The Midwife's Tale

by Delia Parr

  The journey to redemption in body and soul for these boys would be difficult, and Martha pledged at this very moment to do what she could to ease the way. Perhaps that was what the gift of Will had been—an invitation to take part in their journey.

  She nudged Grace forward. “Will? It’s time to wake up. Will?”

  He stirred and leaned back from her, but his hold around her waist tightened the closer they got to the house. She had to pry his hands apart to dismount, and tethered Grace to a hitching post near the door before she reached up to the boy.

  His gaze was still sleepy, but fear found ample room to enter. He immediately masked it with that false, brittle bravado she had come to expect. “I don’t need no help,” he insisted, and stiffened when she steadied him anyway during his awkward dismount.

  “Is there anything you want to say to Grace before you go inside?”

  He straightened his shoulders and sniffed at the mare. “Guess she ain’t too dumb if she found this ole place. She’s still ugly, though,” he added.

  Fully ready to reprimand Will for hedging his apology with another taunt, Martha was interrupted when the front door suddenly opened, spilling light outside that was blocked only by the couple standing there.

  Martha stared openly, mesmerized by the surprising images that stared back at her. She took a deep breath, set her disbelief aside, and waited to see how this unusual set of guardians would welcome Will home.

  13

  The two people standing in the doorway could not be Reverend Hampton and his wife. Impossible. Absolutely impossible. They were old enough to be grandparents, not guardians for a group of orphans!

  As best as Martha could judge, the woman was nearly sixty, with a thin braid of red hair tinged with gray that hung over her shoulder and fell to her waist. Neither fat nor thin, she stood at average height and might have been considered quite ordinary. Until you looked into her eyes. Pale, pale green, they were simply remarkable in color and were so large they nearly overwhelmed her features.

  The woman’s companion, a portly man of approximately the same age, watched her with a guarded but warm expression on his face. He had a full, milk-white beard, but not a hair on top of his head.

  “My dear boy!” The woman rushed forward to enfold Will in her embrace. “We were so worried about you,” she crooned before dissolving into a fit of weeping.

  Will held himself as stiff as one of the rocks he had just climbed. When he finally struggled free, the man’s expression turned into a stone mask that brooked no argument. “We’re thankful you found your way home,” he murmured to the boy. “For now, I think it’s best if you get right to bed. We’ll discuss your misadventure in the morning.”

  Will lowered his head and kicked at the ground with the toe of his shoe.

  “Speak up, boy.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “I’ll tuck you in. Poor lad. What a fright you must have had all day,” the woman crooned as she led Will into the house.

  When the man cocked his head and looked at her with upraised brows, Martha smiled. “I’m Widow Cade. Martha Cade.”

  He extended his hand, and she found his grip quite strong for a man his age.

  “The midwife. Of course! I’m Reverend Hampton. Thank you for bringing Boy home.”

  She nodded, but found it odd that he referred to Will as Boy. “I’d like to have brought him home sooner, but . . .” She paused, unsure exactly how much she should tell the man.

  He chuckled. “I quite understand. Boy has a quick mind and an even quicker tongue, along with an unusually independent nature. I’m just glad he’s home safe. Please come in. My wife, Olympia, should be able to join us shortly.”

  Martha stepped into the single-story dwelling, where a low fire burned in the hearth and a pair of kerosene lamps on the mantel provided ample light. With a quick glance around, she realized the interior had changed little from what she remembered. Straight ahead, the large kitchen ran the full depth of the house. To her left, there had been two bedrooms, but the door had been closed and blocked any view she might have had of them.

  The minister waved his arm and pointed to the rough planked table with benches along all four sides that sat in front of the hearth in the middle of the room. “Won’t you have a seat? Until we enlarge the house and have a parlor, I’m afraid this is the best I can offer you.”

  “This will be fine,” she assured him, and removed her gloves and laid them on her lap as she sat down on the bench facing the fire.

  He took a seat at the head of the table facing the front door and gazed at her gently. “I hadn’t heard you were back home. How is your daughter?” He tugged on the end of his beard and shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t seem to recall her name.”

  Martha drew in a deep breath. “Victoria. I . . . I pray she’s well. As hard as I tried, I never did find her to bring her home,” she admitted.

  Try as she might, she found no censure in his dark eyes, only compassion and understanding.

  “She’ll come home. Until she does, Olympia and I will keep her in our prayers. And you, as well.”

  Gratitude tightened around the ache in her heart. “Thank you,” she whispered. She cleared her throat, anxious to turn the subject away from her own troubles. “You seem to have taken on quite a task,” she suggested, also curious as to why he had not pressed her for details about Will and her return home with him.

  He chuckled. “The Lord calls us. Whether or not we answer is up to us, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, that’s true, but—”

  “But what in heaven’s name is an old retired goat of a minister doing with a crew of recalcitrant orphans clear out in the middle of God’s good country?”

  She blushed.

  He laughed out loud. “You’re not the first one to be surprised. I could hardly believe it myself, but Olympia was quick to remind me that my ministry never did require a church. After thirty years as a prison chaplain, I was ready for a small cottage near a fine lake. I do love to fish.”

  He paused and let out a small sigh. “Seems the good Lord had other ideas. Some years ago, one of the inmates I ministered to told me he had grown up as an orphan. After his release, he wrote to me from time to time. Made a little fortune for himself in New York City, as it turned out. When he died last year, he left his entire estate to be used to establish an academy in the countryside for orphan boys, provided I would agree to act as the boys’ guardian and run the academy.”

  “With six orphans under your care,” she offered.

  “Actually, we have seven now that Boy is back. We left the city with ten. Unfortunately, we lost a few on the way.”

  “Lost a few?” Had the children taken ill and died or had they truly run away and gotten lost? In either case, he seemed to regard their loss rather callously, something that did not bode well for Will or any of the others.

  His expression sobered. “Three ran off. One left when we were only a day’s journey out of the city, and another disappeared three days later. The last one left us just east of Lancaster.” He shook his head. “I knew I couldn’t force any of them to remain with us, so I set the conditions before we left for Trinity. Each of the boys is free to stay or go. They make the choice, and they know they’re always welcome to come back if they do leave, as long as they agree to follow the rules while they’re here.”

  “But they’re only children,” she argued, making a deliberate attempt to keep her voice even and nonjudgmental. As pious as the minister appeared to be, his attitude toward the children was too callous for her to accept his views as valid. “They can’t just come and go at will. They need supervision. They need guidance and protection.”

  “They do,” he countered, but he made no attempt to explain how he could allow children to simply leave of their own accord to wander about the countryside on their own without either the guidance or protection he was required to provide as their guardian. “I’m grateful to you for helping one of our boys to come home. I hope t
he experience didn’t harden you against what we’re trying to do.”

  His troubled gaze suggested that his experiences with neighbors and townspeople had not been all positive. Despite her reservations about his attitude toward the boys, she did not want to make his mission here more difficult. “Not at all,” she assured him, and quickly recounted the events that had begun with finding Will in the loft and ended with her bringing him home.

  He listened, nodding from time to time, but never interrupted her. When she finished, he cocked his head. “You call him Will?”

  She nodded. “Yes. He told me that was his name.”

  He shook his head. “He’s never told us his name. Not even the other boys know it. He must be especially fond of you.”

  She let out a chuckle. “Hardly. He seems to make a very strong effort to insult me and even my horse—”

  “Because he’s not sure he can trust himself to let someone else care.”

  “I . . . yes . . . I think you might be right. At least you know his name now, and you can call him Will instead of Boy.”

  He narrowed his gaze, thought for a moment, and shook his head. “I don’t think that would be wise. At least for now. He might take your telling us as some sort of betrayal of his trust. He’ll tell us himself when he’s ready.”

  On the one hand, Martha could not quite believe he could be that patient, that understanding, especially when working with children like these. On the other, she simply could not accept that he could just dismiss those children who had run away. Given his status as a man of the cloth and his experience counseling prisoners, however, she dismissed her concerns and focused on the sacrifices he was making to help Will and the others at the academy. “It’s very complicated, isn’t it? He’s only a child—barely eight, I’d venture—yet he acts so . . . so old at times.”

  “He’s closer to six or seven, as far as we’ve been able to determine. We think he’s been on the streets for better than four years.”

  “Which explains . . . everything,” she whispered. “He’s still only a child.”

  “He is, but Boy and the others aren’t like the children you know, with parents and neighbors to teach them to walk the path of righteousness. Two of these children came from orphanages too awful to describe. The rest, like Boy, have been on their own, struggling to survive in the streets, for years. They’ve been deeply hurt, either abandoned by parents who set them loose because they couldn’t or wouldn’t care for them or orphaned, with no one willing to take them in. They’re scorned by righteous people, even feared, because these boys travel in packs like wolves, scavenging a bit of garbage to eat or a place to sleep out of the cold or rain. The older ones are pickpockets and thieves who swear better than the hardest inmates I’ve ever met, and some can con you out of your money without a twinge of conscience.”

  He paused to catch his breath. When he spoke again, his voice was just above a whisper. “But they are all His children. Just like the rest of us, each of them must choose to be saved. That’s all I’m trying to do—to give them a choice between the life they had before and a future life filled with purpose. To get them to accept our help or to struggle on their own until they do.”

  He made perfect sense, especially given his description of the boys’ backgrounds and her encounter with Will. She found the call he had answered to be so formidable, and the opportunities for failure to be so endless, that any reservations she had about Reverend Hampton now appeared to be very petty. “If there’s anything I can do for you both or the boys, just send for me. I have a room at the tavern,” she offered.

  His eyes softened into twin pools of gratitude. “They tell me you have a healing hand, a generous heart, and abide no hint of gossip.” Suddenly, his demeanor changed and his eyes began to twinkle mischievously. “Mayor Dillon left several hours ago. Unfortunately, we were able to confirm his suspicions that our boys were involved in that prank. I don’t think they suffered anything worse than some scrapes and bruises for their efforts during the night, but under the circumstances, I didn’t think Dr. McMillan would welcome taking a look at them.”

  “You might be right to keep the doctor away for a few days . . . until . . . until he calms down and the gossipmongers find something else to amuse them. Did the boys actually target the doctor with their prank?”

  He nodded. “Dr. McMillan called on us shortly after we arrived. Unfortunately, our boys weren’t quite what he expected. Several weeks later, when we were in town one day, two of the boys overheard the doctor make remarks they perceived as disparaging, so they retaliated. I hate to impose, but I wonder if you would mind taking a look at them? I know Olympia would sleep better tonight if you could make sure they’ll be all right. We’ve never been blessed with children of our own, so she hasn’t had much experience with them.”

  “I didn’t bring my bag of simples, but I’ll be glad to look them over . . . if you think they’ll let me. Will wasn’t too keen on the idea at first.”

  He nodded. “To Boy and the others, being hurt and asking for help means being vulnerable or weak, a sure way to invite disaster on the streets. After what happened at the market today and the mayor’s visit, the boys are waiting to hear their punishment announced in the morning. They’re not likely to protest anything I tell them to do tonight, especially if they think it might soften the blow tomorrow, so to speak.”

  “Will it?” she asked as she put her gloves on top of the table and let him lead her to the door to the sleeping rooms.

  He grinned. “Not in the least. For tonight, they were sent to bed without supper even though only four, plus Boy, actually participated in the prank. They’re all waiting to hear their punishment tomorrow. I’ve learned not to be too quick to dish out punishment. It helps me to think straight, after I’ve prayed on it, of course. Besides, it doesn’t hurt to let the boys stew a bit.”

  She leaned toward him and lowered her voice. “If only some were involved, why are the others going to be punished, too?” she asked, curious to understand his reasoning.

  “They might not have participated, but they knew what the others were all about. They’ll share in the punishment tomorrow as well. But don’t worry. I’ve already told Mayor Dillon what I have in mind.

  “So far,” he added as he reached to open the door, “what they can conjure up in their vivid imaginations tends to be far worse than what I’ve decided they must do tomorrow to make amends to Dr. McMillan. They can always leave in the morning, instead, but that hasn’t happened in the past and I don’t think it will happen tomorrow, either. You might want to be at the market tomorrow morning about eight and see for yourself.”

  Before she could answer or warn him that bringing all of those boys into town might only add more fuel to the simmering resentment against them, he opened the door and waved her inside. “They’re all yours. I’ll just introduce you first.”

  Not quite certain she was up to handling six boys as difficult or challenging as Will, Martha was unable to resist the minister’s charming ability to set her at ease. She walked into the room and waited while he lit several candles on a table just inside the door and they sputtered to life. Added to the brighter light spilling into the room through the doorway, the candlelight gave her a good view of the small chamber.

  All the boys except Will had burrowed under their blankets. Four were lying on the floor on top of corn husk mattresses that were lined up side by side along the far wall with scarcely walking room between them. Two boys slept on the floor to her left. Will was curled up on the floor in the right corner with Mrs. Hampton sitting in a chair at the head of his mattress.

  The woman put a finger to her lips. “He’s almost asleep,” she whispered as she rose to meet her husband and their guest.

  After a quick introduction, Reverend Hampton clapped his hands several times and glanced around the room. “Sit up, boys. I know you’re all awake so don’t bother trying to convince us otherwise. Hurry now. Sit straight up. Widow Cade is here to see to you
r injuries, such as they are, and to make sure you’re fit for tomorrow.”

  Martha braced herself for an onslaught of snarls and wicked looks by setting a smile to her lips. The two boys to her left sat up first and looked at her with the same distrust she had seen so often in Will’s eyes, but no snarl.

  They were a study in contrasts, to say the least. The boy closest to the wall had a small frame like Will, but had straight fair hair and a sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of his nose. The other glared at her with frosty blue eyes below dark brows the same color as the curls on his head, and he was very plump.

  The minister pointed to each of them, starting with the first. “This is Samuel, and Curtis.”

  They frowned, but held their gazes steady.

  “Over here,” he continued as he moved to the mattresses along the far wall, “we have Wesley, Peter Jacob, better known as P. J., Joseph, and Adam.”

  Since P. J. was the one boy Will had mentioned, she focused her attention on him after giving the others a cursory look. By far the biggest, and probably the oldest, P. J. appeared to be about twelve. Judging by his size now, he would probably top six feet by several inches when he reached full manhood. He had dark eyes and hair and olive skin, and she could almost see the chip he carried on his shoulder.

  Despite his scowl, she kept her smile intact, even though her heart trembled at the sight of all these poor boys, and offered a quick prayer for each of them.

  “You know Boy, of course,” the minister concluded.

  She waited, hoping to meet Will’s gaze, but he kept his eyes downcast and only acknowledged her with a curt nod.

  “Olympia, dear, why don’t you stay here with the boys. I’ll take them out to the kitchen one at a time to see Widow Cade. The light will be better there, don’t you think?” he asked, directing his question to Martha.