Julia's Hope (28 page)

She looked up at me and smiled. “I daresay if she was hollerin’, you’d know for sure. There ain’t nobody hollers like Wilametta. If she’s talkin’ to you, she’s likely got some hours yet. They gonna come for us?”

“I don’t think so. They’re going to get Mrs. Mueller, she said. Right now she’s going to soak her feet and rest.”

“Oh, boy.”

“What?”

“She does that, child. When she’s hurtin’, she does that. You best do what you can to keep Samuel here ’case they have to come for us. Unless, a’ course, you want Sarah comin’ with us.”

“No, ma’am.”

“I oughta give her this quilt, big as it is,” she said. “I ain’t got another thing prepared for no baby. Don’t know where my mind’s been, not to think of that before.”

“Emma, I don’t know if she’d want you to do that. Seems to bother her how much they owe you already.”

“Baby comin’s a whole other matter. Wouldn’t be right not to give her somethin’. What do you think? We could cut up a sheet for some diapers. An’ it don’t take half an hour to make a couple a’ bibs. Shame I didn’t think to buy ’em no powder.”

I just stood there for a minute as Emma sat and thought. Maybe it was endless with her, this wanting to give.

“I got a purty yellow towel,” she told me. “Big enough ’least for two bibs. Yellow’s good for boy or girl. What’s she favorin’ this time?”

“Girl.”

Emma grabbed for her canes and pulled herself up. “Too bad I ain’t got booties. Nor yarn for ’em.”

It was all too much for me, thinking of Emma still itching to make up a baby present. Lula Bell was recovering from poor treatment, and a score of other cattle had never been paid for. But Emma held no hard feelings at all. The Hammonds ate her berries, left her plow in the rain, and went for years without paying her what was due. Still, here she was, fumbling toward her bedroom to look for a yellow towel.

“Emma—”

“I’m makin’ it just fine.”

Tears welled up inside me. “I know you are,” I managed to tell her. “I’m just not so sure about me.”

She stopped in her tracks and turned to look at me. “Juli Wortham,” she said slowly. “Whatever is troublin’ you?”

My words came rushing out without me taking time to think about them. “I thought I was good! Do you know what I mean, Emma? I managed to be the way I thought I should be for my kids no matter how hard things got, and I managed to forgive my husband, even though I blamed him for the longest time. I thought I was good, the way I could handle anything that came my way without letting it beat me down too bad. But Emma, you’re half angel or more, the way you give like it’s all you’re about! You’ve been so good to us, even trying to give us this place! And what you’ve done for the Hammonds— oh, Emma, she told me they haven’t paid you for the property—”

“I’m right surprised she’d mention that.”

“I was too. But Emma, you just keep on. You don’t even seem to realize how unusual you are! Do you know anyone else that would’ve let George Hammond farm that field so long for nothing?”

“Now, Juli—”

“No, Emma. You could have thrown them off long ago! You could have laughed at me when I came and told you I didn’t have any money. You didn’t have to let us stay, any more than you’ve had to put up with the Hammonds all these years!”

“Well, I guess I didn’t wanta laugh at ya. Nor put ’em out, neither.”

“But I would have. I was already pretty fired up at George Hammond, and here I am on your property, the same as they are! I thought I was good, not so bitter and hateful as this! Next to you, that’s what I am. Sour and cold and hardheaded—”

“You ain’t never seemed to me to be so sour.”

“Emma, you know exactly what I’m talking about! You know what you’ve done for us! And Sam said you gave Barrett Post a bull once. I bet you—”

“Oh, Juli, I’ve had lots a’ years for them things.”

“But people don’t usually use their years like that. Emma, don’t you know how special you are? How can you keep on like this?”

One of her canes wobbled a bit. “Help me to m’ room, now. Ain’t no use to talk. We still got work to do. I wanta cut them bibs while you’re cookin’.”

“Oh, Emma.”

“Hush, now, and help me.”

We spread her basket of sewing scraps and rickrack all over the bed. I got her the towel, and she found just the right pieces to make a decorative edge and tie ribbon. The bibs would be lovely, and Wilametta would love them, whether she had a boy or a girl.

“Juli, don’t you know Paul kep’ makin’ tents, even while he was preachin’?”

Her words were so sudden that they took me by surprise. “He did? You mean Paul in the Bible?”

“Sure ’nough. He made tents. Bible says so. Kep’ workin’ so’s the people wouldn’t have to take care a’ him. You know what that means to me?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, folks should work. You know that. You do your best, that’s all you can do. But he wouldn’t a’ had to. He was makin’ roofs over their heads, that’s what he was doin’. Not for hisself. He was makin’ roofs for other folks and preachin’ at the same time. And I figure he was ’bout the greatest man ever was, ’cept the Lord hisself. You understand, Juli?”

“No, I’m not sure I do.”

“He done things for people. So did the Lord. You know that. We ain’t bein’ what we should if we’re just thinkin’ on ourselves. It don’t matter what I give you, nor the Hammonds neither. I can’t use it, ’specially not now.” She set down her ribbon and gave out a sigh. “If they’d paid me ever’ cent all this time, child, I wouldn’t be no better off. I never did need but so much. Might as well let other folks use the rest. Plain to see that I’d a’ been selfish otherwise.”

“Emma, other people don’t see it that way.”

“You think when that boy come bringin’ the Lord bread and fish, that the Lord shoulda just sat an’ ate it all his own self?”

“Well, no, he couldn’t. He fed the five thousand.”

“That’s right,” she said with a smile. “Didn’t look like it, but God’s got plenty for ever’body. So it don’t hurt me none to share.”

We barely had lunch done when Barrett and Louise Post came to get Samuel. Louise may have had it in mind to stay and visit, but when Emma told her that Wilametta Hammond was about to have her baby, she offered to take Sarah home with her so I could help if we were called on.

“You know how I am, Emma,” she said. “I never was no help for birthin’. Might as well keep the little one for you. You want us to bring you by there now and save some time?”

“She said she wouldn’t need us,” I protested. “They’re getting Mrs. Mueller.”

Louise frowned. “They surely don’t know Alberta’s gone down to her sister’s in Marion. She ain’t gonna be back till tomorrow. I’d go over there myself, but I always end up on the floor. Even when it was my own boys comin’, I fainted dead away.”

“You better take us then,” Emma said matter-of-factly. “They’ll be hunting the countryside for the Muellers. Be better to get there ’fore the worst of it.”

Her own health and mobility didn’t seem to occur to Emma, or to Louise either. But my hands were shaking just thinking about it. My memories of childbirth were patchy, cut in splinters by the joy and pain. I couldn’t imagine being there for Wilametta’s baby.

“Don’t you worry,” Louise assured me. “Emma’s the finest midwife there ever was. She’ll tell you just everythin’ you need to do.”

Midwife. No wonder everybody thought it was perfectly normal to call on Emma. I could picture her somehow, bringing child after child into the world. Why had no one told us before that she was a midwife?

“You’re looking pale, Julia,” Emma said with a twinkle in her eye.

“I’m feeling pale.”

“You do what needs done, honey. That’s the best call a’ God there ever was.” She gave my arm a little squeeze. “We ain’t got nothin’ if we don’t do for each other. That’s the way folks is s’posed to be.”

Emma must have loved the very idea of a birth—she was glowing with anticipation. “Put my sewing things in a bag, will you? And a couple a’ sheets an’ extra towels? Oh, Juli, what a time!”

Paul the tent maker. Emma the midwife. They were far beyond me, both of them, and I felt small and bare.

Samuel accepted the whole situation far better than I did, pulling Sarah into his lap and explaining that she would be going to play with Mr. Post’s puppies so I could help Rorey’s little brother or sister be born. He kissed me as we climbed together into the back of the Posts’ pickup. I threw down Emma’s sewing bag, my hands still shaking. How would the Hammonds react to us showing up over there? They hadn’t asked us to come. Wilametta had meant for me to leave and could scarcely have been more plain about it.

Yet Emma was actually whistling a jolly sort of tune. She knew her part, knew her call, and was confident that Wilametta Hammond would receive her like she was water to quench a thirst.

Sarah sat next to me, smiling, her bumps and scrapes forgotten. “Say hello to Grace when you see her, Mommy,”

she said proudly. “Give her a little kiss from me and God.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

Samuel

George wasn’t home when we got to the Hammonds’. He was out looking for the Muellers like Emma had said he would be. Poor Julia was looking worried, especially when their oldest girl came running out of house. The harried-looking teenager was so glad to see Emma that she burst into tears.

“Joey and Frank’ve been wantin’ to fetch you,” she said, “But Pa’s got the wagon.”

“She pretty uncomfortable, then?” Emma asked her.

“Yes, ma’am. She ain’t hollerin’, but she say somethin’ feels differ’nt this time.”

Julia was as white as I’d ever seen her. I squeezed her hand, and she grabbed for Emma’s things.

“Samuel, you’re gonna hafta carry me right to Wila’s side now,” Emma commanded. “Lizbeth, you get the little ones to help you make sure there’s plenty a’ clean washin’ water drawed, then keep ’em far enough that they don’t hear nothin’.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Lizbeth wiped her hands on her droopy pink apron and took off running.

I’d picked up Emma before, but this time she seemed as light as a child. “Now don’t stew,” she told me. “We’ll make out just fine.”

Julia climbed down from the truck behind me. She didn’t say a word except to tell Sarah to stay put and that I’d be right back out to her.

I felt funny leaving them, with Mrs. Hammond looking red and sick and Julia in the kitchen, trying to get the stove lit. Emma told the rest of us to go on, which I thought was crazy. Didn’t any of them think to get a doctor? Wasn’t that where Barrett and I should be heading, instead of over to his place to patch his roof? I even said so, but Emma assured me that Wilametta wouldn’t have a doctor set foot in her house.

And Barrett was in a hurry to get going. He even honked his horn for me, but I wouldn’t leave without hugging my wife and gaining some assurance from her that it was all right for me to go. She told me it was, that women did fine with midwives most of the time and that she’d be okay just as soon as she got done shaking in her shoes.

“I’m sorry I got us into this,” she said.

“How do you figure
you
did it?” I asked.

She looked like she was about to cry. “This was all my idea. There’s just so much I didn’t know we’d have to think about.”

I held her tight until Emma called her name.

“They’ll thank you for doing your best,” I said.

“Please just be praying,” she said, and then went to see whatever it was that Emma needed. I reluctantly went back outside to the waiting truck.

“C’mon!” Barrett called. “It’s bad luck for the menfolks to be staying about at a time like this!”

“Does that include doctors?”

“No. But a lot of women prefers it just women, and I reckon I understand that. Ain’t that so, Louise? You gonna stay and help out?”

“It’s so, but I don’t aim to stay. I get weak-kneed if there’s any blood and such.”

I could hear some kid crying not far off, and it made my stomach burn. “Don’t you think it makes sense for all of us to stay?” I asked them. “At least till George gets back? That biggest girl might need help with the kids or want to be with her mother.”

“You’re right about that,” Barrett agreed. “Louise, if you went walking with the youngest ones, or some such, you might not even hear no yellin’ from the house. Be good if you’d do it. Most of the women ’round here’d do it, if they found theirself here like this.”

Louise didn’t look happy about that suggestion. Being on the Hammond property at all seemed to be distasteful to her, but she reluctantly agreed, and Barrett smiled.

“Gonna have to leave Sarah too,” she said. “You men can’t watch her up on no roof.”

“We need to be here,” I told the Posts. “In case something happens and they need the truck to get more help.

It’s not right, us just leaving them here without George and his wagon.”

Barrett gave me a frown. “It’s bad luck. I ain’t goin’ in that house.”

“You don’t have to. We can stay out here.”

Barrett was quiet as Sarah and Louise got out of the truck to go find Lizbeth.

“Tell you what,” he finally said. “I can understand you feelin’ thataway with your wife bein’ so new at this. You set out here and wait, if that’s what you want. I’ll go on and see if I can’t find George and tell him what’s goin’ on.”

It wasn’t what I had in mind, him leaving with the truck. But it was better than nothing. “Thank you,” I said. “If you can’t find him, come back and tell me.”

He nodded, got in the truck, and drove off. Sarah came running back to me. “Please,” she wailed. “Can I stay with you?”

Louise looked in our direction for a second, then headed back toward the barn, where the noise of children was the loudest. Pretty soon Lizbeth came flying past us to go back in the house, and I heard what sounded like singing coming from the hayloft. That was hard to picture, Mrs. Post in there singing with the Hammond kids, but it made my heart glad.

That’s when I remembered Robert. How would he know what was happening if we weren’t home by the time school was out? Maybe there was a Hammond at school with him, and maybe they’d stop here first. But not being sure of that, I decided I’d better walk out and meet him when the time came, if we were still here. And we probably would be, since these things took time.