Page 75 of Calling on the Matchmaker
If so, it was working.
The window with the dingy curtains hanging in a broken windowpane was open a crack. She’d been in the same apartment since arriving earlier ... tending to several sick children. They didn’t have cholera, but they’d been in a wretched condition.
Maybe he needed to go up and see how she was faring.
The group of men surrounding him outside the tenementhad swelled as more and more arrived home from work and worried over where the cholera would attack next, the unsuspecting new victims. The doctors had advised everyone to avoid exposure to the damp weather, to stop eating fish and vegetables, and to avoid large gatherings.
The instructions had been met with much scoffing since they couldn’t do any of those things.
“There has to be more we can do to help the people,” said the Clabber Alley leader. “Saint Riley, you got some ideas?”
Riley had been mulling over the options every time he came to provide assistance. Some of the ideas, like creating a better sewage system, would have to wait until he was elected as mayor. Even then, the task would be difficult since a large majority of the population was apathetic toward the poor and didn’t want to pay more in taxes to create a sanitary method of disposing of sewage.
The same way the poor were apathetic toward the Black folks....
Why couldn’t everyone put aside their prejudices and embrace all people?
Ever since Big Jim had returned to the wagon shop somber and silent after having failed to help save his pastor and several of the pastor’s children from cholera, Riley hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the unfairness of everything. Here he was, helping poor immigrants find a way to survive cholera and have better lives, but he was doing nothing to advocate for the Black folks—free or enslaved. They deserved more too.
Finola’s words from the campaign office had haunted him since the day she’d spoken them:“Onegroup cannot excuse the suffering of another because it makes life easier for them.”
Deep inside, he knew she was right. The problem was, what was he going to do about it?
All he knew was that with cholera becoming a bigger problem every day, he couldn’t delay implementing programs tohelp. He had to start something now. And he planned to address the sewage problem first. The filth was everywhere—garbage in piles behind buildings, shallow pools of disposal in public areas, and muddy thoroughfares mixed with livestock waste.
The city council had allocated some money for the purpose of cleansing the city. But they’d taken little action. He would petition them to release the funds to aid his clean-up efforts.
“With spring on the way,” he said, “the fumes will only get worse.”
His predication was met with nods of agreement.
Riley pushed forward with part of his plan. “I suggest we cart away the waste and sewage to the city limits. If we can eliminate some of the noxious air people are breathing, maybe we can slow the spread.”
“Aye,” came a chorus of agreement.
“I’ll get permission from the Board of Aldermen for safe places to dispose of the waste. In the meantime, we need to find carts for hauling it away and come up with a rotation of volunteers willing to lend a hand.”
More nods and murmurs met his suggestion.
“We’ll also instruct residents to clean their homes as often and as thoroughly as possible.” Such efforts would be difficult. He knew from his own family’s tenement how hard it was with so many people living together. Clean water wasn’t easily accessible to combat the constant accumulation of mud dragged in from the street and coal dust produced from the cast-iron stoves.
At the sound of a woman’s mournful wail from the cracked window above, Riley paused, the hairs rising on the back of his neck. Something had happened. And an urgency swelled within him, the same prodding he felt whenever he saw someone who needed rescuing.
Without concluding the plans with the men, he dashed intothe tenement and raced up the two flights of stairs to the apartment. The door was ajar and the wailing was louder, more heartbroken.
Riley pushed his way inside to the sight of the young mother, a recently arrived Irish immigrant, kneeling on the floor, clutching a baby in her arms, rocking back and forth and sobbing.
Finola was beside her, a hand on the woman’s back. Her gaze was stricken, and her face was pale.
The baby had obviously died. And from the listlessness of the two other little children lying on blankets on the floor close by, Riley had the feeling death would call again soon. They were too weak from their hunger and the ship voyage to survive whatever illness they’d caught.
An ache lodged in Riley’s chest. He hated to see the loss. The family had already suffered enough. But at this point, Finola had done what she could.
He approached quietly and touched her shoulder.
Tears streaked her cheeks, and she didn’t move, didn’t look at him.
“Finola?” He hesitated, then brushed the pad of his thumb down her cheek, wiping at one of the lines of tears.
