Fever 1793

Eliza brings in Dr. Kerr, an educated physician from Scotland. Dr. Kerr quickly decides Mother has yellow fever, and he has to bleed her—according to another doctor, Dr. Rush, only bleeding can “‘save a patient this close to the grave’” (72). He takes 10 ounces of blood and tells Matilda to give her jalap and calomel to “‘purge’” her internal organs (72), then promises to return tomorrow. Mother finally awakens again and fusses until Matilda leaves the room—she still doesn’t want her daughter to contract the disease.

Dr. Kerr recommends that Matilda leave town with Grandfather. He also tells Grandfather to tie a yellow cloth outside the coffeehouse, marking it as a place touched by the fever. Matilda nearly throws a tantrum in her desire to stay with Mother, but Grandfather and Eliza insist she go. Eliza gives Matilda a package that was left by the door: a painting of a vase of flowers, along with a note from Nathaniel. He writes that Master Peale is barring off his home with family and assistants, including Nathaniel, in hopes that the fever won’t reach them. He promises that “We shall watch for balloons again, when this plague has passed” (75).

Grandfather arrives that afternoon with a sorry-looking wagon, a farmer driving and his wife and a baby up front. Grandfather acts overly cheerful, as if “headed for a lark instead of fleeing an epidemic” (76), and even dresses in his Army jacket and sword, with King George the parrot on his shoulder. As Grandfather promises to lead Matilda “‘beyond the lines of the dread and terrible enemy, Yellow Fever’” (77), the two leave home.

With a “half-starved horse” (78) pulling the wagon, it’s slow moving for Grandfather and Matilda, and Grandfather uses the ride as an opportunity to review Matilda’s “‘soldiering lessons’” (79). Both fall asleep until the wagon stops, and Matilda wakes to find four horsemen with muskets barring the path. They are guarding the entrance to Pembroke, and the doctor with them is inspecting anyone who enters to keep out the infected. Grandfather has trouble awakening and keeps coughing—he believes he’s “‘contracted a summer grippe’” (82). The guards are sure he has the fever, and the farmer promptly throws Matilda and Grandfather off his wagon without their belongings. The men tell Grandfather to go back to Philadelphia and that they can’t help him—they must “‘take care of our own’” (83). Grandfather “vow[s]” that, likewise, he “‘shall look after mine’” (83).

Matilda and Grandfather begin walking, but Grandfather soon starts trembling and suggests they rest—he falls asleep again as soon as he’s lying under a tree. When Matilda feels his forehead, it’s “hot and dripping” (84). While she’s scared, she tells herself not to cry—it “wouldn’t help anything” (84)—and instead takes Grandfather’s canteen and goes to look for water. She follows one of Grandfather’s lessons—look for willow trees and water will be nearby—and locates a stream, then some raspberry bushes. She picks the fruit and hopes Grandfather can catch a rabbit. Once they regain their strength, she tells herself, they can walk back to Philadelphia.

When Matilda returns to Grandfather, she’s relieved to see his eyes haven’t turned yellow, and he’s awake. He tells Matilda he’s “‘a fool,’” that he “‘should have paid more attention’” (87) to the seriousness of the situation. Matilda tells him they’ll move close to the stream tomorrow, and Grandfather agrees: “‘Whatever you say, Captain’” (87).

Matilda wakes in the morning and goes to the stream for more water. King George follows after her, irritating Matilda with his repetition of “‘pretty Mattie’” (88) and “‘Mattie child! Buy me rum!’” (89). She wishes she had acted “strong and calm” (89) around her sick mother instead of “blubbering like a baby” (89), and she wonders if Mother will worry when Grandfather doesn’t return to Philadelphia. Now starving, Matilda tries to catch fish in her petticoat. Just when she thinks she’s got one, King George flies at her, causing her to fall into the water and lose the fish.

Matilda returns to Grandfather with only water and berries, and though his eyes are “still clear” (92), he’s freezing despite the hot weather. She wants to make a fire but doesn’t know how to. Grandfather takes out a money pouch and tells her to find a farm and buy food and blankets. As soon as she approaches a farmhouse, a voice tells her to “‘go away!’” (93)—the people inside are afraid to catch the fever. Walking in the heat, having eaten nothing but berries for two days, Matilda is close to fainting when she finds a pear tree. She picks as many as she can and hurries back to Grandfather. She returns to the chestnut tree where Grandfather’s waiting and is suddenly freezing, hallucinating that the sun has become “a monstrous snowball” (95). She faints, “blackness” (95) consuming her.

Matilda wakes to a woman holding a candle above her, while a man nearby asks if she’s dead. She falls back to sleep, and “the fever fire[s]” her “dreams with terror” (97): she pictures Grandfather as a soldier, unable to recognize his own granddaughter, ordering his soldiers to shoot her. She finally wakes in a bed, her sheets and shift covered with a “foul-smelling black substance” (98). In the bed to her left, a young woman is asleep, and to her right is a corpse under a sheet. She lifts the fabric, worried she’ll find her Grandfather’s or Mother’s body, but it’s a woman she doesn’t know. Orderlies speaking French take the corpse away as Matilda falls back to sleep.

The next time Matilda wakes, she’s in a room as large and elegant as one in the Ogilvie mansion, with a great chandelier, but all other furniture removed to make room for the sick. The large woman Matilda saw earlier introduces herself as Mrs. Flagg and tells Matilda she’s “‘beat the Grim Reaper’” (99). Grandfather is waiting for her, and he doesn’t have the fever—he claims he carried Matilda all the way to the makeshift hospital. Matilda is relieved to learn her Grandfather’s recovered enough to “tell exaggerated stories and charm Mrs. Flagg” (100), and Matilda is well enough to enjoy a bowl of broth.

Grandfather arrives, and Matilda thinks he’s “never looked so handsome or brave” (100). Mrs. Flagg and Grandfather continue to flirt, and Mrs. Flagg tells Matilda she’s at Bush Hill—which prompts Matilda to try unsuccessfully to stand and leave. She’s heard that Bush Hill is “one step away from Hell” (101), a former mansion now full of “dead bodies and criminals” (101), but Mrs. Flagg assures her that “‘Mr. Stephen Girard […] has taken over and turned this into a right proper hospital’” (102).

Matilda already knows Mr. Girard, a rich French banker and merchant who frequents the coffeehouse. Mrs. Flagg explains that Mr. Girard took over the Bush Hill hospital, replaced the “‘slovenly devils’” (102) with a capable staff, and hired a French doctor, Dr. Deveze. Mrs. Flagg even insists that in contrast to the American doctors like Dr. Rush, “‘with his purges and bloodletting’” (103), it’s the French doctors who really know what they’re doing. 

Grandfather reveals that he rode back into Philadelphia to see Mother, but found their home “‘locked up tight’” (103) and assumed she headed to the Ludingtons’. He’s sent her a letter there, but Mrs. Flagg warns that it might take time to hear back—“‘the post has become most unreliable’” (104). Matilda, who is still sick, falls back to sleep.

Matilda spends “long days and nights” (105) in her sickbed at Bush Hill, where she listens to many sad stories from hospital staff, relatives, and Free African Society volunteers. They tell stories of children witnessing their parents’ deaths, of the dying begging for help while others pass them by, of thieves stealing from the sick, and of “good people” (106) who helped strangers without accepting payment. Even famous people such as Alexander Hamilton and Dr. Rush contracted the fever, although both survived.

On her tenth day at Bush Hill, Dr. Deveze inspects Matilda, noting the color of her eyes and tongue and making no mention of letting blood. He declares she’s well enough to move to the barn the next day. Matilda worriedly wonders, “What would happen to me?” (107), but Mrs. Flagg counsels her to focus on eating and regaining her strength.

Matilda is relieved to find the barn clean, full of recovering patients and lacking the “death stench of the hospital” (108). Grandfather checks on her daily but seems “uncomfortable” (108) spending too much time with the ill. He is busy managing food delivery, the burning of infected materials, and participating in meetings about how to care for the sick. Matilda even suspects Grandfather “secretly enjoy[s] the commotion” (108) and the chance to be useful. Matilda is still too weak to take part in such activities, but she does wonder how Mother, Eliza, and Nathaniel are doing.

After five full days in the barn, Matilda is strong enough to walk to the toilet by herself. Because no one can get in touch with Mother, a clerk announces Matilda will be sent to the orphanage. Grandfather finds the notion of his relative going to the orphanage “‘insulting’” (111). The annoyed clerk responds that Matilda and Grandfather can ride on a wagon headed for Philadelphia the next day. Grandfather flirts with Mrs. Flagg again, leaving her in “giggles that remind [Matilda] of the Ogilvie sisters” (112).

Mrs. Flagg gives Grandfather a tearful goodbye, and Grandfather and Matilda ride off in a wagon also carrying five “fever orphans” (113-14) who are heading to the orphanage. While Grandfather is up front, Matilda sits beside Mrs. Bowles, a woman who is “straight-backed” but has “kind eyes” (114). Mrs. Bowles observes that the epidemic “‘seem[s] to bring out the best and worst in the people around us’” (114). She asks how old Matilda is and whether she’s thought about helping the fever victims. Matilda wonders how she can help—she’s “‘just a girl’” (115)—then immediately regrets the words, as she’s been hoping to be treated “like a woman” (115) for so long.

Mrs. Bowles wants Matilda to stay and help with the orphans, but Matilda is sure Grandfather won’t agree—he needs Matilda to care for him if Mother is still away. Mrs. Bowles warns Matilda that she’ll be confined to her home because Philadelphia’s streets have become “‘more dangerous than your darkest nightmare’” (116). The wagon driver explains that there’s barely any food in the city and the post office is closed.

Matilda contemplates becoming a “‘servant or scullery maid’” (117), like the oldest of the orphans, Susannah, most likely will, but Matilda is determined that won’t be her fate. Instead she “daydream[s]” (118) of astonishing Mother by running the coffeehouse to perfection and building a dry-goods store next door. However, the wagon is entering the city, and Matilda’s fantasies are replaced with a much darker vision: an empty city, houses and stores barred, the heat wave still “like a bake oven” (118)—altogether, it’s “night in the middle of the day” (118). Matilda sees a man lying on the steps of a building and exclaims that they must help him, but the driver says he’s “‘past helping’” (118) and the “‘death cart’” will collect him soon (119). Matilda is shocked to learn people aren’t even holding funerals anymore—a few preachers in the city square simply pray for everyone at once.

Matilda is surprised to learn how much time has passed, as it’s now September 24. A few days of cooler weather slowed the number of deaths, but then both the heat and death count rose once more. They pass Potter’s Field, where most of the dead are now buried in layers, with no coffins. They reach the orphanage and the other passengers depart, with Mrs. Bowles telling Matilda to “‘take care’” (121).