Home for Erring and Outcast Girls

by Julie Kibler

  Where the doctor had given Cap the elixir, two blocks away, a Closed sign hung behind the door glass, and even when she rapped hard, only the porch’s rattling floorboards answered.

  She sank to the steps as Cap coughed harder. The infirmary was another half mile, where they’d simply turn her away. The doctors there claimed there was nothing new to be done, even if she showed the money in her purse—they knew Cap’s history well. They’d say to wait out the fever, bathe him with ice if she could get it, and rub alcohol on his chest. The aspirin tablets they recommended only made his belly ache worse.

  A pamphlet tacked on a pole next to the fence fluttered in the breeze. She focused on the cover’s suddenly familiar image. The last time she’d tried the infirmary, a mute cleaning woman had stopped her after watching Mattie plead with the nurse. She’d balanced her mop in her bucket, then withdrew a pamphlet from her waist pocket and tried to press it into Mattie’s hand. Her stocky body overwhelmed Mattie—and Mattie wasn’t short. Mattie glanced at the cover and shook her head. “They’ll take him from me. I can care for my son. He’s just sick.”

  The woman had not uttered a sound, but only shook her head.

  Mattie twisted away from her sorrowful gaze. But then she had turned back, for only a moment. “You really think they’d help him?” The woman touched her heart and pressed her fingers against her cheeks. Then pointed up, her eyes raised along with her fingers.

  “God? God would help us?” Mattie scoffed. The woman nodded. She moved closer and put one arm around Mattie and smoothed the other hand down Mattie’s cheek and down Cap’s sparse hair. Mattie stood there for a moment, unnerved at the touch, but also strangely comforted. Oh, Mama, she had thought…

  But then she’d pushed away. She’d accepted the comfort, but not the pamphlet. She would never take that chance. Cap was hers. And God was for other people.

  Mattie slowed her breathing now, remembering. Cap coughed more as time passed. In fact, she tried to keep from coughing herself, and failed. Was it the smoke, or was she getting sick too? She was generally healthy, but Cap caught everything.

  And now she wondered, if she had to choose today, between clinging to her son and giving him up—if it meant he could get well—would she let him go? The keening that emerged from deep in her throat at the thought hardly startled Cap. But she held him away just enough to brush a stray lock from his forehead so she could study the face she knew better than she knew her own. The face she loved more than any other.

  She’d do anything for him.

  She pushed up from the steps, clinging harder to Cap, and tugged the pamphlet from the nail that held it. She returned to the steps and sat again, her hand shaking. If she hadn’t, the words printed inside, beneath a photograph of a man and woman dressed in good clothing, would have caused Mattie to fall to her knees:

  THE BERACHAH HOME FOR ERRING GIRLS

  WE DO NOT GIVE BABIES AWAY.

  And now she remembered the woman’s shaking head. If only she’d accepted the tract, buried it deep in her purse to retrieve the day before in her desperation. Instead, in her stubbornness, she’d done worse. Her bitterness and pride had stopped her—and even more, the woman’s unspoken, but clear words. After all, God hadn’t taken notice when sickness killed her mother, organ by organ.

  Why would he care about Cap?

  But Cap was running out of chances. He gasped even as she hesitated, another coughing fit thrusting him backward, bringing his distended belly into sharper focus, almost grotesque in its roundness compared to his sticklike arms and legs.

  He was dying before her eyes.

  Could she trust the words she read? People always wanted something. Nothing was free. And she’d been a fool for sweetly spoken words already. More than one person had convinced her to let them “help,” with disastrous results.

  This time, though, she had no choice, and the memory of the motherly embrace propelled her. Mattie scanned the pamphlet for directions, then stepped into the street and toward the train station, wishing she’d asked the mute woman’s name—though how could she have told it? If they helped Cap at this Berachah Home, she’d have no way to thank her.

  The street was eerily quiet, hardly a wagon or carriage to be seen. The boardwalks, usually teeming this time of day, were clear all the way to Lancaster, where the trolleys between Fort Worth and Dallas stopped right in front of the T&P depot. The few people she saw in the distance hurried as fast as or faster than she did. She and Cap both coughed again, and when she reached the end of the block and turned toward downtown, she stopped midstep.

  Ahead, the sky was nearly black with smoke. The air was becoming heavier and darker.

  And two blocks away, the train depot was engulfed in flames.

  A crowd stood between her and the trolley car that could take her and Cap to Arlington. Mattie pushed her way toward two young boys who craned their necks trying to see over taller men. “What’s happened?” she said, shaking one boy’s shoulder.

  “Started up top!” He pointed toward fire hoses shooting massive streams at the building’s third story. “They’re bringing things out fast as they can—desks and such.”

  Flames danced high over the structure, which housed the railroad offices and a restaurant on the second floor. How could anyone be brave enough—or stupid enough—to enter a burning building simply to save objects? Were material goods more valuable than lives?

  And how could she get to Arlington if the fire delayed the trolley? She glanced at Cap, torn between carrying him far from the smoke immediately and taking him where they might, at least, shelter and pray for the two of them, and at best, find a doctor willing to treat what everyone but her considered a hopeless case.

  Not one doctor had determined what ailed Cap, and her persistence seemed to annoy them. Would they have been annoyed had she been married—or had she been rich?

  But even the times she could pay, they couldn’t say why Cap had stopped growing, why he’d become lighter instead of heavier since she’d stopped feeding him at the breast. He ate everything, yet clawed his belly as if the hunger pangs physically attacked him, and derived little strength from food, scarcely able to lift his playthings. Lately, he’d grown listless, and the frantic crying these last months had nearly driven her to drink the syrup the doctor dispensed when she begged him to do something, anything. It calmed Cap enough that he slept fitfully, a few hours, before he woke again screaming. She’d wondered if a sip might numb her half-crazed mind when he sobbed. But she hadn’t summoned the nerve to take what Cap needed more.

  At their last visit, the physician listened to his heart and said it beat strong, and asked if he ate well and eliminated regularly. She could scarcely keep his diapers changed, and their odor nearly knocked her flat. The doctor was out of ideas. The boy would simply outgrow his fussy state.

  But Mattie knew it was more than just fussing. She knew her instincts as a mother, though young and inexperienced, were good.

  And now, she had to fight for what could be Cap’s last chance.

  She elbowed her way past grown men, ignoring their attempts to hold her back from the depot. “Let me pass!” she cried. “I need the trolley!” When she reached the front of the crowd, a line of fire volunteers blocked the street, the trolley stop across it. “Excuse me,” she shouted, moving as close as she could. “When will the tracks reopen?”

  One man’s answering leer didn’t intimidate her. He gestured past the depot. “Still running.”

  Mattie didn’t need a steam train—but if they were running in spite of the fire, maybe the electric cars were too. She shoved past him and ran into the street, toward the corner where a saloon did brisk business day and night—due in no small part to the stop itself.

  The crowd roared at her idiocy as a policeman chased her down.

  “Madam, you’re disrupting the fire crew—and you can’t go in
that building!”

  “I don’t want in,” Mattie gasped. “I need to get to Arlington!”

  He squinted, then shouted over the protest of the crowd. “The Interurban?” Nearly as many gawked at her now as at the flames still eating away the depot roof, though the water was beginning to win. “You’ll endanger your child if you try to catch that trolley.”

  “My child is already in danger. He’s sick. I’m taking him for help!”

  The policeman removed his bucket hat and mopped his head. “Madam, I don’t know what you think you’ll find, but no doctor in Arlington will be open by the time you get there.”

  “I have to. Please, sir. I can’t miss the car.” She showed the pamphlet. She hadn’t wanted to, but today, pride was useless.

  The crowd had lost interest, but the policeman looked from her to Cap and then leaned to speak right into her ear. “That’s them folks who take girls from our streets to fill them with religion. Same girls come waltzing back more times than not. They like it here. Plenty of business, and no reason for following someone else’s rules when you can make your own. Right, darlin’?”

  Mattie felt filthier with each word he uttered. He’d probably just as soon push up her skirts himself, in full view of the crowd. She shrank away. “I’m not that kind.”

  “Aren’t you, though? Once you let a man have his way, you belong as much as any. But go ahead. Get the car. And we’ll see you next week.” He mockingly tipped his hand as he moved to let her pass. “Don’t forget your ticket. Conductors won’t tolerate spongers—especially from the likes of you.”

  Mattie didn’t give him a backward glance, thankful she’d brought the money. Her maternal instincts might be good, but common sense wasn’t usually her strong suit. If she’d had any, she wouldn’t be in this predicament. Then again, if she’d had any, she wouldn’t have Cap. Sickly or not, she wouldn’t trade him for all the sense in the world.

  The drugstore next to the saloon had a sign in the window stating they sold Interurban tickets. Purchase in hand, Mattie climbed the narrow, steep steps into the car when it arrived, struggling to lift Cap while clinging to the handrail, nearly collapsing from exertion and the heavy smoke from the fire. She panted as she confirmed the route with the conductor, who said he’d shout out Arlington as they approached, nearly a straight shot halfway between Fort Worth and Dallas. She settled into a seat, thankful for the cushioned chairs in the front of the car. Men rode in the back where hard seats and spittoons contained their tobacco mess, though the section was nearly empty today.

  Along the way, there was little to watch besides occasional trains that ran parallel to the Interurban’s smaller tracks. The terrain was hilly, but brown. There were few trees and a late November freeze had brought down the leaves. Mostly, the car passed indistinct farms, and the monotony lulled Mattie into a state of cautious dozing, especially as Cap had stopped gasping so constantly once they left the smoke behind. She hoisted him higher as the car slowed and the conductor called for Arlington.

  The sleepy station surprised her. In the falling dusk, the town had already closed up shop. Compared to the constant rough-and-tumble of the Fort Worth Half Acre, it appeared nearly deserted, and on a Saturday evening too. Arlington seemed an odd choice for a place that took in women nobody else would.

  Homes and businesses lined the street along the tracks. The pamphlet indicated the place was a ten-minute walk south from the station, but south was little more than dusty fields. The wind had picked up, and Mattie regretted leaving her cloak behind. She’d brought nothing but her purse, the light shawl she’d tossed around Cap, and his blanket, which he’d alternated between clinging to and pushing away, even in sleep. She hadn’t fussed. Heat radiated from him, and even in the chill of the evening, she was soaked with her own sweat.

  Now she saw that one shoe was missing of the good pair she’d worked so hard to purchase from Rosenberg’s, inordinately proud to take Cap for his fitting. Her throat swelled. She wondered that she hadn’t cried all day. It was only a shoe, but suddenly it represented everything lost. She’d scratched his name onto the soles so they wouldn’t be misplaced in the homes where women took in kids while their mothers worked.

  But wherever he’d lost it today, nobody would know him.

  “Help you with anything, missus?”

  Mattie swung around. The lone gentleman from the back of the trolley car held his hat in one hand and a rolled newspaper in the other. Even at twenty-three, she still felt green around men—even after spending the afternoon with one jabbing her indecently. She stared, tongue-tied, no longer the brash woman at the fire.

  “You seemed lost. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “No, sir,” she said quickly. “Just catching my breath.”

  He nodded but hesitated.

  It was growing darker and indeed would be full dark soon. A church bell underscored this—five tolls, with Cap heavier and more lethargic the longer she stood. “Sir, can you tell me, please, how to get to the…” She struggled with the name from the pamphlet. “The Bur-atch-a…Industrial Home? Someone said it wasn’t far.”

  The man backed away, cheeks reddening. “The Berachah?” he said. Burr-ah-kuh. He tightened his guarded stance but also craned his neck. “You sure that’s where you want?” She nodded and shrugged. He seemed more distressed the longer Mattie said nothing.

  “Why, it’s just down that road.” He gestured toward a dirt track leading south from the station. “Where it curves, keep on, and soon you’ll see it on the right. Big white house. Can’t miss it. Then again…” He pointed up. A metal arch spanned the street and tracks. Berachah Home, for Mother and Child, it read, with the shape of a hand pointing south. Now she blushed. He hurried away, as if frightened she’d speak again.

  Mattie was accustomed to shame. Doctors often dug for intimate details of Cap’s conception, unrelated to his condition. Some suggested an exchange of services once they learned she’d conceived out of wedlock. She’d turned them down flat.

  Would things be worse in this town?

  Cap emerged from his lethargy to struggle against her hip and clutch his ribs, wailing, as if they poked in upon his swollen belly. She scurried down the darkening road, hoping to prevent attention from the few homes, their windows now glowing with lamplight. The distance between them lengthened until she passed the last, but she was more relieved than nervous. In the increased isolation, Cap’s screeches disturbed only empty darkness. And until she arrived at this mysterious place where he could remain in her arms, she preferred not to see another soul.

  “Hold on, my love, almost there,” she murmured now, with each set of steps, a chant to sustain them both until they found the Berachah Home.

  LIZZIE

  Arlington, Texas

  DECEMBER 1904

  The burning exhaustion Lizzie had suffered weeks on, even after the matron declared her sound enough to mix with the others, finally let up. Mornings before sunrise now, she sat with the girls around the stove in the parlor. After the babies were settled in the evenings, while most of the others read or mended by lamplight in the gathering room, Lizzie listened in on singing practice.

  She’d never been to church a day in her life. Her people had no use for it, and she’d never heard more than a whore or cowboy singing drunk in an alleyway. Nothing like these melodies written down in a booklet, with the four girls blending the high and low parts so pretty and singing words Lizzie guessed came straight from the Good Book. She wanted to learn the songs but couldn’t teach herself from the pages they shared. Gertrude Chase, a dainty girl who tended to boss the others around, said they were practicing for a special program with no time now for teaching.

  One evening, though, Lizzie was overcome by their sweet voices. She listened until she couldn’t contain her tears, then ran off down the hall to the bedroom she and Docie shared now with others. She fell on her bed so
bbing. Dilly, the first girl to live in the home, with the first baby born there, came to see why she wept. Lizzie could hardly speak for crying.

  Dilly said she’d teach her the best song. She motioned to Lizzie when she reached the simple chorus. “I believe Jesus saves…And his blood washes whiter than snow…I believe Jesus saves…And his blood washes whiter than snow.”

  Lizzie did her best, but her throat was swollen—not just from months and years of bad sick, going without food or drink, being shoved and hit and sometimes nearly choked by the men who kept her, but also from the questions that whirled in her heart. She struggled to believe that a man, even from the heavens, could do anything for her. Every man she’d ever met had driven her off once he tired of her. But she wanted that peaceful look Dilly had as much as she’d wanted anything.

  Dilly asked if she believed the song—that she could be saved from her dark and sinful life. Lizzie wasn’t sure, but she nodded anyway. Dilly said Lizzie should pray for it, then returned to the others.

  Lizzie didn’t know how to pray any more than she knew how to sing, but they all prayed from their knees, so she guessed the Lord heard better from there. She dropped to the floor and sang the chorus in a whisper. It felt how a prayer maybe should. And then, such a weight came off her heart, and even off her physical being, all she could think was how she’d never leave this place. Here, maybe, finally, she could be good.

  She ran to find Dilly, her joy overflowing. The girls neither shushed her nor told her she’d wake the babies. Instead, they celebrated with certainty what seemed flimsy and fragile to Lizzie herself. Every hope she’d latched onto before had shattered.

  This hope, however, filled Lizzie with cautious peace, more each day. She scarcely wanted to leave the big house. She wanted to savor its safety as long as she could. She turned down appeals to so much as step off the porch. But one December night, dark and quiet as far as sight and sound could reach, she did.