Finding Dorothy

by Elizabeth Letts

  To lose a child, as Julia had, was a terrible thing, but nothing haunted a woman like the bright faces of her children. Their gentle, obdurate patience when she combed a tangle from their hair or helped them put on their nightdresses. Trust. Children believed that their mother would rise and set as reliably as the sun, having no idea that danger lurked nearby, that each subsequent child might try to snatch away his mother’s life as he made his way into the world. These were the terrified thoughts that could occupy Maud’s mind if she let them. So, she didn’t think. She cooked and cleaned and washed and scrubbed and tatted and mended and took long walks and visited with the neighbors and brewed tea and said her prayers. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, Maud prayed under her breath as she worked. She found the bubbly glimmers of life as intoxicating as ever. And yet, the shadow remained.

  * * *

  —

  AS AUGUST WORE ON, the weather continued hot and dry. Clouds would mass only to depart without rain, leaving a big blue empty sky. The pleasant warmth of early summer had turned to torpor. Grass dried up. The afternoon winds carried a fine gray dust that crept into every corner. Not a drop of rain fell.

  Now, anywhere you went in Aberdeen, drought was all anyone could talk about. The economy of Dakota was based on the price of wheat, and already where there should have been acres of lush growing fields, there were expanses of shriveled brown stalks. Everyone seemed to have an idea of what to do about it, from raising funds to creating artesian wells to seeding the clouds—a good idea, if anyone could invent a way to do it—but for the time being, they all watched anxiously. Maud had quickly learned what Dakotans already knew: as the farmers went, so went the towns. And if the townsfolk were suffering, then the farmers were hurting hard. Maud worried how Julia was faring. She wrote to her sister constantly but received few letters in return, and those few had a somber tone that did nothing to ease her concerns. Finally, Maud broached the question that had been plaguing her since baby Jamie’s death. Had Julia reconsidered? Would she send Magdalena to Aberdeen?

  A week later, Maud received a brief reply.

  My dearest Maud,

  Thank you for your kind offer to let Magdalena live with you. I’m afraid that I must decline. In light of your delicate condition, I fear that she should grow too attached to you only to suffer a loss. I keep you in my prayers daily, Maudie dear, and hope that you will pass safely through the shadowy vale. God speed.

  Your loving sister, Julia

  Maud’s hand trembled violently as she beheld the letter. She crumpled it and threw it into the fire. A moment later, Frank came into the parlor.

  He rushed up to Maud. “Darling? What is it? You are so pale! You looked like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Maud said nothing. She stared into the fire, watching the paper curl, spark, and burn until the black ashes floated up the flue.

  I’ve seen a ghost, Maud thought, and it is mine.

  CHAPTER

  19

  ABERDEEN, SOUTH DAKOTA

  1889

  Matilda arrived the week before Thanksgiving with a plan to stay all the way through Maud’s accouchement and recovery, to help with the household and the baby. But, as this was Matilda, she also brought a second mission: to help with the organizing effort to secure votes for women in the brand-new state of South Dakota. At the train station, Maud caught sight of her mother, framed in an open doorway of the passenger car. She was wearing a black silk dress, and her hair, now snow white, was coiled at her nape. Pausing at the top of the passenger car’s iron steps, Matilda looked like a queen surveying her subjects. Maud was struck by how poised and confident she appeared, how unlike the other women milling around the depot. As Matilda descended the steps and alit on the platform, Maud couldn’t help herself. She rushed forward and embraced her mother, not remembering how large her belly had become, the result being that Maud’s belly landed first, before the kiss.

  Matilda beamed at the sight of her younger daughter. She looked her up and down and then proclaimed her fit as a fiddle.

  Back at the house, Maud installed her mother in Robin and Bunting’s room. The boys would bunk with her and Frank while her mother was in town. T.C. had left several months earlier, traveling out west, hoping to find investment properties farther along the railroad line, and had to miss his mother’s visit.

  “I’m still worried about Julia,” Maud confided to her mother as they sipped tea in the parlor. “She seems well enough in body, but fatigued in mind. She took the loss of the baby very hard, and the medicine she takes for her sick headaches makes her so subdued…”

  “You know my feeling about patent medicines,” Matilda said. “Your sister would be better off sticking with natural remedies. I sent her lavender oil and told her to put a drop on her handkerchief and inhale it slowly.”

  “Perhaps she does, Mother, but she seems to rely more on Godfrey’s Cordial.”

  Matilda stared out the window, lost in thought. “You and your sister are so different—born of the same mother, suckled at the same breast, and yet…”

  “And yet what, Mother?” Maud said impatiently. “We are two different people with different minds.” Maud prickled defensively on her sister’s behalf. She had never understood why her mother was so hard on Julia. But she was genuinely worried about Julia and needed her mother’s advice, so she pushed down her irritation and tried again.

  “I don’t understand why we’re different,” Maud said, choosing her words carefully. “She’s kind and caring, but she doesn’t seem to know how to take her own part—the homesteading life is so hard. I hear stories all the time of women growing ‘shacky-wacky,’ terrible stories. I try to help her, but sometimes, Mother, it’s as if she resents my help. In the end, she does as she pleases.”

  “So much suffering falls upon women,” Matilda said. “Imagine how much work we could do for the cause if we were not constantly being tossed like a ship during a storm. A woman’s life is punctuated by these squalls that push her from her right course. A mother’s health, her child’s health. It is hard to imagine a greater right than the right to the health of your own body. It’s why I fight.”

  “And how could the vote help us with any of that?” Maud asked.

  “I don’t exactly know what women will do with the power of the vote, but I’m sure it will be something to behold. Imagine an army of women doctors—don’t you think they might hurry up and find a cure for childbed fever? Don’t you think they might look for a way to ease our labor pains? I don’t know how the vote will help, but I’m sure that it will.”

  “And before we arrive at that glorious future? What about Julia?”

  Matilda stood up, smoothing her skirt, and crossed to the window, staring out through the gap between the houses to the vast expanse of parched brown prairie grass beyond.

  “Julia lacks strength.”

  Maud continued to be haunted by the scene in the cabin the night of Jamie’s death, but she could not betray her sister’s confidence by sharing it with her mother.

  “Julia needs to take her child and move into town,” Maud said. “She can leave James to tend to the claim.”

  “And what’s stopping her?” Matilda said.

  “Nothing but money. They will lose everything if they let the claim go. I’ve asked her to let Magdalena stay with me.”

  “That is very kind of you. Why would she not agree? One less mouth to feed for her.”

  “Because,” Maud said, “she doesn’t trust me not to die.”

  Maud saw a look of utter seriousness cross her mother’s face. “Never fear, my dear Maud. I have not arrived unarmed.” Matilda lifted the lid of her traveling trunk, wedged into a corner of the parlor, and dug around until she extracted what she was looking for. She laid it on the table in front of Maud with a thump.

  Maud read the ti
tle aloud: “The Science and Art of Midwifery, by William Thompson Lusk.”

  “Your dear grandfather tutored me in anatomy, physiology, and the natural sciences,” she said. “I may not have achieved a medical diploma, but I’ve not lost my brain. There have been significant advances in the science of midwifery, especially as it pertains to childbed fever.”

  Matilda opened the heavy book and began to read: “ ‘When summoned to a patient, the physician should go armed to meet the sudden emergencies of obstetrical practice. He should go provided with chloroform, Magendie’s solution of morphia, ergot, the perchloride of persulphate of iron, and a small vial of sulphuric ether—’ ”

  Maud, suddenly dizzy, leaned back in her chair.

  “You’re pale,” Matilda said. Reaching into her trunk once again, she extracted a bottle of brandy, poured some into a glass, and handed it to Maud.

  “Revive yourself. I don’t mean to upset you, but I want you to know that I’ve made a study of it. You will not suffer from puerperal fever again.”

  Maud smiled weakly at her mother and sipped the brandy.

  “ ‘Ergot for flooding,’ ” Matilda continued to read, “ ‘scrupulous cleanliness of the environment and careful cleansing of the perineum with a carbolic solution—’ ”

  “Mother, please,” Maud said faintly.

  “You will be fine!” Matilda said. “I promise you, Maud, that I will do everything in my power. And that includes making sure that you are treated with chloroform. The idea that a woman’s labor pains are God’s punishment for the original sin…!”

  She fell silent, then went back to her trunk, where she dug again, and this time produced a second thick tome.

  Maud read the title: “The Key to Theosophy, by H. P. Blavatsky?”

  “I’ve made quite a study of this one as well.” She flipped the book open.

  “Isn’t that just occult and superstition?” Maud asked.

  “Just the opposite. It is an inquiry into the philosophical realm. Strictly scientific.”

  “Scientific?” Maud said. Her skepticism was evident in her voice.

  “Madame Blavatsky believes in the Astral Plane—when people die, they are not really gone. They pass into a different dimension. That makes sense to me.”

  Maud listened in silence. She was not devout, but she and Frank attended the local Episcopal church, where she found comfort in the familiar hymns and prayers of her childhood. She had no desire to look for newfangled theories about other worlds and Astral Planes. Although she decided now to tolerate her mother’s beliefs, she had lost all interest in spiritualist practices that night at Cornell when she had summoned the spirits by whacking her knee on the underside of a table.

  “So, Mother. If I understand correctly, you’re doubly prepared. You’ve come up with scientific methods to keep me safe in childbirth, and if they fail, you’ve got a brand-new religion that promises that if I die, I won’t really die, I’ll just pass to an Astral Plane?” Maud’s tone was light, but she was vexed. Her mother had become disenchanted with organized religion, convinced that the church’s patriarchy was setting back the cause of women’s rights and women’s suffrage. She had begun to look for spiritual truths elsewhere—lately becoming fascinated with Native American beliefs and with spiritualist practices.

  “I’m not speaking lightly. I will keep you safe,” Matilda said firmly. “I am giving you my solemn promise.”

  Just then, Frank waltzed into the room with a big smile on his face.

  He spotted the book on the table, picked it up, and started perusing it.

  “Theosophy,” he said. “I hear that’s the latest thing.”

  * * *

  —

  HARRY NEAL BAUM WAS born without incident on December 17, 1889. Matilda’s iron fist ensured the strictest adherence to modern hygiene, and so the third, fourth, and fifth days passed without a sign of fever. By the time the New Year had passed, with mother and baby both thriving, Maud realized that the dark cloud that had haunted her constantly for the last nine months had finally lifted.

  She was seated in her immaculate room, dressed in a nightgown, her hair freshly brushed and pinned. Baby Harry was asleep in a wicker bassinet next to the bed, and sun was flooding in the windows, which were framed with white lace tie-backs, casting a gentle light on the sleeping baby and picking up the golden highlights in Maud’s hair.

  The door pushed gently open, and Frank stood at the threshold. Maud looked up, smiling, but when she saw Frank’s face, she said, “Frank? What is it?”

  Frank’s lower jaw quivered, then clenched, and she saw tears filling his eyes.

  “Frank! For the love of God. Is it one of the boys? What is it?”

  Frank crossed the room and sank wearily onto the edge of the bed.

  “No, of course not. The boys are downstairs, playing with their iron train. It’s nothing like that…”

  “What then?”

  “Northwestern National Bank.”

  “What about them?”

  “They’ve taken our store for failure to pay the mortgage.”

  CHAPTER

  20

  ABERDEEN, SOUTH DAKOTA

  1890

  Matilda wouldn’t let Maud get up until a full fourteen days of convalescence had passed, so day after day, Maud lay in the front upstairs bedroom with stacks of inventories, IOUs, and bills of sale surrounding her on the covers. Frank had brought them to her, all jumbled up in a crate, asking if she wouldn’t mind taking a look. As she pieced them together, Maud started to see what had happened. As times had gotten harder, Frank had extended credit to cash-strapped farmers and had collected on fewer IOUs. Finally, it had caught up with him, and there was no money left to pay the bank.

  After Maud spent a while poring over these sad records of the store’s declining income, her neat rows of figures revealed the truth: Baum’s Bazaar was doomed. Selling all of the inventory would settle their bank loan and leave them a bit of money to spare. Enough, Maud hoped, for Frank to figure out another line of work—although what this would be was not evident. Frank’s business was not the only casualty of the hard times. The local economy was in a tailspin after the failed wheat harvest. People were selling their belongings at cut rates and leaving town. Aberdeen’s booming prosperity of the previous year was over.

  “You are adept with a printing press,” Matilda told her son-in-law one evening when they were all in the parlor. “I’ve seen how you hand-printed those advertisements, and many of them were clever.”

  “But what good is a printing press if I’ve no goods to advertise?” Frank said.

  “I’ve heard that John Drake is giving up and returning to Syracuse. He is looking to sell off his newspaper at a bargain price.”

  “A newspaper?” Frank said, lowering the paper he was currently reading, unlit pipe stuck between his teeth, legs draped over the arms of the upholstered chair. “There are seven daily newspapers in Aberdeen right now. Two Democrat, one Republican-leaning,” he went on, tapping the paper he held with his finger. “One staunch Republican, one for the Farmers’ Alliance, one for the Knights of Labor, and one that seems to have no purpose for existing whatsoever. If there’s anything Aberdeen has too many of right now, it’s newspapers. I’m full up on hobbies. I’m looking for a moneymaking concern.”

  Even as down-spirited as he was, Frank managed to make this long speech sound halfway cheerful. Matilda was not deterred by his pessimism.

  “Nobody writes anything of interest to ladies,” Matilda said. “You need to write about education and the health of children, and the suffrage cause.”

  “And parties and social gatherings,” Maud added. “You’ll have the wives asking to subscribe.”

  * * *

  —

  TWO WEEKS LATER, Frank put out the first issue of his new newspaper, which h
e had christened The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer. Eager to redeem himself, Frank had dived into his new business with a fervor. He was out the door early every morning and didn’t come back until late into the evening. The work seemed to suit him; after several months, however, the emerging financial picture was less rosy. From the first day, Frank had struggled to keep up subscriptions, but Maud remained optimistic. Everyone said that once the spring came and the rains started up, a single wheat crop would put everyone in the black again.

  But the summer of 1890 showed no change in the weather, and a curse seemed to have fallen upon the new state of South Dakota. Rapacious bankers foreclosed on farms and businesses. A steady stream of Aberdonians were giving up and leaving town. With each family that departed, a part of the economy departed with them. The baseball team disbanded when most of the players left town to look for work. Frank kept up a steady drumbeat of positive boosterism for the town in his editorials. Still, everyone knew that one more failed harvest would drive the town to the brink of extinction.

  Maud received few letters from Julia, but she knew that if times were hard in town, they would be doubly so on the homestead. Although she thought of Magdalena constantly, her pride prevented her from approaching her sister again about sending the girl to Aberdeen. She had not gotten over the shock of learning that her sister had expected her to die in childbirth. Still, she waited, and hoped that in such hard times, Julia might at last relent.

  The Baum family could not control the weather, so they threw their energy into the upcoming vote for women’s suffrage. The big day—November 4, 1890—was when the voters of South Dakota would decide whether or not they should strike the word “male” from the suffrage plank, giving women the right to vote. Maud had stuffed envelopes, embroidered banners, baked cookies for socials, and donated her fine lace to the white elephant sales. Frank penned pro-suffrage editorials and served as secretary of Aberdeen’s Women’s Suffrage Club. Enough was enough. Women needed to win the vote!