Of the Fresh Earth
It started with a mild sore throat that spring,
along with unaccustomed lethargy,
a lingering cough, a hoarseness to his tone
which he attributed to having worked
the previous winter months surveying roads
from Pittstown to the Delaware. All men
who owned a settling right were called upon
to help, from time to time, with its construction.
The daily wage, one shilling sixpence, proved
welcome income in a spartan season.
But Diah had unwittingly brought back
a killer with his pay: diphtheria,
known in that distant age by many names—
throat distemper, children’s plague, cynanche.
A week’s rest, eel broth, canker root and honey
were all that Diah needed to recover.
But baby Rachel slowly choked, and all
that Doctor William Hooker Smith could do,
both as physician and as man of God,
was offer prayers for her immortal soul.
Little Walter did not understand
the reason why his siblings sobbed and bawled;
and in the doleful days and weeks that followed,
Wilmot took them all under his wing,
watching his parents mourn, each in their way.
Rachel went about her daily tasks,
grateful that the others had been spared.
Diah laid his daughter in the earth,
pursed his lips, took up his axe, and chopped
the little cradle into firewood.
NOTE: The chapter title Of the Fresh Earth comes from the poem “Home Burial” by Robert Frost.
COMING SOON: PART TWO, CHAPTER EIGHT
