by J. F. Collen
After the completion of the Croton Aqueduct, her father switched industries and established a shipping company. In addition to schooners and sloops, Entwhistle Enterprises now owned three fine steamships, its fleet built right here in Sing Sing harbor. As shrewd in business as he was skilled in engineering, James Entwhistle had the right combination of expertise to command a successful fleet of ships, transporting cargo and people up and down the Hudson River. Patrick’s recent promotion to captain of one of the schooners gave Nellie one more reason to run to the river and loiter about the wharves to watch her father’s ships come in.
Now here it finally was, Sunday. She should be gliding along the pier in her new sprigged gingham dress, pretending she was a lady, heading down river to The City. She should be watching the passengers assemble and embark before the third whistle warned of the ship’s imminent departure. She pictured herself on her perch of last Sunday, clad in her old Sunday dress, hem a bit too short, hand over the embarrassing stain on the skirt that her mother could not wash out, squinting at the water in spite of the shade of her faded sunbonnet. Her mind’s eye again saw the passengers bound for the city leaning on the railings of the two decks in the stern of the grand steamship DeWitt Clinton as the sailors at the bow scrambled to cast off the lines and pull the heavy ropes aboard. What excitement! A voyage! The sea breeze whipped her hair and her imagination. She saw the steam belching from the engine in black gusts of smoke and the white water of the ship’s wake as, anchors aweigh, it set a course south toward The City.
She squealed in pain, setting off reply squeals from some of the pigs.
A pig trampled her foot, in its haste to gobble the slop that Nell was sloshing into the trough. Nellie squealed again at a big splotch of slop the pig managed to get on her dress, just below her apron. She kicked at the pig, sending it squealing in earnest to the other side of the pen.
She would never make it to the dock in time to see the departure of the Isaac Newton if she had to stop at the water pump to get the filth off her new dress!
“Cornelia! Corn-eeell-y-ah! Time to scrape the potatoes.”
Nellie drew herself erect. What in tarnation? She threw up her hands, and the pail hanging off her arm spewed more slop down the side of her dress. I still have to scrape the potatoes—in addition to performing Agnes’ pig duty? This simply cannot be so.
She tossed the bucket in disgust and ran to the house, clattering up the steps and slamming the screen door. “Mutter! You certainly cannot expect...” she shouted.
“Cornelia Rose Entwhistle,” enunciated her mother in reply. Her voice was not loud, just intense. Nellie knew that no-nonsense voice—it was terrifying. It commanded attention. It conveyed furrowed eyebrows, a harsh stare, and a clenched jaw. Nellie knew it without even glancing at her mother’s face.
Blinking to adjust her eyes to the gloom of the kitchen, Nell clamped her mouth shut and stopped dead in her tracks. Gertrude Entwhistle towered above her. “Such un-lady like behavior will never be tolerated in this house. Stomping up the steps like a cowhand! Shouting like a sailor! I have a good mind to have your father take you to the shed and give you the licking you deserve.” Nellie could not look at her mother. She slid her eyes to the right. They landed on Agnes, seated at the table on a chair filled with cushions, smirking at her.
“Mutter, I am sorry I shouted,” she said. “But...”
“There are no buts about it,” Mrs. Gertrude Entwhistle said with no lessening of stern anger in her voice. “A lady never chooses to behave in such an indecorous manner.”
“Mutter.” Nellie hung her head. “Mother,” she said again, this time as softly as she could manage, knowing she had no choice but to defer to her mother’s iron hand. “Mutter, since I now have to resume care of the pigs, could not Agnes assume my inside domestic chores?”
Agnes opened her mouth to object, but it was unnecessary. Mrs. Entwhistle immediately sprang to her defense.
“Of course not,” Mrs. Entwhistle said, with a vehemence that left no room for arguing. “Your sister suffers terribly from the wounds and trauma of her accident. She must apply herself to recuperating. You will perform a modest amount of additional domestic tasks until she recovers. Arbeit macht das Leben süss. Ach, in English! Work makes life sweet. Further, I will not entertain, nor endure, any complaints. It is a sacrifice you will make to aid her recovery.”
Nellie’s mouth gaped in disbelief. Once again, I am burdened with more work, courtesy of the special needs of the sneering Agnes.
“Now, do not shirk your duty Cornelia. Close your mouth. You are a lady, not a codfish. Scrape the potatoes. Improper deportment will no longer be tolerated.” Her mother turned back to the stove, and tasted the stew Cook was stirring. “More pepper,” she said to Cook Hilda. “Anastasia, go to the garden and pull some bay leaf for the stew,” she called. Immediately, overhead feet audibly scurried.
“Ohhhh, I feel so poorly,” complained Agnes.
Mrs. Entwhistle rushed to her side. Kneeling, her mother felt Agnes’s forehead for fever and looked closely at her bruises.
“Cornelia, make a poultice for Agnes’ wounds. Gott im Himmel! Why has that harebrained doctor not come to set her arm? Most likely he bent his elbow in excess last night at O’Malley’s saloon, thus rendering him incapable of rounds after Mass today.” Mrs. Entwhistle regained her standing position with a groan, relying heavily on a pull on the back of Agnes’ chair, which, for an instant, threatened to topple it.
“Dad blame it, Ma! Watch what you are doing or you’ll break my other arm,” Agnes said rudely. Nellie drew in her breath at Agnes’ vulgar language.
But rather than chastising Agnes, Mrs. Entwhistle merely said, “Now, Agnes, do not trouble yourself,” and placed a soothing hand on her sister’s head.
Tarnation, Agnes can get away with murder!
Agnes pulled her head out from under the hand and said, “How can I be untroubled when no one attends my injuries?”
“I know how to set her arm,” Nellie said.
Every woman in the kitchen paused and turned to look at her.
“Now how in God’s Kingdom would you have obtained that knowledge, Cornelia Rose?” Mrs. Entwhistle said, putting her hands on her hips.
“Ye gads, do tell,” said Agnes, with her trademark smirk.
“Clara’s mother is a midwife. After school every day, Clara and I walk to her house. You gave me permission, Mutter.” Nellie raised anxious eyes to her mother.
“Yes, I did, if you completed your chores,” Mrs. Entwhistle said nodding. “I am not certain that is the case, but pray, do continue.”
“I always complete my chores,” Nellie protested. She quickly resumed her story under her mother’s wilting glare. “People come to see Midwife Rafferty at all hours of the day, with all kinds of ailments. I have watched her make medicines, boil poultices, and set bones.”
“That does not mean you can actually set bones yourself,” Agnes said.
“I have had practice!” Nellie declared.
The hired girl in the kitchen giggled and Cook whispered to her, “She’ll surely catch hell now.”
Mrs. Entwhistle looked furious, but Nellie swallowed hard and continued her explanation. “Clara asked me to stay for tea after school, one day, as was our custom. You know Mutter, I rejected her first invitations, and never would have accepted had you not acquiesced.”
“The Lord only knows the cleanliness of her kitchen,” Mrs. Entwhistle mumbled.
“Why her kitchen is very clean, and her teas are made from the finest herbs, grown in her own garden. She grows a greater assortment than we do in our kitchen garden, Mutter. She uses most of them for medicine. I have assisted in harvesting while acquiring some knowledge of a variety of herbs and their varied uses.”
“Cornelia, please do return to the subject at hand. I never did see a girl so carried away with her ruminations.”
“At first, I merely helped Clara pick herbs for our tea. But Midwife Rafferty is
so interesting, while we pick, she sorts the plants, groups them according to their medicinal properties, and teaches their use.” Nellie put up her hand and pulled down her fingers as she recounted, “She has shown me similar and related herbs, herbs which act in concert together, and ones which clash. I have learned remedies for many common diseases. The more I learn, the more I yearn to know. I desire Mrs. Rafferty’s full instruction in the science of midwifery.”
“Bone setting, you humbug!” Agnes burst out, tugging impatiently at the cloth tied around her neck as a sling. “You are supposed to be telling Mutter why you are qualified to set bones.”
Everyone in the kitchen looked expectantly at Nellie. All activity had stopped, save the bubbling of the stew in the big Dutch kettle on the potbellied stove. Cornelia Rose Entwhistle, heady from the unaccustomed attention, wrapped her arms around herself in a hug, and said, “I watched Midwife Rafferty set Mary Louise Wheeler’s broken arm, Susanna McGlew’s broken leg, and the broken foot of John Cody, a sailor from the schooner Cleopatra.” She beamed at her audience.
“You helped a criminal?” the Cook whispered. “Cody, the deck hand who stole Captain Brotherson’s forty dollars?” she shivered. “So brave, Mädchen Nellie.”
“Hush now, Cook Hilda,” chided Mrs. Entwhistle. “Miss Nellie exhibited no remarkable bravery. We are Catholics. We believe in forgiveness, and works of charity for all in need, including salty sailors.”
“Salty criminals mind you,” muttered Cook under her breath. “Gott im Himmel! Ach! English—God in heaven! Das ist nicht proper. Nein! No, that is not proper. Do not expect me near....”
She stopped talking under the stern stare of Mrs. Entwhistle.
“You watched? You watched?” scoffed Agnes. “Humbug! That don’t qualify you for setting bones yourself!”
“Not ‘don’t’ Agnes, the proper words are ‘does not,’” corrected Mother with a gentle hand on Agnes’ shoulder.
Agnes calls me a humbug and you correct her grammar? Nellie fumed.
Mrs. Entwhistle turned a hard-set face toward her other daughter. “Now Cornelia, while I am sure it is enlightening to see the Midwife at work, observing her doctoring skills is very different from actually employing them yourself.”
Nellie flushed a deeper shade of pink. She opened her mouth, but paused a moment. She was weighing the consequences of telling the truth against the ignominy of saying no more.
She rushed to establish her credentials. “In an emergency, Midwife Rafferty sought my aid. The injury required more than just her own and Clara’s hands. She said I had natural aptitude! Midwife Rafferty offered to teach me her science and all I have to do in exchange is help her with her work. I am learning how to be a midwife, Mutter, and I have already acquired the skill of setting bones.”
Her mother stared at her silently. Nellie said, “I can fix Agnes right now, and her pain will shortly abate.”
Mrs. Entwhistle opened her mouth to chastise Cornelia for her deception, but decided against it. She frowned and said, “Your means of obtaining this knowledge have been most devious and degrading to your soul, but have no fear, your father and I will discuss this with you at length on another occasion. The town’s doctor seems incapacitated by his own evil ways. I refuse to enlist Midwife Rafferty, and it is nigh impossible to lure a doctor from either Sparta or Tarrytown as far a distance as this neighborhood. Therefore, to spare poor dear Agnes another day of pain, you may demonstrate your surreptitiously obtained education by healing your sister.”
In spite of the lack of confidence of the assembled ladies, Nellie smiled and immediately set to work. “I just need Jerome to run to Midwife Rafferty’s house to obtain the herbs she prepares for healing broken bones after they are set.”
“I thought you said you could fix this without the help of anyone?” Agnes, never gracious, was even more quarrelsome under duress.
“I can mix the potion myself, if you prefer, but it would require me going to the apothecary to obtain the Chinese herbs we do not grow in our garden, an hour of grinding and mixing, and six hours of boiling herbs in oil, to reduce them to a paste I can apply to clean linens. Once the linens are saturated, mayhap sometime around tomorrow afternoon, I can begin to relieve your pain. Is that your preference?” asked Nellie.
Agnes mumbled something under her breath, turned her head away, and stuck out her arm.
Mrs. Entwhistle bustled to the back door and called “Jerome” several times before he appeared.
“Mutter, I am working on the dry-docked sloop Eliza Jane for Papa. If I do not finish repairing the hull and waterproofing it by this evening, he will be most displeased,” Jerome said. He did not take kindly to an interruption of ‘man’s work’ from the women in the kitchen, even if one of them was his mother. He was even less pleased when he heard the cause of the summons.
“I am sent as a common errand boy to retrieve some magic potion invented by a witch doctor?” he asked, incredulity written in the freckles on his face.
“Midwife Rafferty did not invent it. The Chinese have been practicing this medicinal art for centuries. It is a medical recipe passed down through generations, and now common knowledge among western Midwives,” Nellie said, raising her voice slightly. Jerome hesitated. His mother glared at him and he rushed out of the room. Nellie smiled to herself: another first, having superior knowledge to the all-knowing, learned Jerome.
Nellie arranged Agnes at the side of the table with her broken arm resting in the correct position, and began giving orders to the ladies in the kitchen. “Heat some water on the stove and fetch me a small salt block,” she directed.
The women gathered around to watch Nellie dissolve the salt in a large bowl of warm water, and gently place Agnes’ arm in, after testing the water temperature with her elbow.
“Why’d you do that?” asked Anastasia, who had come in with arms full of herbs from the garden, as requested.
“The salt water makes the bones float, so I can ensure the correct placement of the two bones in her arm,” Nellie explained. She ground a paste of flour and water, adding some herbs she bade Anastasia to fetch. Agnes still twitched and groaned in her seat, looking glum.
Nellie crushed some lavender seeds, smoothed the oil from the seeds onto Agnes’ temples, and held the crushed bits under Agnes’ nose. “Take a deep breath and then release it slowly as you count to five,” she said. Agnes looked as if she would object, but thought better of it.
“Again,” commanded Nellie, but with a smile on her face and another soothing rub of Agnes’ temples. Agnes complied, and then relaxed, just a bit, into her chair, closing her eyes.
Jerome burst through the door, breathless from his run to Midwife Rafferty’s house, and thrust a jar of some vile looking brown paste into Nellie’s hands.
She soaked some strips of linen in the paste, then dredged them in the flour and herbs. Carefully picking up Agnes’s arm, she bound the arm with the herb-infused linen. When fully wrapped, Nellie held the arm up and looked at it carefully.
To break the absorbed silence in the kitchen (even Jerome was watching her now) and to distract Agnes, Nellie asked her what her favorite thing was. Agnes opened one eye, raised one eyebrow, looked at her suspiciously, and said, “What care you about what pleases me?” But there was no malice in her voice.
That was all the distraction Nellie needed, for as Agnes spoke, she squeezed her hand around Agnes’s arm where the bones were protruding, and snapped them back into place. Agnes said, “Ow!” and pulled her arm away but Nellie caught it back and started guessing that Agnes’ favorite thing in the world was the pearl necklace from Grandmama. Agnes took up the discussion then, listing cherished possessions, while Nellie kept a light pressure on the fracture, waiting for the linens with the healing medicine to dry on Agnes’s arm. After three minutes, Nellie put a splint on either side of the arm using sticks from a young sapling retrieved by Jonas from the front lawn, and then folded some linen into a sling. She tied it around Agnes’s n
eck and rested the arm in it, as Jerome, Jonas, and the women looked on in amazement.
“Does it feel any better?” Nellie asked.
Reluctantly, Agnes nodded her head yes.
“I certainly do not approve of your methods of obtaining this knowledge,” Mrs. Entwhistle said frowning. “But I must concede you have, without doubt, done your sister, and in fact our family, a good turn by alleviating her suffering.” Mrs. Entwhistle smiled and reached out her arms to give Nellie a hug.
Why does Mutter always wear such a grim countenance, and scold incessantly, when at heart she is so loving? Nellie wondered. Mercy, she is, without a doubt, beautiful when she smiles.
“Cornelia Rose Entwhistle,” said Gertrude Entwhistle. “I thank the good Lord that He has blessed me with you as my daughter.”
Chapter 3 – Strangers in the Night
Sing Sing, November 1847
Cornelia felt another wave of jealousy crest above her head and crash down upon her, engulfing her heart.
Agnes will debut at Mrs. Warden’s Harvest Ball, but I, Cornelia Rose must remain a wallflower!
In spite of spending the summer feeding the pigs slop, and doing Agnes’ other chores, Nellie was once again denied Agnes’s privileges. Tarnation, she thought, I’ve earned the right to debut too. If I am old enough to do her chores, I am old enough to share her privileges.
Twelve is not too young to enter society. I should not be penalized simply because Mrs.. Warden is persnickety about birthdates. This exacting adherence to protocol is intolerable! Imagine, only inviting the young ladies of Sing Sing born before 1836 without regard to my qualifications. I am fully “finished” and presentable. I am just as gracious, and far more lady-like than Agnes. Moreover, I am far better versed in the steps to the minuet than Agnes—I practice more!