Fever 1793 (22 page)

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Mother picked up her mug, her hand shaking. She sipped once, then set the mug down. It seemed too heavy for her to hold.

There were so many questions, so much to say. Where should I start?

"Do you feel well?" I asked.

She nodded once. "I require a nap these days," she said with a hint of her old self. "Imagine that, if you will."

"Your mother is still recovering," Mrs. Ludington explained. "The doctors say it's a miracle she survived at all"

"Bunkum," Mother said.

Mrs. Ludington smiled. "It's not bunkum, Lucille." She turned to me. "Your mother joined us at the farm a few days after she sent you and your grandfather on. When she realized you were lost, she went wild."

"I was concerned," Mother said.

"We tried to keep her in bed, it was clear she was still quite ill. We sent messages to every town we could think of, but those who bothered to reply had not seen you. Lucille was frantic. She rose at midnight and took one of our horses to search for you herself. We found her two days later, near death at the side of the road. It took weeks for her to recover."

"I'm much better now," Mother said.

Mrs. Ludington shook her head in disagreement. "We came when we heard that President Washington

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was returning. Lucille said that would be the sign that your Grandfather was waiting for. Where is the Captain? I didn't see him when we came in."

"He died," I said flatly.

"Oh. Oh, my. I'm so sorry," Mrs. Ludington said.

Mother looked into the fire. I waited for her questions, but there were none.

"Did the doctor prescribe any treatments for you, Mother?" I asked.

Mrs. Ludington jumped in. "She is supposed to live a life of leisure, those were his exact words. The second attack nearly took her off to join your father. It damaged her heart." She arched her eyebrows. "She won't be able to run the coffeehouse anymore. She should sell it and buy a small house near us."

Mother pressed her lips together tightly.

"We'll talk about that later," I said quickly. "Can I get you something to eat, Mrs. Ludington? Some stew?"

The farmer's wife stood up. "I promised my husband I would return today, and it is a long ride back. I must

go-"

I tried to convince her to stay the night, or at least

take a meal with us, but she was determined. She bent over and hugged Mother briefly, said good-bye to me, and left.

I peeked in the front room. A few customers had left; the rest were smoking their pipes and enjoying their conversation.

23?

I

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Mother coughed. "Is this your work or Eliza's?" she asked.

"Mine," I said as I sat down across from her. "I wanted to open again. Eliza wanted me to sell."

The clock ticked.

"William is dead, then?"

The clock ticked again, then rang the hour. I waited until the noise stopped.

"Yes. In September."

"Oh, Mattie." Tears welled in Mother's eyes. "Dear God, I was so worried. I couldn't find you, no matter where I looked. I searched and searched until I fell ill again. I couldn't sleep, I was so afraid you were ..."

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Shh. Please don't cry. Everything is better now. I'm home, you're home. You don't have to worry anymore." I drew up a chair next to her, and she leaned against my shoulder. I cradled her head in my arms until her sobs quieted.

"Tell me how you fared," she said. "I can remember so little, and I've lost track of all the weeks."

I told her everything, from the time the death cart dumped her at the front door to the first frost. I didn't give her all the details of the intruders or the night Grandfather died. There would be time for that later when she felt stronger.

Mother's eyes drifted back to the fire burning in the hearth. Her hands lay in her lap, withered and limp. I had never seen her hands stay still before. They had

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always been busy with cleaning or needlework or polishing.

I had a sudden sense of what was to come and I blinked away the tears.

"Help me upstairs, Mattie," Mother said. "I need to rest."

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EPILOGUE

December II, 1793

. . .
[We] are devoutly to acknowledge that kind Providence. .. hath restored our city to its useful state of health and prosperity.

-Petition of Citizens to the Council of Philadelphia, 1793

1 opened one eye. A scratching noise in the corner of the room had woken me, the scrambling feet of a desperate mouse about to become breakfast for a lumpy orange cat. I winced as Silas pounced. The squeaking stopped.

I rolled over to look out the window. It was dark still. The faint call of a watchman could be heard down Seventh Street, and a few stars hung still in the sky. I burrowed beneath the warm weight of my quilt. My toes curled at the thought of crossing the icy floorboards on a dark December morning.

Nothing gained by delay, I thought. No one else is going to get the house stirring. I snatched my stockings off the stool next to my bed and pulled them on under the covers, taking care not to disturb Nell, who slept beside me. Thank goodness she had learned not to wet the bed before the weather turned cold. I tucked the quilt around her and stood up, quickly changing into my clean day shift. I stepped into my woolen overskirts, laced my stays, and wrapped a heavy shawl over my bodice.

Mother rolled over and snored quietly. She had coughed late into the night. It was good for her to sleep peacefully. I nudged Silas with my toe. The cat daintily picked up his breakfast and made for the stairs.

I crossed the hall to the other bedchamber. Eliza stirred in her sleep, mumbling about ginger and nutmeg. Robert and William slept soundly, their arms wrapped around each other in their trundle bed, their chests rising and falling in unison. I crept down the stairs, careful to skip the squeaky ones.

I dug out the embers from the ashes of the kitchen fireplace and laid tinder on them. The dry wood caught quickly and the flames soon warmed my face and hands. I swung the kettle over the flames and looked into the fire while the water heated.

Eliza would want to send the twins to fetch the day's newspapers. Mother would fuss, of course. She didn't think they were old enough to do anything besides raise a ruckus in the garden. The sooner we could afford a pony and cart, the better. That way Mother could run

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errands together with the boys, and Eliza and I could get some work done in peace. It would be nice to finish putting by the mincemeat before the snow came for good. Nell still refused to leave my side, but I didn't mind.

The water finally boiled. I made a coffee for myself, a mug for Eliza, and one for Mother. I cut a lump of sugar off the loaf and added it along with a healthy dollop of milk to my mug. Being the first one awake did bring some privileges, I thought with a smile.

Overhead, footsteps crossed the room. I hurried to set out the breakfast dishes before Eliza came downstairs. She didn't begrudge me a few minutes of quiet, but the table-setting came first.

When the crockery was laid out, I carried my mug through the front room, past the polished tables and backgammon boards, past the beautiful new painting of a meadow full of flowers. I backed up to adjust the painting so it hung nice and straight. Nathaniel was coming along nicely, Mr. Peale said. Three years, maybe four, and he would be able to support himself. That wasn't long to wait.

I opened the front door and sat on the step facing High Street. A lamplighter some blocks down reached up with his long pole to extinguish the street lamp. To the east, beyond the river, the stars faded before the promise of a new day.

These solitary minutes each morning were fast

if

becoming a habit. A good habit, but one I would soon need a woolen cloak to enjoy. The sky brightened to a dull bronze glow as the last of the season's geese rushed southward, flying so low I could hear the beat of their wings against the morning air. I drained the mug reluctantly and scraped my finger along the bottom to get the last of the undissolved sugar.

Looking down the peaceful street, it seemed no one could imagine the terror we had all endured. There were many tables with empty places or invalids who had once been as strong as horses, but the sun continued to rise. People filled the street each day. On Sunday the church bells rang. Philadelphia had moved on.

Early morning was the only time I felt as if there were ghosts nearby, memories of the weeks of fear. That's when I found myself listening for Polly's giggle or Grandfather's voice. Sometimes they felt so close. Close enough to tell me I should stop dawdling and get to work.

I smiled as the mist faded. The yellow sun rose, a giant balloon filled with prayers and hopes and promise. I stood and shook the idleness out of my skirts.

Day was begun.

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APPENDIX

DID THE EPIDEMIC REALLY HAPPEN?

Absolutely. The yellow fever outbreak that struck Philadelphia in 1793 was one of the worst epidemics in United States history. In three months it killed nearly five thousand people, 10 percent of the city's population.

Thousands of people fled to escape the disease. Congress adjourned on schedule and its members left town, along with George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Mayor Matthew Clarkson was one of the few highranking government officials courageous enough to stay. He and the members of the Mayor's Committee tried to hold the city together as the death toll mounted.

BATTLE OF THE DOCTORS

Medicine in the late 1700s was crude. The stethoscope had not yet been invented, nor had the thermometer. People did not understand how disease was spread.

At the beginning of the epidemic there were about eighty people practicing medicine in Philadelphia. Not all of them were trained doctors. Some fled to the countryside, others died of yellow fever.

The doctors of Philadelphia battled one another as well as the epidemic. They were loosely divided into two camps: the followers of Dr. Benjamin Rush, and the followers of French physicians like Dr. Jean

Deveze.

Dr. Rush was one of the most famous doctors in the country. He gave patients mercury, calomel, and jalap to make them throw up and have diarrhea. He drained blood from them (a common practice) to get rid of the "pestilence" in their bodies. Medical experts speculate that Rush's treatments killed many of his patients.

The French doctors prescribed rest, fresh air, and lots of fluids. That was the best way to treat the disease. It still is.

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TAKE TWO SPONGES AND CALL ME IN THE MORNING

Philadelphians were desperate for anything to prevent or cure yellow fever. They soaked sponges in vinegar, then stuck them up their noses. They washed their hair and clothes in vinegar. They even drank it.

Guns and cannons were fired in the street in the hopes that the gunpowder would clean the air. People wore nasty-smelling bags of camphor around their necks, chewed garlic, and drank vile potions of herbs. Beds were buried underground, then dug up in an effort to kill whatever was causing the disease.

Nothing worked. People kept getting sick until the frost killed off the mosquitoes that spread yellow fever.

WHERE ARE THEY BURIED?

Some fever victims were buried in churchyards and cemeteries throughout the city, but many lie anonymously in what is known today as Washington Square, the old potter's field. It is bounded by Sixth, Seventh, Walnut, and Locust Streets in Philadelphia. At one end is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, commemorating the Revolutionary "War dead buried there. Across Walnut is the former location of the old Walnut Street Jail, where Jean Pierre Blanchard's balloon ascended in January 1793.

THE BALLOON

The first hot-air balloon flown in the United States was launched from the Walnut Street Jail on January 9, 1793, by the French aeronaut Jean Pierre Blanchard. Nearly every person in Philadelphia stopped what they were doing and watched as the yellow silk balloon carried him 5,800 feet in the air.

Blanchard performed several scientific experiments aloft, filling six bottles of air, taking his pulse, and making observations about the air pressure, temperature, and weather. If Benjamin Franklin had lived long enough (he died in 1790), he would have been thrilled with the event.

The wind blew Blanchard fifteen miles, across the Delaware River to New Jersey. Blanchard shared a bottle of wine with the farmer in whose field he landed, and showed the man his "passport," a letter of safe passage written by President George Washington.

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A crowd soon gathered, and a wagon was found to transport Blanchard and his deflated balloon back across the river. He was greeted in Philadelphia by a cheering crowd. Blanchard's plans for a second flight in the city were ruined by the yellow fever epidemic.

THE AMAZING PEALE FAMILY

There really was a Peale family, though they did not have an apprentice named Nathaniel Benson. The Peaks are sometimes referred to as "the First Family of American Art."

Charles Willson Peale was one of the finest portrait painters in the United States. He was also an intensely curious man. Peale opened America's first natural history museum in his house in the 1780s. His collection included mastodon bones, fossils, minerals, and preserved animals such as jackals, mongooses, and bison, along with dozen of species of amphibians, birds, fish, and insects. After their famous expedition of the newly purchased West (1804-1806), explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark donated many of the specimens they had found on their journey to Peak's collection.

Peale fathered seventeen children and named many of them after famous artists. Those who survived childhood became active in the arts or helped their father with the museum. Peak's second son, Rembrandt Peale, was a noted artist who painted his first portrait of George Washington when he was only seventeen. One of his later portraits of Washington hangs in the Smithsonian in the Hall of Presidents. He also painted a wellknown portrait of Thomas Jefferson.

FREE AFRICAN SOCIETY

The Free African Society was founded in 1787 by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones. Richard Allen was born a slave in Philadelphia in 1760. He bought his freedom and went on to help found the African Methodist Episcopal Church and become its first bishop. Absalom Jones, born a slave in 1746 and freed in 1784, was the first African-American to be ordained an Episcopal priest. The most widely recognized image of Jones was painted by Raphaelle Peale, the oldest son of Charles Willson Peale.

Allen and Jones founded the society as a mutual aid organization devoted to helping widowed, ill, or out-of-work African-Americans. It was