The Birth House (27 page)

46

W
HEN WORD OF THE
A
RMISTICE
came, we met at the church, said our prayers of thanks and rang the bells all through the night. The papers have been filled with stories of people all over Europe and North America greeting the troops, singing and dancing. They are safe enough to smile again. My favourite of all the photographs I have seen is one that was taken in San Francisco, California. Although they are still battling against the Spanish Influenza, the residents of that city ran out into the sidewalks and streets, hugging and kissing each other through handkerchiefs and gauze masks.

Albert and Borden arrived November 15. They are the first boys home. They never did get any farther than Cape Breton Island. In some ways, I think Albert feels a bit guilty for the simple nature of their service on
The Just Cause,
but whenever he seems too humble, Borden is quick to remind all of us that several of the Royal Navy’s mystery ships were lost at the hands of the Germans.

Albert has brought something home from the war that none of us could have guessed. Her name is Celia. She’s a lovely girl from Sydney, and it’s plain to see that my brother adores her. No wonder he barely sent two words to Mother when he was on shore: he was too busy getting himself a wife! They will live in Uncle Irwin’s hunting cabin until he can build her a house in the spring. Right now, poor Celia seems homesick and overwhelmed by the smallness of this place, but we are all doing our best to make her feel welcome. Precious has been especially kind to her, inviting her for tea, going on at length about life in the Bay. I suppose it keeps her from counting the minutes until Sam Gower walks through her door.

The schooner
Huntley
was launched a week after Armistice. The four-masted 520-ton beauty will sail from Newfoundland to England. She has been the pride of the Bay for almost two years; nearly all the men in the village worked their sweat into her bones. The names Thorpe, Macdonald, Steele, Tupper, Munro, Rogers, Corkum, Legge, Bigelow, Shaw, Coffill, Brown, Irving and Sandford all stood shoulder to shoulder with my father and my uncles to bring her up. She sighed, leaving a trail of steam as she slid down the slip. It was hard for the men to watch her go. Some say she’s the last of the great vessels to be built in the Bay. Old men stood patting one another on the back, singing:

Come all ye old comrades,

Come now let us join,

Come join your sweet voices

In chorus with mine,

For we’ll laugh and be jolly

While sorrow refrain,

For we may and may never

All meet here again.

That evening, we gathered at the Seaside Centre for one of the White Rose Temperance Society’s charity pie auctions. Dozens of cakes and pies were crowded together on a long table at the front of the room. Each dessert was dressed with a gaudy bow or a spray of crepe paper flowers. I laugh to myself every time I see such a display, knowing that the original purpose for these decorations is a tradition that has long since faded. My mother and father were one of the last couples to have started their courtship “at auction.”

The rules state that each baked good is to be presented anonymously, the young male bidders not knowing which young lady made what. The girls of the Bay, being honest but wise, agree among themselves how they will adorn their creations, signalling their preferred bidders accordingly. Father’s final bid won Mother’s daisy-crowned sugar creme pie as well as her heart. The activity, a favourite of most everyone in the Bay, was suspended during the war, mostly due to there being so few young men to bid against one another for the young ladies’ wares. Last night, almost all the women, young and old, brought something to share. Even I came with pie in hand, apple with a lattice crust, a simple verse wobbling on a toothpick sticking out of the top:
The morning air is so refreshing when one has lost one’s money.
It was homely compared to the others, but appropriate for a young widow, I guess.

Borden and Hart bid against each other for my offering. It was all in fun and I was glad to watch them fall all over themselves to keep me from feeling left out. My dear brother bid nobly, digging in every pocket to see if he could add one more penny. When he got to “three dollars and fifty-two cents,” his pockets were turned inside out. Hart put him out of his misery by responding with “four dollars.” Then he jangled the change in his hand and added, “and fifty-two cents.” Tradition dictates that the gentleman who wins the pie gets to share it with the lady who baked it. Hart followed me home, whistling and teasing, with my pie tin balanced in his hands.

Long after his stomach was full and Wrennie had gone to sleep, he sat in the kitchen, poking at the wood in the stove. I watched him, wondering why he’d never had a wife, and never gotten angry or sour enough to want to leave this place. If anyone had a right and the means to do so it was Hart.

“Here.” I handed him a silk purse filled with money, the same one he had given me when I left for Boston.

“What’s this? It’s still full. Didn’t you spend any of it?”

Maxine had given me enough to repay Hart, and a little extra as well. “Didn’t need to.”

He put it on the table and shoved it towards me. “You have it.”

I gave it back to him. “Haven’t you ever wanted to see what’s outside the Bay?”

He opened the door to the stove and pushed another log into the flames. “I’ve seen enough to satisfy me.”

“The rest of us would care for your mother. I could look in on her. You wouldn’t have to worry.”

“Why—you trying to get rid of me?”

“No, that’s not what I meant. It’s just, with the war over and all, I thought you might—”

He stood up as if he was going to leave. “Don’t you go worrying about what I might and might not do.”

I pulled on his shirt sleeve, trying to get him to look at me. “I’m sorry. You’ve been nothing but the greatest of help to me. I suppose I shouldn’t have anything to say to you except thank you.” I stood on my toes and kissed his cheek. The beginnings of his winter beard brushed heavy against my face, along with the smell of sweet, stale hay made from last summer’s clover.

We failed to say goodbye until morning. And even now that he’s left the house, his breathing is still here, in the shallow between my breasts, the wrinkle of my pillow. He has left me with a quiet, sure happiness that will not go away, and I don’t think it matters if he ever says he loves me. I know him, have always known him. Same as I know he doesn’t like too much sugar, not in his coffee, not in a girl. Same as I know he’s never had patience for lies.
Sin has many tools, but a lie has a handle to fit them all.
Same as I know that tonight at midnight, or half past one, or whenever he sees that the rest of the Bay is asleep, Hart Bigelow will make his way up the road to Spider Hill and lay his body next to mine, again.

Miss Maxine Cabott

23 Charter Street

North End, Boston,

Massachusetts

U.S.A.

January 30, 1919

Miss Dora Rare

Scots Bay, Nova Scotia

Canada

My dearly departed Miss Rare,

We are still missing you at 23 Charter Street.

I am sending this letter so that you might not worry when you hear of the great tragedy that came upon the North End a few days ago. I know it is not of the magnitude of the Great War, or your terrible Halifax Explosion, but it was so shocking that I am still shaking over it.

The North End was about to welcome home our brave boys who had served in the Great War. Be it in their honour, or because of the impending doom of prohibition, a house-sized fermentation tank had been topped off for a higher than usual yield of the Old Demon Rum.

It was a warm day, too warm for January. As the mercury rose, the molasses gurgled and bubbled, expanding inside the already bloated tank. No one suspected…not young Peter Murphy leaning against the warmth of the tank, not the sweet Catholic schoolchildren walking home for lunch, not the women doing their daily run to the market, not the fine men working in the warehouses along Commercial Street. No one heard it stretching…ticking…and then…BOOM! The scariest thought is that I was one of those unsuspecting persons walking down the street that day. I was innocently strolling, holding hands with Charlie, when the great thirty-foot wave of brown came oozing down upon the North End, crushing the elevated train tracks, heaving into buildings, smothering twenty-one people to death.

If it weren’t for our dear Charles climbing up the terrace wall above the street and pulling me to safety, why I’d have been number twenty-two, I’d have been a molasses cookie. I think I may have to marry your brother for this one.

Are you back in the business of catching babies? Charlie, the girls and I have started a new venture, a “transport business,” delivering beverages of spirit from the back of my good old Hupmobile. If I could just keep my shoes from sticking to the molasses in the sidewalks, I’d be happy.

Kisses to you and Wrennie,

Max

P.S. I came across something of George Sand and it made me think of you: “The world will know and understand me someday. But if that day does not arrive, it does not greatly matter. I shall have opened the way for other women.”

Miss Dora Rare

Scots Bay, Nova Scotia

Canada

February 10, 1919

Miss Maxine Cabott

23 Charter Street

North End, Boston,

Massachusetts

U.S.A.

Dear Maxine,

I am relieved to have gotten your letter. There was a photo graph of your great molasses flood in the Halifax paper just this past week. What a mess it must be! The article said that the Boston fire brigade has gone to spraying salt water from the harbour in an attempt to clean it up. At least for now you’re having winter weather. I imagine whatever remains of it might freeze and be broken off the buildings like giant pieces of molasses candy? Charlie always loved it as a child.

My dear little Wrennie is growing so fast. She has two teeth already, and she thinks she’s ready to walk. Her legs, however, do not wish to accommodate her just yet. Her hair is as red as ever, only she has much more of it. I guess she takes after her Auntie Max.

Life on Spider Hill is grand, as I have had a bit of extra happiness these past few months. It seems I have found myself a lover. Please don’t scold me for not mentioning it before now, but I thought it best to keep it to myself to make sure it would hold. I know you won’t think it as scandalous as most people of the Bay find it to be, but the man I’ve been sharing my bed with is none other than Hart Bigelow, the brother of my scheming dead husband. Do not worry, he’s not a bit like his brother. (Charlie can attest to it.) He has broached the subject of marriage, but I’m content to leave things as they are for now, despite the shock we are giving to the community.

Come visit in the spring, and perhaps we’ll have a double wedding.

Here’s to love!

Dora

“I ask the support of no one, neither to kill someone for me, gather a bouquet, correct a proof, nor go with me to the theatre. I go there on my own, as a man, by choice and when I want flowers, I go on foot, by myself, to the Alps.”

—George Sand

47

B
Y SPRING
, H
ART WAS
coming up to Spider Hill almost every day. He stays late; neither of us caring what anyone else has to say about it. His mother can hardly stand to look at me. She shuts her eyes and pretends to pray whenever I walk by her pew at church. Hart says she’s still grieving over Archer and not to worry over it, but I feel that it’s something more, that she’s got it in her head that I’m somehow to blame for Archer’s death and that I’ll be the end of Hart as well. Mother hasn’t said a word, but she beams whenever she sees us together, and I’ve heard Father mumble to himself on more than one occasion, “He should just make an honest woman out of her and be done with it.”

My dear sisters in the O.K.S. can’t stop talking about it, teasing me at every meeting. Precious is now a “junior” sister, and the worst offender of all when it comes to trying to get me to talk.

“Aren’t you afraid of the Bigelow curse? All the men in that family die young.”

Sadie laughed. “All the more reason to have him now…” She was cutting my hair with my kitchen shears, snipping off what had grown since I came back to the Bay. “Stop giggling, Dora, or you’ll wind up looking like Bertine’s girl, Lucy, cut it for you. You saw what she did to her dolly.”

Mabel looked me over, tilting her head to the side, circling around the back of the chair. “It suits you, Dora.” She folded her hair up by her ears, turning her head for advice. “What do you think, you guess it might suit me too?”

After we’d all had a round or two of tea with mitts, I took the scissors and bobbed every one of the Occasional Knitters’ tresses. Aunt Fran’s sure to come after me for taking off her daughter’s lovely curls, but Precious insisted she join in the ritual. It certainly makes her look sophisticated. Maybe even old enough to get engaged to Sam Gower.

While I was cutting Bertine’s hair, she told me the news that her sister-in-law, Irene, was now with child. “They don’t have enough for her to go down to Canning to have it, not that she’d want to anyway. You think you could help her, Dora? I’ll come and lend a hand. Even with two months to go, she’s getting some big and starting to fret over what she’ll do. It’s her first one.”

Ginny was holding up my hand mirror so Sadie could see her hair. “She should come here and stay with you at Spider Hill. It’s just you and Wrennie in this big house; there’s plenty of room. It’s not like you have a husband to worry about.”

Sadie snatched the mirror away from Ginny. “Maybe Dora likes it that way. Maybe she doesn’t want another husband and she’s tired of catching babies. Don’t you ever think before things come out of your mouth?”

“I wasn’t finished with what I was saying,” Ginny pouted. “I meant to pay Dora a compliment. If it weren’t for my staying with her, I wouldn’t have my little Eli, and I might not be here myself.”

Mabel was sitting in Miss B.’s rocker, knitting. “It would make things easier for you—if you decided to go back to midwifing, I mean. You’d be right here at home, and we’d be close at hand to help.”

Bertine now held the mirror, peering at my face as I concentrated on keeping her hair straight. “You’re not saying anything, Dora. What’s wrong?”

I looked into the mirror. “I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do.”

“Irene’s place is pretty small, but she could come to my house if you don’t want to have her here. I understand. It’s your home, after all.”

“It’s not that.”

“What is it, then?”

“It’s…”

Bertine scowled at me. “Brady Ketch is sitting in jail. You saved Ginny
and
her baby. What can the doc say against you now?”

I brushed the stray hairs from the back of her neck. “He didn’t say a word the morning after Ginny’s birthing. He just got in that car of his and drove off. I haven’t heard from him since.”

Sadie laughed. “Maybe he’s scared you’ll come after him again with a pitchfork.”

I nodded. “I probably shouldn’t have done that. The longer he’s silent, the longer I feel like he’s planning something. I wouldn’t be surprised if I don’t wake up tomorrow to see my old friend Constable McKinnon at the door.”

Ginny smiled and nudged me in the arm. “Then we’ll all have to take up our pitchforks and run him out of the Bay.”

“Ginny’s right: let’s go after him before he comes after you.” Bertine was smiling, her foot tapping. “Let’s do something about Dr. Thomas, once and for all.”

˜ April 20, 1919

Bertine and Sadie delivered letters to local women, asking for their support at a Mother’s May Day march in Canning. Precious and Mabel have sewn a large banner for the women to carry, and I have agreed to speak (to anyone who’ll listen).

If women lose the right to say where and how they birth their children, then they will have lost something that’s as dear to life as breathing.

I’m tired of being afraid.

Hundreds March on Canning

W
omen and Children First!
—This was the banner that led the way through the streets of Canning, Nova Scotia, this past Wednesday afternoon. Over two hundred women from communities all along North Mountain came together to raise their voices in support of rural midwives. They did not come alone. Each woman had at least one child in tow, some still babes in arms. Their chanting and singing made quite a stir in our little town, stopping all business for the rest of the day.

Mrs. Bertine Tupper had this to say about the gathering: “Men have the right to tell their wives what they expect for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but they want to refuse women the privilege of saying where they’re going to have their babies. Anyone who believes that’s right hasn’t got the sense God gave a goat.”

Mrs. Kathleen Jess of Baxter’s Harbour told the harrowing tale of her sister, Ellie’s, untimely death in childbirth. “The midwife, Mrs. Sommer, came to see if she could lend a hand. Then Ellie’s husband brought the doctor. That Dr. Thomas, he pushed the old midwife right out. She begged at the door, telling him she knew the baby was breech, that she could help, but he turned her away, saying he could take care of it. He took care of it alright. By morning both my sister and her baby were gone. He just stood there, wringing his hands, telling us that he’d done all he could.”

Mrs. Ginny Jessup told of her recent birthing, a healthy baby boy born at the Scots Bay home of midwife Dora Rare. “She just knows what to do. She had the tradition handed down to her. Just like a master shipbuilder, or a farmer who knows his family’s land, she knows what to do. Any doctor could learn a thing or two from her.”

Miss Rare gave an eloquent speech to a crowd gathered in front of the Canning Maternity Home. She spoke of her experiences as a midwife, as well as the dangers rural women face in travelling down the mountain while in the last stages of labour. She called for “co-operation and trust” between doctors, midwives and the women they serve. Her final thoughts gave way to a roar of cheers and praise. “When a ship is sinking, the men all cry, ‘Women and children first!’ Sisters and mothers of North Mountain, of Scots Bay, Blomidon, Medford, Delhaven, Halls Harbour, Ross Creek, Gospel Woods and Baxter’s Harbour, do not let them forget: Women and children first, women and children first!”

The Canning Register,
May 2, 1919

˜ May 30, 1919

Bertine took this clipping from the
Canning Register
and passed it down the pew during church, stuck between the pages of a hymnal.

Canning Maternity Home to Close

T
he Farmer’s Assurance Company has announced that they are shutting down operations of the Canning Maternity Home, effective immediately. Dr. Gilbert Thomas made this statement: “On behalf of myself and the Farmer’s Assurance Company of Kings County, I would like to thank all of the mothers and families who have sought care at this fine facility. I regret to report that I cannot find good reason to maintain my practice in your fair town at this time. The need is simply not great enough to support such an endeavour.”

Those women in the area still holding a Mother’s Share are welcome to seek obstetrical care at Dr. Thomas’s new practice—in Halifax.

I’ve decided to offer up Spider Hill as a birthing house for the Bay. These are the only things I will ask of the women who come here:

• No woman or child shall be turned away.
  
• No payment shall be required.
  
• No idle gossip or cruel words shall cross the threshold.
  
• No one may attend a birth unless requested by the mother.
  
• Mother and child (or children) shall stay in confinement for at least nine days after the birth, or until the mother’s been churched.
  
• Well-wishers may not enter unless the mother approves.
  
• The mother’s home must be clean and tidy, her household chores looked after, and supper enough for a week must be waiting for her when she returns home.
  

When I finished my tea tonight, I turned the cup over. One, two, three times round.
I sees a pretty little house, right full with babies.