Delivering the Truth (4 page)

John Whittier could seek to understand that of God in the killer
after
such a person was safely locked up.

five

After Faith returned home,
I spent the rest of the day working alongside her. I had no ladies scheduled for visits, no births pending until the next week. We did the washing, running the wet clothes through the wringer we were fortunate enough to own, and hung them on the line out back. We scrubbed down the kitchen, put together a lamb stew, and baked dozens of gingersnaps and sugar cookies for the service. The twins and Betsy helped on the last, especially when it came time to clean the remnants of sweet batter from the bowl.

As we worked I mourned for Isaiah. And I thought of all the families now without homes. All the men, mostly, now without jobs. The parents without children and children without parents. Those grievously injured by the flames. Zeb's remark about the fire being set stuck in my brain like the incessant grumble of a mill wheel.

My thoughts turned to Ephraim, forced out of his job before the fire. Perhaps he had wanted to destroy the factory that deprived him of his livelihood. But also burning up the men inside—that was a horrific thought.

When we were finished baking, Faith let out a sigh of exhaustion. “I'm going to collapse and read in the sitting room. Or perhaps just collapse.” She paused with her hand on the door jamb.

“Thee has earned a rest, niece.”

I, too, felt tired to the bone, but I had other plans. I packed a basket with a bowl of stew, a loaf of bread, and a small paper of cookies.

“Faith, I'm going to pay a visit on the Pickard family. I'll be back for supper,” I called in to her.

“Thee is a kind woman,” she called back.

Kind, perhaps. Curious, certainly.

Ephraim Pickard and his family lived on Friend Street beyond the Meetinghouse in a building housing four families. I had assisted his wife with the latest addition to their family some months earlier. Ephraim now sat on the stoop in the sunlight, a book open on his knees. He glanced up when he saw me, then stood, closing the book. His coat fell open, showing a dark smudge on the front of his white shirt.

“Miss Carroll, isn't it?”

“Yes. I brought thy family a meal, Ephraim.” I extended the basket but pulled it back when he kept his hands at his sides.

“We don't need charity.” He frowned.

The door opened behind him and two girls about Betsy's age ran out, leaving the door open. One bumped into Ephraim. “Sorry, Papa!” She ran off with a laugh.

“Please consider it a gift from a friend instead of charity.”

He nodded slowly and accepted the basket, setting it on the stoop.

“Has thee heard talk about the fire, Ephraim?”

“'Tis the only talk in town.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked away. “It must have been a lazy welder or sparks escaping from the warming stove.”

“I have heard it was set with intent.”

“Arson.” He snapped his head toward me.

I nodded.

“Who would do such a thing?” he asked.

“Who knows? Perhaps someone with a grudge against the management.” The smudge on his shirt looked much like soot.

Scowling, Ephraim stepped toward me. “What do you imply?” he shouted, his fists clenched.

I backed up a step and cleared my throat. Harriet had often reminded me I needed to temper my natural forthrightness with tact. I might have overstepped the bounds.

Ephraim's daughters ran giggling around the corner of the house. He scooped up one in his arms, still frowning at me. As the girl squealed, a woman with a
fat-cheeked
baby on one hip appeared in the doorway behind him. The lines in her face measured years of toil and childbearing. She laid a reddened hand on Ephraim's shoulder and squeezed.

“Calm yourself, husband. Greetings, Rose.”

I greeted her. “The baby looks well.”

“Yes, he is, thank you.”

Ephraim took a deep breath. “Miss Carroll has kindly brought us a gift of food.” He picked up the basket and handed it to his wife.

“We gladly accept and thank you,” she said.

“There are some sweeties for the children, too,” I said, keeping my voice friendly.

A quiet smile spread across her face. “You're very kind. They have few treats.” When the baby began to fuss she stepped back into the house and closed the door.

I took my leave. As I glanced back, Ephraim glared at me over his daughter's dark curls.

I sat knitting that evening. I'd been working on a patterned sweater for Betsy for months. I liked to have a project to bring along to births, where I often sat and waited with a laboring woman for some hours before the baby's emergence became imminent. My special pair of steel needles clicked through the woolen yarn dyed a lovely muted shade of lavender, Betsy's favorite color, since children were indulged in wearing somewhat brighter shades than adult Friends if they wished. My mother, always creative, had made me a present of the needles, and she had painted tiny flowers and vines twining through my initials in fine detail on the slender, pointed needles.

But I kept making mistakes on this project. My attention would wander and I'd not realize it until I found myself with a sleeve twice as long as it needed to be, or I'd have forgotten to change back to the other color, a cream shade. So many times I'd had to unravel a section and begin again. And now winter was over, it likely wouldn't fit the growing girl in the next cold season.

Faith, reading Louisa May Alcott's
Jo's Boys
, occupied the rocker next to me in the sitting room. Frederick perused the
Amesbury and Salisbury Villager
from his armchair. The younger children slept upstairs, after many somber bedtime questions about death, heaven, and whether Isaiah now sat near God with their mother. I thought of David, and how nice it would be if he were here sitting next to me, perhaps reading or making simple conversation.

“Is there any news about who set the fire, Frederick?” I asked. I looked up from my yarn.

He shook his head, glancing over both the paper and his reading glasses perched on his nose. “Nothing. It's quite soon, though. There is a long article mentioning each family who lost someone.”

“How is dear Zeb, Faith?” I asked. “He would usually be here of a Sixth Day evening, wouldn't he?”

She sighed. “Yes. He needed to stay with his parents, of course. His heart is very heavy.”

“As are all of ours.” I patted her hand.

“And thy visit to the Pickard family today, how did that go?” she asked.

“His wife was most grateful for the meal I brought, but Ephraim himself seemed out of sorts. As is understandable, being let go from his position at the Parry factory.” I kept the detail of the smoky smudge on his shirt to myself.

“And now there's no factory for anyone to work in,” Faith said.

“It's difficult for me to imagine who would want to wreak such destruction on our town.” Frederick folded the paper and set it on the table next to him. He clasped his hands behind his large head and stretched his feet out toward the fire. “How will the police find the culprit?”

“It's truly a puzzle,” I said. “I suppose another factory owner might have wanted to get rid of the competition that was Parry's and didn't intend that the fire spread to nearly all the other factories.”

“We should at least be glad we have an honest police department in Amesbury,” Frederick said. “I've read of great corruption in the larger metropolises, especially New York City.”

“I hope it's honest. The detective, Kevin Donovan, holds some views about husbands and wives I don't agree with.”

“Oh? What are those views?” Frederick asked.

“I observed bruises on one of my clients. She confessed to me her husband was striking her, even as she was heavy with child. I took the case to Kevin and he said the law had no jurisdiction in the affairs of a married couple.”

“He's likely correct,” Frederick said. “And he is obliged to hold up the law of the land.”

“But that doesn't make a man beating his wife right!” Faith looked up from her book.

“Of course not, my dear,” Frederick said and then sighed. “But thee knows many in this land don't follow equality between men and women and nonviolence in the home. I don't suppose this client was a Friend? The husband could be eldered in the matter and let to know his behavior is not sanctioned by Friends.”

“No, I believe they attend the Episcopalian church downtown, more's the pity.” I took off my spectacles and rubbed my eyes with one hand. “I'd venture a guess my dear mother is already working on this issue of men acting unkindly toward their wives.”

“My
mother-in
-law, always lobbying for women's rights.” Frederick frowned at Faith. “Watch that thee doesn't take a lesson from thy grandmother.”

“Father, I admire what she does,” Faith protested. “I do plan to join her. Well, when I find the time.”

Her young face already showed lines of overwork and fatigue. Assuming both her mother's job and much of her housework was taking its toll. I helped as much as I was able, although it usually wasn't enough. I knew Harriet would have insisted that Faith stay in school. She would be sorrowed that Faith had felt pressure to leave and take the job. Pressure mostly coming from her father. I'd quarreled with Frederick before about the need to hire household help, but he always refused. And now was not the time to continue that discussion.

“I'm ready for my bed.” I stuck my knitting into my midwifery satchel where it rested on the floor. I rose and headed for the parlor, which was my bedroom as well as my office. “Sleep well, Baileys.”

I prayed my own dreams would be free of shadowy figures, smoke, and the image of a woman's bruised body.

I scrubbed up in the basin the next morning, smiling at the squeaky coo of the newborn girl behind me. Her father had fetched me in the wee hours of the morning to attend his wife's birth. I turned, drying my hands on my apron. Genevieve LaChance had birthed her fourth child slightly early but easily, with a minimum of blood, and her first daughter had cried at first breath. Now the baby suckled at the breast as her tired mother stroked a strand of black hair off her own brow, and then did the same to the child.

“Thee has done well,” I said. “Remember to drink plentifully and offer her the breast often so thee makes enough milk. The more she sucks, the more thee will produce.”

Genevieve looked up and nodded. Then she frowned. “She came so early, I haven't quite saved up enough from my piece work for your fee. And Jean, well, he barely makes enough at the factory to pay our rent and feed our sons and ourselves.” Her
French-Canadian
accent was still strong. “He's not happy about another one coming along so soon.” She pursed her lips.

“Thee isn't to worry with that. Thee will pay me when thee is able. Or perhaps I'll bring thee piece work of my own and we will settle that way.”

“You Friends are a generous sort,” Genevieve said. “Or should I call you a Quaker?”

“As thee wishes. It's the same.” I smiled at her, patted the baby's head, and took my leave. Many babies decided to make their appearance near daybreak. I didn't know why. Perhaps they craved those first moments of quiet alone with the exclusive attention of their mothers, moments unlikely to be repeated very often for the rest of their lives, especially in a poor immigrant family like Genevieve's. Baby number four was surely not the last for these Catholics, despite the husband's displeasure. I hoped he would refrain from raising a hand to this gentle, hardworking woman.

I walked near the railroad tracks that ran along the river, enjoying the fresh breeze. I gazed at several dozen
white-shrouded
shapes, taller than a man, strapped carefully to flatcars. The shapes were finished carriages that had already been loaded aboard the train. Each was wrapped in white canvas to keep it pristine on its journey. It was great good fortune an entire Ghost Train had been spared from the fire. I didn't know who had imagined the name Ghost Train, but it was an apt one.

As I traversed Chestnut Street, I passed the wreckage of the fire.
A wisp of smoke curled into the air from a massive pile of timbers and dark, twisted metal. Even the stones at the back of the cemetery had been split and crushed by the burning factories. Such a grievous loss.

I headed for Minnie O'Toole's apartment on Fruit Street to check on the baby's
well-being
and make sure Minnie herself was coping with her new motherhood. I climbed the stairs and let myself in.

“Minnie?” I called from the dark hallway. I set my bag down. “It's Rose.” I heard no reply and didn't see the sister anywhere, so I opened the bedroom door and peeked in.

Minnie lay nestled in bed with her son, both of them asleep. I walked to the side of the bed. The baby breathed comfortably. Good. I felt Minnie's forehead. It was of a normal warmth. Also good, as it meant she harbored no fever. Her eyes fluttered open.

She greeted me. “He's a hungry little man, he is. He tires me out all night and then sleeps all day. So I reckon I just sleep when he does.” She smiled at the baby.

“That's a wise choice for now. Is thy sister still here?”

Minnie frowned. “She went out for a bit. She don't get along with my brother, who just stopped in.”

A man in a tightly buttoned sack suit walked into the room. He held a bowler hat and had the same round cheeks as did Minnie.

“I'm heading to my job, then, sis. The hopper is full of coal and I left you some bread and sausage in the kitchen.”

“Thank you, Jotham. This here is the midwife, Rose Carroll.”

“Nice to meet you, miss.” He touched his forehead.