The Path Was Steep (7 page)

After I had washed my clothes (in the bathtub, and never mind my aching back), I’d take the girls out with me, bundled in their warmest attire. When the clothes were popping in the wind that swooshed down the mountains, I’d sit on a rock and watch the children at play. Sometimes we’d climb to the rock quarry at the top of the street. Slabs of granite brooded into the sky, and men clung to sheer walls, using chisels, hammers, and saws. Could one of the Italian workers be another Michelangelo?

The clean sheets of granite were awesomely beautiful. Hobart Street ended suddenly at the edge of the sky, and a rugged, narrow path wound around boulders and craggy rocks, down, down, and down: the shortest way to Hemphill, where David worked. He was on the night shift now, machine-helper, and he walked this unbelievable path to and from work. I took it once and was in bed half a day as the result. David worked long hours and climbed this trail to earn enough for rent, food, and necessary clothing. Sometimes unnecessary—when he worked an extra shift, he would spend extravagantly on a dress for me.

Letters from Piper brought distressing news. Hunger was a stark fact at times. Piper friends hungry? I wept at the news.

One cold day as the girls and I came in from hanging out clothes, Mrs. Peraldo, in her doorway, smiled at me. “It is so cold outside.” She looked at the girls. Their cheeks were pomegranate red. Yellow silk curls, under blue tams, clung to their shoulders, and their noses were pink.

“Blizzard cold,” I agreed. And the glow of my own red nose was clearly visible in the wall mirror.

“Won’t you come in for a minute?”

Fabulous wool sweaters, socks, and bouclé knit dresses were piled high in an open steamer trunk. “See what my sister have sent me,” she smiled. “What am I do with all of this? And she sends all of the time. Zhorze Jr. and Henry can never wear out so much, nor can I.”

Her sister, she explained, owned a chain of knitting mills in Italy. “I do not have the room,” she tried again. “The boys grow so fast that I have to store their small things. Would you mind—” she paused. “We are like the sisters, you know. Such good friends—if you have the room, Sharon and Davene can have of the socks and of the sweaters—”

My first instinct was to freeze. We were not beggars. Accept charity? Wear castoff clothing? Not on your life! But she was so kind, so warm—my heart spilled over with gratitude. “We’d love to have the things,” I smiled.

She was almost pathetically grateful, and her eyes misted with tears when I accepted a dreadfully expensive, brand-new, white bouclé knit suit and a dress. After that, the girls and I wore imported clothes, such as I had scarcely ever seen. The socks and sweaters really came in handy in the cold. Snow fell again and again, and the mountain air was bitter at times.

The girls spent much of their time at our back window and stared far below where a street with ant-sized people (it seemed) ran through the gorge that gave access to Welch. Great mountains loomed all around; Welch filled the valley, and homes climbed the hills. Once Mrs. Peraldo showed me a picture of their summer home in Switzerland, and I thought it a picture of Welch. A street ran the length of Welch, and far, far below our house, a fire burned constantly. Natural gas coming from an aperture fed it. A man came daily to burn trash over the flame. Sharon, watching, began to picture evil things about the fire. “Mother, is it the Devil?” she whispered once. “I am afraid of him.”

“Darling, he’s just a man,” I kissed her. “Let’s go and see him.” Hundreds of wooden steps led to the far street below. At the bottom, Sharon clung to me, trembling. But Davene ran to the man. “Hello, Mr. Devil,” she laughed. “I am not afraid of you.”

“Sister!” Sharon’s love was greater than her fear, and she ran to stand before Davene. “Don’t you hurt my sister!” she screamed.

The man wore a red stocking cap pushed back from tight, black curls. His cheeks were red, and white teeth gleamed between red lips. “Little girl, I won’t hurt you,” he smiled.

“Why, Mother, he is just a man.” Color came back to Sharon’s cheeks.

“You scare the little girl?” he stopped laughing.

“I never scare my children,” I said quickly. “But someone did,” grimly. “We live up there,” I pointed to our high window.

“George tell me about you.” He lifted Sharon. “You like to burn trash?” he asked, handing her a paper.

“Davene!” I caught her as she ran towards the blaze.

“Mickelli is your good friend,” he told the girls.

After that, they watched happily as he burned papers. “Mickelli is good; he keeps our streets clean,” Sharon told Davene.

“I am going to marry Mickelli,” Davene announced.

I soon became acquainted with the Carters. He and David were friends now and walked the trail to Hemphill to work together. His educated, Virginia accent was new but intriguing. “Ooot and aboot,” he said for “out and about,” and “hoose” for “house.”

Mrs. Carter, with laughing dark eyes and dark hair, was very pretty, and large with child. Their daughter Mary, about seven, was sweet, shy, and soft-voiced. She had blond hair, pale skin, and blue eyes. A polio victim, she used crutches, but you soon forgot them. Sharon and Davene worshipped her.

Mary told stories of the three bears and Red Riding Hood, two of their favorites since babyhood. She said “woodchoppers” where we said “woodcutters.”

“They chopped the wolf,” Davene said one day.

“Yes.”

“They chopped off his hands.”

“They did that.”

“And he couldn’t pat a cake,” she said, happily.

You’re a bloodthirsty little thing, I thought.

“They killed him,” she said.

“The wolf is dead.”

“And he can’t hurt the little baby.”

“You darling,” I hugged her. She wasn’t bloodthirsty. She was concerned for Mary’s expected baby brother—whom, I began to think in panic a few nights later, I’d have to deliver.

Christmas passed and New Year’s 1932 arrived. The Depression held America in a remorseless grip. But a small thunder began to be heard—a new hope. Who regarded the fact that he was crippled? Franklin Delano Roosevelt, governor of New York, grew and grew on the horizon.

President Hoover was blamed for everything from the war between China and Japan to the Dust Bowl. Confidence in America was gone; the birth rate plummeted.

But one birth was of great interest to me. I visited the basement apartment often. Now that the son—it would be a boy—was due, Mr. Carter decreed that he must be born in the hospital.

Mrs. Carter, mindful of the present financial conditions, disagreed. “I’ll have my baby at home,” she told me. “I want you to be with me.”

“No! I’d be scared to death!”

“You’ve had two babies.”

Two, yes, and unbearable agony with Sharon, born at home, weight ten pounds, a breech presentation, a country doctor—but this experience did not qualify me as a midwife.

“I’m in labor,” Mrs. Carter announced one night after the men had left for work. Her smile stopped suddenly, and her face reddened.

“I’ll call a taxi!” I babbled.

“Jeff has a friend who will take us if I go to the hospital.”

“Us?”

“But I’m going to have my baby at home. You’ll help me.” Her face reddened again.

“Let me call that friend,” I grasped the table for support.

“It will—cost so much.”

“I have to put the children to bed,” I told her.

“Don’t leave me. Please!”

“I’ll be right back,” I promised, and grabbed the girls by their hands. We stopped at Mrs. Peraldo’s door; I knocked and explained about the baby. “We’ll need to use your telephone.”

“She can’t have the bebe at home!” Mrs. Peraldo chattered. “You call that friend.”

“I will,” fervently. “Will you listen for the girls?” Our bedroom was directly over hers.

“Oh, I listen! You hurry now!”

Upstairs, I undressed the girls and put them to bed. For the next two hours, I wore out the stair treads running upstairs and down to the basement. Each time Mrs. Peraldo put her head out the door to ask about progress.

“I’m keeping you awake,” I apologized.

“With a bebe coming, you think I sleep?” she asked. “But if I do, I leave the door unlocked for you. Just come on in.”

Mrs. Carter’s pains were five minutes apart now. “Where is that man’s telephone number?” I almost hissed at her.

“If we—go—to the hospital—Mary will be—” Her face purpled.

“She can stay with the girls.” I grabbed the sleeping Mary and hurried upstairs. I must have built some pretty good leg muscles that night.

Sharon and Davene never woke. I put their little friend in bed beside them, then ran downstairs. “Now,” I said, firmly. “It is time to go.”

“But think of the money!” she wailed.

“This is no time to think!” I wanted to slap her. “You’ve got to do something!” Tears suddenly rolled down my cheeks.

“My grip is packed,” she tried to smile.

A sigh that came all the way from my toenails surged through me. “Give me that telephone number!”

As I took it, she bent double. Her face was a vivid plum color.

“I can’t deliver a baby,” I wept.

“Hurry,” she gasped. “Hurry!”

I hurtled outside, around, and pounded on Mrs. Peraldo’s door. She had gone to bed at last, but the light was on and the door unlocked. I called the operator, and after several years, it seemed, the telephone began to ring.

It rang and rang.

“Oh,” I wept into the phone. “The baby may be arriving this minute. Mrs. Carter is all alone.” I started to hang up and dash downstairs to help.

Then, “Hello?” a feminine voice said.

“Is Mister—” I didn’t even know the man’s name “—is your husband at home?” I asked.

“Who is this?”

“I am calling for Mrs. Carter,” I stuttered. “The baby—”

“John!” the woman shrieked. “Mrs. Carter needs you!”

“Hurry!” I shouted, slammed the receiver on the hook, and started for the door.

“The bebe has arrive?” Mrs. Peraldo stood in her bedroom door.

“Any minute, listen for the girls!” I raced downstairs, collected the suitcase, took Mrs. Carter’s arm, and we stumbled outside. Business of purple, agonized face again. “Lord,” I whimpered. “You know I can’t deliver a baby.”

Car lights approached and stopped.

“Hurry!” I snarled, shoving my patient into the car. “Hurry!” The hospital was only a mile away. We turned hairpin curves on two wheels and made it.

A nurse rushed my patient to the delivery room. I answered questions, signed papers, then followed another nurse to the maternity ward, the suitcase slugging against my leg.

Another nurse met us. “The baby is here,” she laughed. “A boy.”

We’d been in the hospital exactly eight minutes. Of course I didn’t really need ammonia. The nurse just thought I did.

Mother and son were doing fine, but yours truly wasn’t so chipper. I weaved down the hall and into the lobby. A strange man waited to take me home. I marched out of the hospital, down the steps, and to the car. Opening the rear door, I stepped in and sat down.

Neither of us spoke. Possibly, he thought of his wife at home. I had another worry—how would David react to my ride at 2 A.M. with a total stranger? We made it home in record time. “Thank you,” I said and streaked into the house.

Up the stairs I raced, looked at the girls, turned back the covers to put my head against their chests. They lived! Alone at night, they had survived.

I dipped to my knees. “Thank you,” I whispered, found a vacant spot at the foot of the bed, lay down fully clothed, and fell asleep.

But this earth-shattering event didn’t change the facts of the Depression. The story of David’s $14.80 shift was still circulating back home. The Peraldos must have thought we meant to keep a boarding house, so many came to visit. The old leather sofa in the living room, which made an extra bed, was rarely empty.

My brother Clarence and my cousin Wilburn Clark had visited for three weeks. David’s company, Kingston Pocahontas, with an unexpected order, was hiring men, so they tried coal mining. They kept us laughing with their fantastic tales and jokes.

Wilburn had black eyes, deep dimples in cheek and chin, and fantastic charm. He was full of tales about himself, such as the time he had been too familiar with a señorita across the Rio Grande; and the Mexicans, with fixed bayonets, compelled him to swim for his life while American soldiers on the opposite bank of the river cheered him as he swam.

Wilburn’s work shoes were too small, so he changed shoes with Clarence, who had the narrow Mosley feet. The next morning both limped up the trail on injured feet. Each had preferred working barefoot on jagged rocks and coal to the agony of wearing shoes that, Clarence vowed, had been designed as instruments of torture.

Two mornings later, Wilburn came home missing a finger. There was difficulty about compensation. He was accused of deliberately chopping off the finger. They even said that he had made two efforts. Far too many men were now missing fingers or toes. The compensation would feed them and their families for weeks.

But the company had to pay. Wilburn chose a cash deal, for less money, and it was back to Alabama for him and Clarence.

Work had practically stopped at Woodward Iron, so George came up for a month. Johnny Appleseed had passed that way once, and there was always a plentiful supply of apples, which sold at fifty cents a bushel. George and David lugged home a bushel every day or so.

We ate apple pie, fried apples, applesauce, baked apples, jelly, and preserves. In between times, the girls ran about with apples in their hands. None of us needed a doctor all winter. We didn’t charge any of these visitors board, and somehow David and I managed the rent and our food, with even an extra at times.

George had never been out of Alabama before. He missed Thelma and the girls, Ailene and Jean, very much. With his first month’s pay (two weeks were held back at first), it was back to Alabama for another homing pigeon.

Now a trickle of visitors that became a steady stream began to arrive by freight train, or they had hitchhiked across the country. These tired, hungry men stayed a night or so; then, with no work available, they would drift on to another town. I imagine, till this day, when they think of West Virginia, they also think of apples.