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Only two years later, Mah and came doith consu up blood when she died I was shipped to Chicago to stay with the ed sister of our solicitor, Mrs Ayers, and worked as a laundress in her s the rooms until Mrs Ayers found a new husband and shipped me off to St Mary’s House of Mercy, an orphans’ asylum for the destitute Mrs Ayers cried a little when I left, but I wasn’t her responsibility Not even kin I understood that

5

Mastitis

The weather has turned warain, blue sky dotted with innocent white clouds, the s oak out front, but there’s soht When I went out to ht and red as a Gerht on by an injury or,get too tight and full, but I don’t knowout with hot water and rags to wrap around her udders every few hours She seems to like the warm compresses but hates it when I try toI know to do A breast infection hurts like the holy devil I should know; I had mastitis a few tiet the , I pull on the teats that aren’t quite so tender It’s what I tell my ood side first, rest, drink fluids, apply warm compresses Keep the breasts empty, and leave the nipples open to the air" Good food also helps and soure out how to tie cabbage leaves on the cow’s udders, so I skip that part Meanwhile, I lay ainst the side of my beautiful black-and-white bovine, and ht

This et upfarm, and ask Mr Maddock what I should do Maddock is a stern-faced old bugger who alears a black felt hat and never waves when I pass, despite the fact that I’ve lived here two years I was hoping hebrush, but I have to go up to the house

"She’s stopped eating and doesn’t even look up when I coh the screen door Maddock doesn’t inviteand I have to keep brushingeyes and ht and using war else I could do?"

Maddock owns four or five Holsteins; I’ve seen them in his field He pulls on his coarse black wool jacket, steps out on the porch, and yanks down his broad-brimmed headpiece "You could ask the new vet; h his gray-speckled beard "He doesn’t live far You can walk around Salt Lick Road to his fare on the old Indian trail that goes through the woods His place backs up to yours on the other side Either way, you’d be there in an hour"

Behind the weatheredby a kerosene lamp on a table, Mrs Maddock, a pale woold hair twisted up in a bun, sits knitting She doesn’t get up or come to the door I catch her eye and smile She doesn’t smile back There are books on shelves behind her and a display of framed needlework on the walls Ordinarily, women in Appalachia would invite you in, but Mrs Maddock, who looks, fro person,alone just up the road She turns her head and goes back to her knitting

House Call

The hike over Hope Ridge, through a thick forest of stunted spruce growing out of flat sheets of granite, takes longer than I’d expected Just when I decide that h the trees, a stone house with a white barn down in the hollow The two-story dwelling, situated in a long narrow valley, appears to have been built a hundred years ago Three horses graze in the pasture

It’s a picture-book place but so quiet that it occurs to me, for the first tiht or even his nain to fear that this trip may be wasted He could be out on a call or, now that I think of it, probably has an office in Liberty or Delhs fro along Salt Lick, a pickup, h the stubby yellow grass and outcroppings of rock, I sight ablack rubber boots and ha He has a strong back; a tall fellow,Around forty, I think; I’d expected the vet to be someone much older

A rock about the size of a cottontail rabbit catches under ht toward him "Look out!" I yell

He steps aside and watches as it lands near his feet "Where’d you come from?"

"I’m sorry, I should have called out My na this name since Mrs Kelly and I caue like honey

"I’m the midwife from over Hope Mountain" I’ives itimacy "I have a coith a red swollen teat, and Mr Maddock, ht help"

"A house call is five dollars You could have used the telephone and saved yourself some trouble" He looks ht I o into town or make a social call, I spruce up, wear a dress and hose (if I have any), but today I’d come in house, and a heavy ht secondhand, before we exiled ourselves to these outer lands

That’s how I think of it, as though I’ve been banished froan County at Blair Mountain Soet it The feds can’t still be looking for me after all this time