Wings of a Dream by Anne Mateer

rubbed my hand down her nose before pulling the stool close. My fingers pulled at Bob’s teats, the rhythmic motion as familiar to me as frying a chicken or sweeping a floor, leaving my mind free to roam.
    We’d need a few supplies soon. I’d rummaged through Frank’s letters in the desk yesterday looking for money. I found nothing.
    But I read through letter after letter as I searched. Mostly stilted words of a grieving man, one who didn’t quite know how to talk to his children. And yet, in one old letter addressed to Clara and written before he’d boarded the ship for France, his tender expressions of joy at the coming birth of his child ripped at my heart.
    Would Daddy’s or Will’s—or Arthur’s—letters sound like Frank’s, given a similar situation? I couldn’t imagine. I told myself Frank’s character wasn’t really any of my concern. What I needed most at this moment was Arthur’s assurance that my life wouldn’t keep plodding along on this predictable line, like a mule plowing a furrow over an unending strip of sod.
    The bucket brimmed with the foam of warm milk. I cooed to the cow and forked fresh straw her way. The smell of the barn drew me back to the remembrance of home. How I wished Mama were here. She’d know exactly what to do next.
    I trudged back indoors no more peaceful than when I’d left the house. James sidled close, his small fingers slipping into mine. Ollie wiped a towel across the last clean plate. Then she coughed.
    Not a big cough, but enough. I shuddered at the memory of Aunt Adabelle’s purpling face. And the blood. I led James to the wash bucket and called the others there, as well, plunging grimy hands into the water and scouring them with soap over and over again.
    Whatever else happened, I would keep us all well.

    Thunder rumbled less than an hour later. Rain drummed against the window, echoing in my ears, reminding me again of Aunt Adabelle’s muddy grave. Would Mama suffer the same fate?
    Dan tromped into the kitchen, water dripping from his hair and his clothes, puddling on my clean floor. “It’s raining,” he announced.
    I picked up a dry rag. “Go change, young man.”
    He scampered off while I dropped to my knees, mopping up his trail.
    Crash. Tumble. Bump. Scream.
    I ran into the hall. Dan lay at the bottom of the stairs amid a jumble of wooden blocks, blood oozing from his head.
    “Heavens to Betsy!” I nearly fainted as my stomach threatened to spill its contents. “Ollie!”
    She already stood beside me.
    “Wet a towel and bring it here.”
    She dashed away as I knelt beside the screaming child.
    James stood over him, too, tears streaming down his face. “I just wanted him to hurry.”
    I brushed him aside as Ollie arrived, the towel dripping a river behind her. I wrung water onto the floor, then held the limp flour sacking to the gash. Blood seeped toward the edges of the cloth. “Get me another.” I kept my voice low, trying to calm the situation, though I felt anything but calm.
    Three towels later, the bleeding slowed. Dan only sniffled now. James’s tears dried and Janie crawled into the hall to add to the commotion. I leaned my head against the wall, my clean dress now streaked red. If I closed my eyes, would it all disappear?
    I squeezed my eyelids shut until the darkness seemed complete. But when I opened them again, everything remained. I leaned over Dan. “Let me look, honey.”
    He screamed as I pushed the hair away from the wound. I wished I could scream, too. Scream or vomit, I wasn’t sure which. Did the gash need a doctor’s care? Mama would know.
    I cradled Dan’s knees over one of my arms and supported his head with the other as I carried him to the kitchen. “Ollie, get a quilt and lay it on the floor near the stove.” My arms sagged as I waited. Finally, I laid him down. Ollie pressed the rag to the oozing spot on his head.
    A horse and buggy stood in the barn, but how long would it take my uncertain fingers to hitch one to