The baby’s due date was more than a month away when Mary began labor. On November 10, 1916, she was home alone, having taken leave from teaching until January of the next year. She told Will, “At first I thought it was something I ate.” But when her water broke, she called Will at work, urging him to get the doctor.
Will ran into the house on Dr. Ruggles’ heels. He heard cries from upstairs and it scared him.
“Stay there. I’ll call if I need anything,” Dr. Ruggles said as he continued up from the first landing.
Will paced the hall floor but felt relieved when Dr. Ruggles called down, “She’ll be okay, Will. But stay there for now.”
Will sensed an edge in Dr. Ruggles’ voice that was worrisome, but Will couldn’t think how he might help. He continued to move but broadened his range through the kitchen and dining room. When he reached the far end of the house, he heard Dr. Ruggles’ voice, raced for the stairs, and was at the landing when Ruggles called again. “Best you stay down, but you might want to call Mrs. Alderson. I may need her help.”
Will rang Mrs. Alderson’s telephone number, tried again, and when there was no answer the third time, he shouted up the stairs, “She doesn’t answer her phone.”
“She’s probably out in her garden,” Dr. Ruggles called back. “Spends most of her time out back. Run over and get her. It’ll be a while here, and you might as well do something useful.”
Will found Mrs. Alderson between the peas and the pole beans, shovel in hand, and sweat cutting a swath down her dust-covered face.
“Mrs. Alderson, quick! Mary’s delivering and Dr. Ruggles needs help!”
Mrs. Alderson dropped her shovel and wiped her brow with a big yellow handkerchief which she pulled from between her ample breasts. “Why didn’t you call me in the first place,” she said. “That old fool’s bound to make a mess of it. Why, I’ve delivered more babies than he’s seen in his lifetime.” She marched across her beans, potatoes, peas, and onions, stepping high to avoid disturbing the plants. “Get going now,” she called back at Will as he stumbled along behind. “I’ll be there as soon as I wash up.”
“Hurry!” Will said. “The doctor needs you. Please hurry.”
Mrs. Alderson was the most popular lady in Ashley Springs when baby time came. She arrived some twenty years before, yet no one knew where she was from. Some said she trained to be a doctor, but they wouldn’t let a woman be an M.D. But she never mentioned it. And when a baby needed delivering, no one questioned her credentials. Most of the time, they called her before the doctor. Mrs. Alderson had never lost a baby, and that was more than Dr. Ruggles could claim.
Mrs. Alderson pushed past him when Will opened the door. He knew better than to follow her up the stairs, but he continued to pace and worry whenever he heard loud voices above. Eventually it was only Mrs. Alderson’s voice he heard.
Will made a cold beef sandwich and poured a glass of milk, set them on the counter, and after the phone rang and he told his mother that nothing had happened yet, he resumed pacing and forgot his food. He read the headlines of the last Weekly Democrat, but he couldn’t concentrate, so he threw it down. He left the house and walked around the block, then rushed back in and craned his neck up the stairs, but all was quiet. He was just about to call up to say he might as well go to the shop and get some work done, when he heard it. At first the cry was weak and Will wasn’t sure what it was. But then it erupted into a full blown hurricane of a squall, and Will knew that he was a father. Mrs. Alderson motioned him upstairs.
His son was a robust baby, weighing five pounds, ten ounces. But Mary looked plumb tuckered out when she turned Will’s way.
“See, I told you it would be a boy, and you doubted me.”
“I’ll never doubt you again, my dear,” he proclaimed as he piled unneeded blankets beside her bed and continued to pester Mrs. Alderson with questions about Mary and the newborn.
Finally she said, “I’ve got work to do and you’re in the way. Why don’t you go to the pharmacy and buy more gauze and iodine.” She took his arm and turned him toward the bedroom door. “Now, git!”
Will bought the medical supplies, but also a box of cigars that he handed out at Bennie’s, a brief stop on his way back home. “It’s a boy. I’ve got a new partner. Why, he’ll be down at the shop before you know it.”
Will resisted the congratulatory, “Drinks on me,” and rushed home to his wife and newborn.
Mrs. Alderson didn’t applaud his speedy return, but with a frown and a grumble, she accepted a cigar and stowed it within her ample cleavage.
* * *
“My dear, what’ll we call the lad?” Will said. “Do you have a fine Cornish name in mind?”
“Oh, there’s many a family name to choose from. Nicholas, Thomas, Joseph, and Sidney. But I rather like Charles. My Uncle Charles Tregonning died in the Civil War. At the battle of Perryville. In Kentucky. Lincoln said that he hoped God was on his side, but he absolutely must have Kentucky. And Charles did his part, a family hero. But I don’t want him called Charlie. I’d rather it be the full name, a handsome name. Charles.”
“Charles would be a fine name, but it sounds a bit Frenchy, now doesn’t it?”
“Frenchy? You didn’t know, Will. I wouldn’t press your conceit by telling you, but my mother was a Collins and she named my brother after Uncle Charles, but he didn’t make it.” Mary sighed. “A lot of children died in those days.”
“Your mother’s Irish? You’re Irish?”
“Well, just a little — maybe. But my Irish blood’s diminished by my many Cornish ancestors. We’ll just leave it at that.”
“Collins? Might you be related to that Irish firebrand, Michael Collins?”
“We don’t know. And I’m not about to inquire. I wish I hadn’t brought it up.”
“But Michael’d be a fine name, now wouldn’t it? Michael O’Shaughnessy. Doesn’t that sound just splendid?”
“It might do.”
Mary’s mother, the other Mary, the one with the Collins name, came to help for the rest of the semester, but she wanted to be home weekends, so Will drove her back to Hinton each Friday night.
Will loved spending Saturday with Michael. “He seldom cries,” he said. “Why, I never saw a baby who didn’t cry all the time,” he told customers whenever he passed them on the street. They’d wink and nod, and they fawned over Michael as if they believed every word.
And Will also agreed to watch Michael Sunday afternoons, while Mary prepared work sheets for the coming semester. “Why, we get along just fine, yes we do.” He turned to Michael. “Now don’t we, my laddie?”
Michael cooed and smiled.
Will scooped baby Michael from the cradle and held him close as he whirled through the steps of a makeshift jig. “Have you ever seen a finer baby?” He danced past Mary. “You’ve given me a handsome lad, my darlin’.”
* * *
Will returned from the barbershop, hair clipped to the noggin. When Mary chided him for going prematurely bald, he passed it off as a summer cut, short enough so he wouldn’t have to pay again soon. “I read the Journal while I waited,” he said. “Trouble’s brewing in Europe. I can’t see how they’ll avoid war.”
And he was right. Hostilities bristled into active conflict. At first America resisted entering the war, but Will knew they couldn’t hold out long. He felt ambivalent about Europe’s future.
When he stopped at Bennie’s that night, the talk was all about Europe.
“I worry about this mess, Bennie. Life’s been too comfortable for us here, but I think that’ll change.” Will lifted the shot glass that Bennie placed before him. “I’m not sure that Ireland won’t enter on the Kaiser’s side. I don’t like the Kaiser, but Ireland’s at odds with England, and if we enter the war, we’ll be England’s ally.”
“So, who’ll you defend?”
“I don’t like it, but Ireland has as much right to be independent as our forefathers did. No country should be dominated by another.”
“If we get in, there’ll be a draft, you know,” Bennie said. “What’ll you do if you’re called?”
What would he do if he was called to fight against his grandfather’s country? It was out of his hands, so he shouldn’t worry, but he couldn’t help it. And Frank and Jesse? Just one more thing to tear his family apart.
* * *
On April 6, 1917, newspaper headlines and telegraphs trumpeted the news: America was finally in the Great War, as it came to be called.
Thousands of American men volunteered to enter the fray. Patriotic fervor surged through Will, too, but he was torn. How could he leave his family? Then he heard from his draft board. Because of wife and child, he received a deferral. Still, if the war’s progress became grim, he knew that could change. His brother Frank received a farm deferment, but Jesse wasn’t so lucky. Although he pleaded farm worker status, and his father supported that claim, too many people saw him in town, knew his fondness for the taverns to take his claim seriously. The local draft board didn’t. The military assigned him to the 85th Division, to be stationed at Camp Custer in Battle Creek, Michigan.
Before Jesse left, he stopped to see Will at his dealership, but he didn’t come to say goodbye or to accept his brother’s best wishes.
“I hope you and Frank are happy now. You’ve got me out of your hair.”
“Can I get something for you?” Will clutched Jesse’s shoulder. “I wish it hadn’t turned out so.”
Jesse jerked away.
“It didn’t have to. If you had any guts and Frank any heart, I’d have my own farm now. I’d be at home, just like you.”
He kicked Will’s desk hard enough to slide it into Will and force him back.
“You better know, if something happens to me, it’s on the both of you.”
Jesse walked to the door and grabbed the knob; then, he turned back.
“Remember that while you enjoy your fine home and prosperity. I may see Hell in Europe, but you’ll get yours. Sooner or later, you and Frank will get yours. I’ll pray for that every day I’m gone.”
Will pulled a bill from his wallet, held it out, but Jesse slapped it to the floor.
“Keep your money. A curse on the both of you.” Jesse turned and strode out the door.