Several women from other wagons gathered around, offering advice and encouragement.
“Maybe try when he’s sleepy,” Thelma Wheeler said, reaching to smooth the baby’s downy head. “Instinct might take over?”
“It doesn’t always.” Louise Bane shook her head, mouth pinched. “We tried to nurse my sister’s young’un after she died bearin’ him. He followed her within a week.”
Forsythia’s middle twisted at the tears that sprang into Lilac’s eyes. She squeezed her little sister’s shoulder. “Well, we’re not going to let that happen.”
Lark and Lilac joined one of the now-daily hunting parties for the afternoon, so Jesse took over driving the Durhams’ oxen while Del drove theirs. As the late afternoon sun slanted over the prairie, Forsythia walked beside the wagon, Mikael sleeping on her shoulder. At least he wasn’t crying, but his quietness since noon worried her. The baby seemed weaker, not moving as much, and she’d only gotten him to take a few more drops. Would he follow the dire path Mrs. Bane had predicted? Please, Lord, no.
“Miss Nielsen?”
Forsythia squinted against the sun. A young woman she’d only seen across camp approached, her hand shielding her eyes. Her red hair caught the setting sun.
“I’m Maggie O’Malley. I hear you’re havin’ trouble gettin’ milk down the wee one.” She nodded to Mikael. “I was wonderin’—would you let me try?”
Forsythia stared at her stupidly, too tired to compute.
A faint flush colored Maggie’s fair cheeks. “I’ve a five-month-old baby of my own, you see. Might I take him into your wagon?”
Understanding dawned, and Forsythia nodded. “Oh, of course. Oh, thank you.”
“I thought of it when me husband first told me of the foundlings you’d taken in. But I didn’t think I’d have enough milk for both babes, not all the time, and I heard you’d gotten the cow. But today—well, I thought maybe I could at least help him over this rough spot.” Maggie climbed into the wagon as she spoke, then unbuttoned her bodice with one hand, holding out the other for Mikael.
Forsythia laid the baby in her arms. Mikael squirmed and whimpered.
“Here, little one.” Maggie held him close. “There now, you know what to do.”
Forsythia sat silent, hardly daring to breathe. Please, Lord.
“Come now. Just take it, my love.”
Mikael fussed again. And then—a faint clicking sound. Then he was suckling—and swallowing.
“Oh, thank God,” Forsythia whispered, tears spilling over. “Thank you, Maggie.”
Maggie cradled the newborn close, crooning snatches of an Irish lullaby. Mikael nursed on one side, and then she switched him to the other.
“Maybe,” the young mother said softly, “if you brought the rag or spoon you’ve been tryin’ now . . .”
“Of course.” Forsythia scrambled out of the still-moving wagon. She grabbed the jar of milk they’d drawn at nooning and soaked the corner of a clean rag in it. Still praying, she climbed back up in the wagon.
“He’s sleepy but still nursing.” Gently, Maggie unlatched Mikael, who wailed a protest.
Into the open little mouth, Forsythia slipped the milky rag. Mikael opened his eyes in astonishment at first, then closed his mouth and sucked the rag.
“Oh, thank you, Father.” Forsythia dipped the rag again and again, Mikael sucking for another good fifteen minutes. Then he fell asleep, his head pillowed on Maggie’s calico sleeve.
“He just needed to remember how.” Maggie brushed the baby’s downy smudge of hair with a gentle finger. “Didn’t you, darlin’?”
“We can’t thank you enough.” Forsythia sat back, weak with gratitude. “Truly.”
“Just let me know if he needs a little boost now and then, aye?” Maggie handed the baby back and rebuttoned her bodice. “But I think you might be over the worst of it.”
The wagons circled at sunset, and Lark and Lilac returned with a brace of prairie chickens and a fat jackrabbit.
“We saw buffalo again, but too far away.” Lilac’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “Little Bear says he’ll try to organize a real hunt soon, though. How is the baby?”
“So much better.” Forsythia laid a sleeping Mikael in Lilac’s eager arms. “Thanks to Maggie O’Malley.”
“Maggie who?”
Forsythia explained while Del cooked the prairie chickens, frying one and stewing another for a rich broth. They invited the doctor and Jesse to eat with them.
“We’re beholden to you folks for all the meals you’ve been giving us.” Dr. Brownsville scraped a spoon around his bowl and then wiped his beard. “Not that I’m complaining.”
“Goodness, Doctor, it’s this train that’s beholden to you.” Del held up the ladle. “More stew, anyone?”
“Me.” Robbie held out his tin plate.
“What do you say?” Del cocked her head.
Robbie scrunched up his face. “Please.” Sofie sat beside him on the ground, gnawing a drumstick held tight in her tiny hands. Robbie glanced at her. “And Sofie and me need more biscuits.”
“Sofie and I.” But Forsythia smiled and handed each child a fresh one.
The two children had regarded each other dubiously at first, but now they seemed to be making friends. She’d seen Robbie sharing his carved animals with Sofie earlier, now numbering a horse, a cow, a sheep, a rooster, and a goat, thanks to Jesse’s skillful hands.
The baby whimpered, and Forsythia went to fetch him from the makeshift bed they had fashioned in the back of the wagon. Lilac warmed milk from the evening milking, and Forsythia sat to feed him, using a spoon this time. He coughed at first but then slurped eagerly, his tiny pink tongue lapping like a kitten’s.
“That’s a blessed sight to see.” Dr. Brownsville knelt beside them and laid a gentle hand on Mikael’s stomach. “His color and hydration are better.”
Forsythia dipped another spoonful. “At the rate he’s going, we’re going to wish we had a bottle or at least something larger than a spoon.”
“You might try a small tin cup.”
“I c-could make a cup.”
They both turned to Jesse, who looked up shyly from his spot by the fire.
“There’s a thought.” The doctor patted the baby and stood. “What do you have in mind?”
“I could carve one with a little sp-spout. Easier for him to d-drink from than a big cup.”
“That it would be.” Forsythia smiled at the young man. “Bless you, Jesse.”
They said their good-nights after washing up. Robbie and Sofie had fallen asleep where they sat, so Lilac and Del picked them up and tucked them into bed still in their clothes. Lark doused the fire and scattered the coals.
“’Night, Sythia.”
“’Night.” She lay down beside the baby in the wagon, heart full of gratitude. Thank you, Father, for your faithfulness today. Thank you that Mikael is taking milk. Thank you for . . .
She was asleep before she finished the prayer.
Saturday brought an early start and a whiny, clinging Sofie. Del took over with Mikael while Lark and Lilac drove the wagons, and Robbie went to play in Sarah’s wagon.
At Lark’s suggestion, Forsythia took Sofie up on Starbright with her for a while. She quieted down, gazing at everything around them with big eyes, her tiny fists clenched in the mare’s mane.
“You like this, sweet one?” Forsythia smoothed the little girl’s wispy fair hair, woven into two tiny braids by Del that morning. Sofie nodded and twisted her head to see a meadowlark spiraling into the sky. “That’s a birdie.”
“Buh-dee.”
“That’s right.” Forsythia smiled, though the headache that had been niggling at her since she woke up was pounding harder under the sun’s beating rays.
By the time she and Sofie slid down for the nooning stop, her stomach was roiling. From the motion atop the horse? Or something else?
Something else, she decided, heaving in the prairie grass behind the wagon a few moments
later.
“Sythia, you all right?” Lark poked her head around the wagon.
“I hope so.” She straightened and wiped her mouth, then reached for the corner of the wagon bed, dizzy. “I—maybe not.” She bent over to retch again.
Del appeared. “Is she sick?”
“Looking that way.”
Forsythia leaned against the wagon side. Del felt her forehead. “You feel feverish. We better get you in the wagon.”
“Let’s put her in the Durhams’. Keep her separate from everyone else.”
Lark helped Forsythia climb up into the wagon, fixing a bed amid the sparser barrels and boxes. She lay down and tried to sleep, only to be woken by retching again.
By midafternoon, the runs had started. Forsythia tried to make it down out of the wagon to go in the prairie grasses each time, and again and again she failed. Her clothing and the bedding were quickly soiled with stench.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered to Del, coming to give her a fresh sheet yet again.
“None of that, Sythia.” Her sister bundled the reeking sheet and smoothed out the fresh one. “Good thing Ma always taught us to keep plenty of clean linen, right?”
Lark came to check on her next.
“You all shouldn’t keep coming in,” Forsythia protested. “I might be contagious.”
“You know the rest of us have sturdier constitutions than you.” Lark smoothed the damp hair back from Forsythia’s brow. “And you were the one who was closest to Mrs. Olsen, other than the doctor.”
“The children?” She’d hardly seen Mikael all day.
“They’re fine. Robbie and Sofie are playing in our wagon, and Robbie is being quite the big brother. Del and Lilac have the baby well in hand. Don’t you worry about us. Just get yourself feeling better.” She held a cup to Forsythia’s dry lips. “See if you can sip some of this broth.”
She managed several swallows, then gagged and shook her head, falling back on the pillow.
“The doctor is coming to look in on you. He would have been here sooner, but a child stepped on a hornet up the train a ways. Started to swell up.”
“Oh no.” Forsythia covered her eyes. “I hate for him to see me like this.”
“And you care about that why?”
Forsythia moved her hands to see Lark regarding her with a meaningful quirk of brow. “I . . .” Her brain was too muddled to puzzle out an answer.
By the time Dr. Brownsville arrived, after two more bouts of vomiting, Forsythia honestly no longer cared.
He didn’t like this.
Adam sat back after examining his newest patient. Forsythia lay amid the freshly changed bedding, eyes closed, her breathing and heart rate rapid from stress and fever.
“Do you think it’s dysentery?” Clark asked from just outside the wagon.
“Good chance.” Adam closed up his bag. “She probably caught it from the Olsens. I’m glad you’re keeping her apart. It can be terribly contagious.”
“I know.” Clark chewed his lip. “I got my brother out of a Confederate prison camp.”
“Then you do know. What have you given her?”
“Broth, but she’s started to refuse it. Warm water. Del is making some slippery-elm tea, which soothes the digestive tract.”
“Good. Keep pushing the liquids, even if she tries to refuse. Dehydration is our greatest worry right now.” He climbed out of the wagon. “I’ll be back to check on her again.”
“Doctor.” Clark followed him. “Do you think it could be cholera?”
That dreaded word halted Adam’s steps. Not that he hadn’t thought it already.
“I don’t know. The fever isn’t typical for it, but it’s hard to say for sure. Children are very susceptible to cholera, and they haven’t gotten it, so that’s a good sign.”
Clark nodded, but Adam could see the worry in his face. He laid a brief hand on the young man’s shoulder. “I’ll do all I can for her, you know that.”
“I know. I hate for her to be jostled in the wagon so much.”
“Let me speak to Hayes. Perhaps he might be willing to give us an extra day of rest.”
But when Adam spoke to the wagon master, Hayes shook his head. “Tomorrow’s already Sunday, so you have that. But I can’t hold back the train any longer. You’ve seen how antsy folks are. We’ve been delayed enough as it is.”
“Even if it means putting one of our own members’ health at risk?”
“I can’t put one above the needs of the whole group.” Hayes eyed him. “You’re sure it’s nothing that puts the rest of the wagons in danger?”
“We’re taking every precaution.” Adam could tell that answer didn’t satisfy, but what more could he say?
The wagon master shook his head. “Keep me apprised.”
Adam checked on Forsythia before bed and again the next morning before the Sabbath church service.
Clark, Del, Lilac, and the children joined the others for worship, yet the group seemed sparse and forlorn without Forsythia’s steady presence.
Adam forced his gaze forward to the reverend rather than wandering back to the Durhams’ wagon. Even when she said little, Forsythia seemed to radiate peace and a quiet strength that he found himself desperately missing. He closed his eyes but couldn’t keep focused on the sermon. Lord, please heal this precious young woman. And do whatever is needed with the place she seems to have taken up in my heart. After all, Elizabeth has been gone barely over a month. Surely this is not healthy. Much less proper.
The Nielsens closed in song, as usual, yet without Forsythia’s guitar and lovely soprano.
After the service, Adam stopped by the Nielsen wagon again. Del and Lilac were washing laundry in two kettles of hot water.
“I’m trusting Mr. Hayes will see this as necessary Sabbath breaking.” Del wiped her forehead with her sleeve. “We don’t have much choice, not without an endless supply of linens.”
“I expect he will.” Adam glanced at the wagon behind. “How is she?”
Lilac shook her head. “I gave her more slippery-elm tea, but she vomited it back up. Clark is trying some broth.”
Adam met Clark coming down out of the wagon. “Any success?”
He grimaced and jumped to the ground. “Not much. She took about half of this.” He held out a tin cup.
“Shall I see her?” Adam glanced up at the wagon.
“She’s fallen asleep, I think. Maybe in a little while.”
Adam shouldn’t feel so disappointed.
After making camp that night, his evening examination sent tendrils of alarm up the doctor’s spine. Forsythia was worse. Still expelling watery diarrhea, she could hardly lift her head from the pillow. Adam felt her dry, hot cheeks and looked into her eyes. She blinked back blankly.
How he missed her gentle smile.
“We’ll take turns sitting with you tonight, Miss Nielsen. You won’t be alone. Let me see what your sisters might have for you to drink.”
He climbed out and nearly ran into Lilac, who held Sofie on her hip. “She’s been crying for Sythia. Can I hold her up just to see?”
“I’m afraid not.” Adam steered her back toward their campfire. “Where is your brother?”
“Chopping wood.” A tremor in her voice, Lilac led the way.
Clark straightened from the pile of kindling and what scraps of log they had scrounged from along the creek bank. “How is she?”
“She’s very dehydrated, I’m afraid. And weak. We’ve got to get more fluids into her.”
“What about some peppermint tea?” Del asked. “Mama always said it soothed the stomach.”
“Worth a try.”
The wagon master approached out of the shadows and nodded to the group. “She well enough to travel?”
“I’m afraid not.” Adam blew out a breath. “She needs at least another day of rest.” Probably more, but if God was merciful, a day could make a difference.
Hayes shook his head. “’Fraid we’ll have to go on without you, th
en.”
“What?” Clark dropped a chunk of wood.
“Can’t hold the train back any longer, not if we’re going to make it over the Rockies before snowfall. Nor risk cholera to the other wagons, or whatever she might have.” Hayes met Clark’s gaze, a trace of regret in his eyes. “I’m sorry, young Nielsen. But it’s what we’ve got to do.”
Clark gripped the ax handle and glanced at his sisters, at a rare loss for words. Del had come near, too, cradling the baby, with Robbie tagging at her heels. They stood silent, dumbfounded.
Adam met Hayes’s eyes. “If they are forced to leave the train, then I will leave too.”
“Mighty rash of you, Doctor.” The wagon master’s nostrils flared. “And mighty unfair to the rest of the folks in the wagon train. You’re the only doctor we’ve got. Better think it over.”
“I have.” Perhaps only for several seconds, but it had been enough. “As a doctor, I go where I am needed. And where I am needed right now is here.”
“Suit yourself.” Hayes spat the words, angrier than Adam had seen him yet. “And on your own head be it.” He turned on his heel and strode away.
“You didn’t have to do that, Doctor,” Clark said at last.
“I think I did.” The enormity of the decision hadn’t quite sunk in yet, but of that much he was sure. Though he probably should inform Jesse. “I’ll check on your sister again in the night.” Nodding good night, he stepped away toward his own wagon.
“What are we going to do?” he heard Lilac whisper as he walked away.
A question too big to ponder just yet. Tonight, care for Forsythia. And in the morning, ask God what step was next.
At dawn, they woke to see the long line of wagons ahead of them start off and roll away in a cloud of dust and creaking of harnesses.
“Well, Lord, here we are. Now what?” Adam asked.
19
Lark sure had not seen this coming.
While Del and Lilac started the fire and breakfast the next morning, Lark surveyed the empty grassland around them. Three wagons alone on the prairie with four sisters—one terribly ill—three orphaned children, and a bellowing milk cow. Oh, and a doctor and his nephew. Keeping up her disguise while being thrown together with these men added yet another worry knot to her stomach.
The Seeds of Change Page 17