Z9S
98
Eliza dragged me inside, saying we still had an obligation to wash down the sickroom.
We closed the door behind us when the western sky was shot through with the last pewter and gold rays of the day.
"You go on home, Mattie, you need a good meal and a rest," Eliza said. "I only have one more house on this list. Tell Joseph that I'll be along just as soon as I'm finished."
"No," I said firmly. "I'm not going anywhere. The work will go faster if you have me there, and you shouldn't walk home alone after dark."
Eliza raised an eyebrow.
"Never knew you to look for extra work. Come along then."
We walked in silence, east first, then north. I followed closely, not wanting to lose Eliza in the confusion of alleys and shortcuts.
"I haven't been here before," Eliza said. "Another member of the Society asked that I stop in before retiring. These women are seamstresses, they live alone." She knocked politely on the peeling door, then entered.
The Gundy sisters were both mending. They silently drank their broth and nibbled on the bread. Eliza helped each woman walk to the necessary and back while I aired out their mattresses. We washed the sisters' thin bodies and pulled clean shifts over their heads. One of the women tried to press coins into Eliza's hand, but
Eliza politely refused and put the money back in the sisters' shabby purse.
My stomach grumbled as we mounted the stairs of the cooperage. I wondered what Joseph had cooked. He didn't have Eliza's cooking skills, but I wasn't fussy. Eliza breathed heavily as she labored ahead of me. How many more days could we carry on like this?
The front room was dark except for the flicker of a small fire in the hearth. No suppertime smells welcomed us. I looked around for the twins and Nell. A log popped and the sound echoed around the apartment like a gunshot.
Joseph sat next to the fire, his face in his hands. He did not look up as we entered.
"Joseph?" Eliza called sharply. "Joseph, what ails you? Are you feverish again? Are you chilled?"
Joseph raised his face to look at his sister. Tears coursed down his cheeks. He couldn't bring himself to speak.
Eliza grabbed his shoulders and shook him.
"What happened?" she shouted. "Where is Robert? Where are William and Nell?"
Joseph wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. I stepped back from the sadness in his face; it filled the room and threatened to pull me in. He pointed to the bedchamber.
The twins lay next to each other on the bed, their eyes closed. They panted heavily as if they had just come
i97
99
in from a romp outside. Nell lay on her pallet on the floor. She was feverish, but slept soundly.
"Oh, sweet Jesus, not these little boys!" cried Eliza. "Open that window farther, Mattie. We need some air in here."
"It's already open all the way," I answered.
"It can't be," Eliza snapped. "It's hot enough to roast a duck in here."
She shouldered me aside and pushed up the sash herself. It would go no farther.
"Do you want me to boil water?" I asked.
"Yes. No!" Eliza spun so that her skirts flared, and clenched her fists against her head. "We can't have a fire in here. The boys won't be able to breathe if it gets any hotter. Dear God, why take these children? I promised I wouldn't let them die."
I stood in the doorway, not sure what to do next. Joseph hadn't moved from his stool. Robert moaned and reached his arm out until he found William. Eliza sat down and stroked Robert's forehead. She squeezed her eyes and covered her mouth as she struggled to control her anguish.
"It's cooler up at Bush Hill," I said.
"They don't have room," Eliza said fiercely.
"But it's cooler there," I repeated. "The rooms have many windows that catch the wind. It's clean, and they have French physicians."
Eliza shook her head. "We have to do it ourselves.
We will find a way to make them well again."
I looked across the small room. The sound of the river came through the tiny window, along with a distant echo of voices. Windows, I thought. Windows and empty rooms, away from the river, away from the worst heat.
"The coffeehouse," I cried. "Eliza, we'll take them to the coffeehouse!"
198
i99
100
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
October I4th, 1793
All is thick and melancholy gloom.
-Letter of Dr. Benjamin Rush Philadelphia, 1793
Mother Smith sent a mule cart to the cooperage. I scrubbed the cart with boiling vinegar while Eliza gathered the drugs and herbs we would use to treat the children. Joseph prayed over his sons and Nell while we packed bed linens and blankets. When the cart was ready, we dragged the mattress down the narrow staircase and laid it in the cart. I carried Nell.
"Mama," she called weakly.
I bit my lip and asked my heart to be hard. I couldn't help her if I fell apart.
Joseph insisted on carrying each boy downstairs by himself, whispering while he tried to massage the pain from his sons' heads. He gently lay them on the mattress and tucked them in so they wouldn't be jostled.
"Take care of them," he said hoarsely to Eliza.
200
"Aren't you coming?" I asked.
Joseph shook his head. "They have a better chance away from me or anyone with the fever," he said.
"He'll be fine, and those babies will be fine," said Mother Smith resolutely as she patted Joseph's arm. "The Society will watch out for Joseph, Eliza, don't you worry about him. Go on now, go with God."
Joseph's knees buckled slightly as he kissed the boys good-bye, laid his hand on Nell's head, and hugged Eliza. Mother Smith curled her fingers around his elbow. His tall frame leaned against her withered one as Eliza slapped the mule's rump and the wheels of the cart squeaked.
The city was darker than I had ever seen. The moon had already set, but no light flickered in the whale oil lamps that lined High Street. The lamplighters had all fled the city or died. Candlelight spilled from only a few windows, and the stars were faint and distant, as far away as hope or the dawn.
We struggled to get the mattress out of the cart at the coffeehouse. Our arms strained under the awkward weight, dragging it around to the back gate, through the yard, and finally in the back door. At last, we set the mattress and the children on the dusty pine boards of the front room.
"We should keep them down here," I said. "It's too close upstairs and frightfully hot in the day."
"I agree," Eliza said. "But I don't like having the mat-
.207
101
tress on the floor. Let's push together those tables and set the mattress on top of them."
"Should we open the windows while it is dark? That's how the thieves got in."
Eliza pulled a knife from the waistband of her skirt. "If they try again, we'll be ready."
Once that would have shocked me, but no longer. I picked up the sword and hung it over the fireplace. We would keep the children safe.
Despite the late hour, sleep would not come. Eliza was deep in prayer by the bedside. I felt like an intruder. I fumbled in the clothespress for a candle and set it into a holder on the kitchen wall. The flickering light beat back the darkness. The kitchen looked as it had the night Grandfather died. At least we hadn't suffered any more intruders. My head thumped. So much, so fast. I could not erase visions of the sick and dying. I paced the room. The children slept, Eliza still by their side with her head bent.
I kicked something hard and hurt my toe. What could be on the floor? I got on my hands and knees and felt along the dark floor until I found a lump wrapped in a napkin. I carried it over to the candlelight.
It was Nathaniel's painting, the flowers he sent to me when Mother was ill. I pressed the picture to my cheek. Stay inside, Nathaniel, I thought. Stop tossing flowers out the window at passing girls and stay inside where you are saf
e.
202
I smelled the cloth, but found no trace of Mother. Where was she? Was she alive? I had so much to tell her, so much to talk about. I would have traded anything to hear her swift footsteps across the floor. I laid my head on the kitchen table.
As soon as I fell asleep, Eliza nudged my shoulder. "Wake up," she said.
I sprang to my feet and followed her into the front room. "How are they?" I asked.
Eliza opened Robert's eyelids and then William's. Their eyes were bloodshot and yellow-stained.
"They are full of the pestilence," she said grimly. "Nell seems to be faring better, but there is no question she has it too." She pressed her lips together to hold back the tears.
"It will be fine, Eliza. Think of all the people we've cared for. I survived this, Joseph survived, and so did thousands of others. We can do this. I know exactly what you're going to tell me to do. Stoke the fire and prepare to wash more dirty sheets."
Caring for the children was harder than caring for any other patients we had visited. Just as Robert fell asleep, William would wake crying. As soon as he was made comfortable enough to drift off, Robert would stiffen and jolt awake with a piercing scream. Nell didn't recognize me. She woke from terrible dreams and looked around the room blindly, crying for her mother.
Night melted into day. Day surrendered to night.
102
The small bodies gave off heat like an iron stove no matter what we used to bring down the fever. I hauled up bucket after bucket of cold well water until the rope blistered my hands and the blisters burst and bled. The floor beneath the mattress was a pool of water. We used up all the linens in the house, which I rinsed in vinegar and hung outside to dry.
Eliza fashioned a fan that kept the bugs off the children and cooled them a bit, but it was so large and heavy that we could only wave it for a few minutes at a time. But as soon as we lay the fan down, they would whimper and cry.
The food Mother Smith had hastily packed soon ran low, along with the cask of vinegar that Eliza had brought with us. I kept one eye on the window, watching for a Society member carrying bread or dried meat for them. Eliza was more concerned about the dwindling supply of medicines, the mercury and calomel. She dosed the boys regularly and gently to purge the putrid bile from their bodies, but it seemed to have little effect. The twins cried in pain, in confusion, in terror. It was impossible to give Nell any medicine. We tried forcing it down her mouth, but it came right back up at us. It was all we could do to keep water in her stomach.
On the fourth day-no, it must have been the fifthan ominous silence pressed in on the room as the fever penetrated deeper. The boys turned frail, their skin ashen and their cheeks sinking, as their bodies burned up under
204 the infection. They didn't have the strength to suck their thumbs. Eliza moved William closer to Robert so they could draw some comfort from each other. Nell lay on her back, her breath coming in shallow pants.
I set the fan on the floor. I had lost track of when I last ate or slept. Eliza picked it up and waved it over the tiny bodies until her arms shook with the effort. She set the fan on the foot of the mattress.
"I think we should find a doctor," Eliza said. "They should be bled."
"No, Eliza, don't bleed them. It will kill them for sure. It won't work."
"I don't like the thought of cutting them either, but it may be our only hope. Dr. Rush recommends it; he was bled himself when he was ill."
"But the French doctors say bleeding kills people. Think of all the patients you've seen who died after the doctors bled them. They didn't bleed me and I'm alive. Don't do it, Eliza."
Eliza stared into the light of the sputtering candle. "They took twenty ounces of blood from Joseph, and he will live for years."
"If Joseph is alive, it is in spite of the bleeding, not because of it." I grabbed Eliza's hands. "Think of it. Dr. Rush has seen two or three epidemics in his life. The French doctors came from the West Indies, where they treat yellow fever every year. Surely their experience is more valuable."
103
Eliza pulled a hand away and stroked Williams arm.
"I don't know what else to do," she whispered. "I promised their mother I wouldn't let them die."
"Trust me. Please," I pleaded. "They'll survive, I know they will. But if we bleed them, we'll deliver them to the grave. We can't cut them, Eliza."
She looked up at me, struggling with her doubts.
"Trust me," I said firmly.
Eliza nodded. "All right. No bleeding."
Robert woke with a shriek that ended all discussion. A few minutes later William woke, vomiting blood and crying. Nell startled and cried weakly. We worked frantically drawing water, washing the burning bodies, and trying every herb, tea, and poultice to break the fever and banish the infection.
The candle burned down to a puddle of wax, then a second and a third. In the stillest hour of the night, the children finally slept, their thin chests barely rising and falling. Eliza sat next to their bed, laid her head on the mattress, and fell asleep instantly. I picked up the bucket to fetch more water in preparation for the next crisis.
I hooked the handle of the bucket onto the rope and let it down into the well. I tried to watch its progress, but it was soon swallowed up in the darkness.
My eyes closed. It was never going to stop. We would suffer endlessly, with no time to rest, no time to sleep.
The thick air clouded my head. The coffeehouse was
206
silent. The bucket, I thought. I have to bring up the bucket.
I reached for the crank handle. It slipped from my hand as I turned it, and I stumbled backward. I tried again, wrapping both hands around the handle and knitting my fingers together.
The crank stiffened as if it were attached to a mill stone instead of a wooden bucket. I searched for strength somewhere, someplace inside me that had not been starved or fever-burned or beaten or afraid. The crank turned once. Twice. Each turn of the crank took a year of effort, summer, spring, fall and winter, and my tears splashed into the dust as the bucket climbed out of the earth. I pulled it to the side of the well.
Shadows danced into the garden from the candlelight. I followed the jumping light into the garden, where dry stalks pointed to the skies like scrawny fingers, and rotted, wormy vegetables sank into the cracks of the parched soil. We were trapped in a night without end.
I shook my head to clear it of the visions rolling across my mind. Where was the little girl who planted the bean seeds? Where were Mother and Grandfather and the dead mouse that flew out the window a hundred-a thousand-years ago? And Blanchard s yellow silk balloon that tugged against its ropes, hungry to escape the confines of the prison yard. What became of it all?
2QJ
104
My eyes closed. I could see that clear January morning, the moment of release when the balloon floated above the rooftops. Thousands of voices cheered and screamed with delight. Nathaniel grasped my hand and we watched as the gold sphere ferried Monsieur Blanchard and his little black dog away on the wind. I thought all things were possible in heaven and on earth that day.
A whisper of wind passed by from the north. It lifted the hair off my face and rattled the squash vines. I shivered. Only the soles of my feet were warm, heated by dirt that had absorbed the sun all day. So tired. I laid down between the rows and rested my head on the ground.
208
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
October 23th, 1793
I think there is now that kind of weather fermenting which we so much want and has been so often wished for.
-Letter of John Walsh, clerk Philadelphia, 1793
Something rough lapped at my cheek. I turned away with a groan.
It followed and rubbed again, like a damp piece of burlap. I pushed it away and came up with a handful of orange fur.
"Silas, go away. Let me sleep. I haven't slept for years."
Silas jumped on me and kneaded with his front paws. The w
eight on my empty stomach hurt too much. I sat up, my head spinning. My eyes opened slowly, the lashes sticking together. I blinked.
An early winter quill had etched an icy pattern over the garden. My skirt looked as if it had been dusted with
2op
105
fine white flour. I shivered. I was cold. Truly cold, not cold with a fever or grippe. I sneezed and bent to look closely at the white veil that lay over the weeds.
Frost.
"I'm dreaming," I told Silas. The cat ignored me and pounced on a sluggish beetle that lumbered under a leaf. "Starving men dream of food. I dream of frost." I rubbed my eyes and pushed myself to my feet. My back creaked as I rolled my shoulders. I breathed deeply. The cold air chilled my nose and crackled in my lungs.
The fetid stench that had hung over the city for weeks was gone, replaced with brittle, pure air.
I looked around the garden. No insects hovered over the dying plants or the well. The entire yard sparkled with diamonds of frost that quickly melted into millions of drops of water with a gentle kiss of the sun.
Frost.
This was no dream.
"Eliza!! Eliza!!"
Eliza stumbled out onto the porch, alarmed and confused.
"Look, Eliza," I cried. "It's frost! The first frost! The end of the fever!"
She bent down to touch the pale crystals, then rubbed her cold fingertips over her lips.
"Lord have mercy," she whispered. "We made it." She turned to me.
"We made it!"
2IO
We flung our arms around each other and jumped up and down, laughing for joy.
"Wait," Eliza said suddenly as she pulled away. "The children. We should bring them out here-let them breathe in the clean air."
Fever 1793 Page 14