Midwife of the Blue Ridge by Christine Blevins

dinner.”
    Seth settled onto the bedstead, soup and spoon in hand. A
    Scotsman bred true to the bone, he leaned forward and whis-
    pered into his wife’s ear, “It’s certain I got the best of that bar-
    gain, na? This one day alone is well worth twenty-three pound.”
    7
    A Good Clipe on the Head
    A rooster crowed. She gasped and jerked awake, desperate to
    blink away the dark specter floating over her bed. The brooding
    fi gure spoke. “Maggie . . . wake up . . .”
    Another voice lurked in the shadows. “It’s day bust, Maggie . . .
    time t’ wake.”
    “Och, Jackie . . . Winnie.” Maggie elbowed up with a grunt.
    “Must yiz always give me such a start?”
    The tin lantern Jack hung from the roof beam did little to il-
    luminate the loft they shared, and in the dim light, Maggie could
    only sense their indifference. She resisted the lure of her pillow
    and scrubbed the sandy bits from her eyes in mute stupor. Win-
    nie and Jack struggled into their clothes, and one after the other,
    the children disappeared down the hole in the loft fl oor. Three
    weeks on the Martin homeplace, and Maggie still required a mo-
    ment each morning to reconcile her new place in the world.
    Contending with a forest of snarls in her face sent Maggie
    searching through the bedding for the piece of string that must
    have slipped from her braid during the night. Annoyed, she aban-
    doned the futile search, flung her clothes over one shoulder, and
    crawled on all fours to the center of the loft—the only spot where
    Midwife of the Blue Ridge 77
    the sloping roofline allowed her to stand upright to dress. Mag-
    gie hop-stepped into her skirt and pulled it over the shift that
    doubled as her nightdress. She poked her arms through the
    sleeves of her bodice, gave the laces a halfhearted tug, grabbed
    the lantern, and shimmied down the hole, careful negotiating the
    ladder of stout pegs embedded into the wall.
    Firelight mixed with the soft daylight just beginning to creep
    into the cabin through the open shutters. On his haunches, Seth
    fed fuel to the fl ame he’d coaxed from the embers. Naomi sat on
    the bedstead plaiting her hair into a single copper braid. Wide-
    awake, bare- bottomed Battler was busy “sweepin’” with the big
    birch broom.
    “G’ day, all.” Maggie tried hard to put some cheer in her
    voice.
    “Good morning,” Naomi answered with a smile.
    “Good . . . OW!” Seth yelped. Battler had thonked him
    soundly upside the head with the broom handle. Seth snatched
    the broom away and laid it out of reach, across the mantel shelf.
    After a moment’s silent astonishment, Battler let loose a shriek-
    ing howl in protest.
    “Th’ wee lad’s a menace,” Seth said, rubbing his noggin.
    Naomi agreed with a nod. “Takes after his da.”
    Seth took his rifle, planted a quick kiss on his wife’s brow, and
    left to tend to morning chores.
    “The lad’s a menace with a bibblie-nebbit.” Maggie swooped
    in and swiped Battler’s snotty nose with the hem of her skirt. She
    swung him onto the bed and plopped down alongside, tickling
    his chubby feet as he scrambled to his mother for comfort. The
    little boy was immediately distracted from his troubles by his
    mam’s hog-bristle brush, which Battler snatched up with enthusi-
    asm and put to use on Maggie’s tangled mane. She endured sev-
    eral minutes of Battler’s “brushin’” before escaping out the door
    to see to her chores.
    H
    78 Christine
    Blevins
    The sun had only just cleared the horizon and the morning was al-
    ready sweltering. Maggie trudged from the stable, a wooden pail
    three- quarters full of milk gripped in each hand. Sweat-drenched
    frizzles of hair stuck to her face while rogue strands tickled her nose
    and hung in her eyes. Her waist-length hair was a hot and heavy
    bother, and if she’d had a pair of shears handy at that moment, she
    would not have hesitated to lop it all off. The rope handles on the
    buckets bit ridges into her hands. She