by Jenny Bond
‘There are at least seventeen babies that were born in the last year in Winslow,’ she had explained. ‘And those are just the ones that I had a hand in birthing. I warrant any one of those mothers will nurse your son. Start with the Moodys by Goldfinch Creek.’
In the meantime, she had rubbed Sarah’s feet with Henry Senior’s rum (taking two or three liberal swigs from the bottle herself) and Hepsy comforted the baby as best she could with a sugar rag that Tabby had instructed her in making. When Henry Senior returned, perhaps three hours later, he entered the cabin in front of a slight, mouse of a girl who held a baby in her arms. Tabby, who recognised most of the residents of the Kennebec settlements, had never seen this girl before. Not much more than a child herself, the girl’s complexion was almost grey. The light wood-brown hair that hung to her waist in long, narrow strips gave her the appearance of a ghost. She was wearing little more than a simple shift. Her stockings and shoes were splashed with mud (no doubt from the ride on Henry Senior’s horse) and a tattered, crocheted shawl hung around her shoulders. She had a faraway look about her. Uncertain. Neither here nor there.
Tabby tucked Sarah’s feet under the covers, replaced the cork in the rum bottle and, setting the bottle on the table, shot Henry Senior a hard look, daring him to touch it. She approached the girl with a smile.
‘Thank you for helping this family.’
Tabby wrapped her hand around the girl’s scrawny shoulder, doubting such a wispy thing could feed two babes. She led her to the bed.
‘My name is Tabby, and this is Sarah. She has been deathly ill, and she is not out of the woods yet. I must get her baby fed or I will have a second patient on my hands.’
The girl nodded in understanding.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Polly Cool,’ she said, taking in Tabby’s attire.
Her voice was tuneless, as meek as gruel. The surname was unfamiliar to Tabby.
‘Where are you from, Polly?’
‘Harper’s Creek,’ she replied.
Tabby squinted, attempting to recall the settlement.
‘It’s about seven miles from here. Near Vassalboro,’ said Polly.
‘In my haste, I got lost on the way to Goldfinch Creek,’ Henry Senior cut in. ‘Came across a settlement in the backwoods,’ he said, glancing at the girl. ‘Her husband will surely be grateful of the payment.’
Tabby ignored his last remark and turned to the girl again.
‘And your baby?’ Tabby asked. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Olive.’
‘How old is she?’
‘She was born in March.’
‘She is very beautiful,’ Tabby said holding out her arms.
Polly gave her daughter to Tabby. The baby was tightly swaddled in a thick woollen blanket, lightly coated with dew. From the weight of the child in her arms, Tabby could tell that, despite her rake-like appearance, the young mother’s milk was plentiful and nourishing. She drew the blanket down to the baby’s chin. Olive’s cheeks were pink and plump. Tabby cupped her hand over the baby’s round head, relishing the sensation of the warm down against her palm. It was almost like fur.
‘Polly, please fetch young Henry there,’ said Tabby, indicating the bed where Sarah and her son were sleeping. ‘While I do not advocate waking a sleeping baby, mind, I fear his sleep is born from lack of sustenance. It is likely his little body is giving up. Be careful when you put him to your tit. He will be hungry.’
Henry Junior woke immediately as Polly leant over him. Her milk had issued liberally during the ride there, almost soaking her shift. The scent sent him into a storm. One-handed, Polly instinctively unlaced the undergarment at the neck and, within just a second or two, Henry Junior – like a hound sniffing out a fox – had discovered the breast and latched on with fierce intent. Polly’s eyes shot wide open – the first sign of animation Tabby had seen in the girl – and a sharp pang of regret coursed through Tabby’s own breasts.
After indicating a chair where Polly could sit, she quickly removed herself from the scene. With too much still to accomplish before resting, Tabby left the pair and returned to Sarah, taking Olive with her.
Tabby burrowed Polly’s child against Sarah’s side then went about examining the ill woman’s breasts. Both were swollen. Lumps as hard and smooth as river rocks seemed to jostle for prominence in the left. It was possible Tabby could control the fever for a day or two, but if the swellings were not seen to the fever would return. As she tied Sarah’s shift, Tabby considered how to proceed.
‘Hepsy,’ she began, striding to the corner where she had left her black case. ‘Put some water on to boil – not a whole kettleful, mind – then fix Polly some supper. That child will feed all night if I let it, and I intend to, and Polly will need fuel. Then find the girl something to wear – her shift is soaked through, and filthy from the journey. After that, tidy this place up. I won’t have Sarah awaken to this mess.’
As Hepsy began on the tasks, Tabby squatted by her bag. She removed a calico pouch that was tied by string at the opening. It was filled with dandelion root that she had ground to a fine powder. Emptying a large quantity into a clay beaker, she then added a quantity of rosemary oil. While waiting for the water to boil, she checked on Polly and Henry Junior. He was still feeding ravenously. Polly gazed at the child through sleepy eyes.
‘Your journey must have been a long one,’ Tabby murmured looking at the girl. ‘But you will be able to rest soon.’
Once the boiled water was added to the beaker, the ground dandelion root quickly transformed into a thick beige paste that Tabby applied directly to Sarah’s breasts, painting it on liberally with the back of a wooden spoon. Finally, a tow compress was laid across the woman’s chest and the shift retied. Tabby stood over the patient for some time, hands on hips, in contemplation.
‘You look worried.’
The voice came from across the room. Tabby turned. It was Polly. Henry Junior was propped at her shoulder. She was stroking his back in gentle circles. There was more colour to the girl’s face now.
‘Well, Sarah has a number of worrying swellings.’
Tabby walked slowly to the girl and sat. Polly nodded, slowly.
‘She’s ailing from broken breast. Some call it milk fever. I don’t know why it happens,’ she said, sighing, ‘but my guess is that the milk in a woman’s breast is similar to the water in the Kennebec. The river flows freely if you let it, but if it’s dammed, or blocked by rocks or fallen trees after a storm, then the water builds up behind it, creating its own kind of havoc – new channels and waterways, and the like.’
She looked at Polly.
‘But milk is not water. If it has no release, it will sour and rot.’
Hepsy went over to Polly and placed a bowl of oatmeal close at hand on the table near her, along with a pot of molasses. Tabby gazed at the steaming bowl as she went on.
‘You see Polly, I cannot change the cause of the illness. For when a woman has too much milk, it’s like the river when it floods, and I am no match for Mother Nature.’
It helped Tabby to talk through the problem. Sarah’s was the worst case of the illness she’d ever seen.
‘So, the swellings are milk?’ Polly asked, swallowing a heaped spoonful of oatmeal before placing Henry on her other breast. He clamped on with determination. Tabby believed his pale cheeks were becoming pinker by the second.
‘Not exactly.’ Tabby paused for a moment, considering how to explain an ailment she did not fully comprehend herself. ‘The swellings are inflammations.’
Polly frowned.
‘A little like boils, but on the inside of the body. That’s why midwives and healers apply poultices, same as with a boil – to draw the pus out.’
Polly made a small huh of surprise and understanding. She was quiet for a time before speaking again.
‘My brother had a boil on his leg, back when he was twelve or so. My father had to cut him with his jackknife and squeeze the pus out. Jonas screa
med like a pig half stuck.’
The girl laughed. She was pretty when she laughed.
Tabby smiled. If the poultices did not work, she would have to lance the swellings. Although she had lanced boils and ulcers with a folding pocketknife – a gift from her father when she had fished with him as a young girl – she had never cut a patient in that manner before. Tabby had amputated limbs that had been crushed by a fallen tree or gnarled like a blackthorn by disease, but cutting into living flesh was different, especially a woman’s breast. They gave pleasure and nourished life, after all. No, she had never cut through clean healthy skin, even though she carried a knife for the exact purpose in her black case.
Exchanged in Winthrop for three bags of rice, the ‘scalpel’, as it was known, was made in Sheffield, England. The place of manufacture was engraved into the back of the small wooden box in which the instrument was housed. Although she had never used it, Tabby had often removed her scalpel from its box to study the blade, hoping to gain courage through familiarity. So thin and keen was it that she was sure it would have no trouble splitting a hair. Beauty and violence were contained within the tool in equal measure, like the grace of a bobcat pouncing on its prey.
Yet, despite its artistry, a tool it was – a means of carrying out a particular task. This is what she told herself in her efforts to earn a modicum of ease with the instrument. Holding the wooden handle between her fingers, she would turn it this way and that. But its elegance never felt comfortable in her large, rough-skinned hand. Then her heart would race, and her mouth would grow as dry as tinder and she would hastily place the instrument back in its box, close the lid and secure the tiny gold clasp. Neither the miner who had hammered into the earth’s veins with bone-shattering determination to extract the ore nor the smith who had crafted the instrument with a steady hand and an artist’s eye could have imagined that their labours would be wasted.
‘Well, hopefully, it won’t come to that,’ Tabby said, finally responding to Polly. She rose and moved to her patient.
With the aid of Polly, who took charge of the infants, and Hepsy, who she found reliable once given adequate instruction, Tabby changed the poultices on Sarah’s breast every three hours for the next day and night. When the fever returned around noon, she tirelessly rubbed Sarah’s feet with Henry’s rum as Hepsy bathed the patient’s head with cool clouts. She sent Henry away to do his work. Sarah would be no better off, she told him, if the sheep were not fed and ran afoul in their search for sustenance. Also, Tabby resented the evil eye she was shot each time she reached for the rum.
During these hours, she ate sparingly and slept not at all. By four o’clock the fever had waned and Tabby, still in a trance of urgent focus, lifted the poultice from Sarah’s chest to examine the woman’s breasts. No longer did Sarah wince when Tabby lay her hands on them, and the swellings seemed to have lessened. Closing her eyes as she pressed fingers into flesh, Tabby struggled to recall the size and firmness of the lumps she had felt only hours before. Were they getting smaller and softer or was she, in her tiredness and desperation, merely imagining it? The scalpel in her case flashed silver before her vision. Tabby opened her eyes with a gasp but, noting Sarah’s expression of dismay, restored herself immediately.
‘Merely a cramp in my back,’ she said, smiling comfortingly at the worried woman. ‘I should take some rest.’
Tabby removed herself from the cabin and the gentle honeysuckle breeze immediately brought her back to her senses. Cloudless was the sky Tabby scanned in search of Edie, the violet haze of twilight only just evident in the distance. What mischief does Edie make when we are apart, what heights does she soar to? Tabby wondered. When her friend wasn’t close by, Tabby felt the loss acutely, as though a small hole in her heart had formed and was left gaping.
All was quiet, as it always seemed to be at this amber hour of dusk, even though all around, from the woodland canopy to the damp litter of the forest floor, life and death were in chorus. For Tabby, stepping into the invisible world of silent hunting and feeding was enlivening. There was a mysterious readiness, a sense of expectation in the air that she drank in after being confined for so many hours, waiting.
Walking some distance from the cabin so as not to disturb the inhabitants within, she pressed her thumb and forefinger into the corners of her mouth and discharged a lusty whistle, cracking for an instance the brittle husk of noiselessness. She rolled down the sleeve of her tunic. Within moments she heard the song of Edie’s wings coming towards her over the treetops. First landing with a clatter on the cabin’s shingled roof, Edie hopped down to the steps leading into the home then took a gentle flight to her mistress. Tabby smiled when she sensed the bird’s talons grip her forearm. Moving up her arm, Edie nuzzled her crown into Tabby’s ear, making her laugh.
‘Will she come to the sound of any person’s whistle?’
Tabby spun around quickly, and Edie flapped the wide expanse of her wings to regain her balance, creating a gust that blew Tabby’s ginger hair into her eyes. Pushing it aside, she saw it was Polly. Tabby had left her resting on a pallet by the hearth with Olive. Since her arrival, Hepsy had found her a clean shift and a grey homespun pinafore to wear, as well as a cap that kept her long hair in check. The garments made her appear less shadowy.
‘Well, I hope not. She’s not meant to. I’d be lost without her.’
‘Does she hunt for you? Some Injins use them to hunt.’
Tabby shook her head.
‘Edie and I hunt for ourselves.’ She looked the bird in the eye. ‘Don’t we?’
Polly continued. ‘I noticed your bow. It’s an Injin bow, isn’t it?’
Nodding, Tabby stroked Edie’s head.
‘You dress like an Injin, too.’
‘Leggings and a tunic are better suited to my line of work,’ Tabby said, winking. ‘I haven’t worn stays or a skirt for a long time.’
‘Can I pet her?’ Polly asked, taking a hesitant step towards Tabby.
‘Of course.’ Tabby held out her arm. ‘She likes it best when you stroke from her head just to the top of her mantle.’
Polly watched closely as Tabby demonstrated the technique. Once given permission, the girl stepped forward confidently and patted Edie, just as she had been shown.
As she was doing so, Tabby asked, ‘You know a great deal about Indians.’
‘Mister Cool has had some dealings with them. He trades rum for wampum and furs.’
‘Mister Cool is your husband?’ said Tabby, her interest piqued.
Polly nodded as she studied Edie’s slate-coloured feathers.
‘Have you ever had dealings with Indians?’
Polly moved closer to Tabby, still patting Edie. Then she rubbed her cheek against the soft feathers, closing her eyes in pleasure for a moment. Tabby loved this sensation herself. Smell and touch combined into one glorious moment.
‘Mister Cool says trading isn’t for women and we should stay inside when the Injins are about in case they get ideas.’
‘We?’ Tabby asked.
‘Me and the children and the other women.’
‘How many –’
Tabby’s inquiries were interrupted when the door of the cabin opened with a bang and Hepsy ran out onto the porch. Mistress Farnham had woken and asked for food.
‘God has chosen to show mercy on the poor woman!’ Hepsy cried.
With distance enough between them to go unnoticed, Tabby tssked and rolled her eyes at Hepsy’s proclamation of divine salvation.
Polly looked at her strangely for an instant, not in disapproval, but a with kind of disbelief clouding her complexion.
‘You don’t hold much with God, do you?’
Shrugging in ambiguity, Tabby had seen men whose feet could walk silent and trackless through leaves, whose hands could snatch a fish from a river in a rapid spray of movement, and whose minds could see into the spirit world of their forefathers. Their souls were lit with a different sort of light.
After rubbing her
face against Edie’s for an instant, Tabby released the bird. She flew into a nearby maple, ready to join the hushed hunt. As Tabby walked back to the cabin behind Polly, her relief over Sarah’s recovery was overshadowed by her interest in the girl and her husband, Mister Cool.
Perhaps she could persuade Polly to talk with her further.
By the morning, Sarah’s swellings had disappeared entirely. Tabby allowed the certainty of her patient’s recovery to wash away her fears. The scalpel would not be needed, not this time. Not ever, Tabby hoped, if she could do well enough with her potions, salves, ointments and poultices.
That afternoon, Hepsy returned to her own home. The women in her family were spinning yarn and her mother would miss her help. Tabby was glad to see her go. She was a dull girl who, Tabby had learnt, thought more highly of herself than her actions warranted. Sarah sobbed each time she remembered her fleeced head and ran her palm over its poorly shorn tussocks. The hair would grow back but the tragic recognition on Sarah’s face made Tabby want to cry, too.
Tabby remained for a further two days, taking over the household chores until Sarah was well enough to resume her duties. Gradually, Henry Junior returned to Sarah’s breast and the balance of everyday life seemed to be restored in the Farnham cabin. Tabby could hear the harmony in the tone of their voices, in the subtle sounds of dough being kneaded and the shovel sliding through soil in the garden. While Tabby gained great satisfaction from healing, it was this that she enjoyed the most: guiding people back to the everyday after illness.
Typically, people relished life and appreciated those around them just a little more after being poorly and Tabby was an avid spectator to their spiritual expansion. Despite Tabby’s urgings that she should return to her own family, Polly decided to stay as well, saying her other children would be looked after well enough by the other women.
The ‘otherness’ disturbed Tabby, although she wasn’t sure why. Like an out-of-sight tick bite, it irritated and itched.