American Struggle Read online

  “I guess I’ll go back to collecting the eggs,” Rob said, and Emma held her stomach because she laughed so hard.

  On Sunday, Anthony arrived not long after sunup. After breakfast, the families rode in the wagon to the schoolhouse, where a traveling preacher talked about the wrath of God that had descended on Cincinnati and the curse on the immoral and ungodly.

  Emma and Miss Clara exchanged a glance, and Emma shook her head. She stared belligerently at the preacher. She turned to voice her protest to her mother, but Mama patted her arm and whispered, “We’ll talk later.”

  After Sunday dinner, the whole family walked down to the creek, and Rob showed his parents where he and Emma measured the height of the water.

  “Dr. Drake sends a message,” Anthony said as they stood by the creek. “He sees no evidence that the vicious and poverty-stricken and drunkards are more liable to get the disease than temperate people who never take a drink of alcohol. He didn’t want anyone thinking that Miss Ruthann was taking a nip now and then.”

  “I didn’t think that,” Emma put in. “I think anyone that the insects attack is going to get it.” She dug in her pocket for the list she had made. “Here are the symptoms. I made them for you so you would know what to look for.”

  Rob took the list from her and scowled at it, then handed it to his father. “At the first sign, you must run to Dr. Drake, Father. At the first sign!” Rob repeated. “I remember reading that half the people who get cholera will die. The other half, if they can be treated in time, will live. At the first sign, you must be treated!”

  “How old are you?” his father asked with a smile.

  “Eleven on Tuesday,” Rob answered.

  “I’m not so sure. Sometimes I think you’re older than me,” he said. “You sound like my father.” He reached over and tousled Rob’s blond hair, then turned to Emma. “Thank you, Emma, for writing this down for me. I’ll keep it with me.”

  They walked back up to the house and sat in the yard on chairs and quilts, taking advantage of the late September sunshine until it was time for Anthony to return to Cincinnati. Patricia held his hand and clung to him as long as she could.

  Emma overheard her ask, “How many have died?”

  “Over a hundred and fifty this week,” he said. “But don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.” He bent down and kissed Patricia. She stood and watched until he was out of sight.

  Emma looked around for Rob, but he was nowhere to be seen. She figured he was out in the woods again, and she frowned. What if he had discovered her secret? With an hour still to go before sunset, she decided to take a walk out in the woods herself. Echo fluttered onto her shoulder, and she made her way through the pasture and then followed the path up into the woods. When she came to the branch of the creek that ran through the woods, she walked parallel to it until she came to the ford in the creek, where stepping rocks stuck out of the water. Tiptoeing carefully, she balanced on the rocks and made it across without even getting the toes of her shoes wet. On the other side of the creek, she saw deer tracks. But they were oddly spaced. Three made deeper imprints in the soft creek bank than the other one. Odd.

  Cautiously, she made her way along the bank. This was obviously a drinking hole for the deer. If she walked softly enough, maybe she would see one.

  But where was Rob? What could he find to do with himself down here alone? The creek had always been her special place to go when she needed to be by herself; it felt a little strange now to be sharing it with Rob—and yet she knew he needed someplace to go when his worries about his father were overwhelming him. But what could he be doing down here so often? Just sitting and thinking?

  Then she heard his voice coming from a thicket of trees that grew close along the water. “Good boy. Now hold still, little fellow.”

  “Good boy,” the crow on her shoulder mimicked.

  “Hush,” Emma whispered. She was filled with curiosity. Who was Rob talking to?

  She crouched behind a clump of bramble bushes and gingerly pushed a prickly branch out of the way so she could see him.

  “That’s it,” Rob was saying. “Let me get a good look. We might take this off today, little fellow.”

  He was bending over a young fawn, his arms encircling its head to hold it still. His hands reached down to touch its leg. Wooden splints were wrapped tightly with twine.

  “Rob,” Emma said in a soft voice so she wouldn’t disturb the deer.

  His head shot up, but he didn’t let go of the deer. It struggled in his grasp, evidently alarmed by the sudden stiffness of his arms.

  “Go away,” he said in a low voice, one that said he meant it.

  “I’ll help you,” Emma said and quickly let go of the bramble branch, which pricked her finger. She stuck it in her mouth and sucked on it for a second as she came out from behind the bush. “When did he break his leg?”

  “Go away,” Rob repeated, his voice still low so he wouldn’t upset the deer.

  “Has the splint been on long enough? I can hold him for you so you can take it off.”

  “I can take care of him,” he said. “Good boy. Hold still.” The deer stomped a hoof.

  Emma advanced one slow step at a time. When she was beside Rob, she knelt down and calmly stroked the deer. “Are you going to let me help you or not?” she asked.

  “All right.” He sighed, giving in. “Grab his back feet, and we’ll lay him down. Then I’ll hold him tight while you cut this twine.”

  Emma saw a butcher knife lying on the ground nearby. “This could hurt him.”

  “I know, but it’s time. Now! Turn him.”

  Rob was practically sitting on the animal, holding him down.

  Emma knelt in front of the deer, petting him and crooning softly. She waited until the animal had settled down and then reached for the knife. With a swift, deft movement, she cut the knot. The fawn reared, but Rob held on tight and calmed him until Emma could unwind the twine and release the crude splints. She felt the leg and moved it gently back and forth.

  “Feels strong. Let him up.”

  Rob jumped back, and the deer sprang to its feet. It favored the broken leg but darted back into the underbrush and away. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Emma asked.

  “Why should I?” he asked. “You would have just taken over, the way you always do. You always think you know more than me, and I’m tired of it. I found him when I was down here missing Father. I thought it would be a good chance for me to practice being a doctor.”

  “But you should have told me,” Emma insisted. “I could have helped you.” She was filled with a sudden strange achy feeling that she had no name for. It felt a little like jealousy, but it felt even more like disappointment. She blinked away her tears. “You always talk about being a doctor, and everyone encourages you. Dr. Drake will help you, and your parents are proud of you. Everyone says how everyone can be what he wants to be in this great country.” She glared at Rob as though everything was his fault. “Well, not everybody can. I want to be a doctor for animals. Do you think that’s likely for a girl?”

  CHAPTER 12

  Emma Shares Her Secret

  After her outburst, Emma stormed off. She felt both guilty and hurt that Rob hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her about the fawn. She was bossy sometimes, she acknowledged to herself. But sometimes she felt so frustrated, knowing that she had good ideas and that most people wouldn’t listen to her just because she was a girl. At least with Rob, she always knew she could make him do what she wanted.

  She walked deeper into the hills with Echo on her shoulder, glad to be by herself for a change. She liked having the Etingoffs and Miss Clara staying with them, but she also felt as though life was busier and more crowded than it usually was. People were everywhere you turned—and her head felt crowded, too, stuffed full of new worries, old resentments, and strange ideas to consider.

  “Sometimes,” she whispered to Echo, “I don’t like being me.” She considered praying about her feelings, but she
didn’t know how to shape the words. After all, God had made her a girl, so He must have wanted her to accept her lot in life.

  “But maybe He doesn’t,” she told Echo, new thoughts struggling to take shape in her mind. “Maybe it’s like the cholera insects.

  They don’t come from God—and He expects us to do all we can to avoid them so people won’t die.” Emma sat down on a rock, thinking hard. “I know it’s not right for me to be mean to Rob when I’m just frustrated he can do more things than I can because he’s a boy.” She was still talking out loud, but she was no longer certain if she was talking to Echo or to God. Maybe she was praying after all. “I don’t want to just give in and accept that Rob can be anything he wants but I can’t. Maybe that’s not the way it’s supposed to be. Maybe girls should be allowed to be anything they want, just like boys. Maybe … maybe You want me to work hard to change things, the same way we’ve all been working so hard to fight the cholera.”

  She felt strange saying all this to God, but she also felt a funny little prickle of something like hope. Mama always told her that all things work together for good for those who love God. Emma didn’t like it when Mama told her that, because it seemed like just giving in and accepting all the bad things in life. But now, for the first time, Emma realized the Bible verse didn’t mean that at all. She struggled to think through what the verse did mean. Maybe, she thought, groping for words, it means that if we give ourselves to God and let Him use us, He’ll take all the mixed-up things and all the sad things and all the wonderful things and pull them all together into something … well, something good. Something that will make us happy—and that will make Him happy, too.

  Her thoughts turned to her dreams for the future. Were there women who took care of animals? She’d never heard of one. Would she be strong enough? She’d been big enough to handle the fawn—but what about a cow or a horse? Of course, usually when a cow or a horse broke its leg, people just shot the animal and put it out of its misery. But that wouldn’t be what Emma would do, not if she had her way. She had insisted they return the flood-trapped snakes to the Ohio River, and she would try to save any animal.

  It was almost dark. Time for her to head back to the house. Her head was still full of mixed-up thoughts, and she still felt angry and guilty—but at the same time, she felt hopeful and a little excited.

  She slipped through the back door into the kitchen. The sound of the adults’ voices came to her from the parlor, and then Rob came into the kitchen. He must have heard the sound of the screen door slapping shut behind her.

  “I need a drink of water.” He didn’t look at her as he walked over to the water bucket and lowered the dipper. As he drank the water, though, he turned to face her and met her eyes. He hung the dipper back on the rim of the bucket.

  “No, I have never heard of a girl being an animal doctor.” He answered her earlier question as if she’d just asked it instead of an hour having passed since they last spoke. He continued in the same low voice so the adults wouldn’t hear. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t be the first. You were a big help to me with the deer. I bet you could have done it all by yourself.”

  She took her turn at the water bucket, then faced him. “How did you get the splint on him? Didn’t he try to kick you?”

  “I knocked him out with a rock.”

  “You hit the deer?”

  “What else could I do? He was in bad pain. I figured if I killed him, it would be better than what he was going through, but if it just knocked him out, maybe I could fix him up. He was already down. Anyway, they shoot horses that break their legs, so I figured that if I killed him, that might be the right thing. I figured even if he died, I could work on the leg and learn about it. I ran up here and got the supplies I’d need, then I clunked him with a big rock. Once I saw that he was still breathing, I put the splint on. I didn’t know if I got the bone in the right place, but it felt right. I stayed with him until he woke up, and I gave him water and some grain. He trusted me, but when I left him that night, I didn’t know if he’d be gone or worse—dead—when I went back the next day.”

  Emma leaned against the kitchen table beside Rob. It felt good to be talking with him instead of arguing with him. “I fixed a rabbit’s broken foot once,” she confided.

  Rob looked at her thoughtfully. “That’s why you wanted that book on bones from the library, isn’t it?”

  Emma nodded. “I wanted to see if I’d fixed the rabbit’s broken foot right. It had been caught in a trap. It ran away, and I haven’t seen it since.”

  Rob smiled at her. “Guess you and I have even more in common than we realized.”

  Emma nodded and returned his smile.

  “You two need to be getting to bed,” Mama called from the parlor.

  “Yes, Mama, we’re going.”

  “Emma, why can’t you be an animal doctor?” Rob asked in a quick whisper. “You sure enough like animals. You fixed up Echo.”

  “He was easy. I just caught worms and fed him milk until he was strong enough to fly away. Trouble is, he didn’t want to fly off. He just stayed around. I guess he likes me,” she said with a tinge of pride in her voice.

  “Let’s ask Dr. Drake about it. He’ll know how to go about becoming an animal doctor.” His brow wrinkled as he considered her problem. “Have you asked your mother about it?”

  “No. I can’t think she’d want me to be something like that. She’d say it was man’s work. They’re already talking about me quitting school in another year or so. They say so long as I know how to read and write, there’s no point in me taking up my time sitting in school.”

  Rob nodded. “We’ll talk to Dr. Drake about it,” he said again.

  “Whenever we can get back to Cincinnati.”

  Emma didn’t want to leave the kitchen and go to bed, but she knew their mothers would scold them if they didn’t go soon. She lingered a moment longer, though, wondering what Miss Clara would think if Emma confided her dreams to her. Miss Clara had never married and had a family like Mama—but still, all she had done her whole life was take care of the home she shared with her sister. Now Miss Ruthann—she was a different story. If a thing were possible, she probably wanted to try it. For such a frail woman, she had a strong backbone.

  But she was dead now. For a moment, Emma had forgotten. When she remembered, she felt a welling up from inside that made it hard to swallow.

  “We’d better get to bed,” Rob said in a low voice.

  A new thought occurred to Emma. Rob hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her about the deer—but she hadn’t ever trusted him enough, either. She’d been keeping a big secret from him—but now she wanted to share it. “Yes,” she agreed, “but tomorrow after school, I’ll show you something I’ve been working on.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “Tomorrow,” she said and walked toward the stairs.

  The next day it seemed the teacher would never let school out. The walk home felt longer than normal, too. When they could finally see Emma’s house, Rob broke into a run, but he must have realized it wouldn’t do any good for him to get home any faster than Emma. He slowed to a walk, looking over his shoulder at Emma, and she gave him a grin and went on poking along with Sue Ellen and Timothy.

  “We’re going to go measure the creek, Mama,” Emma said when they walked in the door. She put the lunch pail in the kitchen and walked out the back door with Rob on her heels. Echo flew from the barn roof and landed on her shoulder.

  They hurried to the creek and really did measure the water, which was up a little bit from rain in the night.

  “This can’t be the surprise,” Rob said. “I’ve known about your measuring notch on the tree trunk since the first day I came.”

  “Follow me,” she said. They went farther upstream to the rocks, crossed the creek, then continued along the bank past the place where she had found Rob with the deer.

  “Here,” she said with a sweep of her hand.

  “Here. Here,” the crow
on her shoulder mimicked.

  Rob looked around. Emma held her breath, waiting for his reaction as he looked at the crates and coops of various sizes, all rather crudely built and extending to the edge of the water.

  “This is my hospital,” she said. “An animal hospital. Over here I have … well, come and see.”

  She led him to the first coop. It held several curled up young foxes.

  “They’re orphans,” she said. “The mother was probably shot for raiding henhouses. Anyway, when I found them, I didn’t touch them for two days, waiting for her to come back. She never came.”

  “What do you feed foxes?”

  “That’s a problem. I don’t have any dead chickens, so I’ve been giving them eggs.” She giggled. “Remember all those eggs you broke the first day you helped with the chores? Well, I made sure they went to good use.” She knelt down next to the cages. “I have their pen partly in the water so they can get a drink whenever they want.” It felt good to finally share her secret with someone.

  Rob reached in to pet one of the foxes, but Emma stopped him.

  “Oh, you can’t treat them like kittens, even though they might look like them. They’re wild, and they have to be able to return to the wild when they’re big enough.”

  Rob jerked back. “When will that be?”

  “Another couple weeks. Over here,” she said and waved her hand, “is a rabbit. It was also caught in a trap, but it didn’t die. I don’t know who’s setting traps on our land. I get rid of them when I find them.”

  “Why don’t these animals bite you when you put a splint on them?”

  Emma looked half ashamed, half defiant. “I put a bag over their head and tie it tight. After a while, they don’t struggle so much. It’s the only way I know how to help them.”

  “And you sounded upset with me for clunking the deer over the head!” Rob grinned. “Have you killed any?”

  “A possum never did wake up.”

  “You sure it wasn’t fooling you?” Rob said with a laugh. “Playing possum on you?”