American library books ยป Other ยป Short Fiction by Ernest Hemingway (best free ebook reader for android .txt) ๐Ÿ“•

Read book online ยซShort Fiction by Ernest Hemingway (best free ebook reader for android .txt) ๐Ÿ“•ยป.   Author   -   Ernest Hemingway



1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ... 61
Go to page:
through the woods from the bay. In Our Time Chapter I

Everybody was drunk. The whole battery was drunk going along the road in the dark. We were going to the Champagne. The lieutenant kept riding his horse out into the fields and saying to him, โ€œIโ€™m drunk, I tell you, mon vieux. Oh, I am so soused.โ€ We went along the road all night in the dark and the adjutant kept riding up alongside my kitchen and saying, โ€œYou must put it out. It is dangerous. It will be observed.โ€ We were fifty kilometers from the front, but the adjutant worried about the fire in my kitchen. It was funny going along that road. That was when I was a kitchen Corporal.

Indian Camp

At the lake shore there was another rowboat drawn up. The two Indians stood waiting.

Nick and his father got in the stern of the boat and the Indians shoved it off and one of them got in to row. Uncle George sat in the stern of the camp rowboat. The young Indian shoved the camp boat off and got in to row Uncle George.

The two boats started off in the dark. Nick heard the oarlocks of the other boat quite a way ahead of them in the mist. The Indians rowed with quick choppy strokes. Nick lay back with his fatherโ€™s arm around him. It was cold on the water. The Indian who was rowing them was working very hard, but the other boat moved further ahead in the mist all the time.

โ€œWhere are we going, Dad?โ€ Nick asked.

โ€œOver to the Indian camp. There is an Indian lady very sick.โ€

โ€œOh,โ€ said Nick.

Across the bay they found the other boat beached. Uncle George was smoking a cigar in the dark. The young Indian pulled the boat way up the beach. Uncle George gave both the Indians cigars.

They walked up from the beach through a meadow that was soaking wet with dew, following the young Indian who carried a lantern. Then they went into the woods and followed a trail that led to the logging road that ran back into the hills. It was much lighter on the logging road as the timber was cut away on both sides. The young Indian stopped and blew out his lantern and they all walked on along the road.

They came around a bend and a dog came out barking. Ahead were the lights of the shanties where the Indian bark-peelers lived. More dogs rushed out at them. The two Indians sent them back to the shanties. In the shanty nearest the road there was a light in the window. An old woman stood in the doorway holding a lamp.

Inside on a wooden bunk lay a young Indian woman. She had been trying to have her baby for two days. All the old women in the camp had been helping her. The men had moved off up the road to sit in the dark and smoke out of range of the noise she made. She screamed just as Nick and the two Indians followed his father and Uncle George into the shanty. She lay in the lower bunk, very big under a quilt. Her head was turned to one side. In the upper bunk was her husband. He had cut his foot very badly with an ax three days before. He was smoking a pipe. The room smelled very bad.

Nickโ€™s father ordered some water to be put on the stove, and while it was heating he spoke to Nick.

โ€œThis lady is going to have a baby, Nick,โ€ he said.

โ€œI know,โ€ said Nick.

โ€œYou donโ€™t know,โ€ said his father. โ€œListen to me. What she is going through is called being in labor. The baby wants to be born and she wants it to be born. All her muscles are trying to get the baby born. That is what is happening when she screams.โ€

โ€œI see,โ€ Nick said.

Just then the woman cried out.

โ€œOh, Daddy, canโ€™t you give her something to make her stop screaming?โ€ asked Nick.

โ€œNo. I havenโ€™t any anaesthetic,โ€ his father said. โ€œBut her screams are not important. I donโ€™t hear them because they are not important.โ€

The husband in the upper bunk rolled over against the wall.

The woman in the kitchen motioned to the doctor that the water was hot. Nickโ€™s father went into the kitchen and poured about half of the water out of the big kettle into a basin. Into the water left in the kettle he put several things he unwrapped from a handkerchief.

โ€œThose must boil,โ€ he said, and began to scrub his hands in the basin of hot water with a cake of soap he had brought from the camp. Nick watched his fatherโ€™s hands scrubbing each other with the soap. While his father washed his hands very carefully and thoroughly, he talked.

โ€œYou see, Nick, babies are supposed to be born head first but sometimes theyโ€™re not. When theyโ€™re not they make a lot of trouble for everybody. Maybe Iโ€™ll have to operate on this lady. Weโ€™ll know in a little while.โ€

When he was satisfied with his hands he went in and went to work.

โ€œPull back that quilt, will you, George?โ€ he said. โ€œIโ€™d rather not touch it.โ€

Later when he started to operate Uncle George and three Indian men held the woman still. She bit Uncle George on the arm and Uncle George said, โ€œDamn squaw bitch!โ€ and the young Indian who had rowed Uncle George over laughed at him. Nick held the basin for his father. It all took a long time.

His father picked the baby up and slapped it to make it breathe and handed it to the old woman.

โ€œSee, itโ€™s a boy, Nick,โ€ he said. โ€œHow do you like being an interne?โ€

Nick said, โ€œAll right.โ€ He was looking away so as not to see what his father was doing.

โ€œThere. That gets it,โ€ said his father and put something into the basin.

Nick didnโ€™t look at it.

โ€œNow,โ€ his father said,

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ... 61
Go to page:

Free e-book: ยซShort Fiction by Ernest Hemingway (best free ebook reader for android .txt) ๐Ÿ“•ยป   -   read online now on website american library books (americanlibrarybooks.com)

Comments (0)

There are no comments yet. You can be the first!
Add a comment