The Midwife of Hope River

“Thank you too,” I mumble, not looking at him. “Is it okay to still milk Moonlight, with the stitches and all?”

“Yeah, but use Bag Balm to make your hands slip.” He looks around the kitchen to see if I have any, and I point out the distinctive bright green can with the image of red clover and a cow on the lid. “You can take the stitches out in two weeks when she’s healed. Keep her bag empty. I’d continue to milk her every four hours. How much does she give, anyway?”

“Not that much. Two or three quarts a day. How much do you get from your cows?”

“Three gallons a milking.” My eyebrows shoot up. “If you had her bred,” he continues, “and freshened, you could get that much too, but you’d have to let her go dry so she’d ovulate. I have a bull; no charge, if you’re interested. You’d want to do it right away. As soon as the mastitis is over.”

I let that sink in. “How long is a cow’s gestation?”

“About nine months, same as a human’s. Let me know.” Hester shrugs back into his coat, which he’d laid on the seat of the wooden rocker, and glances around the parlor once more. His eyes rest on the picture of me overlooking Lake Michigan, with the west wind blowing my hair.

“Better bring in some wood. It’s going to be cold tonight.” He pulls on his old brown fedora and goes into the dark.

Outside, a crescent moon sits in the branches of the naked oak tree. I pull on my jacket and stand for a minute looking up at the clear star-filled sky. Under the porch there’s only enough coal to fill a milk bucket, and the stack of split oak is almost gone.

7

Big Mary

Today the sun shines, a strong wind blows in from the west, and I have no excuse for not making my visit to the MacIntoshes’. I’m embarrassed to ask them for payment outright. Mrs. Kelly always told me that delivering babies was an act of charity, something a person did for love, but that was before the economy collapsed, and back in those days almost everyone gave us something—a few dollars, a side of ham or maybe a chicken. I’m hoping that William MacIntosh will get the hint when I return, because I badly need cash for fuel, wood and coal.

As I pedal down Wild Rose Road, then along Raccoon Lick and the three more miles into Liberty, I make note of the last of the wildflowers. Only a few goldenrods still droop in the ditch with the six-foot-high purple ironweed lording it over them. A long V of geese flies low overhead, and I stop in the road to admire them.

Each spring and fall they pass near here, doing what their species has done for aeons, making our human struggles seem petty and small. They don’t know about wars or stock market crashes or union struggles. The geese give me hope, fill up my heart.

I step down hard on the bike’s pedals and push on, but the wind blows in strong gusts, and twice I waver and almost fall off. A horse would be nice, I think, but there’s no way I could afford one, and a vehicle like Mr. Hester’s is unthinkable.

The whole way into Liberty no one passes, except one big truck from MacIntosh Consolidated that almost runs me off the road. When I finally arrive at the three-story brick house, I stop to catch my breath and straighten my hair. Holly bushes with red berries grow along the drive, with a few last red roses up the porch rails. I park my bike to the side and knock on the back door like a delivery boy. I know this isn’t right. I should enter through the front, as Dr. Blum would do. A midwife is a professional, isn’t she?

“Well, come on in,” Mary Proudfoot, the big coffee-colored cook, greets me, a white scarf tied behind her head, covering her neatly braided hair. “Bye Bye Blackbird” by Gene Austin is floating out of the radio in the dining room. “Pack up all my care and woe, here I go, singing low. Bye bye blackbird.” I grin when she pulls me close to her bosom, a soft pillow. I’m underendowed myself.

“Miss Patience,” Bitsy greets me without enthusiasm, looking down and away as she carries a load of laundry through the kitchen and out to the side yard.

“Sorry I’ve not been back sooner . . .” I trail off. “Is Mrs. MacIntosh doing all right?”

“Oh, she’s right as rain, honey. Bitsy and I know about newborns. The missus is upstairs nursing . . . Speaking of Bitsy, she’d make a good midwife assistant, don’t you think? Didn’t she do right good at the delivery?” The cook pours me a cup of black coffee without even asking and pulls out two wooden kitchen chairs, indicating I should sit.

I’m taken aback by her comment about her daughter, but Mary allows the thought to sit on the back burner and rambles on.

“It’s the mister I’m worried about. Talk about your care and woes.” She leans forward, glancing first at the door to the dining room. “He’s wearing his tail to a frazzle! Says he’s lost all he’s worth, except this house and the coal mines. Everyone in town is holding on by a thread. No one can believe it’s happening. The banks are tied in knots, and all because of that President Herbert Hoover. Worthless!

“I don’t even think the mister told Miss Katherine that Bitsy has to move out. They can’t afford her. Mr. MacIntosh says they don’t need a maid, the missus and I can manage. I told him Bitsy would work just for keep, no cash pay, but he says no. She’d still require food. Things are that tight.

“I asked him what she’s supposed to do . . . The few people that used to have servants in Liberty are letting theirs go too. I’m just glad I’ve been here so long and Katherine has the new baby. They can’t let me go; I practically raised William, used to work for his parents. If he put me out they’d turn over in their graves.”

She stands and stirs a fragrant chicken broth on the stove. “The mister told me not to bother Katherine about Bitsy! He doesn’t want his wife upset. Might lose her milk, he says, but I don’t know what Bitsy’s supposed to do . . . where she can go . . .” There are tears in her brown eyes, not falling yet, just resting in a pool below her lower lid. “Our closest kin are in North Carolina.”

Outside the tall twelve-pane kitchen window, I study Bitsy as she struggles with the wet sheets in the wind. She’s a small woman, about my size, half as big as her mother, but she seems tough, like the little blueberry bushes that grow on the granite rocks at the top of the ridge.

“Mary, I’d help you if I could, but I’m broke too.”