by Leisha Kelly
Having a job to do made Emmie smile, but Harry immediately protested.
“Ah, if Emmie’s gonna play with him, why do I have to?”
“Just keep an eye on them for me,” I insisted. “Till we have supper ready.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Why me?”
“Because Sam is with Thelma, Berty’s outside, Katie’s in the garden, and Samuel and your father and the other boys aren’t in from the field yet. But they’ll be here any minute, and it’d do well for you to be found at something helpful.”
“Oh, all right,” he said. “Oughta be Rorey doin’ it, though.”
I couldn’t argue there. She was the one who owed us a bit of helpfulness, to be certain. But she was off in her own world again. If I hadn’t needed Sarah’s help so much right then, I might’ve sent her out to see about Rorey. Maybe then they would’ve gotten to giggling and talking the way they’d been doing since they were six, and come in together ready to set their hands to business.
With Georgie occupied and Thelma resting, I turned my attention back to the chicken, hoping I could get the meal further along before everybody else showed up ravenously hungry. Kate came in with fresh-washed turnips and started peeling them for me. Lizbeth should be here any minute. She’d be bringing food and her helpful hands, and I was looking forward to her visit.
Georgie squealed from the next room, and I ignored his cries to make sure all the chicken was frying. But then Thelma gave a holler, and I couldn’t ignore that.
“I’ll watch the chicken, Mom,” Sarah said, looking a little white.
I ran to the bedroom to see what in the world was wrong. “Baby kicking again?” I asked hopefully.
“No,” Thelma said weakly. “I—I don’t think so, Mrs. Wortham.”
“It’s the pains started, then?” I was feeling a little weak myself.
“I don’t know!” Thelma cried. “It weren’t the same kind of feeling I had before.”
She tried to get up, though I don’t know why. She was straining, pulling herself toward the edge of the bed, when her water broke. She looked up at me with fear plain in her face.
“Lay back down,” I told her. “And don’t you worry about the mess. I’ll get everything cleaned up right around you.” I turned my eyes to young Sam. He was looking pretty scared himself. “I wish I could say for you to take her to the hospital,” I started to say. “But—”
“No, Mrs. Wortham,” he interrupted me. “We can’t pay a hospital. Besides, Thelma don’t want that.”
“We might not ought to move her now, anyway. But I think you should go and find Dr. Howell—”
“No!” Thelma protested. “Don’t send Sammy. Please! I want him here with me.”
She grasped at her husband’s hand like it was some kind of life rope. I thought she was probably right, that he ought to stay. At least she was having no complaint about me wanting the doctor brought in.
“George and Samuel will be back any minute,” I told them, trying to sound calm. “Lizbeth and Ben will be here before long too. I’ll send whoever gets here first. And I expect they’d better stop and see about picking up your mother too?”
Thelma nodded, reaching her free hand for the quilt I’d scrunched up out of her way. “So cold in here all of a sudden,” she said. “How’d that happen?”
“Oh, honey, you’re wet, that’s what it is.” I yelled into the next room. “Sarah! Will you bring me some towels?”
I had no easy time of it, stripping the bedsheets with Thelma still on them, but I didn’t want her getting up. Sam helped her off with her wet clothes, and I got her one of Samuel’s nightshirts, knowing anything of mine would be too small. I made up the bed again with two sturdy old tablecloths underneath the bottom sheet. Sarah briefly stood in the doorway to hand over an armload of towels, but she didn’t linger long enough to ask a single question.
“You tell me,” I said as she was leaving, “just as soon as your father gets here.”
Tucking the quilt around Thelma, I thought, Why in the world couldn’t Samuel just have stayed home working in the woodshop today? I knew he and Franky had a few orders to fill. Sure, there was harvesting to be done, poor as the crop would be after all the dry weather, but I would have far preferred him to be here. As it was, there was nobody but Sam and me who could drive, and we were both pretty obligated to stay.
Where were Lizbeth and her husband, Ben Porter? They were never very late getting anywhere. If they were here, I could send Ben right back to town and have Lizbeth help me till the doctor came.
Lord, help us! How hard it’d been for Lizbeth watching her siblings being born, especially Emmie Grace. Wilametta Hammond had felt something “different” at that birth, and I felt almost faint thinking about it. The baby had been breech. Emma Graham had been there to do the midwifing, and she had her trouble bringing them through, but she did it with more strength than I could muster. How I wished I had dear old Emma with me now.
“I’m awful trouble to you, ain’t I?” Thelma asked.
“No.” I sniffed. “I was just wishing I had Emma here, that’s all.”
“Right here in her old room.” Thelma nodded. “I never did figure I’d have me a baby right here in my old Sunday school teacher’s room. I wish she was here too.” She scrunched up her face and tried hard not to holler, but I knew pretty plainly what she was feeling. Sam did too.
“Maybe I oughta check the field and send Pa or Kirk on into town for your mother,” he suggested. “Wouldn’t take me long. I’d be right back.”
God must’ve favored keeping Thelma’s husband at her side, because she didn’t even have time to protest the idea.
“Mom!” Sarah called from the kitchen. “I can see them coming!”
I didn’t know for sure who she meant, but I didn’t wait a minute wondering. I ran straight on out, clear out the back door. And I could see Samuel coming across the field with four more, all of them looking like men. I knew which one was our Robert, and I could tell George Hammond by his hat. The other two, William and Kirk, were so easily the tallest. I didn’t take the time to consider where Franky could be. I just went running out to meet them with my apron flapping in the breeze.
“Juli, honey, what’s the matter?” Samuel called as soon as we were close enough. It wasn’t every day I came out of the house running, that was for sure.
“I need you to hurry to town,” I told him between puffs of breath. “Thelma’s water broke. She’s about to have that baby, and I don’t want to be without some help. She wants her mother, but I think we need Dr. Howell too.” I stopped and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I don’t have the supper ready yet.”
Samuel smiled. “I couldn’t expect you to be cooking. I’ll go. Now try and relax.”
As I hurried back toward the house I could see Rorey scurrying down out of that tree. George hadn’t seen her. I knew he hadn’t. But I didn’t say anything about it.
Berty came running out of the barn with the old gray mother cat in his arms. “Mom! Mom! Looks like she’s been in a fight or somethin’!”
“Tarnation, boy!” George exclaimed at his son. “Let the cat take care of herself. You’s about to be an uncle again.”
Bert set Ladycat in the dust and stared at us. “Really? Already?”
“Lizbeth’s comin’,” Kirk told us quickly, and I turned my head to see their little car coming down the road.
“Thank the Lord,” I whispered.
“Send Ben,” George suggested. “Be good for him to get hisself involved.”
It was a departure for George to be so obliging about calling for a doctor, I knew. But George had changed some since his wife died.
Lizbeth was clearly surprised to see so many of us outside. She grew a little pale when I told her what was going on. “You go with Mr. Wortham, will you please?” she asked her husband. He answered with a nod.
Robert and I helped Lizbeth carry their covered dishes. Unlike Thelma and Sam, they had the time and energy, and
the means, to share their cooking. And no little ones running around yet.
“Go ahead and take our car,” Lizbeth ordered. Ben stayed in the driver’s seat, and Samuel leaned and kissed me before piling in.
But Lizbeth didn’t say another word to Ben, and he backed out the drive in silence. They’d been so close in their two years of marriage that even at a moment like this I noticed the quiet between them as something strange. But I couldn’t say anything.
“Might rain tonight,” Berty told us. “Look at them clouds. It ain’t rained in a long time.”
Lizbeth glanced his way. “I hope it does. But with a baby comin’, it’s not somethin’ I’ll be dwellin’ on.”
When she walked in the kitchen, she took a quick look around. Sarah was at the stove, Katie was still cutting turnips, and Rorey had come in and started setting plates on the table.
“Oh, Mrs. Wortham,” Lizbeth said with a sigh. “Here you are again, right in the middle of helpin’ us out.”
“I was just thinking how glad I am that you’re here to help me.”
She went with me straight in to see Thelma and gave her older brother a hug before sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Lizbeth,” Thelma said, trying to sound casual. “How’s the teaching comin’?”
“No complaints.” Lizbeth smiled. “But I hear you’re fixin’ to make Pa a granddaddy again, and on Willy’s birthday too.”
“Yeah. Somebody should tell him I’m sorry for spoilin’ the party.”
“Won’t bother him any. He’d rather be fishin’, anyway.” Thelma laughed. “He oughta take Georgie and all the boys.”
“You feelin’ all right?”
Thelma didn’t respond to that. “Where’s Ben?”
“Gone with Mr. Wortham to fetch your mother and the doctor.”
I couldn’t quite discern the look in Thelma’s eyes, but she forced a smile. “I’m glad you sent ’em ’fore they could come in an’ see me in this nightshirt. You keep all them boys outta here, will you?”
She was trying to make light of everything, but just as she finished talking, she squeezed at the quilt with one hand and at Sam’s hand with the other.
“Pretty good already, huh?” Lizbeth asked. “How far apart?”
“We don’t know,” Sam told her.
“Haven’t timed them,” I admitted, wondering where my head had been. But maybe it didn’t matter if we knew that or not.
Georgie came bursting in the room with Emmie Grace right behind him. “Auntie Lizbef!” he called. “Auntie Lizbef!”
Lizbeth scooped up the little boy and planted a kiss on his forehead.
“Look at you,” Thelma told her after a big breath. “You oughta be a mama. Been thinkin’ ’long those lines?”
“No.” Lizbeth shook her head emphatically. “I’ll leave you the pleasure.”
“Auntie Lizbef p’ay wif me?” Georgie was asking.
“In a little while, sugar,” she told him. “I want to sit with your mama a minute first.”
“Is Thelma sick?” little Emmie whispered to me, understandably surprised that Thelma had come over and gone straight to bed.
“No, honey. She just needs to rest because the baby’s due.”
“Oh.” Emmie looked at us with a very serious expression. “Does that mean it’s time to get borned?”
“Yes,” I told her. “But not quite yet. Not for a few hours, so far as we expect.”
“Oh. That’s a while.” She turned on her heels and ran for the kitchen. “I want to frost the cake!”
I could hear George Hammond and the big boys coming into the kitchen, and they were surely hungry. “I’d better feed this crew,” I told Lizbeth. “Wish I’d had the food done in time to send something along with Samuel and Ben.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. We’ll save them somethin’ hot. You need anythin’, Thelma? Cup a’ tea or anythin’?”
“No. Nothin’, please. Sammy, you go ahead though, if you want.”
“I’ll take a plate when the time comes,” he said. “Everybody else here?”
Of course he knew their brother Joe was away with the army at Fort Campbell in Kentucky. It was a bit of a worry to all of us, but just a part of life, seeing boys become men.
“I haven’t seen Franky yet,” I told him. “Maybe he stopped at your father’s place to finish up some chores.” I wondered on that a little. Franky had been working field with the rest, and I would’ve thought they’d manage chores at the other farm together before any of them came back here. But maybe Franky had offered to finish up so the others could come on.
George stepped in the doorway with a smile for his eldest son. “What you s’pose you got there?” he asked with a chuckle. “Twins?”
“Lordy, I hope not!” Thelma exclaimed. “One’s enough work.”
Young Sam disagreed. “Mama used to say that if one takes up all your time, then ten can’t be any harder.”
Thelma squeezed Sam’s hand again as another pain swept over her. But it would surely be a while yet, and Lizbeth was with her, so I started for the kitchen. George followed me, looking a little anxious. “These times,” he said, “they never was easy. Don’t you think Sam oughta step outta there? It’s gonna be a womanly situation, ’fore long.”
Most people felt that way, I knew. But I figured it ought to be up to the mother. “He can stay just as long as Thelma wants him to stay.”
“Ain’t it bad luck?”
“Why would it be? God made him the head of his house. I see no reason he shouldn’t be watching over them.”
“I always used to be pacin’ around outside. Even the ones that was born in the winter. Wilametta shooed me out. Blamed me for ever’ one a’ them babies.”
I had nothing to say to that. I didn’t remember him arriving at all until after Emma Grace was already born, but there was no telling about the other nine.
Sarah was mashing the potatoes, and Rorey was standing right next to her, stirring Lizbeth’s pot of green beans. Funny how she could make herself look like she’d been working all along. Emma Grace stood on a chair, anxiously holding the frosting bowl.
“Just a minute, Emmie,” Sarah was telling her. “I’ve got my hands full.”
Indeed she did, making gravy, tending the chicken, and mashing those potatoes, practically at the same time. Bless her.
“You want me to help with the cake?” Katie asked, setting two kinds of pickles and a jar of rhubarb jam from the pantry next to her generous dish of raw turnip slices in the middle of the table. Bless her too.
“I want to frost it! Please!” Emmie begged.
“You’re gonna need a hand,” Katie told her. “That’s a big job.”
Emmie nodded her agreement, and I waved them on. Sometimes I didn’t know what I’d do without Sarah and Kate. They were my best helpers. Katie was not yet thirteen, a relative we’d taken in about six years ago, and she seemed to make our family complete.
I moved to the stove, offering to take over with the chicken.
“Are you sure?” Sarah asked me. “Doesn’t Thelma need you?”
“She will. In a little while. I think I can feed the rest of you first.”
I’d husked a pot of sweet corn earlier, and the girls had moved it to the back burner to get some heat. Wouldn’t need much. Most of the kids would eat corn on the cob raw, they loved it so well. I lifted the lid, just to see if the water was bubbling.
“Reckon Franky’ll be here in time for dessert?” It was Robert asking from the doorway.
“We can very well wait for him, Robert John, as you ought to know. Is he doing the milking at home?”
“We did the milking over there, Mom. He went to find Mrs. Post. Said he was going to get another book from her.”
I nodded. Just yesterday, I’d finished reading a Dickens novel to him. He’d be anxious to have something new in the house, even if he couldn’t read it for himself. And besides, it was Friday. He always went to see the schoolteacher on Frida
ys, begging a book or a map or something for me to go over with him at home. I should have remembered that. Franky was always hungry for something more.
William sneered. “Why’s he bother?”
Willy had always hated school and didn’t go anymore unless his father made him, which was far too seldom. Today none of the older boys had gone. Like most of the teenagers in the district, they were helping with harvest.
“Franky likes books,” I told them. “You boys should read, or at least listen, more often.”
Robert and William both frowned. Somehow they’d gotten the notion that it was babyish to be read to and sissy to be caught with a book on your own. From Willy, such an attitude wasn’t any real surprise. But my own son? He’d always been such a good student.
Rorey sided with them. “I don’t know how Franky can stand that stuff you read to him. It’s dead dull, if you ask me.”
“And stupid,” Willy added. “Franky just don’t want to admit he’s stupid.”
Even from the corner of my eye I could see little Emmie Grace turning her face toward me. Her father, Franky’s father, had come in and was standing right beside me, taking a whiff of that chicken, and he didn’t say anything. But I couldn’t let it go.
“I don’t want to hear another such word in my house,” I told them. “There’s not one of you stupid nor even Julia close to it, and I don’t want to hear of it again! You know Franky. You know he’s got a special talent, and he’s sharp as a tack—”
“I sure have appreciated you and Samuel feelin’ that way,” George finally decided to break in. “Don’t know what Franky’d ever a’ had otherwise, if you know what I mean.”
I was suddenly so mad I could have hit him with the pot holder I had in my hand. How could he be so blind? Instead of standing up for his precious son and rebuking William’s cruelty, he was practically endorsing the unkind words! Didn’t know what Franky would’ve had? Indeed! I happened to know that George didn’t read any better than his son, though he claimed it was because he’d never been to school.
“Way I see it, your Samuel give Franky a future,” George continued. “Folks is startin’ to know his work now.”
