“It’s her first. She started paining yesterday. My granny’s not a midwife, but she brought all of us into the world, my brothers and sisters and my four cousins. This is the first time she’s been stumped.”

Great, I think. Wait until you have trouble, then call the midwife! On the other hand, how can I not go? A life is at stake, maybe two. I grab my birth satchel and trot out to the road, wishing Bitsy were home to share this night’s adventure. It’s true, I’ve become dependent on her.

In the mud-spattered buggy, I’m surprised to find an old man. Again the black clothes and the wire-rimmed glasses, this time with a floppy-brimmed black hat. Ruth doesn’t introduce me, so I hop in and we ride the rest of the way in silence.

It takes fifty minutes to travel through the muck around Raccoon Lick, past the vet’s house, and then another half a mile up Bucks Run until we turn off. This is a hollow I’ve never seen before, never even heard of. There are four log homes along the swollen creek. A narrow meadow follows the run back toward the mountain. Lights are on in each dwelling, and I imagine that they are all Klopfensteins. We stop at the first building, a sturdy two-story log house with a long front porch. I don’t wait for an invitation but hop out of the wagon and head for the door, already opening.

“Hi. I’m Patience Murphy, the midwife.” I still feel that calling myself “the midwife” is a little overstated, like I’m playing a part in a novel. My experience is so limited compared to Mrs. Kelly’s and Mrs. Potts’s.

“I’m Mrs. Klopfenstein, Molly’s mum.” A worried woman, her worn face pale in the kerosene lamplight, grips my hand, adjusts her specs, and guides me into the front bedroom. I take in the occupants. The laboring woman is young and looks so much like Ruth, same round face with golden hair, that they could be twins, only her yellow mane is matted and sweaty. She’s doesn’t even open her eyes when her mother introduces me.

“Child, here’s the midwife,” she announces, then takes her seat. Ruth sits down too. There are five of them on five hard-backed chairs arranged alongside the bed, and they are all dressed in black with the same round eyeglasses. This must be a family with very bad eyesight. Five black crows.

I turn to the oldest woman, the one who appears to be the grandmother, a wisp of a thing, with white hair in a bun. She’s skinny and flat-chested but has brown arms that could still lift a bale of hay. “Ruth told me you planned to deliver your great-grandbaby, but there seems to be a problem. Something’s not right?”

The old woman pinches her mouth, stands up, and leads me toward the kitchen. In the long narrow room with a fireplace at the end, there’s a table covered with oilcloth, a sink with a metal hand pump, and a cast-iron cookstove against the wall.

“The baby’s not coming. It’s as simple as that. Little Molly went into labor two days ago and seemed to be making some progress. All night she pained, and then around dawn she just petered out. I washed my hands and had a feel about suppertime. The head was there and she was about half open, but since her water broke everything’s stopped. The baby’s still alive, I know that much; we seen it move.”

I take a deep breath and try to look competent. “So have you considered going to the hospital in Torrington? The doctors there could do an operation . . .” Grandma vigorously shakes her head and looks as if I’ve just asked whether she’d consider taking a tour of Hell.

“Have you tried any herbs?” The old woman shrugs. “Okay, I’ll do what I can, but if the baby’s too big, I can’t change that. Let me study the situation. When did her water break?”

“Last night at the strike of twelve.”

I calculate back. That’s twenty hours gone already, and Mrs. Kelly always said never to let the sun set twice on a woman in labor.

Molly

Back in the bedroom, I find the patient still lying on her side with a wet towel between her legs. At first I think she’s sleeping, but when I touch her on her shoulder her blue eyes flick open.

“Molly, I’m Patience Murphy, the midwife. Your granny says you’ve been in labor a long time and the pains seem to be spacing out and getting weaker. I’m going to try to figure out what’s wrong. Can you turn on your back?”

The girl has spent all her energy but with assistance rolls over. Next I lay my hand on her abdomen and wait for a contraction. I wait and wait, but if she’s having them they’re too weak to feel. The uterus has all but given out.

While the other five women watch, their pale blue eyes following me behind the round glasses, I move my wooden stethoscope back and forth until finally I find the baby’s heartbeat just below the belly button, right where it should be. I raise my hand and count out the beats to demonstrate the rate and then pull on my sterilized gloves.

“Here come my fingers,” I warn as I slide them into the young woman’s opening, aware that once again I am violating the law.

The first thing I find is the head, just like Grandma described, only it’s not flexed; I can feel the baby’s soft spot right in the middle. DeLee calls this the military position; the head is held like a soldier’s at attention instead of flexed.

“Has Molly been out of bed much?” I ask the five crows, stalling for time.

“Not since her water broke,” they answer in chorus.

“Not at all?”

“Not since she started leaking,” they answer again. That’s twenty hours!

“Once the waters come, we never let the woman out of bed,” says Granny. “You don’t want the cord to suffocate.” I’ve heard this before, the idea that the cord will get trapped or prolapsed, but if the head of a full-term baby is deep in the pelvis, that’s highly unlikely. There’s no reason to immobilize a woman when moving around can ease the pain, make the pains stronger, and help the baby get into the most favorable position.

“Is she drinking?”

“We’ve tried to get her to suck on a rag dipped in sugar water, but she just turns her head.” That’s Granny again.

No wonder the mother has lost her contractions. It takes as much energy to give birth as it does to load a wagon with split wood, so this woman’s running on empty. I smile to myself, actually happy now to have something to work on—the basics, fluids and sustenance—but I have to move fast. Too much time has been lost.