along with rags and anything else that would feed the flames. Her body was rigid; her eyes wide and staring. “Beth, what is it?” Patrick asked alarmed. “We’re all here together and safe—”
“No! We’re not safe!” Beth wailed, the terror in her voice sending chills up Callie’s spine. Little Paddy began to wail in sympathy. “Don’t you see?” Beth attacked Patrick in her distress. “Have you no eyes? These people are living out here in holes dug by their hands or in gullies and hovels someone else has left behind. Patrick! I don’t want to have this baby in a hole in the ground! Promise me! Promise me!” She collapsed into her husband’s arms, weeping with great heaving sobs against his chest.
“Easy, darlin’, easy. I promise you, I swear. We’ll go to the hospital shelter; we’ll be safe there. Paddy can’t live outdoors with his chest. I promise you, Beth.” Patrick’s optimism was failing him. His beautiful, approving Beth was near the edge of madness, and he worried that even God could not save them from the ordeal they faced. Steeling his resolve, Patrick forced a smile. “Come now, love. We’ll walk up the hill to see what can be done.” Paddy stuck his thumb into his mouth, hanging onto his father’s pants legs, demanding to be picked up. “Here now, darlin’, look how you’re frightening the boy.”
Beth looked down at her son. “There, there, sweet, Mummy’s just being silly.” She touched his wayward curls in a soothing caress.
Callie looked away from the naked emotion displayed by her friends. The thought came out of nowhere: Where are you, Byrch Kenyon? This is something you should see so you can put it in your newspaper! Mr. Kenyon had warned her that it was no easy road for the emigrant, but did he know the inhumanity of it all?
From long habit, Callie lifted her eyes heavenward. “Lord, I know these people are praying just as hard as I am, and You aren’t listening. How can You allow this? Sweet Jesus, it’s time to do something!”
The walk up the hill to the Tompkinsville Hospital and its annexes was a long, hard trek, and Beth was near total exhaustion. Officials wearing red armbands imprinted with white crosses policed the crowd, herding Callie and Beth along with Paddy into a line. “Women and children for a preliminary examination,” the official repeated gruffly. “Men to the other side.”
“If we can just find a place to rest,” Patrick said. “My wife is very near her time, and she’s dead out on her feet . . .”
As though he hadn’t heard, or didn’t care, the official pushed Callie and Beth into line, repeating, “Women and children for a preliminary examination. Men to the other side.”
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me,” Patrick said, his tone polite and in direct contrast to the fierce grip he had taken on the man’s coat front. “My wife! She needs help!” There was desperation in Patrick’s voice, a white line of hatred circling his mouth.
“Patrick! Patrick!” Beth screamed, tugging on her husband’s arms, attempting to break his deathlike grip on the official.
Almost instantly two other men wearing armbands seized Patrick, throwing him roughly to the ground. “Behavior like that will get you a stint in jail,” the men warned. “Keep your hands to yourself, man, if you know what’s good for you. We don’t like troublemakers here.”
Regaining control, Patrick shrugged off the men’s hands with a violent motion. Beth fell tearfully into his arms. “Patrick, please. We must do as they say.” Her voice was soft, a sobbing entreaty.
“Yer little missus is right, man,” said one of the men. “Yer so close now, don’t ruin it for yourself. Go on over and get in line with the other men. We’ll look after your wife.”
Patrick responded to the man’ suggestion, but when he left Beth’s side, his shoulders were slumped in weariness and defeat.
Beth watched her husband, her heart breaking for him. This was supposed to be the most wonderful experience of his life! The great adventure! And because of her and Paddy it was draining the life right out of him. She’d known and loved Patrick Thatcher too long and too well not to know that his enthusiasm was fast on the wane, that worry and concern for his family were dragging him down. Patrick, her Patrick, so filled with life and eagerness for America, was beginning to realize the burden he carried. And Beth’s gentle heart cried for him.
Nearly an hour later Beth and Callie were near the head of the line. Paddy slept with his head on Callie’s shoulder, his thumb pushed firmly into his mouth. Pressing her cheek against his forehead, she could feel the dry heat of a fever. She looked over at Beth who was sitting on a bedroll and wondered if she realized how ill her son was, or was she just too weary to notice? Surely this would not be an indifferent examination such as they’d had back in Liverpool. Would Paddy pass? Callie hugged the child protectively, assuring herself that this was why they’d built the hospital—to care for the sick and ailing. Paddy would be fine in the competent hands of the American doctors.
When they were ushered into the low, flat, tin-roofed building, they realized why they hadn’t seen any of the hundreds of women leaving. At the far end of the stark interior was an exit door. There were the women, holding their children by the hands, crying, expressions of humiliation and utter defeat on their ravaged faces. It seemed to Callie that everywhere she looked, pain and suffering were the order of the day.
Beth, along with Paddy and Callie, was hustled into a small side room by a man wearing a rubber apron. One window, grimy with dirt, shed the only light into the interior. Beth and Callie glanced around uneasily as the man was joined by a slattern of a woman carrying sharp-tipped scissors. “Sit down, girlie,” the woman commanded Callie, attempting a smile that revealed her toothless gums.
“Why? Who are you? You aren’t a doctor!”
“Sit!” It was an iron command. Hesitantly Callie gave Paddy over to his mother.
“If the boy is too heavy for you, you can put him down there,” the woman indicated a pile of burlap sacks whose soft fullness made them appear to be stuffed with rags.
“We’ll just take these pins from your hair,” the man said in false friendliness. “What do you say, Sally, shall we leave her hair in the braid?”
“Aye, ’twill make it easier at that,” the woman answered.
Callie anticipated their motives. “No! No, I won’t let you cut my hair! Why?”
“Don’t give us any of yer lip, girlie. We’re told to cut your hair because it drains yer strength. And for reasons of hygiene,” she added as a last word of authority. “The lice in this place is terrible from you dirty Irish. Now shut your mouth and sit still.”
“I’ll be damned to hell if I’ll let you lay one hand on me!” Eyes wide, face white, Callie leaped from the chair. “You aren’t cutting my hair! Never!” Warily she backed toward the door, her arms in front of her to ward off the expected attack.
“You have lice! Bugs, lassie. We can’t be letting you mingle with the others when you’ve vermin crawlin’ through that lovely hair, now can we? Now, be a good girl and sit down. Don’t make Sally tie you up. We have to do that sometime, eh, Jake?” She winked at the burly man who seemed to be observing the scene with great amusement.
“I don’t have lice and you know it!” She looked over to Beth for assistance only to see her fling her hands up before her face as though shutting out the scene would make it untrue. Paddy turned, awakened by the commotion, arms outstretched for his mother. With his movements,
