Chapter 4
Adam walked into Dr. Martin's surgery. No one was waiting in the anteroom so Adam called out, "Ho, Paul? You here?" If there had been no response, Adam decided her would go around the building and knock on the front door of the living quarters; Paul had to be home as the door to the surgery was unlocked.
The doctor stepped out into the waiting area and smiled when he saw Adam. "Well, you look healthy enough—at least judging from your lungs. Someone sick at your house?"
"No, but I need your help, well, I hope you can help me." Paul was about ten years older than Adam and had a kind face yet when he was sitting and thinking, his face fell into lines of worry and distress. Adam didn't understand how a man could see disease and death on such a regular basis and still find joy in life but Paul somehow managed. Once Adam had asked Paul how he kept on doctoring when so many people didn't survive. Paul said that when he brings a child into the world who might have otherwise died or saved a person's life and helped them contribute in the world for a few more years, it helped in some way to lift him up and to keep on going.
"Okay," Adam, Paul said. "Care for a cup of coffee? I was just about to transcribe some notes and in order to do that, I have to drink coffee to keep me awake. And a homesteader's wife baked me a cream cake to thank me for helping her child through the measles. How about a piece?"
"No, but thanks anyway. But don't let me stop you."
"Okay, c'mon." Paul led Adam to his office off the surgery with its sterile metal table and the glass-fronted doors of the cabinets through which Adam could see the glass jars of cotton balls and the many amber colored glass vials of potions. Paul scooped the ground coffee beans into the coffee pot and placed it on a small stove that sat in the corner. Paul had opened the high window in the room but the stove made the room hot and Adam felt uncomfortable. The slight breeze that drifted in provided a slight respite. "Now just how can I help you?"
"Do you know of anyone who might serve as a wet nurse?" Paul turned to Adam looking surprised. He had heard no gossip about a child on the Ponderosa. Do you know a woman, someone who is still nursing a child and has the time and needs the money to take on another child for at least six months?" Adam had pulled off his hat and was lightly slapping it against his thigh. He hated having to talk about Ezra—he felt it made his seem weak, a pawn in Ann's game, but he needed help and if by revealing his peccadillo, he could achieve that help, then he would do what he had to do.
"Well, let's see." Paul sat down at his desk and motioned to a chair but Adam shook his head no." I helped deliver a breech baby about three months ago for some homesteaders about three miles west. They could use the money but she has four other children to raise and her husband did drink himself into a stupor the night she delivered."
"But she's nursing the one, right?"
"Yes, she is. Most women do—it's easiest and it's cheap."
"Well, I'm assuming she has two breasts."
Paul considered Adam. It seemed that all he wanted was a woman—any woman who could nurse a child. "I wouldn't recommend her—not because I think she's a bad woman but an infant would only receive a modicum of affection since she has so many children and a house to take care of—all the things that these put-upon women have to do. How old is the child you want to…farm out?"
Adam was taken aback by the term Paul had used but he saw the appropriateness of the term as a reflection of his attitude. "Almost a year—another three months and it'll be a year old."
"Is 'it' a boy or a girl?"
"A boy."
"I see. And I suppose that his mother has died?" Paul watched Adam closely noting that he was obviously uncomfortable talking about the infant.
"Yes," Adam said impatiently. "Now can you help me out or not?"
Paul thought, tapping his chin while Adam shifted from one foot to another; he was impatient. Time was passing and he had many things to consider before he brought Ezra home. He hadn't anticipated that Paul might not be able to help.
"At a year, an infant can be weaned from the breast—bottle fed or even with a small cup if it's held and gently tipped. Actually, a child can be weaned from the breast any time, it's just that I believe that mother's milk is healthier, gives the child a better start in life health-wise—prevents diarrhea and they seem to grow stronger. He could also eat soft food like mashed potatoes, thin cereals and ground meat. Also finely chopped fruit or some vegetables. Hard tack is especially good for teething."
"Why are you telling me all this?" To Adam, it was just extraneous information that had nothing to do with his quest for a wet nurse.
"Because you don't necessarily need a wet nurse, anyone can help tend a baby. A woman is best but even a man—such as yourself even—can raise a child. Your father can attest to that, can't he?"
Adam said nothing. He sighed in frustration; Paul was angering him. Why couldn't Paul just say yes or no, that he could help or not help? Paul's palavering about food a baby could eat was riling him.
"All right," Paul said. "See Reverend Cleary. He has a young woman working for him at the parsonage since his wife became ill. You know, cooking, cleaning, taking care of Mrs. Cleary, but she's regaining her strength now and they'll probably not need the girl much longer. She might be able to help you out as she'll need employment."
"You think she'd do? I mean she'd have to stay at the Ponderosa and there are a few men there," Adam said in a sarcastic tone, "all of my family, Hop Sing and the ranch hands. I thought that if the child was sent out to live with another family, it would be easier."
"For whom?" Paul had a small smile on his face. It amused him to see the usually confident Adam Cartwright upset and unsure of himself.
Adam showed his annoyance. "All right. I'll go see the Reverend. Thanks, Paul—I think." Adam put his hat on and turned to leave.
"I wish I could have been more help," Paul said with a small smile.
"That makes two of us," Adam said without looking back.
Paul smiled as Adam strode out. But he did wonder what was going on. He went back to the open journal in front of him and continued to expand with more detail his hastily written notes from the small notebook he carried to the large book. He wondered what scandal Adam was working so hard to hide and all he could think of was a child—a child fathered out of wedlock. A child without a mother—just as Adam had been-and Hoss and Joe. Paul shook his head at life's ironies. A motherless child fathered by a man who had been a motherless child.
Adam sat in Pastor Cleary's parlor and explained why he had come, what Paul had told him about the girl who had helped out during Mrs. Cleary's illness.
"I'm assuming the young lady who answered the door is the one in question," Adam said. He had declined coffee although the reverend, a man in his fifties, sat and enjoyed a cup.
"Yes, it was. I'm glad my wife is so much better but I do hate to lose the girl. And she will need work. Let me call her in." The pastor stood up and went to the drawn portieres that separated the rooms. "Fiona! Will you come here, child?" He went back to his chair.
The girl walked in. She had red hair that was a mess of curls that she tried to tame by pulling the sides away from her face and holding them back with combs. She wasn't particularly pretty, too plain of face and lashes so light in color that they barely showed around her blue eyes. A sprinkling of freckles covered her small nose and cheeks.
The reverend stood up. "Fiona, this is Mr. Adam Cartwright."
She gave a small curtsey toward Adam. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir," she said in her lilting Irish accent with its melodious rises and falls—like a musical instrument, Adam thought.
"Mr. Cartwright has need of someone to care for an infant and since we won't be able to use you after Sunday, since thanks to you, my wife is so much better, well, it might be something for you—a job, employment. Now I'll leave you two alone so that Mr. Cartwright and you can discuss the offer. Excuse me. I have a sermon to write."
The pastor left and Adam asked the girl to sit.
"I don't have time to sit, sir. I have a pie in the oven and it's about done. I also have dinner to start."
"Um, well, you wouldn't have to cook or bake if you take the position—we have a cook and a housekeeper already—Hop Sing."
"Hop Sing? He must be one of the heathen Chinese who hold with the idea of many gods."
"Yes, he's Chinese but I, we, that is my family and I, don't consider him a heathen. He's been with us for a long time and his religious beliefs are his own. He's treated as a member of the family."
"Is that so, sir? And what member of the family does all the cookin' and the cleanin'? That should be the wife, should it not, sir?"
Adam became annoyed; the girl wouldn't do under ordinary circumstances—too argumentative-but he needed someone and soon so he merely ignored her last comment.
"What's your name, girl?"
"Fiona Flanagan, sir."
"How old are you?"
"I'll be eighteen my next birthday."
"So you're 17."
"Yes, sir."
"Have you ever taken care of infants?"
"Oh, and who do you suppose raised all the brats my mother gave birth to after my brother and me while my da drank away every coin he made and caused my poor mother to take in washing and sewing from the others what were raised higher in the world?"
"Why can't you just answer my questions?" Why people refused to give straight answers Adam couldn't understand.
"That's what I've been doin', sir."
"When I asked your age, all you had to say was 17. When I asked if you had taken care of an infant, all you had to say was yes or no. Just answer my goddamn questions and let's get this over with." Fiona dropped her eyes and Adam felt guilty for being so harsh and cursing in front of her but she did irritate him. "I apologize for my language. Let me try this a different way. I need a…person to go with me to Placerville in California to pick up….my son who is almost a year old. I need someone to feed him—with a bottle-and take care of him on the trip back. Then, once we're back at the Ponderosa..."
"The what, sir?" She looked at him questioningly.
"The Ponderosa-the ranch my family owns. It's a few miles out of Virginia City." Fiona nodded and Adam went on. "Anyway, once we're home, I need someone to sleep in the room with him and take care of him while the rest of us go about our necessary business. If you take the job, you'll be totally responsible for the care and feeding of the child for a time. Do you think you could do that?"
"I think I could, sir but shouldn't the question be, if I want the job? I'm a good Catholic girl, besides the fact that I work for a Methodist preacher who doesn't yet accept the idea of the holy saints and such. I don't know about travelin' alone with a man who isn't family all the way to California. And I also don't know about livin' in a house, under the same roof with a heathen who prays to false idols."
Adam rubbed his face with his hands, sighed and looked at Fiona. "Then that's a 'no'—you won't take the job."
"I didn't say that, sir. I would be inclined to accept a job taking care of any infant born into such a situation with no mother—or am I assuming too much?"
"No, his mother is dead."
Fiona scrutinized him and Adam felt uncomfortable. "I noticed that you did not say, 'your wife,' so I'm assumin' the child's a bastard?"
Suddenly Adam was embarrassed. His son was a bastard and Fiona, being a good Catholic girl, would judge the child as damned due to the sins of his parents. "Yes."
"Then I'll take the job." Adam was surprised but Fiona went on to explain her stance. "The poor little thing will need someone like me to help him. I would be glad to take the child into my care and to my bosom."
Adam suppressed a smile; Fiona didn't have much of a bosom. Actually, she was practically stick straight. "Fine. Be packed and ready to leave in two days. The trip takes about four days by wagon—a covered wagon. Bring all that you need and anything else that needs to be taken to the Ponderosa. I'll send someone to pick up your trunk or whatever you have. Now would you get the pastor so that I can tell him you're taking the job?"
"Yes, sir." She said. "Oh, but could you tell me the wee one's name?"
"Ezra. Ezra Cartwright."
"That's a fine name—Ezra—but I do think it's a Hebrew name, isn't it?"
"It's a biblical name, like Adam. My name is from the Bible—the Old Testament. I would think a good Catholic girl like you would know that."
"I do know the story of creation and of Adam and Eve. I have to say that when I was young, my da was a Bible reader; he would read to my brother and me all the 'Thou shalt not's, and all the stories of the terrible sinners and their horrendous punishments like Lot's wife being turned to a pillar of salt for looking back on Sodom and Gomorrah. He told us all sorts of parables and tales-that is until the liquor grabbed ahold of him and wouldn't let go. But then, he said that them people in the Bible, they drank wine—quite a bit and that even Jesus Christ himself took a bit of the grape. 'It doesn't say, thou shalt not drink wine,' my da would state as a way of excuse. I don't remember no Ezra in the Good Book though."
"He's from the Hebrew Bible."
"Oh, I see. Well, it's a fine enough name I suppose. But I do have to admit that sometimes, when my da was 'under the influence' as my mother used to say, he would get the stories of the fairies and goblins and such all mixed up with Solomon and others from the Bible, so it's possible that I believe some names are Biblical when they aren't in actuality, Mr. Cartwright. But I'll get the reverend for you, sir."
"Thank you, Fiona." Adam sighed with relief as she left the room. Now he had someone to help with Ezra and even if Fiona Flanagan didn't work out, he would at least have Ezra on the Ponderosa by then and he could face the next set of problems. But he still had to talk to Sylvia.