself.”

  “No,” Jessie admitted, “but he did what he could. And so will I.”

  “I cannot do what you want me to.”

  At the doctor’s simple statement, Lee stood up straighter. I can’t believe he had the guts to tell her the truth.

  “Why not?” Jessie’s voices sounded tremulous.

  Did you really expect him to just say yes, Jessie?

  “If I do what you ask, I put in danger—or worse—destroy all my chances to reach my goal of a teaching hospital.”

  “Why?” Jessie asked.

  The doctor explained, “A good hospital costs a good amount of money.”

  So Dr. Gooden’s a realist after all? Lee tossed the ball. “Catch this, Linc?”

  “I need wealthy contributors. I cannot do anything that will endanger my impressing these people with the importance of the work I’ve been called to do.”

  You mean impressing them plain and simple, don’t you, Doc?

  “I would think you’d be taken more seriously,” Jessie said.

  “This world we live in is not perfect.”

  Lee waited. The Jessie Wagstaff he knew didn’t take no for an answer.

  She said, “I don’t believe that our goals oppose one another. I can’t believe you would turn your back on a person, white or black, who needed you.”

  A brief silence transpired.

  The doctor broke it. “I tell you what. I will give you medicine and information you need to nurse them.”

  Lee heard the rocker creak. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Jessie take hold of the man’s hand.

  Jessie said, “Thank you.”

  Lee’s stomach clenched, but why? He didn’t care about the widow and the doctor. He walked toward Linc. “It’s time we take a rest.”

  Linc frowned. “I’m not tired.”

  “I am.” He rested his hand on Linc’s back. Doing this was starting to feel natural, comfortable. At the back porch, he and Linc leaned back against the railing side by side.

  Jessie drew her hand from the doctor’s.

  “Well, young man,” the doctor said, “your catching and pitching, they’re improving.”

  “Did you play ball when you were a boy, sir?”

  Lee hung back but let Linc take a step forward.

  “Yes, but I was not as good as you or Mr. Smith.” The doctor grinned and stood up. “I must go. I am on duty at Rush Medical Hospital early on Saturday mornings.”

  “Thank you for coming, Doctor.” Jessie rose.

  The doctor bent over her hand, refused her offer to walk him to the front door, and departed.

  Susan walked out onto the porch. “I come for Linc. Time for bed, mister baseball player.”

  “Mother, please?”

  Lee said, “I’m tired myself, sport.”

  Linc’s face fell.

  “But if your mother doesn’t object, we’ll continue our game of catch tomorrow evening.”

  “Hooray!” Linc jumped straight up.

  “Come on, Linc, your bed be callin’ you.” Susan and Linc started toward the back door. “Oh, I forgot your mama stop and left you a note.” Susan pulled it from the pocket in her apron and handed it to Jessie. Then she led Linc away. The boy looked back at Lee until the last moment.

  While reading the note, Jessie stood facing him. He could see why the doctor might be intrigued by her. Even dressed in black, and buttoned up tight as can be, Jessie Wagstaff still caught the eye. “So you’re trying to find yourself a doctor?”

  She surprised him by tearing the note in two and shoving it into her pocket. “So you were eavesdropping? Yes, I am. My stepfather has just written me that asking my own doctor to treat them was outrageous. Is that what you think?”

  Her vehemence didn’t surprise him, but her naiveté about the deep prejudices in this ugly, old world sharpened his voice, “Don’t you realize no doctor in this city will take Susan’s people as patients?”

  “Dr. Gooden has agreed to help me.”

  “He’ll give you medicine and advice, but don’t expect him to visit shantytown any time soon.” He couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

  “It’s easy to sneer at someone who has a higher calling, but what would an office clerk know about the pressures a man like Dr. Gooden faces?” With a swish of her skirts, she swept away like Queen Victoria herself.

  He stared a
fter her. I know all about men like Dr. Gooden. I used to know one like him a long time ago. Watch out, Jessie, a man like that can let people down badly.

  Chapter 6

  June 15, 1871

  “Beer, bitte.”

  “Not pink champagne, Slim?” Though Lee grinned as he pulled down the spigot of the beer keg, he mentally tried to shrug off a restlessness that had gripped him for several days.

  “Funny, Smit’.” The large, broad-shouldered German tossed a nickel into Lee’s hand.

  Lee aimed and expertly flipped it into the cigar box behind the bar, which served as Pearl’s cash box. Talking helped keep him from thinking. “How’s your day?”

  “Six hours more work and tomorrow ist Sonntag.”

  Lee concurred with the raucous but friendly agreement to this sentiment rippling through the line of men along the length of the bar. With genuine satisfaction, Lee anticipated tomorrow, his day off. Jessie had invited him for the first time to Sunday dinner, to celebrate Linc’s eighth birthday. Lee was making progress toward his goal.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his pretty boss enter from the rear of the tavern. Several voices around him called out greetings. One man ventured, “Hey, Pearl, you look grand!”

  Lee grinned ruefully. He should have expected Pearl to drop in. He forced himself to use a light tone. “Checking to see if I’m pocketing some of the gold from these gentlemen-about-town?”

  More laughter approved his sally. One thing Lee had learned about bartending was that the rough men who came into the tavern were starved for amusement.

  As Pearl came behind the bar, she exchanged several teasing comments with the customers. He allowed his ironic gaze to rove over Pearl in a charming cranberry red dress with wide bands of ivory lace across her low-cut bosom. He had noticed whenever she visited during his shift, she always made herself a treat to see. That was becoming the problem.

  She turned to him. “I came in to pay you.”

  “So early?” He dried his hands on the towel tucked into the waistband of his white apron. “Are you sure I won’t close up and take a nap in the back room as soon as you leave?”

  “He’s a sly one!” the men warned Pearl. “He’s as lazy as a dog with a lame leg!”

  “Pooh!” Pearl waved a dismissive hand to them. Lee listened with only half an ear to the banter that continued until the workmen reluctantly went back to their jobs in the nearby factories. Then Pearl took the cigar box into the back room where she had a desk.

  While she was gone, Lee served the two drunks who were sprawled at a table in the back. They weren’t carrying on a conversation. They were just sipping, slowly and steadily drinking themselves into their daily stupor. He didn’t mind serving workmen beer with their lunches. Many of them were German immigrants who had drunk a glass of beer at lunch their whole lives. But these two drunken faces haunted him more every day. Had any bartender ever pitied him?

  “Mr. Smith,” Pearl called him back to the bar. “Here’s your wages.” She handed him four one-dollar bills.

  Outside, a wagon rattled by and a flume of dust floated over the double swinging doors. Pearl paused, just as he did, to watch the particles dance in the rays of sunlight and finally drift down to the tabletops.

  Worry was plain in Pearl’s voice. “Yesterday a neighbor boy almost started his father’s barn afire.”

  Lee shook his head. “Everything’s as dry as tinder.”

  Pearl’s tone sharpened. “I used it to put the fear of fire into my two.”

  Two widows had become important in Lee’s new life in Chicago. Jessie had been left a house as a means of support. Pearl had been left a saloon.

  “I’m off to the bank, then home,” Pearl said. “My boy broke another window playing that baseball.”

  He grinned.

  “This time he’s going to have to work it off. He’ll be coming here every afternoon next week and mop the place.”

  Red flags waved inside Lee, but he said gallantly, “As you wish, ma’am. I will miss doing it myself, but…”

  She chuckled. “I’d give anything to know who taught you such pretty manners and how you ever let me hire you as a barkeep.”

  “It was my lucky day.” He grinned broadly to hide his uneasiness.

  Pearl shook her head at him. As she left, femininely swaying her high and ornately be-ribboned bustle, he knew she was flirting with him. Pearl teased him with a practiced subtlety and great finesse—in contrast to Mrs. Bolt, who launched herself at him like a lovesick adolescent.

  He imagined himself telling the “prim” schoolteacher that a bar owner had better manners than she. But why hadn’t anyone explained to the redhead that while no man turns from the attraction of a pretty woman, no man ever desires to be the object of such a blatant pursuit? Mrs. Bolt embarrassed herself and him every time they met.

  He clenched his jaw as though forcing back these words while he swabbed the bar with a washcloth, tidying up after lunch.

  The heat from the blistering, noon-high sun weighed down the stagnant air of the saloon. One of the drunks lifted a hand. Lee grimaced to himself as he picked up the whiskey bottle, then walked toward them.

  The odor of whiskey no longer made Lee’s mouth water. Instead it made his pulse jump as though he needed to run. This and the fear of greeting Linc with alcohol on his breath kept him dry as their Chicago drought. Nothing must come between Linc and him.

  He poured each of the drunks a shot of whiskey, suddenly swelling with a deep repugnance. How had he let himself start work here? The walls around him suddenly felt like a trap. He wished to be anywhere—no, not anywhere. He longed to be in Jessie’s backyard.

  In his mind’s eye, he pictured her image from last evening. For the very first time, Linc had hit a ball over the back fence. Jessie had leaped to her feet. Because of the heat, the top buttons of her high-necked black blouse and the buttons at her wrists had been loosed. Her wavy hair had come a little undone and wisps of hair curled in the faint perspiration all around her temples.

  When he glanced to her face, he had been captivated by her animation. Her pinched look of stern widowhood, which he had disliked, vanished. In that moment, he’d glimpsed the sweet, happy woman she’d been before she’d put on widow’s black.

  Jessie held herself rigidly, not allowing her spine to touch the back of the pew, the way her stepfather insisted a lady sat. To her right sat her mother, stepfather, and their twin sons. Jessie had tucked in Linc at her left to limit her stepfather’s scrutiny of him. If she did anything her stepfather didn’t like, he’d snatch her mother and half brothers away home and ruin the day. This worry kept Jessie on poisoned pins and needles.

  With the congregation, Jessie stood to sing. Her mind kept slipping back to Susan, who’d stayed home from her own church to prepare Linc’s birthday meal. Thank You, God, for Susan.

  Her mind deserted the church where she was singing and took her back five years to the day she had first met Susan. That Sunday morning she had walked to the Negro church, on the South Side in a warehouse along the lakefront, where the congregation met. Too poor to purchase pews, the congregation stood except for a few older men and women who sat on ladder-backed chairs at the front. Jessie hadn’t anticipated that being the only white face in a room filled with dark faces would make her feel so conspicuous.

  Unconcerned, Linc, only three then, toddled away from Jessie’s side, forward to one of the few older women who was without a child in her lap. In silent request, he held up his arms and the older woman bent, picked him up, and settled him on her navy skirt.

  Around her the congregation began singing, “On that great getting up mornin’, Hallelu, Hallelu…” The people around her swayed to the rhythm. Thunderstruck, she’d never heard such voices, lyrics, melodies, such joy! They stirred her beyond her imagining—awakening her blood, setting it to flow rich and sure through her veins, awakening her spirit from its deep mourning.

  The old preacher at the front led the con
gregation in song, his voice was cellar-deep, grave, powerful. The mood of the music shifted and a song about dying swirled into her heart. They sang this plaintive question: “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” over and over letting it build, rise, soar. When the low chorus, “Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble,” was sung and sung again, the pain of losing Will, of losing Margaret pierced Jessie’s heart anew.

  Silent tears coursed down her cheeks, unchecked. Oh, Margaret, Will, how can I go on without you? This freshly opened grief made her regret coming. She clasped her Bible to her breast as though it were her heart and she had to hold it together or it might shatter.

  Then like a wave of cold, clear lake water, a high soprano voice, joyous and true, broke over them, “Sing a ho that I had the wings of a dove. I’d fly away!” Excitement, energy, sensation shot through Jessie. “I’ll fly away!”

  She imagined Will and Margaret standing on either side of her, lifting them to joy. All this will pass away in time. I, too, will fly away. She let its harmonies carry her heavenward. “Yes, I will fly away!”

  Then with a full heart, Jessie watched the pastor open his well-worn Bible. In his compelling voice, he read the last chapter of John, of Christ appearing to the apostles as they were fishing in the Sea of Galilee and cooking a humble fishermen’s breakfast in the chilly, gray dawn on the shore. The picture he made so real took Jessie outside to the shores of Lake Michigan. She smelled the fresh lake air, heard the gulls screech, imagined the brisk morning wind on her face. Jessie tingled with the story of how Peter, when told he would die a martyr’s death, turned and asked if that would be John’s fate also.

  “You see Peter was the Rock,” the old preacher said. “Christ had chosen him to be the foundation of his church. But he still was irritated that he wasn’t the one Jesus loved best. And the Lord answered Peter, ‘What is it to you, Peter, if John live till I come again?’” The pastor repeated the question. His voice dropped, “You see, friends, Peter’s spirit was willing, but his flesh was weak. He wasn’t happy with just being the top rung of the ladder. He wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to be the one—not John—who rested his head upon Jesus’ chest.” His voice rose, “Did Christ strike Peter dead for this effrontery? Did he?”