The Last Days of Dogtown

saw the African and what she took to be a corpse, she pulled back. A moment later, Easter flung open the door.

“Oh, dear me,” she wailed. “Oh, the poor creature.”

“She’s not dead,” Cornelius said.

“Bring her right inside.”

Louisa frowned mightily at the prospect of such a scene and smell in her public room. By midmorning, they had taken her to the workhouse, which is where she woke up.

Someone removed her shirt and she felt warm water, then cold water and a thin garment that was almost an insult in the chill of the room. She was rolled from side to side onto a hard bed, and covered with a rough blanket that provided no warmth or comfort. Voices echoed around her, near and far.

Ruth wondered how she was a part of this tumult and then remembered the way that beach roses fold in upon themselves at night, and slept. She woke up in darkness, unsure if she was dreaming or thinking. A hand touched her forehead, as warm as sunlight, as light as paper. Or maybe that was part of a dream.

After a day, or two, or perhaps even three, Ruth’s eyes opened again. It was dark but t

here was a candle somewhere behind her and she realized where she was. She had finally been relegated to the bottommost rung of life on Cape Ann, a final holding pen for the old and infirm who had neither money nor children. The windows rattled and sent a draft strong enough to ruffle the sheet on Ruth’s chest. She closed her eyes until morning when she found Easter sitting beside her, rummaging in her basket.

“How are you today, dearie?” she asked, without the slightest expectation of any response. When she glanced

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over and saw that Ruth’s eyes were open, she jumped to her feet. “Oh my goodness gracious,” she exclaimed. “Look at you. And they said there wasn’t a prayer. Well! Didn’t I just know better? Didn’t I just? I’ll get you up to snuff in quick order. I’ll get some of this broth in you, and then we’ll see who’s doomed and who’s not, eh? Eh?”

The beaming pleasure on Easter’s face was almost too much for Ruth to bear, and she closed her eyes again as Easter lifted the covers and set to cleaning her up again.

“You ain’t near as bad off as them others,” she said.

“You’ve got me.” Within the hour, Easter had gotten her to swallow some of the soup she’d brought, and recounted the story of her rescue by the dogs and Cornelius. Then she leaned in and told what she knew about the two other residents of the place. “Mistress Woe over there, her daughter just died without leaving her a grandchild or anything else to speak of. They found her on the floor of her room, too,”

Easter whispered. “Town clerk sold her two sticks of furniture and whatnots, and that’s paying for a little extra food and a woman to wash her bottom. She’s been here a month.” Easter bit her tongue before finishing the thought that it don’t look like she was going to die before the money ran out.

“Down there,” Easter pointed to a screen near the far wall, “is a young feller they found under the docks, robbed of everything and bleeding from a bad cut on his head. No one knows his name, or which ship he came in on.” The doctor predicted his death within the week, which was fine with the matron: with only the pittance from the town for his support, she had to swab the sailor down herself.

Compared to those poor souls, Ruth got treated like

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royalty. Easter came to spoon-feed her broth and tea and gossip every morning, slipping the matron a few coins for an extra blanket and the promise to call her if Ruth took a bad turn. And she’d pressed Judy Rhines into an hour of service during the evening, when Easter could not leave the tavern.

Judy arrived at dusk to wash Ruth’s hands and face, and feed her some milk toast and egg. Then she’d sit beside her and read softly from the newspaper.

Ruth wondered if she knew this woman with the

spectacles and the sweet voice, but she could not get her thoughts to rest on any one thing for more than a moment at a time. Her attention flitted from the ragged breath of the man behind the screen to the nasal whine of the elderly lady across the room, to a memory of a stone well placed, a meal once eaten, the dog. She trolled her mind for words to thank the little woman (Easter, whose name returned to her from time to time) who wiped her chin, washed her bottom, and fed her, all with such good cheer.

Ruth was not too alarmed by her inability to find words to express her ideas or urges. Last summer, lying among the dogs, she had been unable to summon the word for “cloud”

or “itch.” It had not mattered to her then: her voice had always seemed out-of-tune to her own ear. It had been a relief to become more and more mute. But she did want to thank Easter, and the other woman. And the man who brought her, the tall one. And what of the tan dog? Where was she?

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