Nancy got up and handed him a tea towel from the sideboard. “Besides the fact that you’re soaked to the bone, we had an incident with one of the beds upstairs. The slats fell out.”
He took the towel and wiped his face. “I’ll get some dry clothes on and see to fixing that.” Then he noticed Alma. He looked at Nancy, his brow furrowed.
Nancy made the introductions. “This is Alma. She’s Mrs. Weaver’s lifelong friend and our new boarder.”
“Welcome to the house,” Seth said, his expression relaxing. “You picked a doozy of a time to come, but you’re always welcome. Now, if you ladies will excuse me.” He headed down the hall before anyone could reply.
Nancy smiled back at Mrs. Weaver and Alma. “See there, he doesn’t mind a bit. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll see if I can help him get changed.”
“So she was hidden in the blanket box?” Seth asked after the bed was repaired and everyone but Faith and Nancy had retired for the night.
“Virginia was so afraid Alma would be beaten and sent away that she felt she had to hide her. Isn’t that terrible?”
“It is. Sadly, I know it’s widely accepted behavior. We have a lot of prejudice in this country, and the Indian wars over the years have only served to make whites question the need for any person of color. Just last week, a Chinese man was foundseverely beaten behind one of the saloons.” Seth sipped his cup of hot chocolate.
“People are cruel.” Faith knew this from patients she’d cared for on her hospital training rounds.
For several minutes, no one said anything more. Resolution was a long way off, and they all seemed to feel the burden of this in their silence.
“Thank you for the hot chocolate,” Seth said. “I finally feel thawed.”
“I wish it would stop raining,” Nancy said again as she began to gather the cups. “Everything is so damp and cold. I can’t seem to get warm enough, no matter what I wear.”
Seth grinned. “I’ll keep you warm.”
Faith laughed. “I believe that’s my cue to leave you two.” She got to her feet. “I hope you know how much I appreciate your acceptance of Alma. And for that matter, me. I sometimes ponder the choices I’ve made and wonder if I’m doing wrong by living the life of a white woman.” She had given Nancy permission to share the truth of her birth with Seth, especially now that he was family.
“You are equally white and Cayuse,” Nancy replied. “I see nothing wrong with choosing one or the other. I would see nothing wrong if you wanted to live as both, although I know the world would never accept that and brand you Indian alone.”
“It’s true,” Seth replied. “I think you can help the most people with your medical training, and that means continuing to pass as white. Otherwise I’m afraid all opportunities would be closed to you.”
“I know you’re right. I look at the laws and the problems the Indian people are facing. They have so few who will advocate for them. Although I did meet a woman in Colorado a fewyears back. Her name is Helen Hunt Jackson. We became fast friends when she learned I was studying to become a physician. She had lost two sons, one to diphtheria and one to a brain disease.”
“How awful.” Nancy rubbed her growing belly. “I don’t think I could bear such a thing.”
“She is a remarkable woman, but her pain was evident. Still, she was troubled by the treatment of the Indians, and last year she attended a lecture in Boston where she heard the Ponca Indian Chief Standing Bear describe the government’s removal of the Ponca in Nebraska. She wrote to me, knowing that I held great interest in the matter of Indian affairs. She was heartsick at all that had happened to the Indians. The government had been cruel. Many starved to death, and others were beaten and abused. It was then that she decided to take up the Indian cause full-time. She wrote to tell me she plans to pen a book that will detail the terrible things that have been done.”
Nancy’s face lit up. “Then perhaps, dear cousin, that is exactly what you are here to do. Didn’t you tell me you were speaking to a group of donors next week? Men who will donate large sums of money to the medical college?”
“Yes. But I won’t be speaking about the problems between Indians and whites.”
Nancy smiled. “Maybe you should. Maybe as a physician, you can speak to the fact that we are no different. I remember my mother working on a poor Indian woman. She had been injured in a fall, and I remember my mother pointing out that her blood was no different than ours—that her internal organs and bones were made just as ours are.”
“It’s true. I’ve done many dissections on Indian bodies as well as whites. There is no difference inside. We are the same.Blacks and Chinese as well. As far as science has proven to me, once you peel away the outer skin, we are basically the same.”
“So maybe you need to work that into your speech. While you defend the need for female doctors, maybe that tidbit of knowledge could be shared as well.”
“I think Nancy makes a good point,” Seth chimed in. “Maybe with your education and knowledge of the body, you will be able to persuade others to reconsider their opinions. After all, other doctors know the truth as well.”
Faith smiled. “You might have a point there. I’ll give it some thought.”
“Perhaps Mrs. Jackson can even offer you advice on how to approach your audience,” Nancy said.
“I’m sure she could. She truly is a remarkable woman. I hope you get to meet her one day.”
Such thoughts filled Faith’s dreams that night, and the next morning as she made her bed, she continued to ponder what Seth and Nancy had suggested. The idea behind speaking about being a female doctor was to raise financial support for the college. If she expressed her own feelings against racial prejudices by using her educational experiences, she had a feeling it would only defeat the first purpose. Yet how could she stand by and do nothing?
A light rapping sounded on her door. “Come in.” She plumped the pillow and waited to see who it was.
