A Changing Light by Edith Maxwell (pdf ebook reader .txt) 📗

lines Whitter wrote for Susan Babson Swasey, which Woodwell cites as later published in “Whittier and a Girl’s Album” by Ethel Parton in Youth’s Companion, January 23, 1896. I also reference Whittier’s poem “The Meeting.”

I got the quote from Annie Oakley from the Women’s History Museum, but I wasn’t able to verify when she said it. Her marriage in Ontario, Canada, is fact.

As always, I consulted the Online Etymology Dictionary (https://www.etymonline.com/) and Google Ngram Viewer for information about when particular words and phrases entered the language, as well as The American Slang Dictionary from 1890, originally published by James Maitland in 1891.

Chapter One

The world was changing around me, around all of us, in this first year of the 1890s. I passed men stringing wires above Main Street in Amesbury, Massachusetts, converting the horse-drawn trolley system to one powered by electricity. Our country had four new western states. We had vaccines available for rabies, cholera, and anthrax, although—alas—not for tuberculosis or the recent scourge of Asiatic influenza.

My own small world was transforming, too. I smiled to myself on a chilly late afternoon in early Third Month as I raised my hand to knock at the door of the Orchard Street home where my elderly mentor, Orpha Perkins, lived with her granddaughter and her family. The door opened before I could lift the knocker. It wasn’t Alma Latting who faced me, though, but a pleasant-looking lady in her forties. She toted a black satchel very much like my own midwifery bag.

“Oh! Good afternoon,” the woman said. She adjusted a bowler decorated with a blue ribbon atop her still-blond hair. “I hope I didn’t startle you.”

“Not at all. I’ve come to call on Orpha.”

The smile slid off her face. “Good.” She peered more closely at my face. “Are you the midwife?”

“Yes.” I extended a hand. “I’m Mrs. Rose Carroll Dodge.”

Her handshake was firm. “My name is Mary Chatigny, physician. Mrs. Perkins is under my care.”

“I’m pleased to meet thee, Mary. I thought that looked like a medical bag.” Lady doctors weren’t unheard of, but I hadn’t realized one practiced here in Amesbury.

“I’m normally a tuberculosis specialist.”

My eyes widened. “Does she—”

“No.” She held up a hand. “Have no fear. Old age is Mrs. Perkins’s infirmity, nothing more.”

“I’m relieved to hear it’s not the deadly wasting disease.” While modern medicine had recently identified the cause of the illness, it hadn’t discovered a cure other than clean air and water, as well as rest. “How did thee come to care for her?”

“She knew my late mother, Margaret Flaherty, who bound me to look out for Mrs. Perkins. I’m happy to do so. She was speaking of you just now.”

“Orpha is my mentor. I took over her midwifery practice several years ago after she retired.”

“Spend as much time with her as you can. While you can. Good day, Mrs. Dodge.” She strode down the walk to the two-person buggy waiting at the street’s edge.

I stared after her. While I can? Orpha was old, it was true, and increasingly frail. Was she on her final decline? I prayed not, even though I knew it would come one day soon. I wasn’t ready to let her go, this wise, funny woman who knew me to my core, who had delivered me twenty-seven years ago.

Alma appeared in the doorway. “Come in, Rose, please. Nana’s eager to see you.” She stepped back so I could enter.

“Is she . . . ?” I couldn’t finish.

“She’s, well, you know her. But she’s getting weaker.”

I followed the dressmaker, a few years older than I, not into the parlor where Orpha usually spent her days reading in a rocking chair, but into the old lady’s bedroom. She reclined in the bed, supported by pillows, and snored lightly.

I whispered to Alma, “I can come back another time.”

“No.” Alma also spoke softly. “She wanted to see you. Nana,” she added, raising her voice. “Rose is here.”

Orpha’s eyes flew open. “There you are, my dear. I knew you would arrive. Come sit with an old lady.”

Alma slipped out as I perched in the chair by the bed and took Orpha’s soft hand. Her paper-fine skin was nearly translucent, with ropy veins rising up on the back of her hand.

“How did thee know I would come today?” I asked.

She smiled. “I know these things. And I know you have news for me.”

“They’re electrifying the trolley. Can you imagine? And the town is full of foreigners and people from all over the continent.”

“For the Spring Opening.” She nodded. “But I meant your own news, Rose. I sensed it, you know.”

Tears sprang up. Orpha was the most remarkable woman I had ever met. I swiped at my eyes.

“It’s true.” I slid my other hand over my belly. “I am with child. Orpha, we’re both so happy.” David and I had been married last Ninth Month and had decided to let a family happen as it would.

“I’d say you’re four months gone. Perhaps a little more?”

I bobbed my head. It hadn’t taken long to conceive our first child.

“I’ve known all along but waited for you to tell me,” she murmured.

“I pray I haven’t hurt thy feelings by keeping it to myself.”

“I’m not so easily wounded. Women tell in their own good time. Soon enough your dress will reveal your condition.” She laughed. She’d always had a surprisingly hearty guffaw. It was now diminished in volume but not enthusiasm.

“I know.” My plain dress was increasingly tight in the waist and across the bosom. “I’ve not had the morning nausea many women experience and only a few food aversions, so I’ve been eating with a great appetite.”

“Good. Eating heartily will lead to a healthy newborn, as you well know.”

“I do.” I always told my clients the same thing. “Before I leave here, I plan to ask Alma to make me a couple of Aesthetic-style dresses to wear during the rest of my pregnancy.”

“Tell her to use a light fabric. You’ll be due in the heat of summer.” Orpha tilted her head. “And your apprentice, Miss Beaumont, will