Streams of Mercy

by Lauraine Snelling

  Together they wrote and designed the flyer. Thorliff set the type, and Thomas ran the printer. He held up the first sheet for their fast edit and mutual approval and then cranked out the printed flyers. They handed them out, and within an hour most of the people in town had received the paper. Copies were posted in all the public places.

  Thorliff kept busy, refusing to allow the bone-wracking fear to take over. Elizabeth had gone out to the train. He’d not asked her if she’d had the disease as a child or received the antitoxin while in Chicago. But as far as he could figure, they might not have had the antidote yet when she received her medical training there. And she never had regained her full strength after the birth of Roald. Lack of knowledge was a strong part of that fear. So far all they knew was that diphtheria was most deadly to small children and older people with infirmities.

  He started calling around. He learned that Miriam and her family had been exposed and had light cases. Mrs. Geddick remembered having croup, at least. Mr. Sidorov said he had lost two brothers and a sister but had lived through it. Reverend Solberg wasn’t sure if he’d had croup or diphtheria. Both of the student nurses had been inoculated when they went into the nursing program. Those who had grown up in Blessing and came from Norway were the vulnerable ones.

  Everything hinged on the arrival of the antitoxin. And nothing could bring it faster than the train.

  Thorliff went in search of his wife and Astrid at the hospital.

  The door was blocked with a sign saying No admittance. Call for assistance. Head nurse Deborah MacCallister saw him standing there and came to speak to him through the door.

  “How can I help you, Thorliff?”

  “What is happening here?”

  “Another of the circus children died, and we are hoping to get supplies in time to save the others. Astrid has done two tracheotomies. Everything here has to be boiled with carbolic acid. It’s a good thing we only had three patients here before this hit. Elizabeth did an inspection of the circus train and told them what they must do to try to save other lives. There are too many more sick people out there. They are setting up an infirmary tent behind the mill.”

  “Thomas Devlin is immune. I suggest you put him in charge of helping those on the train and don’t allow any more into the hospital.”

  “That’s what Dr. Elizabeth wanted to do—isolate them somewhere else—but we can’t just let people die without help.”

  He told her about the flyers and what they were doing, but he did not mention Stetler’s perfidy. He handed her the list of people they knew were immune. “I’ve asked them to come help as we need them. How are you staffwise?”

  “Everyone is exhausted, but Mrs. Geddick just keeps cooking. Keeping ahead of the sheets and bedding to wash is impossible. Miriam’s sisters and eldest brother are here helping with laundry and meals, but the youngest two were born after their family had it.”

  “We’ve sent some of the men over to the cemetery to dig graves.” Thorliff rubbed his forehead. “And we thought we had a pretty good emergency plan for here.”

  “I have to go. I’m needed.”

  “Thank you.” He headed back to the newspaper office to start a special edition of the paper. And answer the telephone.

  “Thorliff,” Sophie called from outside the door.

  “Come on in.” He hoped he smiled at her, but by this time he was not sure.

  “Do you suppose anyone who came in on the train that dropped off the circus train could have caught diphtheria from being on the same train?”

  “You’d have to ask Astrid or Elizabeth about that, but from what I know, it is not likely.”

  “If someone brings it into the boardinghouse . . .” She shook her head. “We should never have let that circus train stop here.”

  “We had no idea what they were carrying. All the owner said was he had some sick people aboard. He failed to mention he had two dead bodies.”

  “News travels fast here in Blessing, and I tell you, people are already close to panic. Perhaps we should just send them on their way.”

  He stared at her. Sophie glared back at him. “So you want us to reload the sick and dying onto the train and expect another town to take them in?” All the while he was shaking his head. “Sophie, we have to deal with things the way they are. As long as none of your boarders were involved when the train stopped and you don’t go near the hospital, you and your family should be safe.”

  “In an article I read, they burned the bodies and all the clothes, everything that touched the sick person.”

  “True, but boiling with carbolic acid works the same, and those at the hospital are doing their best to contain it.”

  “But what if their best isn’t good enough? What if . . . what if the disease is carried on the breeze? What about the bodies they are going to bury? Maybe burning them would be better.”

  Thorliff tipped his head from side to side, trying to stretch out his shoulders and neck. “You are asking questions that God alone knows the answers to. Now go back to the boardinghouse, warn everyone, and make sure your children stay home. We’ll post quarantine signs if we know of a house and family that have been infected. The antitoxin should be here the day after tomorrow.”

  “Are they sending enough for the whole town?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “What if someone has already been exposed? Will the inoculation stop the disease?”

  “Sophie, I am not a medical doctor. I don’t have all the answers.” He raised a hand. “And before you ask, yes, Elizabeth has been exposed, as have all the others working at the hospital. Only God knows tomorrow.” He knew he was quoting Reverend Solberg, because right now he wasn’t sure if he trusted God to protect them or not. Or to heal those who were ill.

  She asked, “Do you know when Hjelmer will be back in town?”

  “No, and don’t go ask Penny. Use the telephone.”

  Sophie glared. “You needn’t be condescending. I have every right to be concerned.”

  “Don’t we all?” He didn’t tell her that Elizabeth had been home to sleep beside him before they learned the true diagnosis. She’d held her children. Could that bring it to them also? He watched the screen door slam behind her and ran his fingers through his hair. The headache did not want to go away. If only he and the others had not answered the call when their wives asked them for help in transporting patients from the train to the hospital.

  The stench on that train should have scared them away right from the beginning.

  Every time he closed his eyes, the horror of it blasted him again. Two or three dead bodies, people coughing and choking, children crying, some fighting to breathe, others lying in their bunks turning blue. The quarters so close, a narrow aisle between rows of bunk beds, some holding two sick ones. The lanterns hanging from the ceiling cast more shadows than light, like ghostly figures reaching to strangle the suffering. He had to step outside before he vomited. He’d never smelled anything like that, not even years earlier when they had to burn all the cloven-hoofed animals due to the hoof and mouth disease that had come in from the south. He could still see his pa crying as they shot all the milking cows and calves and rolled them into a pit to burn.

  But now it was people dying, and more still coming down with the disease. He had scrubbed himself raw when he got back to his house, drained the water, and scrubbed again. But still the stench lingered. That gut-wrenching miasma could be creeping into the homes and streets of Blessing, and they had no way to stop it.

  The telephone rang his signal. Like an old man, he pushed himself to his feet and went to lift the earpiece.

  “How is the list coming of those who can help?” John Solberg didn’t bother with a greeting.

  “Let me get it.” Thorliff read him the list. “I have a question mark next to your name.”

  “I know. I remember Mor telling me I had the croup as a child. I don’t remember it, but we don’t know if it was diphtheria or not. I am going on the assumption that I a
m immune, since I did not die.”

  “I see.”

  Solberg continued, “Devlin is on his way over to the train after talking with Astrid and Elizabeth. I sent Boris Sidorov with him.”

  “Miriam and the older ones of her family are over there now, doing whatever they are asked, and Trygve and the two younger ones have been ordered not to show up.”

  “But Trygve helped move sick ones from the train,” Reverend Solberg protested.

  “I know. As did you. I am making a list of those who have been exposed and reminding all of you to be there when the train comes in. You will be first in line for the inoculations. We’re going to set up the inoculations at the schoolhouse, so you needn’t go into the hospital. I think Miriam will be in charge of that.”

  “I’ve told your mor not to come into town.”

  “As did I. She is calling to gather sheets and making more cough syrup. They are out of so many things at the hospital.” Thorliff thought for a moment. “Has anyone put out a call for butchered chickens to make soup? Mor always said that chicken soup was the best food to feed the sick.”

  “No, but I will put someone on that, to ask the farmers, since so few of them have a telephone. Right now I am so grateful that school was already out for the summer.”

  Thorliff hung up, shaking his head. Good thing someone could find something to be grateful for. All he could think was What if? And it was all way beyond anything he could control.

  He left the office and mounted the stairs to the porch, hoping for a breeze to lighten the heavy air. He didn’t need to open the door to hear Roald crying, “Ma, Ma.”

  Inga met him. “I want to go to Grandma’s to make sure she does not have sad eyes again. Roald won’t quit crying.”

  “You cannot go to Grandma’s because everyone is being asked to stay in their own house.”

  “But we are not sick.”

  “I hope not. But that is the rule, and we must obey it.”

  She clamped her arms across her chest. “Can I go outside at least?”

  “Ja, but you have to stay in the yard and not talk to anyone.” Thorliff took his son from Thelma’s arms and jiggled him as he went out on the porch, where now there was a tiny breeze. “Hush, son. Ma will come back soon.” Roald’s eyes were red and swollen from crying, and he rubbed them again, with his nose running too. Thelma wiped his nose with a piece of muslin and rubbed some salve on his red nose and cheeks.

  “Poor little one.” Indomitable Thelma looked to be close to the end of her rope too.

  “Inga, how about pulling Roald around the yard in your wagon?”

  She glared at her little brother. “Do I have to?”

  Thorliff swallowed before answering. Even so, his words were clipped sharp. “Yes, you have to.”

  With a snort, she stomped down the stairs.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To get the wagon.”

  Thelma handed him a bottle of milk, but Roald pushed that away and started to cry again.

  Thorliff lifted a pillow from the chair on the porch and put it in the wagon for a cushion, then set Roald on top of it. Scooter jumped up to lick his face, but Roald even pushed him away, something unheard of. If anything could make Roald laugh, the little dog was always successful.

  “Be gentle with Scooter,” Inga ordered, leaning over to pat her dog and get her cheek kissed. She set Scooter up on the wagon and pulled them off around the corner of the house, sending a glare over her shoulder. The one-and-a-half-year-old kept on crying.

  Thelma carried a tray out on the porch to set on the table. “Lemonade and cookies. Perhaps you can have a few minutes to yourself here.”

  Thorliff drank half a glass and held the cool surface to his face, tipped his head back against the cushion, and inhaled. The exhale brought his shoulders down somewhere toward normal. He repeated the pattern and sipped from the glass.

  A pain-filled shriek jerked him to his feet. Roald! He leaped down the steps and around to the front yard. “What happened?” His son was sitting in the grass, bellowing.

  “Scooter jumped out and he reached for Scooter. I grabbed for him, and the wagon fell over, and he banged his head on the wagon, and . . .” Inga gulped air.

  Thorliff glared at her and scooped up his son.

  Thelma charged out the front door and down the steps. “What happened?”

  “I didn’t mean to!” Inga looked ready to cry. He didn’t need two of them.

  Thorliff checked the baby’s head for any bumps. Scooter yipped. Inga tried to quiet the dog.

  “You have to be more careful!”

  Inga burst into tears and stomped up the stairs, grabbed the screen door handle, and let the door slam behind her.

  “Here, I’ll take him.” Thelma ignored the cries for “Ma!” and rocked back and forth, at the same time whispering mother songs.

  Roald would have none of it, stiffening his body, forcing her to clamp both arms around him.

  Thorliff watched his son in amazement. His easygoing, happy baby had turned into some kind of monster. He wanted his ma this bad? It wasn’t as if she were with him all the time. Did babies have an inner clock and calendar to remind them that Ma had not been around for hours? Turning into days in this case but . . . He shook his head. Today a squalling child was beyond him. While he was having a hard time finding things to be thankful for these days, right now Thelma was saving his sanity. Or at least the day.

  The door slammed behind Thelma. He bent over to pick up the handle of the wagon to put it away so no one could fall over it. He glanced up at the window to Inga’s room. He could hear her crying. She never cried, unless you took the time she broke her arm into account.

  Elizabeth was needed here. That was for sure. Lord God, protect her please. Please protect all of us and heal the sick. He sure hoped God was listening.

  CHAPTER 17

  Thank you, Thorliff.” Anji stood on her front stoop and watched Thorliff hustle off on his way to the next house. And to think there was a time, when they were both young and foolish, when she might have married him.

  She read the paper he had just handed her. Her heart jumped, and not from thoughts of love. Diphtheria! Yes, she certainly would keep the children at home. She vaguely remembered from somewhere that there was a cure for diphtheria—or at least a prevention measure of some sort—but she couldn’t remember any more than that. She turned and went back inside.

  “Ma,” Melissa called from the kitchen, “we’re almost out of flour.”

  “Ma, I’m going over to Benny’s for a couple hours, all right?” Cap in hand, Gilbert was heading for the door.

  “No!”

  Gilbert stopped cold and stared. “But, Ma! You always let me go over to Benny’s!”

  “Read this and come to the parlor.” Anji stuffed the paper into his hand and marched on to the kitchen. “Melissa, bring the children to the parlor.”

  Melissa frowned, dropped the spoon she was holding, and hurried off toward the stairs.

  Anji sat down in her favorite rocker by the parlor fireplace and tried to compose herself. How must she approach this? Diphtheria. She must think.

  The children gathered around her, the little ones sitting on the floor. Melissa on the settee was reading the letter Gilbert had handed her.

  Anji looked from child to child. “Some people on the circus train have diphtheria, and the doctors are afraid the disease will spread to the people who live in Blessing. Diphtheria is an extremely serious disease. It is painful and miserable for anyone who catches it, and some people die. Some people who recover have damaged nerves and cannot use their hands or feet the way they used to. If I am frightening you, I mean to. This disease can be deadly. You will not leave the yard at any time. None of you. Do you understand?”

  Gilbert looked worried. “Then can Benny come here? Please?”

  “No. You catch the disease from people who have the disease, and that person may not even know he is sick yet.” She stared directl
y at the little ones. “If one of you catches it, you can give it to your brother or sisters before you realize you have it. That is why it is so dangerous.”

  “But we’ll still go to church, right?”

  “No. We’ll go nowhere. Not until the doctors say it is safe to mingle with other people again.”

  Melissa shook her head. “But we’ll need groceries. We need flour. And the cheese is low, and we were going to have chicken tonight. And what about the buttons for my pinafore?”

  “I will go alone to the store and post office,” Anji said. “But you children should never ever leave the yard. Will you promise that?”

  She got solemn nods in return.

  Melissa sighed. “Johnny Solberg was going to take me to see the elephants! He gets to visit the elephants. He helps Manny take care of them. What makes him so special?”

  “From now on, I’m sure, he’ll have to stay home. This paper came this afternoon, so the quarantine, that is, the need to stay home, is something new.”

  Joseph whined, “But this is summer. I want to go out to the farm, and go fishing, and—”

  “No one likes this. But believe me, you don’t want diphtheria. We will stay until it is safe to leave. You may go play.”

  Under a pall of misery, the little ones climbed to their feet and walked back to the stairs.

  Gilbert took his hat and slapped it on his knee. “How long, do you know?”

  “I have no idea, but I’ll try to find out. Melissa, what do we need at the store besides flour, cheese, and the chicken?”

  “I think maybe butter. I’ll go check the potatoes and turnips.” She went out to the kitchen.

  Anji drew a deep breath. Dear Lord, protect us!

  Melissa wrote out a list while Anji got her purse. With a final “Remember. Stay in the yard,” she went to the store. There was a stillness in the streets, as if everyone were trying to avoid awakening someone. People talked in low tones with lots of wagging heads. She heard angry comments about the circus. This was not the friendly, lighthearted Blessing she knew.

  Was there anything she could do to ease her children’s sequester? When she passed Rebecca’s soda shop, she smiled, turned back, and went in.