Connie went quick to the house thinking Mud like this it’s an hour to the village, time to rouse the doctor if he be home, then an hour back if he don’t kill the horse, and went into the kitchen and stopped, frightened. Her breath still ragged from it all. The house was very still. She stood in the kitchen trying to get her breath back, scrubbing her hands under the gravity line. Opened the draft of the stove and set the copper boiler atop the range and filled it with water. Filled the reservoir also. Then pulled the tea kettle forward, lifting up a range plate so the kettle was over the open flame of the firebox. Set out cups and saucers and teapot on a tray and stuffed the strainer with mint and dropped it into the pot. Spooned in fresh sugar made just the day before. Checked the kettle and saw she had time and ran down cellar to the small cask of applejack and popped the bung to pour out a scant half cup. The applejack made from freezing a barrel of hard cider and then siphoning off the small unfrozen core of alcohol. Ran back upstairs and poured the applejack into the teapot and then filled it all with water, the kettle singing now. Replaced the stove lid and lifted the tray and went down the hall and up the stairs, the camphorate odor of mint, maple and apple rising into her nose as she went. Her clothes still wet, clotted with mud, sticking to her.

She went along the upstairs hall. The bedroom door was open, light like orange rind coning onto the hall runner. She was terrified. The youngest child, she’d never seen a newborn. Certain it would come with Norman gone and the doctor not there. Such a small child, so early. She had only vague ideas of what to do. Her wet clothing chilled her, as if death walked with her. She paused before the door, out of sight. She could see the foot of the bed, the slender tent of Leah’s feet. She dreaded what lay above them. The feet were spread apart. It was very quiet, no moans or the cries she’d expected. The tray an awful weight in her hands. The muscles in her forearms ached, holding it.

From the room, Leah’s voice. “That you, Connie?”

“I’m coming,” she called, her voice scraped, oddly gay.

“Get in here quick. I need you girl.”

Connie went in with the tray. Leah was propped high on pillows, her face composed, calm, set. Connie set down the tray and poured out tea into the two cups, talking all the while. “I threw this in the pot coming up here. That mint tea you like, fortified up a tad. Norman’s already gone for Doctor so you just rest easy there, he’ll be back in no time, you’ll see, and everything’ll be just fine. Here take this, you look good, you look fine, are you all right?”