Читать книгу Cinders to Satin - Fern Michaels - Страница 11

Chapter Five

The lines seemed endless to Callie as she and the Thatchers waited their turn to move one step nearer the government health offices. Hundreds of emigrants, thousands it seemed, waited, the close press of unwashed bodies and mildewed clothing making it difficult to breathe. Patience had never been one of Callie’s virtues, and she shifted from one foot to the other and then danced a little jig, much to Paddy’s delight.

How like the twins he was when a smile could be coaxed from him. Poor tyke, so quiet, staring out from behind his wide, solemn eyes. He should be running and chasing with the other children who were playing a rough game of tag. The slight blue tinge around his mouth, along with the spots of vermilion on his cheeks, made Callie say a prayer that the little boy would pass the physical examination.

All about them was talk and gossip of what America was going to be like. The family ahead of them was talking about relatives who had sailed more than a year ago. Patrick strained to hear the glorious details. Callie could catch only brief snatches of the conversation. “My brother and his seven children . . . land of opportunity . . . back-breaking work . . . they do have stoves on board for cooking, but so many have to share them . . . cramped. . . dysentery . . . typhus . . . cholera . . . not to worry, we have our health . . . warm weather will greet us.

“Another hour at the most,” Patrick assured them. “We should be allowed to board the Yorkshire before evening. She came in from anchor and is docked at the Albert pier; they’re loading her now.”

Callie tried to smile appreciatively. She could never be as enthusiastic about leaving, not when it meant being thousands of miles away from Peggy and the children. A pervading sense of loneliness that she had been fighting since boarding that wretched steamer in Dublin threatened to erupt in a spring of tears. Damn Patrick Thatcher and his adventure! Callie bit into her bottom lip. No, that wasn’t fair. She’d never confided why she was emigrating to America; Patrick and Beth could have no idea that she’d been all but exiled by her own mother. They seemed to trust her so; she couldn’t tell them that she’d become a thief and that was why she was being sent away. If they were to know the truth and decide they didn’t want her companionship, she’d be alone again. Alone and frightened.

Paddy continued to sleep against Callie’s shoulder. If Patrick was right, the child would awaken just as it was their turn with the doctor. Poor little thing, he always coughed and hacked when he awoke. Maybe because he was sleeping upright against Callie, he wouldn’t be so congested. She had her own views on Paddy’s condition; still, he wasn’t her child, and it wasn’t her place to voice her beliefs. Surely Beth and Patrick couldn’t really believe Paddy had nothing more than a cold.

The line at the back pressed forward, pushing Callie into almost direct contact with the family just ahead of them. She narrowed her eyes, really noticing them for the first time. Each was more dirty than the next. Callie’s eyes widened still further when she saw a body louse half the size of her little fingernail crawl up the neck of the man in front of her. She backed off a step and bumped into Patrick. She motioned to him to look at the man’s neck. Patrick seemed as disgusted as she and took her back another step. Callie watched in horror as another louse joined the first, crawling between the oily strands of the man’s hair. The man’s wife turned to say something to her husband, and Callie drew a deep breath. She was what mum would call a slattern—filthy and unkempt, dark scabs from where she had picked sores dotted her face. Abhorred by her first real contact with filth, Callie squeezed her eyes shut. Thank the good Lord they wouldn’t be sailing on the Yorkshire. The physician would take one look at them and send them somewhere to clean themselves and get well.

In dumbfounded amazement Callie watched as first one child then the next held out his ticket and the doctor stamped it perfunctorily while asking to see his or her tongue. Obediently each child stuck out his tongue and then laughed and scampered away, waving his ticket for all to see. Callie was aghast. What manner of doctor was this? In Dublin the kindly doctor wore a spotless white apron and had clean hands, unlike this disheveled man whose smock was gray with grime and food stains.

Noticing Callie’s amazement, Beth whispered in her ear, “There’s so many like them.” She indicated the family in question.

“By the time we set foot in America, no doubt we’ll be just like them, scratching the lice till our skin bleeds.” Her tone was so resigned, so listless and forlorn. Callie turned to reassure Beth that as long as there was water and she had a bit of soap, she’d never be that way, but the doctor was calling “next,” and Patrick was jostling Callie ahead of him.

“Stick out your tongue.” Callie obediently did as she was told and watched as her ticket was stamped. This was a certification that she was fit and healthy, carrying no communicable diseases. She jostled the sleeping Paddy a bit and had to resort to pinching his cheek so he would stick out his tongue for the doctor. His ticket was stamped, and Patrick had it back in his pocket when the examiner called, “Next!” and Beth stepped forward.

Outside the crowded offices, Patrick put his arms about the three of them, smiling broadly. “I told you we’d pass with flying colors, didn’t I? Now all we have to do is wait for the captain of the Yorkshire to admit passengers. But first we’ll see about getting Callie’s extra provisions, and we’re all going to make a visit to the privy.”

Where did the man get his energy? How could he remain so excited and enthusiastic after all they’d been through? Callie herself felt flattened, deflated, her usual ebullience gone. Beth was feeling the same way, she knew. Callie reached out and took Beth by the arm, helping her skip across wide, muddy puddles. She wondered at this feeling of guardianship, protectorship, she felt for Paddy and his mother. Was it because Patrick was like Thomas in so many ways?

A raw, wet wind was whipping up again, portentous of another storm, sending up cloudy sprays of mist. It was colder than before, a damp cold that went straight through the bones. Callie longed for home and her faded, warm quilt where she would snuggle between the warm, soft bodies of the twins. She noticed the dark circles of exhaustion beneath Beth’s eyes, the drawn lines around her gentle mouth. Only Patrick, with his ruddy cheeks and zest for life, looked hale and hearty.

Several hours later, just as the lamplighters came with their long sticks and lanterns to touch spark to the tall gaslamps lining the wharf, they watched as the longshoremen loading the cargo into the Yorkshire’s great, dark hull began closing hatches and removing empty casks and barrels from the boarding area.

Callie could feel her stomach churn with anxiety. Soon now she would be aboard the Yorkshire, sailing among hundreds, perhaps a thousand strangers. So far from Ireland, a world away from her mother and family. Would she ever see them again? Even amidst the growing commotion, she imagined she could hear Peggy’s voice calling her name. Her feet felt leaden, the weight of the moment crushed down upon her. A prickling of tears burned the back of her eyelids. Her child’s heart cried for her mother and the security of family. “Oh, Mum, you should never have sent me away,” she moaned inwardly, feeling the undeniable need to bury her head in Peggy’s lap and feel the comforting touch of her mother’s hand brush back her hair.

It was not to be, if it was ever to be again. Callie James was about to board the packet ship Yorkshire, her face turned to the west, an autumn storm wind drying her tears upon her cheeks.

Callie sat in the oily glow of the gimbaled lanterns, which were hung from the inner ribs of the Yorkshire’s hull. It was very late, according to the call from the crew’s watchman who patrolled the decks. In the relative silence that was broken only by muffled snores and the occasional whimpering of a child, his voice rang true. “Three bells! Three bells!”

Paddy slept at the far end of her own bunk, the warmth of his feverish little body pressed against her stockinged feet. In another berth, erected against the bulkhead beneath a porthole as Beth had requested, Patrick slept with his wife, his arm thrown over her swollen body. Even in sleep he wedged against her, attempting to steady her from the rolling pitch of the ship, which caused her such misery.

Touching the pen nib to her tongue, Callie smoothed the thin white sheet of paper that Patrick had given her and continued with her letter:

Mum, I’m that happy to be with the Thatchers. They’re fine people and have taken me into their family. It is Mrs. Thatcher, Beth, who worries me. This whole business of emigrating has been very hard on her and her condition. When it was time to board the Yorkshire, the blue flag was raised from the mast. Never in your life have you seen such a wild scramble! People pushing and shoving to get aboard. When the gangplank was stuffed up, many tried to climb over the side only to fall into a rushing crowd. One man was trampled, and this minute he lies nursing wounds to his head and limbs. It was terrible, Mum, so terrible. We are so much cattle without decency. I’m awful scared, Mum. I can’t think what will happen to me. If all the people in America are like the ones I wrote you about in Liverpool and some of those on this ship, it must be the closest place to hell anyone could know.

I managed to find a place for the Thatchers and me by running ahead. Being as I am so small, I was able to squeeze through the crowd. Good thing, since many families are sharing the smallest of quarters together with others. Mr. Thatcher almost had to beat off those who wanted to shove us out of our place. Mum, you never heard such fighting and arguing in your whole life. It was worse than Bayard Street when the good Church was handing out bread and soup.

But this is our second day out, and things are quiet now. So far the seas are calm, but you’d never know it from how many people are down with the seasickness. It mostly hits the grown people; children seem to do well.

Oh, Mum, the people, say a prayer for the people. Never have I seen such suffering. Women with swollen eyes cry for the ones they left behind. Men have a scared look about them, and their voices are rough. Mothers try to comfort their wailing babes. In one place there is an old woman who was separated from her family. She just sits, Mum, so quiet, living in a world of her own. One of the sailors said she is German, and she cannot talk to anyone or understand them.

Above us on this ship are the cabins, and they are all filled. It costs dear to travel in such luxury. Twenty-five pounds! Why would anyone who had that much money want to go to America?

Mr. Thatcher says there was a search for stowaways yesterday, just before we left the Mersey River for the open sea. First there was a roll call, and each ticket had to be presented as the name was called. I did not hear my name called because I was below deck (that is what the sailors call the steerage area where I am) taking care of Mrs. Thatcher. But Mr. Thatcher answered for me with my ticket. Afterward, he told us, the sailors and the ticket broker’s clerk went below with lanterns and long poles to search for stowaways. They turned barrels in case someone was hiding inside. With long poles they poked in dark corners and the piles of bedclothes. Three stowaways were found! Mr. Thatcher said they took a terrible beating from the crew and were thrown overboard into small boats to be taken back to the docks. Mum, what am I doing here?

Your everloving daughter,

Callandre

Ten days later Callie had a neat stack of letters ready to be posted to Peggy when she arrived in New York. She had just written that she didn’t know which was worse—the crowded conditions or the constant wetness. Since leaving Liverpool, they had enjoyed few hours of sunshine or clear weather. Clouds hung close over the Yorkshire, seeming to settle in an eternal pall over the tall masts. Drizzle and fog penetrated even the warmest clothing and made the decks so slippery that Captain Bailey posted sailors at the entrance to the hatches and companionways to prevent passengers from coming above to escape the stench of vomit and excrement below. Dysentery was becoming epidemic aboard ship, and there were whispered fears of an outbreak of cholera.

Paddy was tolerating the journey better than Callie had expected. Beth was the one plagued by the constant motion of the ship. It seemed to Callie that the young woman lived on the peppermint that Patrick had purchased from a fellow passenger at an appalling price. Everything aboard ship was dear, and Callie was glad she had followed Uncle Jack’s instructions to buy coffee and beans and tea and dried peas. The ship’s staples, which every passenger was promised, were dispensed the first day of the crossing and again on the seventh. Most of the food was inedible—worms and vermin had nested in the flour, and the fatback was thick with mold and on the verge of being spoiled. Before the voyage was over, the meat would have to be thrown overboard and the damp flour sifted and sifted again until barely enough remained to keep a man for a week.

Through the long days Callie took Paddy into her charge, telling him stories and encouraging him to nibble on the hard biscuit and to drink enough water. She was touched by Patrick’s gentle ministrations to Beth. He was at once tender and solicitous, seeing to her every comfort. Several times in the past few days Beth had experienced alarming cramps in her lower back, and some of the women looked at her with piteous understanding. All expected Beth would come due before her time and that it would be a hard birth. Even Patrick seemed subdued, his sense of adventure dulled by worry for his wife.

Yet even between ships, as the sailors called steerage class, the Irish spirit opposed hardship. After the first few nights, revelry and song relieved the monotony. Beth was even able to smile when a fiddler began playing melancholy ballads and Patrick Thatcher lifted his voice in song. His sweet tenor when he sang the “Maid of Killee’” brought tears to the toughest of men, and Callie cried, remembering it was the song Thomas always sang to Peggy.

Dearest Mother,

It is now eighteen days into this hellish voyage. Mrs. Thatcher seems much improved and is able to sip tea and a peas porridge I made with a precious bit of fatback. Little Paddy is my concern. His cheeks are ever flushed with fever, and his eyes burn brighter than coals. Three days, it is said, until we reach New York.

The weather is much improved, and there is sunshine and fair breezes. Today the ship’s doctor came below and cursed the stink and blamed the filth for the eleven passengers who died of the dysentery. Sailors brought down barrels of sea water and lye, and we were ordered to scrub and scrape and air the bedding. There was a great hullaballoo when the men were ordered to go on deck to air their clothes and wash themselves. The women attended these duties while the men were above. Grateful we are for this bit of good weather. It was the first I had heard of quarantine, and we must all be prepared for the doctor and the government inspector. Our first stop will be a place called Tompkinsville on Staten Island where we must pass inspection for disease. No amount of scrubbing will ever rid this ship of its stink!

Captain Bailey was preparing the Yorkshire to pass muster. Ships were generally cleaned for the first and only time just before entering port. Emigrants were made to scrub the steerage with sand, rinse it down, and then dry the timbers with pans of hot coals from the galley in an attempt to fool government officials into thinking that a clean and prosperous voyage had been made.

New York was fearful of ship fever, smallpox, and cholera, and the city was lucky to have escaped with no great epidemic such as had struck Quebec, Canada. Harking back to quarantine laws passed in colonial times, health officials set up a marine hospital on Staten Island, and all vessels coming into New York were required to anchor in the quarantine area and await inspection.

The quarantine ground was a stretch of bay marked by two buoys approximately one mile to the north and to the south. Those who died in quarantine were buried on the shore in trenches. The ground was soapstone rock, which was dug out by pick and shovel and broken into pieces to cover the coffins. This porous covering allowed the stink of rotting bodies to surface.

The Yorkshire’s captain had every reason to allay the suspicions of the government doctors. If disease was found aboard his ship, the passengers were sent into the hospital and the ship would be quarantined for thirty days. From Captain Bailey’s experience, those could be thirty days of hell. Twice before the Yorkshire had been grounded in quarantine; he knew what conditions loomed before him.

He also knew that the quarantine was a farce. Twice a week friends and family could visit those being detained at the hospital, and hundreds came and went on ferry boats between the island and the city. Rags and discarded bedding from Tompkinsville were sold to ragpickers and peddlers and found their way into the city before nightfall. Hundreds of emigrants awaiting clearance dug hovels for themselves on the thirty acres of hospital grounds rather than risk being contaminated within the filthy, overcrowded buildings where health care was at a minimum. Many ships failed inspection for unsanitary conditions only to have their passengers held “for their good as well as native Americans” in conditions far worse.

An old salt as well as an experienced businessman, Captain Bailey realized all too well the economic reasons for holding a thousand people at a time in relative captivity. While detained at Tompkinsville, emigrants needed to purchase the necessities of life: coffee, tea, and food stuffs. Cook pots, blankets, medicines, preventatives, and the like were offered at outrageous prices by the bands of peddlers and hawkers who paid the health officers a generous stipend to be “allowed” to ply their trade in Tompkinsville.

Callie craned her neck to see over Patrick’s shoulder as the Yorkshire sailed through the narrows. To the right was the low, flat land of New York City, buildings and wharves clearly visible along the harbor where ships’ masts on South Street stood like a never-ending forest. To the right were the ancient, crumbling walls of Fort Wadsworth, and beyond that, hundreds of ships lying at anchor. She heard the order to weigh anchor, and the sails reefed. The Yorkshire bobbed in the choppy waters of Upper Bay like a cork on a string. All eyes were turned to the Island of Manhattan, the place of their future, the hope of their new beginning. Tears brimmed, and all wondered if the great city of the western world would swallow them in one greedy gulp. Or would they find the promised land?

Hardly a spit away from Manhattan at the narrows was the shore of Staten Island, a narrow beachfront from which rocky ledges rose into shallow cliffs. Beyond the cliffs Callie could see the greens and golds of trees in full autumn array. She could smell God’s good earth and hear the sounds of voices carrying over the water. Small boats and steamers scooted back and forth between the anchored ships. Peddlers and merchants manned these small rivercraft, selling their goods to the passengers. Ready-made clothes, fresh bread, God blessed milk!

“Tis the American way!” Patrick beamed. “Free enterprise! And wonderful it is!”

Callie didn’t think it wonderful that half-starved people should be charged prices they could scarcely afford. Nine shillings for a pint of milk, she had heard, seven for a loaf of bread. More than a month’s salary for her labors at the mill in Dublin.

A pilot boat putted toward the Yorkshire, several officious looking gentlemen with stern expressions on their faces standing in the stem—the doctor and the government health officials. As expected, a line was thrown to the pilot boat, and a Jacob’s ladder thrown over the side of the Yorkshire. Everyone watched dourly, silently; their futures depended upon these men.

Within minutes word spread that the Yorkshire was to be held in quarantine. Loud curses and hopeless wails went up among the people. They had traveled thousands of miles and were within sight of their destination only to be held back and denied entrance. They were to complete an orderly disembarkation to the beach where they were to await further medical examination. Typhus was said to be aboard the Yorkshire..

As ordered, pokes and baggage were brought from below. Patrick carried Paddy and steadied Beth through the crowd. Shouts and cries filled the air; defeat and havoc prevailed. “Don’t become separated!” Patrick shouted above the din, warning Callie.

Even as Patrick warned her, rough hands seized Callie’s shoulders, propelling her toward the Yorkshire’s rail, wresting her baggage from her and tossing it to a boat below. “Over the side, girlie,” the shipmate growled. Callie was half-lifted, half-thrown over the rail to grab hold of one of the many rope ladders leading down to the skiffs that hugged the Yorkshire’s side. She hung there, like a spider in a web, too terrified to move, too muddled with confusion and the horror of the murky waters far below. “Go on with you! First your feet, then your hands!” the shipmate instructed, already tossing someone else’s poke down to the boat.

The ladder swayed; the skiff seemed miles below her, but move she must, for a man was climbing down the same ladder as she. She felt first with one foot and then the other, holding on for dear life. Hands were reaching up for her, steadying her last few steps. Even when she sat in the bobbing skiff, Callie’s panic would not subside. All around her were shouts and terrified cries. Children and babies were lowered by ropes; many fell into the water to be picked up at the point of drowning by small boats that circled the area. Like rats chased from their hidey-holes, the passengers left ship. Callie worried for Beth in her bulky condition. Above, the seamen were shouting and pushing, forcing people over the side.

It was only minutes, but to Callie it was a lifetime before the skiff in which she sat was filled to capacity and made its way to shore. She held tightly to her poke, clasping it to her. It was all she had in this world: a few changes of clothes, a small bit of food, and her letters to Peggy.

There were piers built out into the water at the foot of the cliff where the large brick hospital building stood, but none of the skiffs docked there. Instead they pulled up on the beach, and their passengers had to step out into knee-deep water and wade to dry land.

Callie collapsed on the hard-packed, rock-strewn beach. She sat like a broken puppet, repelled by the sights and sounds and the experience of climbing down the rope ladder into an unsteady boat. She was terrified to the core, weak and shaken.

It was an eternity later when Patrick found her, huddled and shivering. “Callie! Callie! Beth sent me to find you . . .” Patrick sank down onto the beach, hard pebbles biting into his knees. He was astounded at finding Callie like this. Bright, tough little Callie James was stiff with fear, shaking and trembling as though the fires of hell had revealed themselves to her. The sight overwhelmed him.

“Callie! Callie! Pull yourself together!” He gathered her into his arms, held her while she burrowed against his chest. “Callie, Beth needs you. You’ve been the strength for all of us.” He soothed her, patting her back, smoothing her long chestnut hair back from her whitened face.

“That’s a girl,” he said when he felt the tremblings soften. “That’s our Callie. You’ll be fine, won’t you? You don’t want them to take you to the hospital, do you? There’s a shelter down the beach a ways where I’ve left Beth and the boy. Come along with me, Callie. Please?”

Callie nodded her head. No, she didn’t want them to take her to the hospital. All she wanted was to see her mother, play with the children . . . but that was impossible. Patrick led her along the beach to find Beth. The light October breezes lifted the strands of hair that had escaped their braid and freshened her cheeks. She would be strong, she told herself over and over. She must be strong.

People milled up and down the beach. Entire families seemed to have set up camp on the beaches and along the sloping cliff. Men, women, children, most of them dressed in little more than rags, littered the beach. The hospital sat high on the hill, various out buildings lining the road down to the water’s edge. Out in the bay more than twenty ships rested at anchor, their passengers within sight of New York City but prevented from going there.

When Beth saw Callie, she threw her arms around her. “Oh, I thought we’d never find you! Someone said a woman drowned before a boat could fish her out of the water . . . Oh, Callie, I thought it might have been you!”

“Hush, Beth,” Callie said, “I’m here now.”

Beth was staring beyond Callie to a section of the cliff where families had pitched camp. Their meager cookfires smoked from the damp tinder they were burning along with rags and anything else that would feed the flames. Her body was rigid; her eyes wide and staring. “Beth, what is it?” Patrick asked alarmed. “We’re all here together and safe—”

“No! We’re not safe!” Beth wailed, the terror in her voice sending chills up Callie’s spine. Little Paddy began to wail in sympathy. “Don’t you see?” Beth attacked Patrick in her distress. “Have you no eyes? These people are living out here in holes dug by their hands or in gullies and hovels someone else has left behind. Patrick! I don’t want to have this baby in a hole in the ground! Promise me! Promise me!” She collapsed into her husband’s arms, weeping with great heaving sobs against his chest.

“Easy, darlin’, easy. I promise you, I swear. We’ll go to the hospital shelter; we’ll be safe there. Paddy can’t live outdoors with his chest. I promise you, Beth.” Patrick’s optimism was failing him. His beautiful, approving Beth was near the edge of madness, and he worried that even God could not save them from the ordeal they faced. Steeling his resolve, Patrick forced a smile. “Come now, love. We’ll walk up the hill to see what can be done.” Paddy stuck his thumb into his mouth, hanging onto his father’s pants legs, demanding to be picked up. “Here now, darlin’, look how you’re frightening the boy.”

Beth looked down at her son. “There, there, sweet, Mummy’s just being silly.” She touched his wayward curls in a soothing caress.

Callie looked away from the naked emotion displayed by her friends. The thought came out of nowhere: Where are you, Byrch Kenyon? This is something you should see so you can put it in your newspaper! Mr. Kenyon had warned her that it was no easy road for the emigrant, but did he know the inhumanity of it all?

From long habit, Callie lifted her eyes heavenward. “Lord, I know these people are praying just as hard as I am, and You aren’t listening. How can You allow this? Sweet Jesus, it’s time to do something!”

The walk up the hill to the Tompkinsville Hospital and its annexes was a long, hard trek, and Beth was near total exhaustion. Officials wearing red armbands imprinted with white crosses policed the crowd, herding Callie and Beth along with Paddy into a line. “Women and children for a preliminary examination,” the official repeated gruffly. “Men to the other side.”

“If we can just find a place to rest,” Patrick said. “My wife is very near her time, and she’s dead out on her feet . . .”

As though he hadn’t heard, or didn’t care, the official pushed Callie and Beth into line, repeating, “Women and children for a preliminary examination. Men to the other side.”

“Perhaps you didn’t hear me,” Patrick said, his tone polite and in direct contrast to the fierce grip he had taken on the man’s coat front. “My wife! She needs help!” There was desperation in Patrick’s voice, a white line of hatred circling his mouth.

“Patrick! Patrick!” Beth screamed, tugging on her husband’s arms, attempting to break his deathlike grip on the official.

Almost instantly two other men wearing armbands seized Patrick, throwing him roughly to the ground. “Behavior like that will get you a stint in jail,” the men warned. “Keep your hands to yourself, man, if you know what’s good for you. We don’t like troublemakers here.”

Regaining control, Patrick shrugged off the men’s hands with a violent motion. Beth fell tearfully into his arms. “Patrick, please. We must do as they say.” Her voice was soft, a sobbing entreaty.

“Yer little missus is right, man,” said one of the men. “Yer so close now, don’t ruin it for yourself. Go on over and get in line with the other men. We’ll look after your wife.”

Patrick responded to the man’ suggestion, but when he left Beth’s side, his shoulders were slumped in weariness and defeat.

Beth watched her husband, her heart breaking for him. This was supposed to be the most wonderful experience of his life! The great adventure! And because of her and Paddy it was draining the life right out of him. She’d known and loved Patrick Thatcher too long and too well not to know that his enthusiasm was fast on the wane, that worry and concern for his family were dragging him down. Patrick, her Patrick, so filled with life and eagerness for America, was beginning to realize the burden he carried. And Beth’s gentle heart cried for him.

Nearly an hour later Beth and Callie were near the head of the line. Paddy slept with his head on Callie’s shoulder, his thumb pushed firmly into his mouth. Pressing her cheek against his forehead, she could feel the dry heat of a fever. She looked over at Beth who was sitting on a bedroll and wondered if she realized how ill her son was, or was she just too weary to notice? Surely this would not be an indifferent examination such as they’d had back in Liverpool. Would Paddy pass? Callie hugged the child protectively, assuring herself that this was why they’d built the hospital—to care for the sick and ailing. Paddy would be fine in the competent hands of the American doctors.

When they were ushered into the low, flat, tin-roofed building, they realized why they hadn’t seen any of the hundreds of women leaving. At the far end of the stark interior was an exit door. There were the women, holding their children by the hands, crying, expressions of humiliation and utter defeat on their ravaged faces. It seemed to Callie that everywhere she looked, pain and suffering were the order of the day.

Beth, along with Paddy and Callie, was hustled into a small side room by a man wearing a rubber apron. One window, grimy with dirt, shed the only light into the interior. Beth and Callie glanced around uneasily as the man was joined by a slattern of a woman carrying sharp-tipped scissors. “Sit down, girlie,” the woman commanded Callie, attempting a smile that revealed her toothless gums.

“Why? Who are you? You aren’t a doctor!”

“Sit!” It was an iron command. Hesitantly Callie gave Paddy over to his mother.

“If the boy is too heavy for you, you can put him down there,” the woman indicated a pile of burlap sacks whose soft fullness made them appear to be stuffed with rags.

“We’ll just take these pins from your hair,” the man said in false friendliness. “What do you say, Sally, shall we leave her hair in the braid?”

“Aye, ’twill make it easier at that,” the woman answered.

Callie anticipated their motives. “No! No, I won’t let you cut my hair! Why?”

“Don’t give us any of yer lip, girlie. We’re told to cut your hair because it drains yer strength. And for reasons of hygiene,” she added as a last word of authority. “The lice in this place is terrible from you dirty Irish. Now shut your mouth and sit still.”

“I’ll be damned to hell if I’ll let you lay one hand on me!” Eyes wide, face white, Callie leaped from the chair. “You aren’t cutting my hair! Never!” Warily she backed toward the door, her arms in front of her to ward off the expected attack.

“You have lice! Bugs, lassie. We can’t be letting you mingle with the others when you’ve vermin crawlin’ through that lovely hair, now can we? Now, be a good girl and sit down. Don’t make Sally tie you up. We have to do that sometime, eh, Jake?” She winked at the burly man who seemed to be observing the scene with great amusement.

“I don’t have lice and you know it!” She looked over to Beth for assistance only to see her fling her hands up before her face as though shutting out the scene would make it untrue. Paddy turned, awakened by the commotion, arms outstretched for his mother. With his movements, several of the burlap sacks fell over, revealing that they were stuffed with hanks of hair.

Paddy began to wail. “Look what you’re doin’ to the child,” Sally said. “Now sit down and it’ll be over one, two, three.”

The man, Jake, yanked Callie away from the door, forcing her into the chair, holding her arms behind her back. Sally wielded the scissors, hacking away at Callie’s long thick braid. Tears of humiliation stung her cheeks; her teeth bit into her full underlip. Quicker than two shakes of a lamb’s tail it was over, and Sally held up the mutilated braid to Jake who stuffed it into a sack.

Beth was led without protest to the chair. Sally and Jake helped themselves to the tortoise-shell combs Beth wore in her hair and the long pins she used to fasten the gleaming, auburn tresses to the back of her head. “Put this one’s hair into that separate sack, Jake. It’ll bring a nice price, considering the color of it.”

Callie heard the words and turned with a vengeance. “Price? What price?”

“This is America, darlin’,” toothless Sally explained. “Waste not, want not, just like the Bible says.”

Jake and Sally pushed Beth, Paddy, and Callie out of the small room. Pulling her shawl up over her head to hide the ugliness, Callie now understood the weeping women they had seen when they first entered the building. Women who had nothing before coming to Tompkinsville and who had even less now.

Beth began to sob, touching the short, blunt ends of her hair. “Beth, it’ll grow back, you’ll see,” Callie tried to reason. “There’s nothing to do but live with it. Maybe we can fix it up a bit. Just to even it out . . .”

“Patrick loved my hair. He said it was my glory.” Beth moaned. “Everything is wrong. Everything!”

Paddy whimpered and wined. Callie picked him up and cradled him to her.

“Pull your shawl up over your head, Beth,” Callie instructed. “We’ve got to find Patrick. Don’t let him see you crying like this, Beth. The worst has been done.”

Lifting her head and looking her young friend directly in the eyes, Beth whispered, “Has it, Callie? Somehow, I don’t think it has.” The sound of Beth’s tone and the expression of complete hopelessness and resignation in her red-rimmed eyes made Callie shudder. As though a goose had walked on her grave, as Peggy used to say.

Dear Mum,

I have stepped my foot on these new shores of America. I wish with all my heart you had not sent your daughter to the gates of hell. We are not allowed to go into New York as yet, although I can see the city and its wharves from this place across the bay called Staten Island. Here the waterway is very narrow, and a man can row across the bay without working up a sweat.

We are being held at a place called Tompkinsville, facing quarantine because Typhus was found aboard the Yorkshire. Like the doctors in Liverpool, this place too is a shame in the face of God. While they hold the poor back from their lives, the captain and his crew are free to enter the city. Were they not aboard the same ship as we? Do they have some magic against disease?

I wrote you how Beth and me had our hair cut. It doesn’t look so bad now, since Beth had some little scissors and she evened it out. But it’s short, Mum, shorter than Bridget’s, and it’s all topsy-turvy curls about my head. Mr. Thatcher tells me I look about twelve years old. If my haircut makes me look twelve, it makes Beth look about a hundred. Hers doesn’t curl like mine, and it’s unmercifully short and lopsided. When I told her I would try to fix hers like she did mine, she just pulled her shawl over her head and cried.

They say it was a hair-cutting ring, Mum, and they just rowed out to the island and set up shop. They caught them, Mum. Policemen came and took them away because it’s a crime to cut someone’s hair and sell it for profit. Mr. Thatcher says whoever buys Beth’s hair and mine will make the finest wigs for some rich lady.

We are all sleeping in a shelter just outside the hospital gates, and there must be over a hundred people in here with us. I used the last bit of my tea yesterday. I did what you told me and used the same tea leaves three times before tossing them away.

I have still not seen or heard from cousin Owen.

Your daughter in America,

Callandre

It was the twenty-seventh day of the Yorkshire’s quarantine. While the ship stood at anchor in the bay, her passengers mingled among the thousand or more who had sailed to America in her sister ships.

The month of October had been dry, the last traces of summer warming the days until All Hallows’ Eve. Then November struck with vengeance. The waters of the bay were whipped by foul winds, the ground became hard and frozen during the cold nights, warming again beneath the day’s sun to become muddy trenches from the abuse of too many feet.

A roll was called, and the passengers from the Yorkshire were told to climb the long hill to the hospital for the medical examination before receiving the stamped passes that would allow them access to the City of New York and beyond.

Callie was dismayed to discover that she was expected to undress and submit to a thorough evaluation by a harried doctor and his even more harried nurse assistant. She was standing outside the hospital long before the Thatchers made their exit. One look at their faces told her something was terribly wrong. Beth was ashen, and Patrick’s usual bright gaze was dulled and pained. Only Paddy remained the same, whimpering and listless.

Jostled by the incoming and outgoing patients, Patrick quickly led them to the bottom of the hill. For just an instant Callie saw him looking out over the river toward New York City, squinting past the sun, a yearning and longing in his face, a searching in his eyes. He looked like a man lost, without home or family, a man whose dreams must be abandoned. It wasn’t until they had made the long walk down the hill to the shelter where they’d spent the last month that Beth turned to her. “It’s Paddy,” she said, a pitiful sob caught in her voice. “He has consumption. Tuberculosis they call it here. He won’t be allowed to come into the country.” This last was said in defeat.

“Beth tells you truth, Callie,” Patrick said tonelessly. “They want us to send him back to Ireland. Beth and I have had our passes stamped. It’s the boy.”

Callie thought Beth would crumble from the pain and sorrow on Patrick’s face. Tears of frustration and humiliation coursed in rivulets down her cheeks. “We can’t send him back! There’s no one there to take care of him!” Hysteria was rising in her voice, making it shrill, so different from her usual modulated tones.

“Hush, Beth. Paddy will always have us to care for him. Don’t worry so. We’ll go back to Ireland. All of us,” Patrick said, stroking Beth’s back. But over the top of her head, his eyes again reached across the river to the city beyond, the place where his dreams told him his future began. He fell silent, locked in his misery.

Late that night, tucked in between Paddy and their assorted baggage, Callie lay awake pondering the dilemma that faced the Thatchers. She was angry, inflamed by the injustice of it all. Back in Ireland and Liverpool the only thing that mattered was selling packet tickets to America. The physical examination there had been a farce. Even she had known that Paddy was a very sick little boy. The Thatchers should never have been allowed to board ship, to undergo the hardships only to be refused entry on the other side after thirty days of living in subhuman conditions.

Callie blessed herself, raised her eyes to heaven, and called on her God. The bad is outnumbering the good, she complained. And Lord help me, but I’m about to give up on You. I was taught You’re our Savior, and I’d appreciate it if You’d start saving us! No bolt of lightning ripped across the sky; no roll of thunder sounded in the heavens. Had He heard? Or was He too busy with the prayers and pleas of others more important than she?

When sleep finally came to Callie, it was light and fitful. She was aware of Beth, just the other side of their rolled pokes, lying very still, small trembling sobs shaking her shoulders. Sympathy stirred her to sit up and touch Beth’s shoulder in commiseration. It was then she noticed Patrick was gone.

“Beth,” Callie whispered, putting her mouth very close to Beth’s ear, “where’s Patrick?”

A choked response, so unbearably pained and desolate—“He’s out, walking his disappointment. Oh, Callie, Paddy and I are such a burden to him. Such a terrible burden.”

“Hush. It was a shock to him, Beth. Surely you understand that. He had such wonderful plans for all of you. You’ll all go back to Ireland, and when Paddy is well again, he’ll see his dreams realized. Patrick loves you, Beth, and he’ll make it right.”

“That love is killing him, Callie.” There was no emotion in her voice, no tears on her cheeks. This dearth of emotion, of anger, of anything, frightened Callie. “Patrick can’t be making this right. It’s me and Paddy and the new babe that’s holding Patrick back. We’ve ruined his dream, Callie. And I’ll lose him because of it, just as I’ll lose Paddy up to his sickness.”

Words of comfort would not come to Callie. There was nothing she could say to ease Beth’s pain. All that had happened was beyond the realm of her own understanding. Peggy would know what to say, what to do. She’d set Beth’s head clear and thinking again. Mum could rebuild Patrick’s dead dreams.

“Callie,” Beth whispered, “would you change places with me? I want to be near my son. I want to hold him in my arms.”

Silently Callie helped Beth to her feet. The woman placed a hand protectively on her belly. “Patrick wanted this babe to be born in America. And as it turns out, ’twould be better if it’s not born at all.” Bumps broke out on Callie’s arms. The goose had stepped on her grave again. She’d always realized Beth Thatcher’s vulnerability, her insecurity; perhaps that was why she’d always felt protective toward her. But a new resolve had crept into Beth’s voice, and in the dim light of the lanterns that hung from the rafters in the bleak and overcrowded shelter, there was a new light in her eyes. It was a fervor, a determination, a grim decision to see things through to the end. Callie settled down against the bedroll, watching Beth through the darkness as she gathered her son close to her, folding him against her body as though he were the babe who lived in her womb.

Hours later, just as the dawn was breaking, Callie rolled over on the hard floor, pulling the blanket over her shoulders for warmth. She missed Paddy’s warm little body tucked against her own and awakened. Glancing around her, she realized Patrick had not returned, and the place she had given to Beth was empty. Callie sat up to look across the room; not a soul in the half-lit shelter was stirring.

It was unlike Beth to leave with Paddy without saying a word. No, it was foolish to worry, Callie comforted herself. Putting her head back down on the bedroll, she closed her eyes. But sleep would not come. She remembered Beth’s face and the way her eyes had burned. Could it be that the light that fevered Beth’s dark eyes was madness?

Callie rose from her hard place on the floor, her eyes once again searching out the dim corners of the shelter for a sign of Beth and Paddy. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, and there was a heaviness in the pit of her stomach. Something was warning her, telling her, she must find Beth.

Stepping over sleeping bodies, picking her way through the assorted bedrolls and baggage, she finally made her way to the door, pushing against its flimsiness until it opened into the gray-pink dawn. She looked to the left, up the hill towards the hospital. All was dark there except for the yellow glow from gaslights left on for the night. No, Beth wouldn’t go there. She feared the hospital and all it represented: rejection, denial. To the right was the steep path leading down to the beach and the docks. The night air was frigid; frost crackled on the ground beneath her feet. Where was Beth? Where was Paddy?

Her heart beating wildly, Callie stepped onto the path to the dock. She peered through the dim light to the water of the bay where the packet ships lay at anchor. Her shawl was pulled tight around her shoulders, the light morning wind off the water ruffled the new freedom of her short curls.

Halfway down the path she heard the mournful humming of a familiar tune, “Sweet Maid from Killee,” Patrick’s favorite tune. “Patrick! Patrick!” A form, barely discernible in the light, straightened and began rushing toward her. “Patrick!” Her voice was a harsh cry; she had not known how desperate she was or how terribly frightened until she heard that cry break from her throat. “Patrick! It’s Beth! Where’s Beth?” Quickly she told him how she’d awakened to find Beth and Paddy gone.

“She’s probably taken herself off to the privy,” Patrick said logically, “Grab hold of yourself, Callie. I’ve never seen you this way.”

“No! Beth would never have taken Paddy to the privy. You know how she loathes the filth in there. Listen to me, Patrick, something is wrong, very wrong! I don’t know, there was something about Beth early this morning when I talked with her. Something desperate in the way she talked and what she said!”

Patrick responded to Callie’s distress. “Where do you think she might have gone? Beth! Beth!” he called at the top of his voice. The answering silence seemed to spur his growing alarm. “Beth! For the love of God, where are you?”

“Patrick. She won’t answer if she doesn’t want to. We have to find her. I’ll take the path down to the dock; you skirt around through the shelters and back to the privies and meet me down on the beach.”

Callie turned and tore off down the path, slipping and sliding over the loose rocks and pebbles underfoot. The wind from the river was rising with the dawn. Today would be another bleak day, harsh with the promise of the coming winter.

At the end of the path were the piers and docks, the longest of these a jetty of black and slippery rocks that snaked far out into the dark waters of the bay. At the head of the jetty Callie discerned a bulky shape—a woman holding a child, her face turned to meet the dawn. Beth!

At the sound of Callie’s footfalls on the pier, Beth turned, clutching little Paddy to her. “No! Don’t come any closer,” she warned, and to Callie’s ears it was the voice of a stranger. This was not Beth’s voice, soft and endearing—this was the sound an animal makes when he is cornered.

“Beth! Come back! Please, Beth! Patrick is looking for you; he sent me to find you.” Tentatively Callie approached, watching, listening for the slightest sound or movement. Paddy squirmed in his mother’s arms. “Callie, pick me up!” She heard his voice clearly as she moved closer to the end of the jetty.

“Hush, love,” Beth crooned. “Hush. It will all be over soon, so soon.”

The singsong quality of Beth’s voice frightened Callie more than anything else. It was the same voice Mrs. Collier used when her little Bobby had died of the influenza and she had rocked his dead body until they came and forcibly took him from her. Beth was rocking and crooning to Paddy in that same way, as though he were already dead.

“Don’t come any closer, Callie. You’ve been a good friend, but there’s nothing you can do for us now. There’s nothing anyone can do.”

“Beth, come away from the edge. There’s something I must tell you!” Desperately Callie searched for something to say, something that would give Beth hope, something, anything. “Beth, remember I told you and Patrick about my friend who owns a newspaper? He’s a very important man, Beth. I’ll send word to him about Paddy. He’ll help, I know he will. You remember his name, don’t you, Beth?” Cautiously Callie stepped closer and closer as she spoke, hoping she could divert Beth’s attention. “Mr. Byrch Kenyon. You said it was such a fine name, remember, Beth?”

As though Callie had never uttered a word, Beth lifted her head. Her voice was a harsh whisper; the madness in her eyes shone. “Tell Patrick I’m so sorry. Tell him the only thing I can give him now is his dream.”

Even as Callie watched, Beth stepped backwards, tumbling off the jetty, hardly making a splash in the cold black water, into the greedy current. Callie heard Patrick’s shout of denial from somewhere behind her. She heard his feet thundering along the pier, heard him cry his wife’s name. And that was all she knew until she found herself shivering in the arms of a stranger. At the end of the jetty there was a crowd of people, like buyers at a market stall. That was her first thought.

She looked down at the black and oily waters of the bay. This was a day she would never forget, didn’t want to forget. Tears streaming down her cheeks, Callie walked away from the crowd, away from Patrick, away from the knowledge of what Beth had done for love. All for love.

This was America.

This was the land of hopes and dreams.

This was the day Callie James grew up.