Things Past Telling by Sheila Williams

Author:Sheila Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

19

Patience

I had four babies coming that month though I knew about only three of them. I filled Mahala’s cabin with so much spice smoke we both near choke on it. But the heat and the scent worked and we end up laughin’ and coughin’. Her little boy slid into my hands wriggling like a fresh-caught fish, kicking screaming like he mad at us all. He strong. Mahala never stopped grinning and when I put the boy into her arms, her eyes were full of tears. Her man Tom brought their children in to see their brother and I was paid with a quilt and one chicken.

Nel’s baby came fore I got there good, right there in the middle of the cabin floor! Another boy, screaming his little head off, a mouth wide open with nothing but pink gums to show. Fat little thing. McKay give me a coin, Nel give me a length of fine cloth to make a dress. I don’t ask where it come from.

When Patience Nash’s time came, Master Thomas himself came to White Maple Grove in his carriage to carry me over to his place. Said he could not trust anyone else. He never stopped chattering the whole way. Couldn’t keep from it, nervous like it his first child.

“S-she seems calm, settled,” he said, his voice quivering. “Like she knows what to do, that she knows the baby will . . . be . . . well . . .” Thomas Nash glanced at me, his cheeks pink, then turned his attention to the horse then back to me. “She will be well, won’t she?” he asked. “It seems so. But I’m afraid to be too hopeful. It’s just that . . . this is the first time since Tommy that she’s . . . carried so far . . .”

I murmured, “Yes, sir,” and kept my mind on the hours to come.

First day I come there, I was told that Patience Nash ne’er carried past “pukin’ stage.” This time, she had. Nine full months far as I could tell and it didn’t look like no puny child. Her belly was enormous. And because she was so terrified of losing another baby, I was sent for near every week of the last two months.

“Oh, Maryam, thank the Lord, you’re here.”

Rhoda and Mistress Penn, Patience’s sister on a visit from Richmond town, had prepared the bed, folded up fresh linens, and had water boiling. Rhoda is a wonder. Why she married to Jeremiah . . . well, better things to run through my mind.

“You need anything else?” Rhoda ask me in passing.

“When the last time she eat?” I asked.

Rhoda grinned.

“Not since yesterday,” the woman said in satisfaction. “She groaning a bit then and I thought . . . best not feed her much. She don like that!” Together, we chuckled. Few things Mistress Thomas like better than food of any kind. “I thought, she near ready and Maryam don need to be cleanin’ that up!”

“Thankee,” I told her, pushing up my sleeves.

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