Farnham's Freehold

by Robert A. Heinlein

  Grace looked doubtful but dropped the matter and left the shelter. Hugh started to get up. Karen grabbed his hand. “Don’t go ’way, Daddy!”

  “Pain?”

  “No. Something to tell you. I asked Joe to marry me. Last week. And he accepted.”

  “I’m glad to hear it, dear. I think you are getting a prize.”

  “I do, too. Oh, it’s Hobson’s choice but I do love him, quite a lot. But we won’t get married until I’m up and around and strong. I couldn’t face the row with Mother, not now.”

  “I won’t tell her.”

  “Better not tell Duke, either. Barbara knows, she thinks it’s swell.”

  A contraction hit Karen while Duke was adjusting ropes. She yelped, chopped it off and gritted her teeth, reached for the ropes as Duke hastily handed them to her. Hugh put his hand on her belly, felt her womb harden as increasing pain showed in her face. “Bear down, baby,” he told her. “And pant; it helps.”

  She started to pant, it turned into a scream.

  Endless seconds later she relaxed, forced a smile and said, “They went that a-way! Sorry about the sound effects, Daddy.”

  “Yell if you want to. But panting does more good. Now rest while you can. Let’s get this organized. Joe, you’re drafted as cook. I want Barbara to rest and Grace to nurse—so you cook dinner, please. Fix some cold supper, too. Grace, did you log it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you time the contraction?”

  “I did,” Barbara answered. “Forty-four seconds.”

  Karen looked indignant. “Barb, you are out of your mind! It was over an hour.”

  “Call it forty-five seconds,” Hugh said. “I want the time of each pain and how long it lasts.”

  Seven minutes later the next one hit. Karen managed to pant, screamed only a little. But she did not feel like joking afterwards; she turned her face away. The contraction had been long and severe. Though shaken by his daughter’s agony, Hugh felt encouraged; it seemed certain that labor was going to be short.

  It was not. All that hot and weary day the woman brought to bed fought to void herself of her burden—white-faced and shrieking, belly hardening with each attempt, muscles in arms and neck standing out as she strained—then fell back limp as the contraction died away, tired and trembling, not speaking, uninterested in anything but the ordeal.

  It got steadily worse. Contractions became only three minutes apart, each one longer and seeming to hurt more. Once Hugh told her not to use the ropes; he could not see that they helped. Quickly she asked for them and seemed not to have heard him. She did seem slightly less uncomfortable braced against them.

  At nine that night there was bleeding. Grace became frantic; she had heard many stories of the dangers of hemorrhage. Hugh assured her that it was normal and showed that the baby would arrive soon. He believed it, as it was not massive and did not continue—and it did not seem possible that birth could be far away.

  Grace looked angry and got up; Barbara slipped into the chair she vacated. Hugh hoped that Grace would rest—the women had been taking turns.

  But Grace returned a few minutes later. “Hubert,” she said in a high, brittle voice. “Hubert, I’m going to call a doctor.”

  “Do that,” he agreed, his eyes on Karen.

  “You listen to me, Hubert Farnham. You should have called a doctor at once. You’re killing her, you hear me? I’m going to call a doctor—and you are not going to stop me.”

  “Yes, Grace. The telephone is in there.” He pointed into the other wing. Grace looked puzzled, then turned suddenly and went away. “Duke!”

  His son hurried in. “Yes, Dad?”

  Hugh said forcefully, “Duke, your mother has decided to telephone for a doctor. You go help her. Do you understand?”

  Duke’s eyes widened. “Where are the needles?”

  “In the smaller bundle on the table. Don’t touch the large bundle; it’s sterile.”

  “Got it. What dosage?”

  “Two c.c. Don’t let her see the needle, or she’ll jerk.” Hugh’s head jerked; he realized that he was groggy. “Make that three c.c.; I want her to go out like a light and sleep until morning. She can tolerate it.”

  “Right away.” Duke left.

  Karen had been lying quiet between contractions, apparently in semi-coma. Now she whispered, “Poor Daddy. Your women give you a lot of grief.”

  “Rest, dear.”

  “I—Oh, God, here it comes again!”

  Then she was saying between screams: “It hurts! Make it stop! Oh, Daddy, I do want a doctor! Please, Daddy! Get me a doctor!”

  “Bear down, darling. Bear down.”

  It went on and on, far into the night, no respite and getting worse. It stopped being worth while to log contractions; they almost overlapped. Karen no longer could be said to talk; she screamed incoherent demands for relief when she strained, spoke unresponsively or did not answer in the brief periods between contractions.

  Around dawn—it seemed to Hugh that the torture had been going on for weeks but his watch showed that Karen had been in labor eighteen hours—Barbara said urgently, “Hugh, she can’t take any more.”

  “I know,” he admitted, looking at his daughter. She was at the peak of a pain, face gray and contorted, mouth squared in agony, high sobbing moans coming out between her teeth.

  “Well?”

  “I suppose she should have had a Caesarean. But I’m no surgeon.”

  “I wonder.”

  “I don’t. I’m not.”

  “You know more about it than the first man who ever did one! You know how to keep it sterile. We have sulfa drugs and you can load her up with Demerol.” She did not try to keep Karen from hearing; their patient was beyond caring.

  “No.”

  “Hugh, you must. She’s dying.”

  “I know.” He sighed. “But it’s too late for a Caesarean, even if I knew how. To save Karen with one, I mean. We might save her baby.” He blinked and swayed. “Only it would not. Who’s to wet-nurse? You can’t, not yet. And cows we don’t have.”

  He took a deep breath, tried to get a grip on himself. “Only one thing left. Try to get it out Eskimo style.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Get her up and let gravity help. Maybe it’ll work. Call the boys, we’ll need them. I’ve got to scrub again; I might have to do an episiotomy. Oh, God.”

  Five minutes and two contractions later they were ready to try it. When Karen lay back exhausted after the second one, Hugh tried to explain what they were going to do. It was hard to get her attention. At last she nodded slightly and whispered, “I don’t care.”

  Hugh went to the table where his equipment was now opened out, got his one scalpel, took the camp lamp in his other hand. “All right, boys. As soon as she starts, pick her up.”

  They had only seconds to wait. Hugh saw the contraction start, nodded to Duke. “Now!”

  “With me, Joe.” They started to lift her, each with an arm under her back, a hand under a thigh.

  Karen screamed and fought them off. “No, no! Don’t touch me—I can’t stand it! Daddy, make them stop! Daddy!”

  They stopped. Duke said, “Dad?”

  “Lift her up! Now!”

  They got her high in a squatting position, thighs pulled open. Barbara got behind Karen, arms around her, and pressed down on the girl’s tortured belly. Karen screamed and struggled; they held her fast. Hugh got hurriedly to the floor, shined the light up. “Bear down, Karen, bear down!”

  “Ooooooh!”

  Suddenly he saw the baby’s scalp, gray-blue. He started to lay the knife aside; the head retreated. “Try again, Karen!”

  He readjusted the lamp. He wondered whether he was supposed to make the incision in front? Or in back? Or both? He saw the scalp show again and stop; with his hand suddenly rock steady and with no conscious decision he reached up and made one small cut.

  He barely had time to drop the knife before he had both hands full of wet, s
lippery, bloody baby. He knew there was something else he should do now but all he could think of was to get it by both feet in his left hand, lift it and slap its tiny bottom.

  It let out a choked wail.

  “Get her on the bed, boys—but easy! It’s still fastened by the cord.”

  They made it, Hugh on his knees and burdened with a feebly wiggling load. Once they had Karen down, Hugh started to put her baby in her arms—but saw that Karen was not up to it. She seemed to be awake—her eyes were open. But she was in total collapse.

  Hugh was close to collapse. He looked dazedly around, handed the baby to Barbara. “Stay close,” he told her, unnecessarily.

  “Dad?” said Duke. “Aren’t you supposed to cut the cord?”

  “Not yet.” Where was that knife? He found it, rubbed it quickly with iodine—hoped that it was sterile. Placed it by two boiled lengths of cotton string—turned and felt the cord to see if it was pulsing.

  “He’s beautiful,” Joe said softly.

  “She,” Hugh corrected. “The baby is a girl. Now, Barbara, if you—”

  He broke off. Suddenly everything happened too fast. The baby started to choke; Hugh grabbed it, turned it upside down, dug into its mouth, scooped out a plug of mucus, handed the baby back, started again to check the cord—saw that Karen was in trouble.

  With a nightmare feeling that he needed to be twins he got one of the strings, tied a square knot around the cord near the baby’s belly, trying to control his trembling so as not to tie it too hard—started to tie the second, saw that it was not needed; Karen suddenly delivered the placenta and was hemorrhaging. She moaned.

  With one slash Hugh cut the cord, snapped at Barbara, “Get a bellyband on it!”—turned to take care of the mother.

  She was flowing like a river; her face was gray and she seemed unconscious. Too late to attempt to take stitches in the cut he had made and the tears that followed; he could see that this flood was from inside, not from the damaged portal. He tried to stop it by packing her inside with their last roll of gauze while shouting to Joe and to Duke to get a bellyband and compress on Karen herself to put pressure on her uterus.

  Some agonized time later the belly compress was in place and the gauze was backed by a dam of sanitary napkins—one irreplaceable, Hugh thought tiredly, they hadn’t needed much. He raised his eyes and looked at Karen’s face—then in sudden panic tried to find her pulse.

  Karen had survived the birth of her daughter by less than seven minutes.

  9

  Katherine Josephine survived her mother by a day. Hugh baptized her with that name and a drop of water an hour after Karen died; it was clear that the baby might not last long. She had trouble breathing.

  Once when the baby choked, Barbara started her up again by mouth-to-mouth suction, getting a mouthful of something she spat out hastily. Little Jodie seemed better then for quite a while.

  But Hugh knew that it was only a reprieve; he could see no chance of keeping the baby alive long enough—two months—to let Barbara feed it. Only two cans of Carnation milk were left in their stores.

  Nevertheless they worked grimly around the clock.

  Grace mixed a formula from memory—evaporated milk, boiled water, a hoarded can of white Karo. They had no food cells, not even a nipple. An orphaned baby was a crisis for which Hugh had not planned. In hindsight it seemed the most glaring of probable emergencies. He tried not to brood over his failure, dedicated himself to keeping Karen’s daughter alive.

  A plastic-barreled eyedropper was the nearest to a nipple they could find. They used it to pick up the formula, try to match the pressure with the infant’s attempts to suck.

  It did not work well. Little Jodie continued to have trouble breathing and tended to choke every time they tried to feed her; they spent as much time trying to clear her throat and get her cranked up again as they did in feeding her. She seemed reluctant to suck on the harsh substitute and if they squirted food into her mouth anyway, she always choked. Twice Grace was able to coax her into taking almost an ounce. Both times she threw it up. Barbara and Hugh had even less luck.

  Before dawn following her birthday Hugh was awakened by Grace screaming. The child had choked to death.

  During the long day in which three of them battled to save the baby, Duke and Joe dug a grave, high up the hill in a sunny spot. They dug deep and stocked a pile of boulders; both held concealed horror that a bear or coyotes might dig up the grave.

  Grave dug, boulders waiting, Joe said in a strained voice, “How are we going to build a casket?”

  Duke sighed and wiped sweat from his eyes. “Joe, we can’t.”

  “We’ve got to.”

  “Oh, we could cut trees and split them and adz out some lumber—we’ve done that when we had to. That kitchen counter. But how long would it take? Joe, this is hot weather—Karen can’t wait!”

  “We’ve got to tear down something and build out of it. A bed, maybe. Bookcases.”

  “Taking the wardrobe apart would be easiest.”

  “Let’s start.”

  “Joe. The only things we could use to build a coffin are in the house. Do you think Hugh will let us go in there now and start ripping and tearing and banging? If anybody woke that baby or startled it when they were trying to get it to feed, Dad would kill him. If Barbara or Mother didn’t kill him first. No, Joe. No coffin.”

  They settled for a vault, using all their stock of bricks; these they used to build a box in the bottom of the grave, then cut down their dining canopy to line it, and cut timbers to cover it. Poor as it was, they felt comforted by it.

  Next morning the grave received mother and daughter.

  Joe and Duke placed them in it, Duke having insisted that his father stay behind and take care of Grace and Barbara. Duke had visualized how awkward it would be, getting the bodies into the grave and arranging them; he would not have had Joe along had not an assistant been necessary. He suggested that his mother not come to the grave at all.

  Hugh shook his head. “I thought of that. You try to convince her. I can’t budge her.”

  Nor could Duke. But when he sent Joe down for the others, his sister and her daughter were decently at rest with their winding sheet neatly arranged, and no trace remained of the struggle it had been to place them there, the rebuilding of part of the brick box that had been necessary, or—worst—the moment when the tiny corpse had fallen out of the sheet when they tried to get them both down as one. Karen’s face looked peaceful and her daughter was cuddled in her arm as if sleeping.

  Duke balanced with a foot on each brick wall, knelt over her. “Good-bye, Sis,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.” He covered her face and got carefully out of the grave. A little procession was coming up the hill, Hugh assisting his wife, Joe helping Barbara. Beyond the shelter their flag flew at half-mast.

  They arranged themselves at the grave, Hugh at the head, his wife on his right, his son on his left, Barbara and Joe at the foot. To Duke’s relief no one asked that faces be uncovered nor did his mother seem disturbed at the arrangements.

  Hugh took a small black book from his pocket, opened it to a marked page:

  “‘I am the Resurrection and the Life…

  “‘We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that we can take nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken—’”

  Grace sobbed and her knees started to fail. Hugh shoved the book into Duke’s hands, moved to support his wife. “Take over, Son!”

  “Take her back down, Dad!”

  Grace said brokenly, “No, no! I must stay.”

  “Read it, Duke. I’ve marked the passages.”

  “‘…he heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather them.

  “‘For I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.

  “‘O spare me a little, that I may recover my strength.

  “‘Man, that is born of woman, hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery.

  “‘U
nto Almighty God we commend the soul of our sister—of our sisters—and we commit their bodies to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust—’”

  Duke paused, dropped the tiniest of clods into the grave. He looked back at the book, closed it and said suddenly, “Let us pray.”

  They took Grace back and put her to bed; Joe and Duke returned to close the grave. Hugh, seeing that his wife appeared to be resting, started to snuff candles in the rear bay. She opened her eyes. “Hubert—”

  “Yes, Grace?”

  “I told you. I warned you. You wouldn’t listen to me.”

  “About what, Grace?”

  “I told you she had to have a doctor! You wouldn’t call one. You were too proud. You sacrificed my daughter on the altar of your pride. My baby. You killed her.”

  “Grace, there are no doctors here. You know that.”

  “If you were even half a man, you wouldn’t make excuses!”

  “Grace, please. May I get you something? A Miltown? Or would you like a hypo?”

  “No, no!” she said shrilly. “That’s how you tricked me when I was going to get a doctor anyway. In spite of you. You’ll never again trick me with your drugs. And you’ll never touch me again, either. Murderer.”

  “Yes, Grace.” He turned and left.

  Barbara was on the stoop, sitting with her head in her hands. Hugh said, “Barbara, the flag must be two-blocked. Do you want me to do it?”

  “So soon, Hugh?”

  “Yes. We go on.”

  10

  They went on. Duke hunted, Duke and Joe farmed, Hugh worked harder than ever. Grace worked too, and her cooking improved—and her eating; she got fatter. She never mentioned her conviction that her husband had been responsible for the death of their daughter.

  She did not speak to him at all. When a problem had to be discussed she spoke to Duke. She quit attending church services.

  In the last month of Barbara’s pregnancy, Duke sought out his father privately. “Dad, you told me that any time I wanted to leave—or any of us—we could.”