Harp on the Willow

by BJ Hoff

  Audrey sniffed but made no reply. It was her typical way of indicating disapproval.

  As it happened, Audrey seemed to sniff a lot these days.

  After his last call of the day, Daniel picked up his mail and headed home, eager to read the letter from Evan Whittaker he’d found waiting in the post at the general store.

  When he arrived home, Ira Birch was sitting on the front porch, waiting for him. His mouth began to water the moment he saw the large stew pot at Ira’s side.

  Supper.

  As soon as Sarge spied Ira, he jumped down from the buggy and went at a gallop to greet their visitor. Daniel waved, and then he pulled the buggy around the side of the house to free his horse, Ginger, from her harness. “I’ll tend to you in a little bit, girl.”

  On the porch, he went straight to the stewpot, lifted the lid, and smiled with pleasure at the luscious aroma of Sally Birch’s hearty beef stew. “Ah!”

  “Hello to you too, Doc,” Ira said, his tone teasing. “Well, thank you kindly. It’s nice to see you again, I’m sure. Oh, I reckon I’m doing good. How about yourself?”

  Daniel laughed as Ira uncoiled his tall form to shake hands. “Sorry, Ira. There’s just something about your wife’s cooking that makes me forget my manners.”

  “Uh-huh. I believe I’ve noticed that before.”

  “You be sure and thank her for me. I can’t think of anything nicer to come home to than Sally’s beef stew.”

  “If you’d get yourself a wife, you wouldn’t have to be moochin’ off my supper,” Ira said dryly.

  “If I ever find a woman who can cook like your Sally, I’ll marry her the same day I meet her.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, if that’s one of your conditions, I suspect you might be livin’ alone for a long time to come.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  Sarge followed them inside, his expression hopeful.

  “Don’t get any ideas, chum,” Daniel warned him. “This is my supper.”

  In the kitchen, Daniel started a pot of coffee before joining Ira at the table. Only then did Sarge give up his longing looks at the stewpot and plop down at the back door.

  “You can go ahead and eat,” said Ira.

  Daniel shook his head. “No, I need to relax a bit first.”

  “Busy day?”

  “They’re all busy of late. And I was up in the middle of the night. Elphea Simpson’s baby arrived.”

  “Do babies ever show up in the daytime? Seems as though every time I hear you mention a new arrival, it’s one that took place in the middle of the night.”

  “You know, I’ve noticed that too.”

  “You ever wish you’d been a travelin’ salesman so you could sleep nights?”

  “I’ll admit that the thought has occurred to me.”

  “You go over to Owenduffy today?”

  “Not today.” Daniel rubbed his shoulder. “Come to think of it, I didn’t even get lunch. There wasn’t time.”

  “Then you need to eat. I have to get back home anyway,” Ira said, standing. “Sally warned me not to be late if I want some supper of my own tonight. Besides, she’ll need my help with the children.”

  Daniel pushed himself up from his chair, suppressing a groan as his back clenched with pain. “Give Sally my thanks as always—and a hug.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  After walking Ira out, Daniel stood watching him ramble down the hill, headed home.

  Ira Birch had become one of the first friends Daniel had made after settling in Mount Laurel. The freed black man had been recommended by a patient who knew of Daniel’s need for some carpentry work, both on the office building and his own house. To say Ira was a good carpenter was like saying Bach wrote some pretty fair music. Ira Birch was a master carpenter, and that was the truth. Not only did he excel at his primary trade of carpentry, he could fix just about anything that needed fixing.

  With the help of some abolitionists and Quakers, Ira had run away and brought his family north before President Lincoln issued the proclamation freeing the slaves. Both Ira and Sally had been slaves on the same large, prosperous farm in Tennessee until their escape. According to Ira, they had been among the “better-treated” slaves. He had worked his way into his owner’s favor with his carpentry skills, while Sally served as a personal maid to the owner’s youngest daughter. Apparently, during their early years at different plantations, they had suffered their share of brutal mistreatment but had fared better with their most recent owner. Even so, Ira’s resolve to come north had not wavered.

  Daniel never failed to feel an edge of awkwardness when his friend spoke of that earlier life. He couldn’t imagine the quiet, gentle-natured Ira or the warmhearted, easygoing Sally living in bondage. For that matter, had he not seen for himself a type of bondage foisted upon his own people in Ireland, he would not have been able to conceive of the evil inherent to the practice.

  As a boy, however, he had learned all too well about oppression. He knew what it was like to be the victim of a power that cared nothing about bending others to its will. The British Crown had been doing its best to enslave the entire country of Ireland for centuries and had almost achieved their purpose by using the cataclysmic potato famine to rob the Irish of their land, their humanity, and, in countless cases, their very lives.

  Millions had died of starvation and famine fever or—like Daniel and his mother—had immigrated to America and Canada in a desperate measure to survive. So not only did he sympathize with another man’s bondage, but he also understood the need to escape that bondage by any means possible.

  He took Sarge with him to see to Ginger’s water and food, and then Daniel allowed him to follow him inside. The aroma of Sally’s stew was already wafting through the rooms, tempting Daniel in the worst way, but he decided to read Evan’s letter first. The Newfie plopped down in front of the fireplace as Daniel stretched his legs out in front of the sofa and began to read.

  Dear Daniel,

  I trust this will find you well. From your last letter, I feel sure it will find you busy, given your many patients and your ever-expanding practice.

  Your mother is sitting here beside me at the desk as I write, fussing at me to tell you this and tell you that and to also make quite certain you know how much she—and I—miss you. Although Teddy isn’t all that far away at the Academy, obviously he can’t leave the Point and make a trip down river whenever he feels like a visit. So Nora and I must content ourselves with caring for our other children here at Whittaker House, all the while missing our own boys in the worst way.

  Daniel stopped reading, smiling a little even as a faint twinge of sadness nagged at him. He still remembered the night his brother—his half brother, actually, although he seldom thought of him in that regard—had been born. Teddy had arrived a few weeks earlier than expected, but from the beginning seemed to thrive. Daniel, then in his teens, had waited with Evan—his stepfather—throughout that long night, both of them wrung through with anxiety and exhaustion, cringing at every cry of his mother’s pain, worrying through the late hours until a baby’s cry finally replaced his mother’s.

  So many years ago…

  Teddy was now nineteen going on twenty. A cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point. A man.

  Shaking off the memories, he returned to Evan’s letter.

  We added a set of twins to our flock just last week. Two little boys of color about three years old, from the looks of them, abandoned near the mission house on Chatham Street. One of them is ill with a bad chest cold. Dr. Rogers comes regularly to see to him and assures us he will recover in time and with proper care.

  We’ve no idea of their names, as no note or any form of identification was found with them. So we’ve named them Peter and Paul for now, still hoping a parent will eventually turn up, though as you know, once a child is left in the street, that’s usually the end of any family involvement.

  How cruel this world can be for so many, especially these litt
le ones!

  It occurred to Daniel that, were it not for people like Evan and Daniel’s mother, the world would be even crueler than it already was. Evan was responsible for aiding Daniel and his mother’s escape from Ireland, at the same time acting as their self-appointed guardian during the harrowing ocean crossing to New York. There could scarcely have been a less likely scenario than a young British employee of a landowner in County Mayo befriending an impoverished widow and her son. But to make the situation even more incredible, Evan had been shot aboard ship, resulting in the loss of an arm, only to resume his role as their protector once he began to recover from his injury.

  A few months later, he married Daniel’s mother.

  Daniel had come to trust and respect Evan Whittaker as he had few other men. To this day, at the age of thirty-four, he believed beyond any doubt that Evan had been sent to him and his family as a gift from God.

  It seemed that Evan had also been sent as a gift to the orphaned and abandoned children of New York City. Over the years, Whittaker House had become a sanctuary for the unwanted children of the city. Evan’s vision expanded, and there were now two homes for the homeless, filled with children who otherwise might not have survived the brutal streets of New York.

  A prayer of thanks for this man who had played such a vital part in his own life and in the lives of so many others rose in Daniel’s heart as he went on reading.

  As always, we are crowded to the limit both here and at the Orchard Street house, but we have an increasing number of volunteers from the churches and benevolent societies who make it possible for us to continue. Remember, I told you once that God had promised to take care of us if we would take care of His children. He has been faithful. Always faithful.

  By the time Daniel finished reading Evan’s letter, his eyes were heavy. So weary was he by now that even the thought of Sally Birch’s savory stew couldn’t lure him from the sofa to the kitchen. Putting the letter aside for the time being, he finally gave in to his need for sleep.

  ELEVEN

  LONG DAYS

  We are not here to play, to dream, to drift;

  We have hard work to do, and loads to lift;

  Shun not the struggle, face it, ‘tis God’s gift.

  MALTBIE BABCOCK

  Fall gathered in on Mount Laurel with crisp, painted days and quilted fields of wildflowers. The days grew shorter for most folks in town, but for a doctor trying to keep ahead of scarlet fever and a surprising number of babies making their entrance, those same days seemed to grow only longer.

  All the days—and most of the nights—had been long this past week. Daniel ate on the run, slept not nearly enough, and felt as if his favorite season of the year was flying by without his finding the time to even notice. It also occurred to him that he hadn’t seen Serena in nearly two weeks. There simply had not been time for anything but work. He’d like to think she understood, but Serena had never been all that patient with the hours he kept.

  Today he was spending the afternoon in Owenduffy. So far he had seen two children with bad ear infections, an elderly miner with wasting lung disease, and Tom O’Riordan, another miner, with a broken arm. At the moment he was returning his instruments to his medical case after delivering Gemma Fortunato’s new daughter. Because the mother spoke no English at all, Daniel had all he could do to communicate his follow-up instructions to her.

  He was quickly learning that delivering a baby in Owenduffy often differed from the same process in Mount Laurel. With some of these mothers, he was little more than an assistant. Many of them were delivering not their first child, but the fourth or fifth, and seemed to view him as an unnecessary distraction. He would concede that by this time some of them knew more about the birthing process than he did. At times he actually felt as if he were in the way. But the husbands, and, on occasion, an aunt or a sister, continued to send for him, so he continued to respond.

  Today’s newborn was the second child of the Fortunato family, and although the mother found it difficult to communicate, she at least made Daniel feel welcome. In fact, he had enjoyed getting to know the family. The father was a cheerful fellow, shaking Daniel’s hand repeatedly after the baby’s birth, while the mother, Gemma, couldn’t seem to stop smiling and making what seemed to be appreciative gestures.

  And the new baby girl was plump, pretty, and obviously in good health.

  He felt good when he left the house. He also left with a fragrant loaf of bread under his arm from the surplus that Gemma Fortunato had baked only early that morning before taking time out to give birth.

  Fearing that his next call might not be nearly so heartening as this one, he determined to savor the pleasurable experience along with the bread.

  Addie Rose Murphy sat at the side of ten-year-old Nainsi Clery’s bed, holding the little girl’s hand and getting up only long enough to wet a sponge to cool the child’s forehead.

  She studied the girl, the red spots that blotched her pale skin, the heat that seemed to boil from her. Where did this awful disease come from? Why had three of the Clery children escaped the dread sickness so far while wee Nainsi came down with it?

  “My throat hurts, Addie Rose,” Nainsi whispered.

  “I know it does, dear. It’s best not to talk.”

  She was so ill.

  Addie Rose hated scarlet fever with a vengeance. Children seemed its favorite victim. They grew so miserable and fared so poorly under its attack that some were struck deaf or even died.

  The thought spurred her to get up again and pour a small cup of the mixture she had blended that morning. Helping Nainsi to sit up a bit, she coaxed the child to rinse her mouth.

  “What’s that you’re giving her?”

  Addie Rose was so startled by the sharp male voice that she nearly dropped the cup.

  It was the doctor from Mount Laurel. She had heard he’d been in and out of town over the past two weeks, but this was the first time she’d run into him since meeting him at the Flynns’ house.

  She deliberately took her time easing Nainsi back to her pillow and setting the cup down on the table before turning to face him. “’Tis only a rinse for her throat.”

  He came to stand at the other side of the bed. “A rinse of what?”

  It struck Addie Rose that, even though the doctor looked hollow-eyed and weary at the moment, he was clearly younger than she had taken him to be the first time she’d seen him.

  She resented his tone and let him know it. “’Tis only a few drops of eucalyptus oil and a bit of myrrh with some water,” she said, her tone equally sharp. “It seems to help her mouth and throat.”

  He looked from her to Nainsi, then back to Addie Rose. “How did you know to use eucalyptus?”

  Addie Rose shrugged. “I just knew, is all.”

  He eyed her with a doubtful expression. Addie Rose met his look straight on.

  “You make the rounds, Miss Murphy. Your name comes up surprisingly often among the patients I see. Seems as though you’re always one step ahead of me.”

  Addie Rose stared at him, but his expression gave nothing away. Was he making fun of her or reprimanding her?

  She made no reply but moved away from the bed so he could tend to Nainsi. Instead of leaving the room, though, she returned to what she’d begun earlier. Her mother had taught her to keep a sickroom neat and clean, and her own instincts told her it might be important to wash away as much of the disease as possible. So when Una Clery—Nainsi’s mother—had sent for her to come help, Addie Rose had set about cleaning everything within sight in the room, using a mixture of vinegar and lye soap.

  She had started the cleaning while Una was tending to the little ones but then stopped when Nainsi grew fretful. Now as she washed down the iron rails at the foot of the bed, she watched the doctor’s every move while he examined Nainsi.

  He was still standing when, as if he had eyes in the back of his head, he said, without turning, “What are you using in the water?”

  “Soap. And some
vinegar.”

  “Lye soap, is it?”

  “Aye, and what else would it be?”

  “Well, there are other kinds of soap.” His tone sounded dry but less cutting now.

  “Not in Owenduffy,” Addie Rose replied with a shrug.

  She knew she probably sounded cross, but he wasn’t exactly a sweet-talker himself.

  He kept his attention fixed on Nainsi, speaking quietly to the ill child as he continued to examine her.

  Addie Rose tried to keep her eyes averted, but in spite of her slight pique her gaze traveled back to him. The doctor was what her sister Elly would call a well-setup man. He closely resembled a drawing she had once seen in a book—a book she had tried to keep from her mother’s sharp eye, it being an adventure novel loaned to her by Sally Gerrigan, who seemed to always have a book or two on hand. In truth, it had been a romantic adventure novel, which Ma would have disapproved of even more.

  The Murphys were among the few folks in Owenduffy who could actually read. For the most part, Addie Rose was grateful that her parents were book-taught and had passed on to their children the ability to read, but it sometimes made things difficult if her reading choices didn’t meet with their approval. Da had threatened more than once to make her eat a book he didn’t think she ought to be reading. Not that he would, of course. He was softer on his womenfolk than the miners under his sharp eye would ever have believed.

  Her thoughts went back to the doctor. The illustration he brought to mind was that of a Spanish buccaneer. He was said to be as Irish as…well, as Irish as the Murphys. Indeed, at times she could hear a distinct touch of the Irish curl in his speech. Yet he had a look about him that spoke of dangerous men in capes who swept in and out of dark doorways and spoke in threatening whispers. He was startlingly tall, with a face so lean it looked sculpted from stone and hair the color of jet, so thick with waves that by rights it should have gone to a girl, not a man. She had noticed the first time she’d seen him, that night at the Flynns’ cabin, and again today, that his deep-set eyes seemed to change color, deepening from a smoke blue to dark gray, depending on the light. Though he was clean-shaven, the heavy shadow of a beard, a prominent mustache, and his sun-darkened skin gave him the look of a renegade…and he had a way of lifting his chin that hinted of a certain stubbornness she found strangely annoying.