by Ami McKay
My dear little Wrennie is growing so fast. She has two teeth already, and she thinks she’s ready to walk. Her legs, however, do not wish to accommodate her just yet. Her hair is as red as ever, only she has much more of it. I guess she takes after her Auntie Max.
Life on Spider Hill is grand, as I have had a bit of extra happiness these past few months. It seems I have found myself a lover. Please don’t scold me for not mentioning it before now, but I thought it best to keep it to myself to make sure it would hold. I know you won’t think it as scandalous as most people of the Bay find it to be, but the man I’ve been sharing my bed with is none other than Hart Bigelow, the brother of my scheming dead husband. Do not worry, he’s not a bit like his brother. (Charlie can attest to it.) He has broached the subject of marriage, but I’m content to leave things as they are for now, despite the shock we are giving to the community.
Come visit in the spring, and perhaps we’ll have a double wedding.
Here’s to love!
Dora
“I ask the support of no one, neither to kill someone for me, gather a bouquet, correct a proof, nor go with me to the theatre. I go there on my own, as a man, by choice and when I want flowers, I go on foot, by myself, to the Alps.”
—George Sand
47
BY SPRING, HART WAS coming up to Spider Hill almost every day. He stays late; neither of us caring what anyone else has to say about it. His mother can hardly stand to look at me. She shuts her eyes and pretends to pray whenever I walk by her pew at church. Hart says she’s still grieving over Archer and not to worry over it, but I feel that it’s something more, that she’s got it in her head that I’m somehow to blame for Archer’s death and that I’ll be the end of Hart as well. Mother hasn’t said a word, but she beams whenever she sees us together, and I’ve heard Father mumble to himself on more than one occasion, “He should just make an honest woman out of her and be done with it.”
My dear sisters in the O.K.S. can’t stop talking about it, teasing me at every meeting. Precious is now a “junior” sister, and the worst offender of all when it comes to trying to get me to talk.
“Aren’t you afraid of the Bigelow curse? All the men in that family die young.”
Sadie laughed. “All the more reason to have him now…” She was cutting my hair with my kitchen shears, snipping off what had grown since I came back to the Bay. “Stop giggling, Dora, or you’ll wind up looking like Bertine’s girl, Lucy, cut it for you. You saw what she did to her dolly.”
Mabel looked me over, tilting her head to the side, circling around the back of the chair. “It suits you, Dora.” She folded her hair up by her ears, turning her head for advice. “What do you think, you guess it might suit me too?”
After we’d all had a round or two of tea with mitts, I took the scissors and bobbed every one of the Occasional Knitters’ tresses. Aunt Fran’s sure to come after me for taking off her daughter’s lovely curls, but Precious insisted she join in the ritual. It certainly makes her look sophisticated. Maybe even old enough to get engaged to Sam Gower.
While I was cutting Bertine’s hair, she told me the news that her sister-in-law, Irene, was now with child. “They don’t have enough for her to go down to Canning to have it, not that she’d want to anyway. You think you could help her, Dora? I’ll come and lend a hand. Even with two months to go, she’s getting some big and starting to fret over what she’ll do. It’s her first one.”
Ginny was holding up my hand mirror so Sadie could see her hair. “She should come here and stay with you at Spider Hill. It’s just you and Wrennie in this big house; there’s plenty of room. It’s not like you have a husband to worry about.”
Sadie snatched the mirror away from Ginny. “Maybe Dora likes it that way. Maybe she doesn’t want another husband and she’s tired of catching babies. Don’t you ever think before things come out of your mouth?”
“I wasn’t finished with what I was saying,” Ginny pouted. “I meant to pay Dora a compliment. If it weren’t for my staying with her, I wouldn’t have my little Eli, and I might not be here myself.”
Mabel was sitting in Miss B.’s rocker, knitting. “It would make things easier for you—if you decided to go back to midwifing, I mean. You’d be right here at home, and we’d be close at hand to help.”
Bertine now held the mirror, peering at my face as I concentrated on keeping her hair straight. “You’re not saying anything, Dora. What’s wrong?”
I looked into the mirror. “I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do.”
“Irene’s place is pretty small, but she could come to my house if you don’t want to have her here. I understand. It’s your home, after all.”
“It’s not that.”
“What is it, then?”
“It’s…”
Bertine scowled at me. “Brady Ketch is sitting in jail. You saved Ginny and her baby. What can the doc say against you now?”
I brushed the stray hairs from the back of her neck. “He didn’t say a word the morning after Ginny’s birthing. He just got in that car of his and drove off. I haven’t heard from him since.”
Sadie laughed. “Maybe he’s scared you’ll come after him again with a pitchfork.”
I nodded. “I probably shouldn’t have done that. The longer he’s silent, the longer I feel like he’s planning something. I wouldn’t be surprised if I don’t wake up tomorrow to see my old friend Constable McKinnon at the door.”
Ginny smiled and nudged me in the arm. “Then we’ll all have to take up our pitchforks and run him out of the Bay.”
“Ginny’s right: let’s go after him before he comes after you.” Bertine was smiling, her foot tapping. “Let’s do something about Dr. Thomas, once and for all.”
~ April 20, 1919
Bertine and Sadie delivered letters to local women, asking for their support at a Mother’s May Day march in Canning. Precious and Mabel have sewn a large banner for the women to carry, and I have agreed to speak (to anyone who’ll listen).
If women lose the right to say where and how they birth their children, then they will have lost something that’s as dear to life as breathing.
I’m tired of being afraid.
Hundreds March on Canning
Women and Children First!—This was the banner that led the way through the streets of Canning, Nova Scotia, this past Wednesday afternoon. Over two hundred women from communities all along North Mountain came together to raise their voices in support of rural midwives. They did not come alone. Each woman had at least one child in tow, some still babes in arms. Their chanting and singing made quite a stir in our little town, stopping all business for the rest of the day.
Mrs. Bertine Tupper had this to say about the gathering: “Men have the right to tell their wives what they expect for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but they want to refuse women the privilege of saying where they’re going to have their babies. Anyone who believes that’s right hasn’t got the sense God gave a goat.”
Mrs. Kathleen Jess of Baxter’s Harbour told the harrowing tale of her sister, Ellie’s, untimely death in childbirth. “The midwife, Mrs. Sommer, came to see if she could lend a hand. Then Ellie’s husband brought the doctor. That Dr. Thomas, he pushed the old midwife right out. She begged at the door, telling him she knew the baby was breech, that she could help, but he turned her away, saying he could take care of it. He took care of it alright. By morning both my sister and her baby were gone. He just stood there, wringing his hands, telling us that he’d done all he could.”
Mrs. Ginny Jessup told of her recent birthing, a healthy baby boy born at the Scots Bay home of midwife Dora Rare. “She just knows what to do. She had the tradition handed down to her. Just like a master shipbuilder, or a farmer who knows his family’s land, she knows what to do. Any doctor could learn a thing or two from her.”
Miss Rare gave an eloquent speech to a crowd gathered in front of the Canning Maternity Home. She spoke of her experiences as a midwife, as well as th
e dangers rural women face in travelling down the mountain while in the last stages of labour. She called for “co-operation and trust” between doctors, midwives and the women they serve. Her final thoughts gave way to a roar of cheers and praise. “When a ship is sinking, the men all cry, ‘Women and children first!’ Sisters and mothers of North Mountain, of Scots Bay, Blomidon, Medford, Delhaven, Halls Harbour, Ross Creek, Gospel Woods and Baxter’s Harbour, do not let them forget: Women and children first, women and children first!”
The Canning Register,
May 2, 1919
~ May 30, 1919
Bertine took this clipping from the Canning Register and passed it down the pew during church, stuck between the pages of a hymnal.
Canning Maternity Home to Close
The Farmer’s Assurance Company has announced that they are shutting down operations of the Canning Maternity Home, effective immediately. Dr. Gilbert Thomas made this statement: “On behalf of myself and the Farmer’s Assurance Company of Kings County, I would like to thank all of the mothers and families who have sought care at this fine facility. I regret to report that I cannot find good reason to maintain my practice in your fair town at this time. The need is simply not great enough to support such an endeavour.”
Those women in the area still holding a Mother’s Share are welcome to seek obstetrical care at Dr. Thomas’s new practice—in Halifax.
I’ve decided to offer up Spider Hill as a birthing house for the Bay. These are the only things I will ask of the women who come here:
• No woman or child shall be turned away.
• No payment shall be required.
• No idle gossip or cruel words shall cross the threshold.
• No one may attend a birth unless requested by the mother.
• Mother and child (or children) shall stay in confinement for at least nine days after the birth, or until the mother’s been churched.
• Well-wishers may not enter unless the mother approves.
• The mother’s home must be clean and tidy, her household chores looked after, and supper enough for a week must be waiting for her when she returns home.
When I finished my tea tonight, I turned the cup over. One, two, three times round. I sees a pretty little house, right full with babies.
epilogue
Electricity Comes to Scots Bay
Twenty-two years after the first electric street-lights were lit in Canning, power poles have finally found their way up North Mountain to the last community on the line—Scots Bay. Mr. Joseph Berch of Kings County Electric said, “It’s been an enormous undertaking and we are grateful to the people of Scots Bay for their patience and understanding.” Many homes, as well as the Union Church, the Seaside Centre and the Scots Bay School can expect to have electricity by the end of the month.
The Canning Register,
July 4, 1944
THERE WASN’T MUCH CALL for three-masted schooners after the war. The shipyard went to waste, and Father spent his days knocking on other men’s doors, looking to help them with “whatever needs doing.” It wasn’t so much that he needed a job, it was just that he couldn’t stop moving. Right up to his death, I never saw him sitting with his hands folded in his lap, quiet. People came and left the Bay, more leaving than staying, feeling there was something better out in the world for them, something bigger. Those of us who stayed behind still can’t say this place is on the way to anything else, we just call it home.
My home on Spider Hill, this birth house, has seen her share of life and babies. Of course, there’s fewer of them now that every other place has a car parked out front and every other young man has gone to war again. Most of those boys were born in my house; they are my sons too. Still, women come to me for “whatever needs doing,” a bottle of Miss B.’s cough syrup, a cup of tea with mitts, a few minutes’ rest with her feet up and my hands on her belly to say, “Everything’s fine, just fine.” Some of them, when the time comes, have gotten quite good at waiting too long to go to the hospital, their husbands roaring them up the road and to my door. I never mind it.
Mabel had two more here…
Bertine had a boy.
Precious married Sam Gower…and was soon carrying twins.
Pregnant or not, the Occasional Knitters never miss a Wednesday night.
No woman or child shall be turned away.
There have been those who have stayed here a day, a week and even a month or more. Every woman needs a sanctuary. Judith left Boston and ran away to Paris with a poet, leaving Rachael heartsick. The poor girl came to Scots Bay and hid herself up in the ell chamber, filling it with her sadness and painting after painting of the dark, brooding sea.
And Wrennie, my little moss-baby, grew up caring for the women as much as I did. She was happy to sit by the bed, holding a young mother’s hand, or to share her dolls with two little girls who had lost their home in a fire. Always a beautiful girl, she’s outgrown her honest eyes, not quite sure how to tame the fire that sits in her heart, a fire that can send any man begging at her window. At twenty-eight, she’s gone to Boston and back so many times I’ve lost count.
Every summer, Charlie arrives with Maxine, smiling and happy to have his wife by his side. I always expect them about this time of year, when the weather gets hot in Boston and “the goddammed molasses has started to ooze from the cracks in the sidewalks of Beantown again.” When Max is in the Bay, you can be sure the rum and talk won’t stop flowing ’til she’s gone. She always comes bearing gifts. “What kind of auntie would I be if I didn’t bring plenty of books for Wrennie and plenty of hooch for Mommy?” And so Wrennie was raised on healthy doses of Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, James Joyce and F. Scott Fitzgerald, as well as brown bread, black raspberries and shad.
When Wrennie was five, Max brought her a hand-cranked Victrola. Wrennie giggled and laughed, “Auntie Max, that’s the funniest flower I’ve ever seen!” But when Max made it go and the music started, Wrennie fell in love. She spun around the room, holding out her arms, eyes closed. Tangos, waltzes, the Charleston, she loved them all. Long summer nights all through July and August, we’d drag Wrennie’s “singing flower” out to the porch, and people from all around the Bay would come and listen, sometimes dancing in the dooryard.
Hart has remained my dancing partner. Always my lover, never my husband. He still asks for my hand from time to time, but never complains when I say I prefer it this way. Even as the Widow Bigelow lay in bed dying, she scolded me and blamed my refusals on my being born different, on my having lived with Miss B. or on my being “the girl who went to Boston.” I should have told her it was more that I didn’t want to end up like her—having married and lost two husbands, two brothers, two Bigelow men. I think Miss B. would have a good laugh over it all. That Missy Austen always seemed to be endin’ her books with a weddin’. Catherine marryin’ Henry, Miss Bennett marryin’ Mr. Darcy, then fin, the end. Seems to me what she’s sayin’ is that once you’re hitched, it might as well be the end.
I plan to stay just far enough from Hart to keep it all from ending. He can have his mother’s rattly old house of rooster red. I’ll stay perched up here on Spider Hill, catching a baby or two when they come, singing Miss B.’s lullabies, writing poems on old grocery receipts and keeping Hart company when he happens by.
Tonight he’ll make his way up the hill, tired but wanting, home from the Dulsin’ tide. In the dusk I can see people gathered together, some in skiffs on the water, others in a large circle around the church. They are waiting for a twinkling, a rapture. They are waiting for the lights to go on in the Bay.
Notes from the Willow Book
The Moon owns the willow
The Midwife’s Garden
A is for anise, sweet relief for the bowels
B is the butcher’s broom to shrink the womb down
C is for cayenne; its heat stays the blood
Dandelion greens should be boiled some good
E is for eggs, one a day cooked
’til hard
Fennel brings mother’s milk and a woman’s blood
G’s the gooseberry, for pie or for jam
Hyssop, tansy, and mugwort for taking a bath
I’s the Irish Moss for blanc mange and stew
Juniper without berries is for making tea too
K is for kelp, when it’s dried it will keep
Labrador tea if you’re needing some sleep
M is for mustard, on her belly makes her bleed
N’s for the nettle, just the leaves, not the seed
Onions to the feet will bring down a fever
Pennyroyal’s tincture makes a tiny baby leave her
Queen Anne’s lace is poison, it’s not caraway
Red raspberry tea should be drunk every day
S is for sage, which makes the milk go
Thistle, that’s blessed, makes the milk flow
Unicorn, false, with bed and capsicum
Very good at keeping the babe inside his mum
Wintergreen tea is best made in the spring
X-cept for making jam, for the berries you must bring
Y is for yew, its stone will bring strife
Zest comes from lemons, oranges and life!
