4

Copper knocked at the cabin door. “Adie? Open up. It’s me.”

Slowly the door creaked open. Adie stood behind it, barefoot and hugely pregnant. Generally Copper hated the word pity. It conjured up an air of superiority to her mind, but pity was what she felt for Adie Still. The woman was skinny as a string bean, all elbows and knees and bulging belly. Her hair was tied in a looping knot that hung halfway down her back, and she wore a wool sweater although it was a pleasantly warm day.

“So how are you getting along today?” Copper said, embarrassed by her own muffled, cheerful tone behind her cotton mask. “Are you feeling well?”

“I been racked by chills off and on.” Adie slumped down in a straight-backed chair at a small table. “Last night it was the fever, and now I can’t seem to get warm.”

Copper pulled a stethoscope from her doctor’s bag. Pressing the bell to Adie’s narrow chest, she listened. “Your heart sounds good,” she said before she put the bell to Adie’s back. “Breathe deep through your nose. Again,” she said before she had to stop for Adie’s torturous hacking cough. “Any blood today?”

“Not so much—little streaks.”

“Say aah.” When Adie complied, Copper was glad to see her tongue looked less scalded, but tiny ulcers peppered the back of her throat. This disease was so odd. Yesterday Adie was abed so weak she couldn’t blow her own nose, but today she was sitting up and talking.

Remy thought Adie’s general bad health made her a poor candidate to survive this illness, but Copper felt they could fatten her up and give her a good chance if she didn’t pox. Thank the good Lord she had had Lilly vaccinated when they were all in Philadelphia visiting her parents. What a hard decision that had been. She would have the other children done when they were old enough. Women of child-bearing age couldn’t receive the vaccine, but she protected herself with the mask and gown.

“Have you been drinking your beef tea?”

Adie ran her fingers up and down her neck. “Some. It pains me to swallow. I et a pinch of biscuit this morning.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have sent the biscuit if it hurts you to swallow.”

“It tasted good soaked in the broth, gave me a change from that milk toast.”

Copper moved the stethoscope to the mound of Adie’s belly and listened intently. She laughed when a tiny kick rewarded her efforts. “He’s a strong one.”

“You reckon it’s a boy?” Adie asked. “That’d please Isa aright smart. He don’t want no girls.”

Behind her mask, Copper chewed her bottom lip. Give me the right words, Lord, she prayed. “Adie, about Isa, will he be able to care for you and the baby properly when you go home?”

Adie rested her hand on her belly. “He’s got his old mommy a-living there with us. I reckon she can help care for this’n. She’s been good with the rest.”

“I hope he doesn’t still blame me for you being here,” Copper said. “It was the only solution I could come up with that day the nurse from the board of health brought the law to your place.”

“Isa don’t like the government a-telling him what to do with his own property,” Adie said, slowly lacing the long tail of her hair through her fingers. “He figures you’re part and parcel of them.”

Property. The word Adie applied to herself stuck in Copper’s craw. “The law couldn’t ignore the fact that you have a contagious disease. It would have been nigh impossible for you to keep in quarantine at home.” Careful, Copper reminded herself. One wrong word and Adie would walk right out the door.

“What was that quare woman doing in town anyways?” Adie took a raggedy breath and struggled to continue. “Why am I any of her business?”

“From what I’ve gathered, the nurse has been staying out at the settlement school with a missions group. She’s teaching hygiene and disease prevention to anyone who comes to the meetings they’ve set up. I guess she just happened to be in town the day you collapsed or else someone sent for her.”

“I was just tired. I wanted . . . to set a spell. Ain’t no law against it, far as I know.”

“She thought you were coming down with smallpox. You can’t fault her for acting so quickly, and honestly, if you’d stayed home, your children might have come down with this scarlatina. I know you wouldn’t want that.”

“Oh, I miss them kids. I ain’t gone a day without a baby in my arms since I was sixteen.”

“I can only imagine,” Copper replied.

Wrapping her arms around her trunk, Adie rocked back and forth. “If I was to leave for a little bit—just long enough to see my young’uns, would you sic the law on me?”

Copper longed to put her arms around the slight woman, but she daren’t. She had a family of her own to protect, and she was doing the best she could for Adie. “I have faith you wouldn’t put me in that position. Listen, what if John went to talk to Isa? Isa could come for a visit. You could see each other through the window glass.”

Adie’s eyes were red with fever. A fine rash bloomed on her cheeks. She shrugged and shook her head. “He won’t come here.” Her body seemed to collapse into itself. She turned her face toward the window. “I feel so unnecessary.”

Copper studied her patient. Adie needed something to keep her spirits up. She patted Adie’s knee. “I’m going to bring you some sassafras tea to cut your fever and some yarn and needles to cut your boredom. This wee one will need a gown and a hat. And how about some socks for your husband and the boys?”

A flicker of interest lit up Adie’s dull eyes. “I’d dearly love to put my hands to work.”

Copper stood. “I’m sorry. I should have thought of it before.”

Inside the washhouse, Copper stripped off the duster that covered her day dress, removed her bonnet, and hung both on the same nail. The mask she stuck in the duster pocket to be used again the next day. After pouring water from a bucket into the granite pan she kept handy on an old washstand, she scrubbed her hands and arms to the elbows with lye soap. The clean, strong smell of lye tickled her nose and caused her to sneeze.

From the direction of the creek she could hear childish laughter. The sound lightened her heart, and she paused to thank the Lord for her blessings, specifically her husband and her children. Smiling, she thought of John. He didn’t mind a whit that she had been married before and that she brought a child to their union. From where she stood at the washhouse door, she could see the proof of his love for her. He had built their home himself, and it was more than the usual cabin. It was open and spacious with room for their family and the occasional patient. Even the burbling creek was a sign of his love. He had started building in a different location only to move everything when she decided she could not be happy without the sound of Troublesome Creek out her kitchen door.

John had not been pleased when she brought poor Adie home with her a few days ago, and he continued to worry about her safety. But what was she to do? It wasn’t Adie’s fault that she had scarlatina and that she was due to deliver a baby within the month. Copper couldn’t just ignore her, so she had sworn to the law that she would keep Mrs. Still in quarantine at least until the baby came.

Copper carried the pan several feet behind the washhouse, then dumped the contents in a pit John had dug for her. She returned the pan to the washstand. She wouldn’t need to clean up again if she put Adie’s tea outside her door. Hefting a bucket of disinfectant, she carried it to the place where she had dumped the wastewater and other refuse from the sickroom and the invalid house. With an old dipper she sprinkled the solution all around. The bucket used to dissolve the solution of zinc and common salt in water was almost empty. She’d need to mix more disinfectant soon. Lastly, she changed her shoes and set the dirty pair on the windowsill to catch some sun.

When she got back to the house, she was pleasantly surprised to see Tillie sitting on the porch with Jumbo.

Tillie flashed a big smile. “Look how well we’re doing,” she said, pulling the blanket back from the baby’s face. “Miss Remy said it would do us a world of good to get some air.”

“Wonderful,” Copper replied, studying the infant’s face. With her thumb she retracted his lower eyelid. “Looks like Jumbo’s got a bit of yellow jaundice. Let’s move your chair so you’re sitting in the sun. Sunshine will clear this right up.”

Tillie thanked her profusely—so different from Adie.

“It is my pleasure to see you doing well.” Copper chucked Jumbo lightly under the chin. “Would you like a cup of sassafras? I’m just going in to make a pot.”

The cookstove was almost cold. Jamming a long-handled prong into a cast-iron burner plate, Copper lifted it and was rewarded by the sight of live coals. A chunk of wood from the wood box soon had the fire going again. What had gotten into Manda? She knew to keep one burner going under the teakettle. Not to mention the ironing board was still in the pantry, and it was nearly ten o’clock. Manda should have been half-done with Tuesday’s task by now. Maybe she should have a talk with the young woman, but she hated to say anything. It wasn’t like Manda didn’t work hard when she worked. She just seemed to have her head in the clouds lately.

Copper drew the back of her hand across her forehead. Goodness, she was tired. There was so much to do. If she didn’t keep on top of things, her household would fall apart. While in the pantry fetching the sassafras root, she got the ironing board from behind the door and brought it out too. After the kettle boiled, she would put the iron to heat.

Copper warmed the inside of a teapot with hot water, then emptied it into the slop bucket. The sassafras shavings made the prettiest light red tea when it steeped, and the aroma was heavenly—best treatment for the ague she knew of. She added a skein of yarn and two knitting needles to Adie’s tray.

“I see you got too many irons in the fire as usual,” Remy said as she came into the kitchen with a wad of linen clutched to her chest.

Copper laughed. “I was going to press a couple of things while the tea steeped.”

“Waste of time if you ask me,” Remy said. “Why iron things that are just going to wrinkle again as soon as you sit down? Besides, ain’t that Manda’s job?”

“I learned ironing from my mam. It’s soothing to stand in one place for a while.”

Remy hefted the tea tray. “I’ll take this and a cup for Tillie. I’m going out anyway—got to leave these sheets in the washhouse. I took the opportunity to strip the sickroom bed whilst Tillie gets some air.” She looked aggrieved. “Somebody forgot them yesterday, the same somebody who forgot the ironing today.”

Copper upended the sadiron and spit on the bottom. The spit sizzled and popped. “Don’t you want a cup of tea first?” she asked as she pressed the collar of John’s Sunday shirt.

“Maybe when I get back.” Remy elbowed her way out the door. “I still got to mop the floor in there and wipe down the woodwork.”

Copper kept her mug on the end of the ironing board. The flowery aroma of the sassafras mingled with the starchy smell released from the laundry by the hot iron. Copper inhaled deeply, smelling work and reward at the same time. She suppressed the urge to give aid as Remy backed out the screen door with the tea tray on one hip and the bundle of wash on the other.

Remy was allergic to help, and it was a pure blessing when she could move about without the aid of her crutch. Warm weather greased her arthritic hip, giving her freedom from the usual pain. Remy never complained about her troubles, though she surely had reason. Years ago, before she was saved, Remy used to raid henhouses and cellars for sustenance. One day she picked the wrong henhouse, and an old lady came at her with a shotgun. Remy lost a lot that day and came within a hair’s breadth of dying, but the shooting brought her back into Copper’s life and into the arms of the Lord. “‘All things work together for good,’” Copper said.

“Are you talking to me?” Tillie called from the porch.

Copper laughed as she positioned a shirtsleeve for ironing. “I’m just citing Scripture.” Taking the opportunity she had been praying for, Copper put the iron back on the burner and stepped outside with her Bible and a mug of tea. “Do you know that verse?”

“Can’t say that I do,” Tillie murmured.

Copper pulled a chair alongside the young mother and opened her Bible to Romans 8:28 and read, “‘All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.’ Isn’t that a wonderful promise?”

“Do you reckon that means me too? I don’t go to church or nothing.”

Copper covered one of Tillie’s hands with her own. “Do you love the Lord?”

“Oh yes, ma’am—with all my heart. My mommy taught me about Jesus.”

“It sounds to me like God meant you, then. It says ‘to them that love God.’ The Word of God never fails.” Copper stood and laid her Bible on the chair seat. “Let’s get you back in the shade. I believe the baby has had enough sun.”

Tillie looked contemplative as she arranged the blanket around the baby. “How long do ye reckon before I could take Abe Jr. to church? I’d like to think I raised my son to have that promise for his own self.”

Copper felt a tingle walk her spine, which always happened when she sensed the Holy Spirit moving. She couldn’t wait to tell John what had just happened. “I’d say wait about three months to take the baby out. By then he’ll have good protection against sickness, and you’ll be stronger too. In the meantime, Brother Jasper could visit you and Abe at home if you would like.”

Tillie sipped from the teacup that Remy had brought out earlier. “I would like that. I heard him praying for me the night I flooded so bad. The room got so dark I thought I could see the stars. I was swirling down a dark river; then I heard Brother Jasper calling me back to my baby.” Her eyes spurted tears. “I was so scared. I thought I was about to die.”

“Lord love your heart. That was a frightening time for all of us.”

The screen door creaked. Copper had been so intent on Tillie that Manda was nearly inside the house before she noticed the girl had come up on the porch. Manda was carrying her shoes, and she ducked when she caught Copper looking.

Just as Copper opened her mouth in question, the children straggled across the yard. Jack was covered in mud, and the twins’ dress tails were wet. Lilly Gray was mad. Copper could tell by the set of her fists on her nearly nonexistent hips.

“Mama,” Lilly said, “your children do not mind very well.”

“Obviously.” Copper herded Jack to the end of the porch and stripped off his pants and shirt. She’d have to scrape the mud off his clothes with a butter knife. Oh, well, boys will be boys. “Stand still,” she said while watching a horse and rider draw up in the yard.

“Miz Pelfrey,” a neighbor called from horseback, “can you come? It’s Mary’s time.”