A Harvest of Hope

by Lauraine Snelling

  “I’d like to hear the Norwegian.” As all three of them spoke together, Miriam bowed her head. She had grown up speaking and hearing grace in English. But still, this reminded her of the home she grew up in. A warm place swelled around her heart.

  A warm place, in this foreign country so unlike the home she knew. What was changing inside her?

  Chapter 21

  Astrid signed the last chart from evening rounds and stood up to stretch. It was getting dark already, the days growing shorter and shorter. Now to go home and relax for at least a little while. She was so weary.

  Boom!

  The whole hospital building shook, even the floor beneath her feet! Her reference books tumbled off their shelves. Someone screamed. Astrid headed for the door, since her office had no windows. What happened? Lord God?

  Out in the hall, she saw Corabell, white-faced, running for Mrs. Bach’s room. Were the patients safer left inside, or should they be evacuated immediately? She looked to the left. The window at the far end lay in shards on the floor. Thick smoke was rolling in.

  Mrs. Geddick charged out of the kitchen. “What to do? What to do?”

  Lord, what do we do? What happened?

  Mr. Bach came running out of his wife’s room. “I help?”

  Dear God, please guide us! “Everyone! Gather in the long ward. Bring all the patients there—it’s the farthest end from the smoke. Keep everyone together so we don’t miss anyone. I’m going outside to see if we are burning.”

  A thunderous explosion, building rocking, glass shattering, screaming, shouting.

  Miriam picked herself up off the floor. She’d been sitting in the chair in front of her desk, writing a letter. Good thing it had been in pencil, or ink would be all over the place. More screaming. She scrambled to her feet, mentally checking herself for any injuries. None.

  Smoke! Was the boardinghouse on fire? What had blown up? Out in the hall someone was banging on doors. She crossed the room, now strewn with pictures from the walls, anything not nailed down. Instead of the hall door, she headed through the bathroom to Vera and Corabell’s room. She didn’t bother to knock. She barged right in.

  “Vera! It’s me.”

  “I’m getting dressed.”

  The window had shattered in this room, and smoke was pouring in the window. “Are you all right?”

  “Just shaken. It threw me out of bed.” Vera grabbed a handful of hair and stuffed it into a snood. “Let’s go see if anyone needs help.”

  “We are supposed to head directly to the hospital.”

  “I know.” They ran out into the hallway. The far door slammed open, and a man came staggering through it. Blood was pouring down his face, covering it so that they couldn’t recognize him.

  Vera screamed.

  The man lurched against the wall and slid gracelessly to the floor.

  Miriam could not tell who he was.

  Vera could. She wailed, “Dr. Deming!”

  Astrid ran out the front door. To her left, a crackling fire raged, a column of flames and smoke that was engulfing the whole grain elevator! The heat seared her face. She stepped out far enough to see the hospital roof. No, they were not on fire yet, but the elevator was a fountain of flaming brands, and the burning fragments littered the ground, so they must be raining down on the roof too.

  She ran back inside. All the hospital windows on the elevator side had imploded. Glass littered the floor halfway down the hall.

  “I get buckets!” Mrs. Geddick ran off.

  “Corabell! Stay with the patients. Gray Cloud, Mr. Bach, come with me.” She ran up the stairs and through the door onto the roof. Burning brands littered the shingles.

  “We need buckets of water!” If only she could throw the burning pieces off the building before the roof caught fire. She could kick the ones close to the edge off onto the ground, but all these others . . .

  The clanging school bell told her the call for help had gone out. How long until someone would show up here?

  Gray Cloud was here with a broom. Clever girl! She swatted burning brands to the ground, but she could not sweep away the ones near the roof peak. Mr. Bach and Mrs. Geddick formed a line to pass up buckets of water someone was filling from the sink at the end of the ward. Astrid doused a burning brand, splashed the next. The next.

  “Astrid!” Daniel’s voice.

  “Up on the roof!”

  Daniel and Thorliff came running up the stairs, bringing more buckets as they came. “You go work the line and let us do this.”

  “No!” She splashed another burning scrap.

  “Yes! We need a longer line.”

  Several more men came up the stairs and the line lengthened, so they worked their way down the roof. One spot was burning into the shingles and spreading, so Astrid splashed water on it, more and more. She emptied her bucket and Daniel gave her another. Hand over hand, bucket by bucket. More people arrived. Someone brought a shovel and scooped burning pieces off the roof, flinging them out into the nothingness.

  Beside them, the grain elevator howled and crackled, the flames hidden by black smoke one moment, illuminated brightly in the night the next. Below, men were throwing water on the hospital’s siding, which was scorching and blackening. If the side nearest the elevator became hot enough to burst into flames, the hospital would be lost.

  People crowded out into the hallway in front of Miriam’s room. They were all shouting at the same time, “What happened?” Vera and Miriam had dropped down onto their knees beside Dr. Deming. He was barefoot and in shirtsleeves. A huge, burly fellow clad in long underwear staggered out of another door on the same side.

  Smoke was pouring in through the shattered hall window now.

  Miriam felt frantic, but she knew she couldn’t show it. She stood up. “Listen to me!” She shouted it louder. “Listen to me!”

  Suddenly the man in long underwear bellowed “Quiet!” with a voice that could shake trees.

  The panicky voices paused.

  Miriam shouted, “Listen! Get out until we know this building is not on fire. Take anyone who is injured over to the hospital. The doctors and nurses will be there. We are trained to help you.”

  She caught the burly man’s eye. “Thank you, sir. Now, can you go room to room and make certain everyone is getting out safely? We nurses were told to report to the hospital, so we will take Dr. Deming with us.”

  He grunted “Yup” in a voice so deep it rumbled.

  Babbling people were rushing for the exit doors. The big man began pounding on doors and opening them with a shout.

  The Great Chicago Fire was thirty years ago? Thirty-four. So many stories the old-timers had told of that terrible fire and of all the lives lost. As Vera and Miriam struggled to get Dr. Deming up on his feet and over to the stairs, Miriam tried to remember the life-saving tips she’d heard, of ways to escape, of ways not to escape. The stories had been etched so deeply into her memory.

  Now she could not think of a single one.

  Up on the hospital roof, Astrid was coughing. Everyone was coughing. What is happening downstairs? Do we get the patients out? Am I still needed up here?

  She paused to look west toward the main part of town and could see other fires now, easy to spot in the night darkness. Buildings were burning; embers had fallen. Smoke and flame here, a column of thick smoke and a ruddy glow there. What about her house? Other houses? Roiling black smoke, illuminated on its underside by red flame, was spreading across the other side of the tracks. The tent city was burning, the fire spreading out from several scattered places. They were going to lose all of it!

  Where had Gray Cloud gone? Here she came with a great armload of blankets. The men spread blankets and quilts out across the roof, throwing water on them, protecting the roof with a fragile skin of wetness.

  “You told Elizabeth to stay put?” she asked her brother.

  “I did. Thelma is off helping somewhere. Inga was asleep.”

  “You go. We can handle this now.” D
aniel, his face sweaty and soot-blackened, nodded Astrid toward the stairs. “We’ll let you know if you need to evacuate.”

  Astrid headed for the stairs and down past the line of bucket passers. “Thank you. Good job. Thank you,” she kept saying as she passed. She closed the door behind her, trying to keep the smoke away.

  In the far ward she nodded and smiled. Terrified patients and a frightened Corabell all watched her enter. “Please just stay where you are. We are safe here for the moment.”

  Corabell was trembling. “Miriam and Vera are here. They brought two injured people into the examining rooms.”

  Astrid nodded and hurried out. The front door opened and a mother in a babushka rushed in with a child in her arms. “Burned. Burned.”

  She held the ward door open for her and stepped aside. “Please come into the ward. Corabell, get some ice and do what you can for her.”

  She entered the first examination room, surprised to see Dr. Deming.

  “Window blew in. It’s just superficial cuts, I believe, but they look terrible. Bled a lot.” The dentist sat on the examining table while Miriam removed the towels they had applied to stanch the bleeding.

  Dr. Deming’s head jerked. “Ow!”

  “Glass shard. Get the tweezers, Miriam.” Astrid looked over his injuries carefully. “I agree with your diagnosis. Some will need sutures. Miriam? Can you handle that?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Press against each cut before you close it and dress it. He’ll tell you, I’m sure, if there’s still a glass splinter in it. I hate to say this, but the quicker the better, but not so hasty that you make a mistake, of course. Where is Vera?”

  “Next door with another patient. A heavy bleeder. It might be an artery.”

  Astrid left that room and stepped into the next. Vera looked up from the man’s arm that she had pressed firmly against the table. “The facial ones look worse than they are. This is the bad one.”

  “Then let’s go in and fix it right now.” O Lord, how I wish Elizabeth were here. But we will deal with each case as it comes. If you would send Mor, it would sure be a help.

  “Vera, bring dressings, sutures, and carbolic acid. Sir, I’m sorry,” she told him, “we don’t have time to prep properly or give an anesthetic time to take hold.”

  “Just get it done.”

  She did so. He did not wince, but she did. She stepped back when she was through. “Most of those will probably leave scars.”

  “I’d say right now, that’s the least of my worries. How can I help you here at the hospital?”

  “I have no idea. Perhaps they can use you to throw water out there. No. I take that back. Your arm might begin bleeding again. Do not use it for any heavy lifting whatsoever.”

  The fellow nodded and hurried out.

  Deborah MacCallister arrived, very much out of breath.

  “What is happening out there? What is happening to Blessing?”

  Astrid gathered up the bloody rags and tossed them into a corner. “The bank and post office are burning. Tent Town is lost. Most of the men are in the bucket lines, and now women and children are passing buckets also. They are dousing roofs and walls, trying to keep other buildings from catching on fire. So far the hospital here is all right. The burning debris from the elevator started little fires all over, but most are sheds and barns.”

  “How about the houses?”

  “We lost some. As if we needed more people without homes. Most were lucky, though. All that rain we’ve had recently soaked the shingles.”

  “Excuse us, please. We be coming through.” The Irish brogue announced the speaker before Thomas Devlin could get through the door. He and three other men were struggling with a blanket that carried a wounded man. Everyone was wearing black smoke like an ugly mask.

  “Over here.” Astrid beckoned him to the examination table. “What do we have?”

  “A ladder collapsed and dumped this poor fellow. Sure and the leg be broken and maybe more besides. He took a wicked fall.” They lifted the man onto the table. The three others hurried out.

  A terrified woman with three equally frightened children huddled in the corner.

  “His wife and children there. Arlen and Helen Nyland of Detroit. Came to Blessing where they heard there might be work.” He hesitated. “Their tent be gone.”

  As they spoke, Astrid probed the leg. “The fibula is broken but apparently not the tibia. That’s the shinbone. Excellent. We needn’t worry about traction.”

  Corabell hovered nearby. “Doctor, we’re running low on ice, and there are four more burn casualties.” The door behind her opened. “Five.”

  “Use ice until it runs out completely, then use clean cloths soaked in cool water.”

  “Yes’m.” Corabell hurried off.

  Astrid pressed around a knot on her patient’s head. His eyes opened.

  She smiled. “Oh good. You’re back. Where do you hurt besides your leg?”

  “Right arm and shoulder.”

  “Ah, I see. Your shoulder is dislocated. The pain is going to be severe when we put it back in place, but then it should feel much better.” She turned to Father Devlin. “Have you ever helped reset a shoulder before?”

  “Can’t say that I have, but I be muckle fine at following instructions.”

  “Good.” She showed him how to hold the arm, told him what to do, and got her hands in the right positions. “Three, two, one, now.” The shoulder slid back into place as their patient yelped. Father Devlin heaved a sigh of relief. The fellow wasn’t going to be standing up soon with that leg, so she stabilized his arm with a swathe instead of a sling and turned her attention to the leg.

  She motioned to Vera, who had just come back in. “We’re going to set this broken leg temporarily and look at it more carefully tomorrow. I need splints and bandages. We’ll ice it and see if we can get the swelling down before we cast it, assuming there is ice. No, save the ice for burns. We’ll use cool cloths.”

  Between Father Devlin, Astrid, and the two nurses, they set the leg, splinted it, and moved him to a bed in the other private room with his leg lined with cool rags. His wife and children settled on thin pallets on the floor by his bed. The children instantly fell asleep.

  There were more burn victims, mostly from Tent Town. And more lacerations from imploding windows. They were seeing mostly women and children, and Astrid belatedly realized why. Their men were out in the streets helping fight the fires.

  Astrid looked at the clock. Six forty five. What was happening out there? She had to know.

  She walked through the hospital, her hospital. The glass had been cleaned up at the end of the hall and in the room where Mrs. Bach was now sleeping soundly. In the first ward, the glass was gone and the beds were cleaned and remade. One of the children who had severe burns was sleeping in one bed along with her mother. Two other children shared a pallet on the floor. She made her way up the stairs and out onto the roof.

  The sky was starting to pink up in the east.

  “Hello, Astrid, or should I say Dr. Bjorklund?”

  “You know what, Toby Valders, I don’t care what you call me, but how come you are up here?”

  “Daniel asked me to check one more time for any hot spots. I’ve got a couple extra buckets of water up here just in case, but these are all cold now. We’ll have to patch it and pray for no rain, or you’ll have leaks for sure.”

  “Leaks we can deal with. Fire, no. I hear we can bless the rain for so few buildings going up. I was afraid for a while we’d lose the whole town.”

  “We came mighty close. We saved the boardinghouse, Penny’s store, Garrisons’, and the soda shop. Steeper roofs made raking burning material off them easier, and the rain had soaked the shingles. We ought to build steep roofs on all the houses. Good thing we had metal roofs on the machinery plant and the flour mill. Almost lost that anyway. Had the flour mill been running, it would have gone up for sure.”

  “So I have a home to return to?”
>
  “You do, but I’m sure Mrs. Jeffers has taken in a family or two.”

  “Good for her. How bad is the boardinghouse?”

  “The new section is damaged the worst. We’ll have to re-side the whole east wall and replace some studs. Repair those upper three rooms. The bottom three have smoke and water damage, I think. As far as we can tell, the night watchman who cleans the elevator is our only person missing, but of course there may well be more. If he was working in there, he’s likely gone.”

  “Thank you for checking our roof.”

  “Welcome.”

  The pink was brightening into salmon.

  Astrid went back downstairs. The ward lights were dimmed so people could sleep. Miriam, Deborah, and Vera were tidying up the second examination room.

  She hoped she did not appear as weary as these three did. “Miriam, Vera, since it looks like things have settled down, you have a choice. Return to your rooms, if they are livable, or sleep in one of the spare beds here. Who is on duty?”

  “There are no spare beds, ma’am.” Miriam licked her lips. “Corabell’s on duty. She’s checking on patients now.”

  “Where are Gray Cloud and Dawn Breaking?”

  “Cleaning up the operating room again. We had to do some more suturing.”

  “Was any kind of charting kept?”

  “I wrote down a list of those we treated, but that was all the farther I got. I think I got them all, but I’m not certain. They came in so quickly.” Miriam dropped the mop into its bucket.

  “I’d say that was doing well. And to think we worked out emergency procedures just a couple days ago.” Astrid debated, go home or remain here longer just in case?

  “Look, I had yesterday off,” Deborah said, “so why don’t you go home and get some sleep. If we need you, we’ll call.”

  “No you won’t. The telephone company burned down.”

  “Fine. Then I will send someone to get you.”

  “Send Gray Cloud and Dawn Breaking home too, as soon as they are finished.”

  “I’ll stay too,” Miriam said. “I’m on day shift today.”