The man at the door was asking for help with two babies.<\/p>\n
I heard that before I learned anything else about him.<\/p>\n
I was still in the kitchen when his voice reached me.<\/p>\n
He was speaking quickly.<\/p>\n
Not angrily.<\/p>\n
Not like someone trying to start a quarrel.<\/p>\n
He sounded frightened.<\/p>\n
I remember stopping with my hand against the table.<\/p>\n
I had heard plenty of people asking for help since Thomas died.<\/p>\n
I knew how they sounded when something was wrong.<\/p>\n
But there was something different about this man.<\/p>\n
He was not speaking about himself.<\/p>\n
He kept speaking about children.<\/p>\n
He said the babies had barely been able to take any nourishment since the previous day.<\/p>\n
He was afraid they would not survive another night.<\/p>\n
I felt my fingers tighten against the edge of the table.<\/p>\n
A baby who could not eat.<\/p>\n
I knew too well what could happen to a baby whose body was failing.<\/p>\n
I had watched Ada struggle.<\/p>\n
I had listened to a doctor explain why he could not save her.<\/p>\n
Now another man was standing outside our home, saying that two infants were in danger.<\/p>\n
I moved closer to the entrance.<\/p>\n
I heard Amos answer him.<\/p>\n
His tone was firm.<\/p>\n
He told the stranger that the matter belonged with a doctor.<\/p>\n
I remember thinking that was a reasonable answer for only a moment.<\/p>\n
Then the stranger spoke again.<\/p>\n
He had already consulted a physician.<\/p>\n
The doctor had advised him to find a woman who was nursing.<\/p>\n
A woman with milk.<\/p>\n
That was the answer.<\/p>\n
I knew it before Amos said another word.<\/p>\n
I stood completely still.<\/p>\n
That morning, I had poured my own milk onto the frozen ground.<\/p>\n
I could remember the basin.<\/p>\n
The cold.<\/p>\n
The way I had paused before emptying it.<\/p>\n
And now there were two babies who could not get enough nourishment.<\/p>\n
I wanted to go to the door.<\/p>\n
I wanted to hear more.<\/p>\n
But Amos was already speaking.<\/p>\n
He told the man there was nobody in the house who could assist him.<\/p>\n
Nobody.<\/p>\n
I felt that word as sharply as if it had been directed at me.<\/p>\n
I was standing only a short distance away.<\/p>\n
My body was still producing milk.<\/p>\n
My breasts ached because I had no child to feed.<\/p>\n
And Amos was telling a desperate father that no help existed beneath his roof.<\/p>\n
I waited for him to correct himself.<\/p>\n
I thought perhaps he meant that I was too weak.<\/p>\n
That I had only recently given birth.<\/p>\n
That I needed time to recover.<\/p>\n
Those were concerns I might have understood.<\/p>\n
But he offered no such explanation.<\/p>\n
He simply sent the man away.<\/p>\n
Then the front door shut.<\/p>\n
I heard the bolt move into place.<\/p>\n
Such a small sound.<\/p>\n
Metal sliding against metal.<\/p>\n
Yet I remember it more clearly than almost anything Amos said that evening.<\/p>\n
It sounded final.<\/p>\n
I could not remain in the kitchen.<\/p>\n
I walked into the front room.<\/p>\n
Amos was still near the entrance.<\/p>\n
Martha stood by the stove.<\/p>\n
She was handling her apron, twisting the fabric between her fingers.<\/p>\n
I asked who had come.<\/p>\n
Martha answered.<\/p>\n
Caleb Foster.<\/p>\n
I recognized the name immediately.<\/p>\n
Nearly everyone around Pine Hollow knew of Cedar Run Ranch.<\/p>\n
It was the large spread beyond the creek.<\/p>\n
Caleb Foster ran it.<\/p>\n
I had never met him, but I knew what had happened to his family.<\/p>\n
His wife, Lydia, had died six weeks earlier.<\/p>\n
She had been giving birth to twins.<\/p>\n
Two babies.<\/p>\n
A dead mother.<\/p>\n
And a father who had just come to our door begging for a nursing woman.<\/p>\n
Until that evening, I had thought of Lydia Foster as another woman who had died bringing children into the world.<\/p>\n
I had felt sorrow when I heard about her.<\/p>\n
But I had been living inside my own losses.<\/p>\n
Thomas had been taken from me.<\/p>\n
Ada had been born and died.<\/p>\n
I had scarcely possessed the strength to think beyond my own small room.<\/p>\n
Now Lydia's story had reached me in a different way.<\/p>\n
Her babies were alive.<\/p>\n
They needed food.<\/p>\n
Their father had been told where he might find help.<\/p>\n
And Amos had refused him.<\/p>\n
I looked toward the front door.<\/p>\n
For a moment, I could not speak.<\/p>\n
Then I asked Amos whether he understood what that man had wanted.<\/p>\n
Of course he understood.<\/p>\n
He had heard everything.<\/p>\n
I wanted him to say he had misunderstood.<\/p>\n
I wanted him to open the door and call the stranger back.<\/p>\n
Instead, he looked at me as though my question itself were improper.<\/p>\n
I asked why he had turned Caleb away.<\/p>\n
Amos told me that I was not going to spend time in a widower's house feeding his children.<\/p>\n
He spoke as though the matter had already been settled.<\/p>\n
I remember how strangely calm he sounded.<\/p>\n
Two newborn babies were hungry.<\/p>\n
Their mother was dead.<\/p>\n
Their father had come for help.<\/p>\n
But Amos was concerned with whether I should enter another man's home.<\/p>\n
I tried to explain that Caleb Foster was not looking for company.<\/p>\n
He was looking for someone who could keep his children fed.<\/p>\n
Amos did not seem interested in the distinction.<\/p>\n
I reminded him that Caleb had lost his wife.<\/p>\n
He answered that such a loss did not make the arrangement acceptable.<\/p>\n
I could feel myself becoming angry.<\/p>\n
That frightened me.<\/p>\n
I had spent so much time trying to be agreeable in that house that I hardly recognized the sound of my own voice when I stopped.<\/p>\n
I asked him what he expected Caleb to do.<\/p>\n
Amos said the children belonged to their father.<\/p>\n
Their care was his concern.<\/p>\n
Not mine.<\/p>\n
I stared at him.<\/p>\n
I had no difficulty understanding the words.<\/p>\n
I had difficulty understanding how he could say them.<\/p>\n
I had held my own baby while she died.<\/p>\n
I knew the helplessness of watching a child suffer.<\/p>\n
And this man was talking about responsibility as though it were something that could be neatly divided between households.<\/p>\n
I said the twins had no mother.<\/p>\n
I needed him to understand that.<\/p>\n
Not because Caleb lacked a wife who could help him keep his home.<\/p>\n
Because the person who would ordinarily have nursed those children was gone.<\/p>\n
She would never come back.<\/p>\n
I knew exactly what that meant.<\/p>\n
Amos's face reddened.<\/p>\n
He repeated that the matter had nothing to do with me.<\/p>\n
I remember looking at him and wondering whether he truly believed that.<\/p>\n
Perhaps he did.<\/p>\n
Perhaps, to him, the world consisted of things that were his duty and things that were not.<\/p>\n
The trouble was that I did not see those boundaries in the same way.<\/p>\n
Not anymore.<\/p>\n
Before Ada's birth, I might have kept silent.<\/p>\n
I might have told myself that Amos was the master of his own household.<\/p>\n
That I was dependent on his generosity.<\/p>\n
That I should avoid offending him.<\/p>\n
But I had seen how quickly a baby could die.<\/p>\n
Those memories left little room for arguments about appearances.<\/p>\n
I turned toward Martha.<\/p>\n
I wanted my sister to say something.<\/p>\n
Anything.<\/p>\n
She knew what I had been enduring.<\/p>\n
She knew how recently Ada had died.<\/p>\n
She knew about the pain in my body.<\/p>\n
I had not hidden every sign of it from her.<\/p>\n
She also knew what it meant for newborn babies to go without enough milk.<\/p>\n
Surely she could say that the children mattered more than Amos's concerns.<\/p>\n
I watched her face.<\/p>\n
Her mouth moved slightly.<\/p>\n
For one moment, I believed she was going to speak.<\/p>\n
Then she looked down.<\/p>\n
She did not challenge him.<\/p>\n
She did not ask him to reconsider.<\/p>\n
She stood beside the stove, holding her apron.<\/p>\n
And I understood.<\/p>\n
Martha would not help me make this decision.<\/p>\n
I could not blame her for every choice her husband made.<\/p>\n
She had given me shelter.<\/p>\n
She had shown me kindness when I needed it.<\/p>\n
But in that moment, I felt something close between us.<\/p>\n
I had been waiting for her to defend what was right.<\/p>\n
She had been waiting for the argument to end.<\/p>\n
Those were two very different things.<\/p>\n
I looked back at Amos.<\/p>\n
I wanted to keep talking.<\/p>\n
There were so many things I could have said.<\/p>\n
I could have told him about my mornings at the basin.<\/p>\n
I could have described the milk I discarded.<\/p>\n
I could have asked him how he would feel if his own children were hungry.<\/p>\n
But I knew the answer I would receive.<\/p>\n
He had already told me.<\/p>\n
It was not my concern.<\/p>\n
I was angry with him.<\/p>\n
I was also angry with myself.<\/p>\n
For days, I had been asking why my body continued making food for a child who had died.<\/p>\n
Now I had heard about two living children who needed exactly what I could provide.<\/p>\n
And I had nearly allowed another person to decide whether that mattered.<\/p>\n
I thought of Ada.<\/p>\n
Her little mouth moving against my chest.<\/p>\n
Her breath catching.<\/p>\n
The doctor explaining what no one could change.<\/p>\n
I had not been able to save her.<\/p>\n
That truth would remain with me.<\/p>\n
But it did not mean I should turn away from every child I might be able to help.<\/p>\n
I looked toward the door again.<\/p>\n
Caleb Foster was gone.<\/p>\n
I could no longer hear his voice.<\/p>\n
I did not know how far he had traveled.<\/p>\n
I did not know what he would do next.<\/p>\n
I only knew he had left our house without the help his physician had told him to seek.<\/p>\n
And somewhere at Cedar Run Ranch, two babies were still hungry.<\/p>\n
I went to the spare room.<\/p>\n
I did not announce what I was going to do.<\/p>\n
I did not ask Amos to reconsider.<\/p>\n
I had heard his decision.<\/p>\n
Now I needed to make my own.<\/p>\n
When I closed the bedroom door, my hands were trembling.<\/p>\n
I stood beside the bed for a moment.<\/p>\n
I was frightened.<\/p>\n
I will not pretend otherwise.<\/p>\n
I knew what it meant to disobey Amos while living beneath his roof.<\/p>\n
He could refuse to let me return.<\/p>\n
He could decide that my place in the household was finished.<\/p>\n
Martha might not be able to change his mind.<\/p>\n
I had little money.<\/p>\n
I had no husband to protect me.<\/p>\n
My body was still weak after childbirth.<\/p>\n
The evening was bitterly cold.<\/p>\n
And Cedar Run Ranch was three miles away.<\/p>\n
I knew every one of those facts.<\/p>\n
I also knew that two babies needed milk.<\/p>\n
I began collecting my belongings.<\/p>\n
Two blouses.<\/p>\n
My shawl.<\/p>\n
A comb.<\/p>\n
My sewing things.<\/p>\n
Thomas's Bible.<\/p>\n
I placed them together because there was nothing there I could afford to lose.<\/p>\n
Then I reached into my pocket.<\/p>\n
I emptied the coins onto the bed.<\/p>\n
Two nickels.<\/p>\n
Two pennies.<\/p>\n
Twelve cents.<\/p>\n
I counted them, although the amount would not change.<\/p>\n
I had once shared a home with Thomas.<\/p>\n
We had expected a child.<\/p>\n
We had planned a future.<\/p>\n
Now everything I owned could be gathered in a few moments, and the money I possessed would fit in the palm of my hand.<\/p>\n
I looked at the coins for a long time.<\/p>\n
Twelve cents would not provide much protection.<\/p>\n
It would not buy me another home.<\/p>\n
It would not make the journey safe.<\/p>\n
But I had come to the end of asking what would happen to me if I helped.<\/p>\n
I needed to ask what would happen to those babies if I did not.<\/p>\n
The answer frightened me more.<\/p>\n
I gathered the coins.<\/p>\n
I wrapped my shawl around my shoulders.<\/p>\n
And I made the decision that Amos had already tried to make for me.<\/p>\n
I was going to Cedar Run Ranch.<\/p>\n
Source: life5.aubtu.biz<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n The man at the door was asking for help with two babies. I heard that before I learned anything else about him. I was still in the kitchen when his … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drama-sory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11233"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11253,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11233\/revisions\/11253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nClick here to continue reading: PART 4: I Walked Three Miles Through the Winter Night With Twelve Cents, Then Found a Father Holding Two Starving Babies<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"