The Midwife's Tale (15 page)

“Of course they do. All creatures do, once you get to know them. Grace has a very loyal spirit. She never lets me down,” she countered.

The boy inched into the room and pointed to the cage. “What’s in there?”

She raised a brow. “A bird. I’m taking care of him because he broke his wing and it didn’t heal properly, so he can’t fly.”

While he approached the cage, she went to the window and dropped the curtain back into place.

He peered into the cage. “What’s his name?”

She drew in a long breath. She was reluctant to give the boy any advantage, but knew he would not let the opportunity pass when he discovered the bird’s name, or lack of one. “His name is Bird.”

“Just Bird?”

She nodded.

He grinned.

She took a deep breath and walked away. She got several
bundles of herbs and returned to the ladder. She talked to the boy while she passed back and forth across the room, trying to change the course of their conversation. “Sometimes I like to ride for pleasure or to keep Grace exercised, but most of the time I ride because someone needs me. I’m a midwife and a healer. I help babies to get born and I help sick mamas and their children to get better,” she explained. “Come here. Hold these for me.”

He eyed her warily as he approached her.

“See these?” she asked as she passed the bundles to him once he was close enough. “These are healing herbs I use to make teas or ointments or poultices. I have to hang them up to dry so I have enough simples to last until next summer.”

He stiffened, but cradled the herbs in his arms.

She took several bundles, climbed up the ladder, hung them up, and returned for more. Four trips later, all the bundles had been hung up to dry, including the ones on her worktable. When she carried the ladder toward the storeroom, he backed toward the door that led outside.

“I have to stow the ladder away,” she explained. “There’s a storeroom on the other side of this door that leads to the tavern. If you stand here, in the corner, no one will be able to see you when I open the door. Sometimes they need to get something from the storeroom,” she added to ease the mistrust that still stared back at her.

He edged around the perimeter of the room and into the corner. She balanced the ladder with one hand, opened the connecting door with the other, and quickly had the ladder back in its place. Before she could reenter her room, Lydia poked her head into the storeroom.

“James and I are ready for supper. Shall I have Annabelle bring you some or do you want to join us?”

“I think I’ll have my supper in my room. I still have some
unpacking to do, and I think I’ll take Grace out for a ride later. I’m not sure at what point I’ll have time to eat.”

Lydia smiled. “Then I’ll have Annabelle bring your platter to you now before I send her home.”

“I’m . . . well, I’m actually rather hungry after working out in the garden all afternoon,” she lied. After eating a chocolate tart and half a dozen cookies, she had no appetite at all, but she had a feeling the boy was truly hungry.

“Extra helpings it is.”

Martha hesitated. “With some corn bread and honey, too. If you have it to spare. I didn’t have a truly good hunk of corn bread all the while I was gone. Not like yours.”

Another smile. “I’m sure there’s plenty. I’ll tell Annabelle,” she offered, and returned to the kitchen.

As soon as Lydia left, Martha shut the door to her room. When Boy’s stomach rumbled, she captured his gaze and held it. “I suppose you want supper. Is that why you came to my room?”

He nodded and dropped his gaze. “You got somethin’ for my hand? Blasted cat must have bayonets for teeth. Sliced into my hand real deep,” he murmured, “not that I can’t do with the pain. It’s just . . . well, when I get home I don’t wanna be botherin’ Miz Hampton. She gets all weepy and . . . and she don’t always know what to do.”

“You stay put for now. Annabelle is a young lady who helps in the tavern. She’s going to bring us supper, which means I’m going to have to open the door again. While we’re waiting for her, I’ll get everything ready to take care of your hand. And your knee, too.”

He did not move a muscle and kept his body braced in the corner, ready to sprint away at the first sign she might not be telling him the truth.

She went directly to the corner cupboard for a small bowl
and filled it with fresh water from the pump. After gathering up several fresh cloths, strips of cotton to use for bandages, and the smartweed ointment to take the sting out of his wounds, she put everything at one end of the table.

She answered the knock on the adjoining door and greeted Annabelle with a smile that broadened when she saw that the platter was nearly overflowing with food. Three thick squares of corn bread on one side balanced an enormous mound of boiled potatoes and peas swimming in cream. “You surely are a blessing, child,” she murmured as she took the platter. “Goodness gracious, this smells delicious.”

Annabelle winked, turned about, and retrieved yet another plate she placed in Martha’s free hand. “Mrs. Fleming let me make baked apples. Just for the family. I hope you like them. It’s my mother’s special recipe.”

Martha’s mouth actually watered the moment she smelled the two plump apples nearly drowning in a dark sauce that smelled of cinnamon, cloves, and lots of butter—just what she needed to win the boy’s heart.

“I’m afraid both of them will quickly disappear,” she admitted. “Thank you. And don’t bother yourself about coming back for the dishes. I’ll wash them up here and return them in the morning.”

Annabelle grinned. “Yes, ma’am.” She reached around Martha as soon as she stepped back and closed the door.

With both hands full, Martha glanced at Boy, whose eyes were wide with hungry approval. “I suppose you want to eat first.”

He swallowed hard and nodded.

“I’ll set our places at the table. You get yourself to that pump over there and wash your hands. Your face, too.” He scowled, but headed to the pump.

Martha set the food on the table at the end opposite her rem
edies. After securing crocks of butter and honey, along with an extra plate and utensils from the cupboard, she set them onto the table as well before she poured two mugs of cider. He met her at the table, and she pointed to a chair. “Sit.”

When he plopped onto the seat, he was careful to keep his one leg extended to accommodate his scraped knee.

She sat down at the end of the table next to him, ladled a small serving of supper onto the extra plate, and laid a single piece of corn bread alongside it for herself. She placed the original platter in front of him, but his gaze was glued to the baked apples. She hesitated, then offered him a baked apple before taking a generous spoonful of her own.

She closed her eyes briefly and chewed slowly to savor the warm, delicious concoction. “I do love baked apples,” she whispered.

His quizzical expression was almost humorous. “Don’t you eat your supper first? Miz Hampton would box my ears if I touched my dessert first.”

She paused, held a spoonful of apple halfway to her mouth for a moment, then devoured another bite. “Mrs. Hampton is right, actually, but the way I see it, everything I eat for supper is going to end up in the same place anyway. I just don’t think it matters if I eat my meal first or my dessert. I don’t make a habit of it, but every once in a while, when I feel like doing something . . . something a little bit bad, I treat myself to dessert first. You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

A smile. Tentative. But a smile. “No, ma’am.”

“Good. You go ahead. Try it,” she urged.

He plowed through that entire apple before she could get half of hers down, and began to attack the main meal with a vengeance.

He had the worst table manners she had ever had the
misfortune to witness. He ate with both elbows on the table and chewed with his mouth open. He never bothered once to wipe away the food that collected in the corners of his mouth, but when he gulped down the entire mug of cider in one long, very loud gulp, she could not keep silent a moment longer.

“Elbows off the table,” she cautioned. “And slow down! You’re shoveling that in so fast you’re going to end up with a stomachache.”

He dropped one elbow and laid his injured hand on his lap. “It’s good.”

“Obviously. Now the other elbow.”

He belched and lowered his other arm before finishing the rest of his meal.

She shook her head. Poor Mrs. Hampton. If she had half a dozen boys like this one, she certainly had a long, difficult road ahead. When the boy eyed her chunk of corn bread, she raised a brow. “You couldn’t possibly have room for more.”

He belched. “Do now.”

Lord, give me patience.

She handed him the corn bread and watched as he smothered it with honey before polishing it all off in four big bites.

“Best . . . corn bread . . . I ever had,” he explained while chewing and nodding his head.

“Please wait to talk until you’ve finished chewing.”

He rolled his eyes. Again.

“Someday your eyes might just roll right back into your head and stay there,” she warned. “Now that you’re finished, I’ll see to that bite on your hand and your scraped knee.”

When he opened his mouth as if to argue, she silenced him by holding up her hand. “Not one word. Unless it’s your name.”

He snapped his mouth shut and never uttered a single sound as she tended to his injuries, even when she had to work out
the dirt and cinders embedded in his knee. By the time she had both his hand and his knee bandaged, she had no doubt he was one tough little scrapper, especially when she considered his age. She did not need to know any details about his life on the street. She had seen enough in her recent travels to know he had faced horrors as a street orphan no one, especially an innocent child, should ever face.

Images of Victoria, off alone without family or friends to protect her while she traipsed around with that theater troupe, made her shiver. She might not be able to help her daughter, but she could help this boy and pray someone else might do the same for Victoria if she needed help.

The savvy little urchin, however, presented quite a challenge—one she decided to meet right now before he got too sure of himself. “Your knee will be stiff for a few days,” she announced as she tied the bandage into place. “You owe me twenty-five cents. Cash or in kind. The supper is another ten cents, which brings your debt to thirty-five cents.”

His eyes flashed. “You expect me . . . to pay you?”

“Of course.”

He narrowed his gaze and skewed his mouth. “You invited me to supper. I didn’t ask for it. Shouldn’t have to pay for it, neither.”

“Hmmm. You’re right. That’s still twenty-five cents for patching you up,” she argued. Before he could issue a retort, she rose from her seat, secured her diary, and carried it back to the table, where she entered his debt.

He watched her and shrugged his shoulders. “I got no money. I’m just a boy. Where’d you think I’d get any money?”

“A man’s got to earn his place in this world, as well as the next. Cash or kind,” she repeated. “That means if you don’t have the coin, you can give me something of equal value.”

He started to roll his eyes.

She frowned.

He stopped and looked directly at her. “Like what? I got nothin’ to give you.”

“Sure you do,” she insisted. “Once you’re all healed up, you can sweep the floor for me, or weed the garden, or clean out Grace’s stall.”

He squared his shoulders. “I’m not goin’ outside anywhere near that dog. Leech, neither.”

“Then you can sweep the floor.”

“That’s woman’s work! I ain’t sweepin’ no floor.” His gaze brightened. “I already helped you hang them herbs. That should settle it.”

She shook her head. “You were being polite.”

“Didn’t give me a choice now, did you? Just plopped them bundles into my arms without even askin’ if I wanted to help.”

“Five cents. That’s all that little bit of work was worth.”

“Twenty.”

“Six.”

“Fifteen.”

“Eight. That’s my final offer,” she snapped.

He snorted. “Eight.”

She bowed her head to hide her smile and noted the amount in her diary. “You still owe me seventeen cents, and you can pay me by doing one thing. It’s so easy, you won’t even have to get out of your chair.”

He eyed her warily. “One thing. For seventeen cents. And I won’t have to get up?”

She nodded.

He fidgeted in his seat. “Your word?”

“Given.”

He swallowed hard. “What do I have to do?”

“Tell me your name,” she murmured. She caught her breath and held it while she waited for him to answer.

His eyes darkened. A flush spread across his cheeks. His hands tightened into fists. “I told you my name. It’s Boy. Just Boy.”

“That’s not a name and you know it.”

“Bird’s not a name, either,” he argued.

“He’s not a little boy like you are. Animals don’t have to have names. People do.”

“It’s my
name
,” he screamed, as if she had ignited something deep inside of him that had been smoldering for a very long time. Without warning, without any rational explanation, he unleashed a diatribe of bitter, angry words that spilled out of his mouth. “My papa called me Boy. He did! He’d say, ‘Boy, get me my strap. Boy, get me my whiskey. Boy, get outta my sight. Boy, you’re stupid. Good-for-nothing. Dumb. You’re dumb, Boy!’” he repeated, over and over, until the tough little street urchin dissolved into a weeping child with a little heart that had suffered far too many hurts.

Martha knelt by his side and cradled his head against her bosom while tremors racked his body and tears washed the bitterness and shame from his heart. She held him, still, long after he had quieted and lay limp in her embrace. She caressed his brow and wiped the tears from his cheeks. His eyes remained closed. His breathing returned to normal, then slowed, as if he had fallen asleep.

Very gently, she lifted him into her arms and carried him to Victoria’s cot. When she laid him down, he stirred and looked up at her with swollen, red-streaked eyes. “You feel like my mama did. Then she died.”