Fever 1793 (15 page)

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His face dropped to his hands. The shop was perfectly quiet, save for the sound of the clock ticking on the wall and a fly caught in a spider's web strung across a grimy windowpane.

"Mr. Brown? Sir?"

He took a deep breath and looked up.

"In the beginning of August, this was the largest city in the United States. Forty thousand people lived here. Near as I can tell," he pointed to the jumble of notes and letters on the desk before him, "more than half the city has fled, twenty thousand people."

"How many dead, Sir?"

"More than three thousand, enough to fill house after house, street after street."

"I went to the market, but found no food," I said.

"Few farmers dare come into town. They charge exorbitant prices for their wares, and get whatever they ask," he said bitterly. "Those who don't die of the fever are beginning to starve. You've seen the rats?"

I nodded.

"The rats thrive. I should write that." He dipped a quill into the ink pot and scribbled a note. "The only creatures to benefit from this pestilence are the rats. Go home, Matilda, take my regards to your grandfather, but tell him he must lock all the doors and pray for frost."

I started to tell him what had happened, but a man burst through the door waving a letter and shouting.

Mr. Brown shooed me from his shop with a wave of his hand. No matter. Telling him wouldn't bring Grandfather back, and it was clear he couldn't help me.

I turned the corner and found
myself
in front of Warner's hat shop. Mrs. Warner knew my mother a bit. Perhaps they would let me stay a day or two, or share some bread. But the hattery was locked up tight. I couldn't even peek inside through the shutters. No sign of the Warner family.

"Hey there, you! Girlie, by the hatter s!"

A sharp-eyed woman holding a cloth over her face crossed the street. She was older than Mother, with white wisps of hair escaping a dirty mob cap. Her dress was faded. Her eyes narrowed, watching me with suspicion. She stopped a few paces away from me, her cane slightly raised.

"What business do you have here? Off with you!" the woman shouted.

"I mean no harm," I explained. My nose wrinkled at the smell of vinegar coming from the woman. "Do you know where the Warners are?"

The woman stepped backward.

"What is your business here?" she demanded.

"I'm looking for a friend."

The woman considered me for a moment.

"They left for Chester in the dark of night. Warner has kin there. There was horrible screaming and carrying on. The youngest girl fell ill after an apprentice

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died." She spat the word like a wormy seed. "They threw out the body on the way. And you, do you carry this evil blot on your soul as well?"

"I fell ill, but recovered in the Bush Hill hospital."

"Get back! Stay away from me!" the woman shrieked as she raised her cane higher. "Leave before I call my man. No fever victims here!"

She brought the cane down across my back. The blow sent me face-first into the dirt.

"Leave!" the woman screamed.

I fought my way to my feet before the cane crashed downward again. I ran blindly, ignoring the pain in my throat and the ache in my side. The sun blazed overhead. I lost my way. The cut on my foot started to bleed again. I walked and walked, trying not to remember or feel.

I wandered up one street and down the next. The printer s words haunted me.

Thousands dead.

I saw Grandfather's empty eyes.

No food.

I saw Mother order me to leave her.

No hope.

I passed people weeping injloorways and did not stop. I heard the death carts rattling in the street and did not look up.

A breeze picked up, pushing me eastward, toward the docks, east toward the water, away from the sun. I

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could see the tops of ships' masts, peeking over the rooftops like trees in the dead of winter. The sodden wharf planks moaned as the tide pulled the river water toward the open sea. My mind floated with dark thoughts.

What did it feel like to die? Was it a peaceful sleep? Some thought it was full of either trumpetblowing angels or angry devils. Perhaps I was already dead.

I shook my head. Nonsense. Foolish nonsense. I was being weak and foolish. There was no point in wandering like a lost puppy. I needed to get home and sleep. Grandfather would not be proud if he saw me acting so spineless. I needed to captain myself.

My foot scuffed something. I looked down to keep from tripping. A china-faced doll wearing a satin dress lay by the curb, her head shattered, her dress coated with dirt. A few steps away, an abandoned satchel still packed with clean shirts lay open.

I picked up the broken doll and heard a whimpering sound coming from an open doorway. I put my head through the door and waited for my eyes to adjust to the gloom.

A small child cowered in the corner, her blonde hair loose and tangled, her feet bare and black with dirt. She was sucking her thumb and keening to herself. I held out the doll to her. "Is this yours?" I asked.

"Broken," she said.

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"Is your mama here? Or your papa? Perhaps they can fix it."

The little girl whispered something. I stepped closer to hear her.

"Mama's broken too," she said.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

September 27th, 1793

. . .
at other places we found a parent dead, and none but little innocent babes to be seen, whose ignorance led them to think their parent was asleep...

-Richard Allen and Absalom Jones

A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black

People During the Late Awful Calamity in

Philadelphia in the Year 1793

Her mother was dead, broken in the eyes of tiny Nell. Her name was the last bit of information I could get from her. Seeing her mother's body, quite clearly a victim of yellow fever, on the bed seemed to make her mute. She stood before me, and before I realized what I had done, I picked her up and cradled her close.

Now what? I couldn't care for Nell; I could barely care for myself. And her mother needed burying, though I didn't relish another trip back to the public square. I had to find someone to care for her.

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None of the neighbors who answered their doors knew anything about the family, and they all had enough problems of their own without taking in the child. "You might try Reverend Allen's group," offered one woman. "I seen two women carrying a basket down the alley not long ago. They'll know what to do with the child, and they'll send one to care for the mother."

"Where do I find them?" I asked.

"If you can't find any of their members hereabouts, go down Fifth Street, south of Walnut. They hold meetings there, where they're building a church. You'll find someone there to help, I'll wager."

Fifth Street, south of Walnut. So many blocks to walk, and I'd have to do it with Nell on my hip. But it would be farther to carry her to the orphan house and farther still to the coffeehouse. Nell looked at me. There was no choice. I hoisted her high in my arms and started south.

I kept my eyes open for anyone who might help, but the only folks in the street were sailors, and most of them were drunk. I was nearing the dockside taverns. I held Nell close and tried to walk faster. I did not want to delay in this part of town.

Two black women ahead of me caught the attention of a rowdy group hanging outside a tavern door. They moved swiftly, ignoring the taunts and vicious words the men called after them. I blinked. I rubbed my eyes. There was something about the straight line of the taller

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woman's back, the color of the cap on her dark head.

"Eliza?" I whispered. I blinked again. The sunlight on the water had left spots dancing in front of my eyes. The women walked steadily away from me, each holding a large basket over their arms.

"Eliza?"

They turned into an alleyway and disappeared.

"Eliza!" I screamed. My feet found their strength, and I took off at a full run, Nell bouncing painfully and gripping my shift for her life. "Eliza!"

A filthy man from the group in front of the tavern broke off from his friends and chased after me.

"Hello, love," he slurred. His breath carried the stench of dockside garbage: whiskey and filth, hardtack and disease. "Come and dance with me."

He tried to pluck Nell from my arms. "Come dance," he insisted.

Nell wound her legs tightly around my waist and bit the man's hand. He howled with outrage while his companions collapsed in laughter. I held tightly to Nell and sprinted for the alley, afraid to look over my shoulder.

"Glad you're on my side," I told Nell. She stuck her thumb back in her mouth as if nothing had happened.

The women were gone. I walked down the alley to a courtyard. It should have been crowded with playing children, chickens and pigs, but was quiet save for the noises made by a tired woman hanging out laundry. I

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checked behind me. The drunk had found other sport

i
r and had not followed us. Nell was grower heavier by the minute. I carried her over to the woman hanging out her wash.

"Please, excuse me, Ma'am. Have you seen two women with baskets walk by here?"

"I seen nobody," the woman answered. "Do you have the fever?"

"No, I'm well."

"You don't look well," the woman said. "You look like a wraith."

"The women, did you see them? They must have passed by. It is most important that I find them."

"Try the Simon house. I heard the door close thataway a moment ago."

"Which one is the Simon house?"

The woman pointed at a house that fronted onto the courtyard, then drew a stained coverlet from the tub at her feet.

I paused in front of the yellow rag tacked to the door. Should I bring Nell in a house with fever victims? She blinked sea green eyes at me. What a foolish question. This child has lived in a fever house for days, weeks maybe. I opened the door and rushed in.

The parlor stood ready for company, with surprisingly fine furniture for the neighborhood, and a portrait on the wall. Thick dust coated the chairs and table, and a man's coat lay on the floor.

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I stood unsure of what to do next, when I heard the murmur of voices and footsteps overhead. I gathered up my skirts and went up.

"Eliza?"

A young man leaned over his wife, fanning her face with a paper fan. Two silent children sat on the floor gnawing hard rolls.

"Are you come from the apothecary?" the man asked in a rasping voice.

I shook my head.

"They promised to send Peruvian bark. It may save her yet." He shifted the fan to his other hand. "Why then have you come?"

"I'm looking for Eliza. I was told she was here."

"We have no Eliza here," he answered.

I looked at the children again.

"Did two women just come to deliver those rolls?"

The man nodded. "Saints. Angels. They're from the Free African Society, God bless them. If one is the Eliza you seek, you might find her yet. They had several other homes to visit."

I ran back to the street. Where could she be? I couldn't try each door or go in every house. What if she left one house as I entered another?

There was only one solution.

I set Nell on the ground and cupped my hands around my mouth:

"Eliza!"

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I waited until the echo faded among the sounds of the sea gulls high overhead and tried again.

"Eliza!"

"Who calls there?" The faint voice came from an open window.

"Eliza? It's me, Mattie!" I scanned the windows around the courtyard but could not find the face I was looking for. A door closed. There!

Eliza had just reached the bottom step when I slammed into her. She wrapped her arms around me.

"Mattie, Mattie, Mattie," she cooed. "What on earth are you doing here? And where did you find that baby girl?"

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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

September 27th, 1793

Yesterday the worst day yet. Even those who are not sick have eyes tinged with yellow. More doctors are ill and dying.

-Dr. Benjamin Rush Letter, 1793

It all hit me at once: my fears about Mother; the fever; Bush Hill; watching Grandfather die; being scared, alone, and hungry. I cried. I cried a river and poor Eliza did her best to comfort me. The kinder her words, the harder I cried.

When I finally paused to catch my breath, she had one question.

"Why aren't you with your mother at the farm?"

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Mother didn't come to the farm with us. We never got there."

"Oh, dear," said Eliza. She looked around at the deepening shadows. "We can't stay here. You are coming with me to my brother's. You can tell me what happened