Chapter 4
Scarlet Fever

Steam from William's tea fogged the window. He looked into the leaves. He could never see shapes or fortunes in the leaves like his father could. His father saw wedding rings, and big buildings, and tall strangers and far away places in the leaves. These were Oyoywattee tea leaves. William and little Alice Maud had laughed over that name every morning before she got ill.

"Oyoywattee drinkin' there, Papa?" she'd say between spoonfuls of her porridge.

"Oyoywattee talking about, little girl? Anybody can see it is a cup of tea."

"Oyoywattee tea!" The sound made her laugh every time.

He looked at the sky for signs of weather. If it got bad he would have to buy more coal. But he might get work shovelling snow. Iris had been upstairs tending Alice Maud these past five days. This morning more of the child's skin came off in the bed. At first they had not known what was wrong with her. There were so many plagues in the city. But when Lettie next door saw her, she knew it was scarlet fever.

"I'd know that look anywhere," she said. "The skin turns red as a cooked lobster and then peels off."

William knew his child might die. He also knew he could not get her in the hospital. It was full of people who had typhoid and scarlet fever and la grippe. Stretchers were laid out all over the floors with people lying on them. Nurses would steal a stretcher from under one child and slide it under someone worse off.

St. John's had a higher death rate than any town in England. There wasn't a hearse for hire in all the city. You saw one rolling down every hill. Gangs of children gaped at the shiny black carriages and ebony horses. They loved the plumes of black feathers on the horses' heads, and the silver breath streaming from the animals' nostrils. After a hearse passed, the children would play "funeral" on the street all morning.

Iris had hung a sheet dipped in disinfectant in Alice Maud's doorway. Last night she had come down to sit with William near the stove. He thought how tired her eyes were, but he didn't tell her. He gave her a bowl of bread with milk and cod liver oil warmed on the stove. It was for Alice Maud but she wouldn't eat it.

"You have it," he told Iris. "I'll put a spoonful of molasses on it."

She took the bowl, but would not let him give her the molasses. There was a shortage this winter in Barbados. It was expensive. He told her Tom Kelly had promised him a place on the snow clearing gang next time they were called out.

This morning he let her sleep in. He sat down with his tea at the kitchen table. The pine wood showed through the dark red stain where he always rested his elbows as he read the paper. Iris's uncle had made the table. It had a little drawer decorated with a beaded edge. The nails were all hand-forged.