The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay

by Beverly Jensen

  “She won’t get a room of her own!”

  “Three in one room.” Avis groaned. “I think Dalton should share with whatever it is.”

  Idella climbed into bed. The girls stilled their bodies and listened for any sounds from down below.

  “Della,” Avis asked, “do you think the baby will get in the way?”

  “Of what?”

  “Of giving her the basket. What if she don’t notice it on the doorknob?”

  “She’ll notice.” Idella rolled toward the window. “I think she will. Now, go to sleep.”

  She was tired. Avis kept shifting around and rousing her from near sleep, whispering, “Are you asleep, Della?” She didn’t answer and pretended to be. Soon enough she really was.

  “Della! Wake up!” Avis was tugging on her. “It’s here! I heard the baby cry. I been awake the whole time.” Avis ran to the door and opened it.

  Idella roused herself from the bed and stood in the doorway behind her. There it was! A thin little cry barely made its way up the stairs.

  “It sounds like a lamb. Baaaaaa,” Avis whispered.

  The bedroom door opened downstairs. “I’ll go tell Bill he’s got another girl.” It was Mrs. Jaegel’s voice. “He must be in the barn.”

  “He’d best be sober,” Mrs. Doncaster said. “He was wanting a boy. Go tell him. And Dalton, too, if you see him. Funny kid.”

  Mrs. Doncaster came to the bottom of the steps carrying a lamp and looked up at the two girls. “I thought you scamps was moving up there. Come on down, then. Mother wants her girls to see their new baby sister. Be quick, mind, and be quiet.”

  “What day is it, Mrs. Doncaster?” Idella asked. “What’s her birthday?”

  “Well, that baby’d be born on the first of May, Della. Just after midnight.” Mrs. Doncaster held her lamp up for them as they tiptoed down the steps. It made their shadows slide along the wall beside them. Mrs. Doncaster waited with a cautioning finger pressed to her lips.

  “Your mother’s very tired. It come easy, but it still takes a lot out of a body.”

  The girls followed Mrs. Doncaster into the bedroom. The lamp by the bed was turned to a soft flicker. Mother sat propped on a pillow, her hair hanging loose down her back. She was holding the baby across her front. But it was so bundled that they couldn’t see anything of it to speak of.

  “Here’s all my girls. Together for the first time.” Mother smiled. You could see her smile, Idella thought, no matter how dim the light. The girls leaned as far as they could toward the baby to see what it looked like. Its tiny hands were pressed against Mother. Its face was closed up. “It looks like a walnut,” Idella said.

  “Oh, Della.” Mother smiled again. “I can’t even wake her up for long. She’s sleeping the sleep of the newborn.”

  “Can I touch her?” Idella couldn’t take her eyes off the tiny knots with fingers.

  “You can each touch her gently. Just don’t push on me, sweetie. Don’t touch my belly.”

  Idella brushed one finger on the baby’s cheek. It felt soft as warm butter. Avis laid her palm lightly over the top of the little head and then pulled it away quickly. “It’s wet!” she said.

  “That’s right.” Mother gave her a hug as best she could. “Now, it’s high time everyone got back to bed.”

  Mrs. Doncaster came forward. “Come, girls, I’ll take you up.”

  “Where’s Bill?” Mother asked as Mrs. Doncaster was closing the door. “Elsie, get Bill. He should be here.”

  “Mrs. Jaegel’s gone to tell him, dear.” She paused. “You all right down here?”

  Mother nodded. “Just so tired all of a sudden.” She gave a little wave with her hand and blew them a kiss, then lay back on the pillow and closed her eyes.

  “That father of yours.” Mrs. Doncaster shook her head as she ushered Avis and Idella up the stairs. She was whispering under her breath as she came up behind them, but Idella could make out what she was saying. “Damn fool if he’s drunk.” She watched the girls climb into bed. “Now, I don’t want to hear a peep from this room till morning,” she warned, and she softly closed the bedroom door.

  Avis and Idella lay staring up at the ceiling. “Do you think he’s drunk?” Avis asked.

  “Could be.”

  “Do you think it’s ’cause it’s a girl?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe he didn’t want one more baby.”

  “Too late. It’s here.” Idella turned toward the window and pulled the blanket up over her shoulder.

  “Quit hogging.” Avis pulled it back. “I’m here, too, you know.”

  The door opened downstairs. The girls listened. Dad’s footsteps crossed the kitchen. The steps of a man sound different, Idella thought. They land so heavy on the floor.

  “He’s going into the bedroom,” Avis said, lying flat again.

  “If he’s drunk, at least he’s not roaring,” Idella whispered.

  “I hope he ain’t.” Avis kicked out from under the blanket entirely. “It’s kind of funny looking, don’t you think?”

  “I couldn’t see much face to it.” Idella had been alarmed by the puckeriness of the face. She knew that sometimes babies didn’t come out right.

  “Are you sleepy?” Avis was sitting up.

  “Maybe.” Idella pulled herself tighter into a ball.

  “I’m not,” Avis said. But she lay down, and soon enough Idella heard the familiar sounds of slow, steady breathing.

  Idella couldn’t make her thoughts stop, even when she kept her eyes closed for a long time. She opened them and stared at the window. The sweep of the trees made soft sounds outside, their branches studded now with tiny buds. She could feel how full up the house was. It felt heavy with people. And there was the new baby.

  It seemed to her that they had plenty of people in the family already. Where was the need? “You take what you get,” she’d heard Mother say once to Aunt Francie. Idella wasn’t sure if they’d been talking about babies. She’d just heard that phrase, and it stuck with her.

  Another time Mother told Aunt Francie that they were “always scraping.” Idella thought that was a funny thing to say. She thought about all the scraping she did: scraping the dishes, scraping the floor, especially where the mud got dried all over from the men’s boots, scraping the potatoes from out of the field. That was a lot of scraping. It was like the rows of potatoes would never end. And they scraped the fish insides. Guts, the men called them. She didn’t do that scraping. But she held up the lantern so the men could, when they came in off the water at dawn.

  Oh, and she helped Mother scrape wallpaper. That was fun. They got the water real hot and took big rags, sopping-wet ones, and rubbed them all up and down the walls in Mother and Dad’s bedroom. Then they put up the new. Lovely blue cornflowers all over the walls. Mother had ordered it from a catalog, and it came on the train from down in Portland, where she grew up. Dad said he felt like a “goddamned mealy bug going to sleep with all them flowers.” Idella’d felt bad when he said that, but Mother had laughed and said it wasn’t the first field of flowers he’d laid down in.

  When Mother had first said, “Idella, we’re going to have a new baby come spring,” Idella’d looked at her for a long time and then finally asked, “Does Dad know?” “Oh, yes, Dad knows.” Mother had laughed in that warm way she did. “He’s my rooster, and you’re my little chick.”

  Mother called them lots of funny things when she was happy. They were her sweet peas or her toadstools or field mice. She called them things like that, and then she’d chase them around the kitchen and tickle them. Avis would get wild with giggling. Then Mother would march them out of the house. They would scatter like bees in a frenzy until she gathered them in. “Come back, come back!” she’d call across the yard or up into the hayloft, where they sometimes hid. “It’s time to do something useful.” And they’d come. Together they’d set about cleaning something . . . or patching a quilt . . . or shelling those endless beans . . . or peeling . . . or
scraping.

  Idella turned her face into the pillow and fell asleep.

  There was a sound. Idella could hear it, strange, dragging at her from outside of sleep. She turned restlessly. It’s the baby, she thought, remembering. The baby’s crying. But it didn’t sound like a baby. Idella stiffened. A scream shot through her whole body. But it wasn’t her scream. It came from down below. “Oh, God, the pain! The pain! It’s going right through me!” It was Mother.

  Idella listened hard. The house had changed. There were footsteps, both men’s and women’s. She could hear men’s voices outside. Dad was there. She sat up and looked out her window. It was still nighttime, but she could see shapes. Blackie was out there, Dad’s horse. He was jumpy, and someone was holding him steady. “Change ’im at Mulligan’s, Bill. They’ve got good horses, and they’re ’bout halfway.” Dad swung up onto Blackie in one motion and took off fast. No wagon, just the horse, pounding down the road in the darkness.

  “Della?” Avis was whispering beside her. “Why is she crying? The baby’s come already.”

  “I don’t know, Avis. Dad just took off on the horse.”

  Idella went to the door and opened it a crack. The kitchen lamps were full on. She could hear Mrs. Doncaster at the stove. “We need more rags. Fred, go over the house and get more rags. Bring the sheets and blankets if you’ve got to. We’ll tear ’em up. These are black with it. And bring our kettle for clean water. I’ll stay here till the doctor comes, and then I’ll take the baby.” Idella heard Mr. Doncaster’s heavy footsteps leave before Mrs. Doncaster had finished talking.

  She crawled out into the hall. She could see Mrs. Doncaster stirring things in the big washtub. There were ugly dark splotches across the front of her dress, on her skirt, and up her arms. It was blood. Black blood was coming from out of Mother, soaking up all the rags. And Dad had gone twenty miles for the doctor on horseback in the night.

  The bedroom door opened. Mrs. Pettigrew, from down the road, came out holding the baby. “You’d best take her now, Elsie. The poor thing needs to suck. I’ll take over here. Lord help us get through this night.”

  Mrs. Doncaster was wiping blood off her arm with her apron. “Give it to me. I’d take it on home, but I don’t want to leave Emma.” She put her hand carefully under the baby’s head. “Any letup?”

  “Not to speak of.” Mrs. Pettigrew moved to the stove and looked into the steaming kettle of rags. “Lord, how quick these have all been gone through. And she keeps on so about the pain. Straight from her heart, she says, straight through her.”

  Idella lay flat on the floor and pushed her fist tight against her mouth. She wanted Mother. She wanted to run down the stairs and send all those people home and take care of her. She wanted the pain and the bleeding to stop. So much blood was flowing that it made everything black.

  A sharp cry came from the bedroom. “Go on in to her, Petty, and do what you can.” Mrs. Doncaster stood holding the baby, rocking it, with her pinkie finger up against the corner of its mouth. The baby turned to it and began to suck.

  “What’s going on? Who’s down there?” Avis was whispering through the cracked door.

  Idella motioned Avis back into the bedroom and then crawled in after her. “Mother’s sick,” she whispered, pulling the door to. “I’m going down there.”

  “You can’t go down, Della. We ain’t s’posed to. Dad said.” Avis took hold of Idella’s nightgown. “Mrs. Doncaster said, too. Please, Della, don’t go down and leave me up here.”

  “I’ve got to, Avis! Mother’s not right. They got the doctor coming. Let go!” Idella pried Avis’s fist from her nightie. “You stay here.” She was not going to tell Avis about the blood.

  She returned to the hall and peered down. No one was there. All the voices were coming from the bedroom, and the door was closed. She had to get down there. She pressed close to the banister, slunk to the bottom of the stairs, then slipped onto the narrow plank bench tucked away behind the stove, where they put their socks and mittens to dry in the winter. It was dark back there. No one would take notice of the bench or of Idella on it.

  She pressed her knees and feet together and looked out into what she could see of the kitchen. The table had been pushed over closer to the stove. She could see last night’s supper, plates of stew stacked right into each other. Part of the loaf of bread was sitting where Dalton had torn into it. The big knife was gone.

  The bedroom door opened. Idella pulled herself closer in behind the stove. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” It was Mrs. Pettigrew. “She was healthy as a horse.”

  “I thought the blood was going to drain right out of her. It’s let up some.” Mrs. Doncaster was huddled with her next to the outside door. She was holding the baby up tight against her and seemed not even to notice she had it.

  “In the name of God, I wish that doctor would come.” Mrs. Pettigrew opened the door and looked out into the night. “We give her them after-birth pills, for the pain, but it don’t help. She’s crying for more. We can’t give her but what they say.”

  “No, I don’t think . . . The doctor’ll know about that. Leave it open, Petty. Fred’s coming right back.” Mrs. Pettigrew nodded, and both women stepped into the open doorway. “The air feels good,” Mrs. Doncaster said, and sighed. “Will this night ever end?”

  “Her color’s gone so bad.” Mrs. Pettigrew lowered her voice to a hissing whisper. Idella strained to hear. “I never seen anyone turn that color.”

  “Gone black, I swear to God.” Mrs. Doncaster lowered her voice, too. The women stood silent for a minute, looking out.

  A loud scream came from the bedroom.

  “Mother of God, I’ll try to help Mrs. Jaegel.” Mrs. Pettigrew rushed back into the bedroom.

  Mr. Doncaster came in carrying more sheets and another big kettle. Mrs. Doncaster looked at her husband and shook her head. “You get that kettle filled and on the stove. We need clean water. Then take the infant back to the house. Tell Lilly to keep an eye on it. Maybe it’ll stay sleeping for a while now.” She stood holding the baby until Mr. Doncaster had hoisted the second kettle up onto the stove and poured buckets of water from the pump like Dad had done. Then she handed him the bundled baby and took the armful of sheets into the bedroom. Mr. Doncaster carried the baby out of the house. It seemed swallowed up against his red plaid shirt.

  The women stayed in the bedroom a long time with Mother. It got quiet. Every once in a while, the door would open and Mrs. Pettigrew or Mrs. Doncaster would slip out, the door swooshing softly behind them. They’d check the water on the stove or go to the window, looking out toward the road for the doctor to come.

  The whole while, hours, Idella sat on the wooden bench. The rough edge of it rubbed under her knees. The warmth from the fire pressed on her face, like someone breathing close up against her cheeks and forehead. Wisps of hair stuck against the side of her cheek. But her bare feet were cold. If she put them against the stove, someone might see her. She put one on top of the other and tried to rub them warm. She could see out the window from here. She couldn’t see the road, where the doctor’d be coming from, but she could see out over the field.

  It must be getting on toward dawn, Idella thought. The light had gradually changed. Morning fog had pushed up from out of the bay, hovering gray outside the windows. It’d swirl around your feet like smoke when you walked on the fields. Mother said it was like walking through the clouds, only better, because it smelled of the sea.

  Idella had been up this early before. There were times she and Avis and Mother would hold up the lanterns for the men after they’d been out fishing all night. The men would clean the fish and set them on racks to dry in the sun. Herring. Some would be kept for winter, and some would get barreled and pickled and sold to people all over the world. Idella’s arm would grow achy trying to hold the lantern just right. Mother told her to concentrate on the coming and going of the fog, to listen to the birds and the sounds of the water from the bay. That made it a little
easier, and Idella knew that what they were doing was important, but she always wished she was back in bed.

  Her back felt awfully tired. There was nothing she could lean up against. She dared not move from her spot on the bench, not even a little. She knew that she should do like Mother said, concentrate on the fog and the coming of the day. Birds were starting up. She heard the cows. Dalton must be out in the barn, seeing that they were milked. He hadn’t come in at all. Idella wondered what he knew.

  The bedroom door opened. Idella drew back. Mrs. Doncaster went to the bottom of the stairs and looked up toward the girls’ bedroom, listening. Idella thought she heard the door close up there. Avis. Then Mrs. Doncaster went to the window by the door. She stood for a long time. Idella could see her plain. Mr. Doncaster came into the house. He put his arm around her, and she leaned up against him. Idella’d never seen anything like that between them. “She’s awful weak,” Mrs. Doncaster whispered, “awful weak.”

  “The infant’s crying. I come to get you. Lilly don’t know what else to do with it.” He brushed her hair out of her eyes.

  She nodded. “The best I can help her now is to feed her baby.” Mr. Doncaster kept his arm around her and helped her out the door.

  Idella was trembling. Mrs. Doncaster was going to feed Mother’s baby. It didn’t have a name. No one was even thinking about giving it a name. Idella pressed her knees tighter and tighter till they hurt. She started rocking back and forth, hugging her whole self with her arms.

  Suddenly Mr. Doncaster ran back. “They’re coming! They’re riding full out!” Idella forced her body to be still. Mrs. Jaegel came out of the bedroom. Idella could hear Mother’s groans when the door opened. She listened as Mrs. Jaegel filled a bowl with hot water and rushed back in.

  The bench trembled beneath Idella as the horses approached. “Is she here? Is she still here?” Dad shouted as he rode up.

  “I’ll take the horses, Bill!” Mr. Doncaster was shouting, too.

  Dad and the doctor rushed through the kitchen and into the bedroom, closing the door behind them. They didn’t even wipe the mud off their boots. The muffled sounds of the men talking were low and thick. Idella strained to listen. Sometimes she heard Mrs. Pettigrew’s voice, or Mrs. Jaegel’s, but barely.