The Baby River Angel

Chapter One


The makeshift raft, little more than a clump of brush, bobbed along in the ripples of the swift current close to the near bank of the river. When it was almost alongside the boat Birdie raked it in with his fishing pole, and the shallow reed basket lashed to two of the larger branches with a length of wild grape vine suddenly came alive. The two boys stared in fascination as he lifted a baby, its arms flailing, and gingerly pulled back a corner of the cocoon-like blanket to reveal the tiny face.
“Lordy, child,” Birdie said softly, “where’d you come from?”
“What is it, Daddy?” Birdie’s oldest boy asked.
“Why it’s a baby. Cain’t you see that?”
The boy looked momentarily chastened. Then he pushed closer. “Let me see it,” he said.
“Get the basket first. Set it down right there, in the bottom of the boat.”
The boy did his father’s bidding and Birdie very carefully lowered the delicate bundle back into the basket. The boy stooped over the squirming baby with an expression of awe and his brother, who had stayed back, crowded up beside him. Once within reach, the younger boy timidly lifted the edge of the blanket so that he could get a better look.
“Whose baby you think this is, Daddy?” the younger boy whispered.
“Now how would I know that? You seen it floating down the river same as I did.”
“I just wondered, is all.”
“Yeah, well . . . I just wouldn’t have any way of knowing. Sure seems like somebody was awful careless to let the little thing go floating off on such a flimsy little raft as that.”
The boys agreed. Yessir, it sure did look like somebody wasn’t taking very good care of the baby. How far upriver did he figure it had come from? Did he think maybe there was a nametag on it, like people looked for when they found a stray dog? What kind of baby did he guess it to be, a boy baby or a girl baby? It sure looked tiny, did he know how old it was? Did he suppose whoever lost it was on a picnic and forgot and left the baby in their picnic basket . . .?
“Now jest hold off with all your questions,” Birdie insisted. “I already told you, I don’t know any more about this baby than you do. All I know is it’s a good thing we seen it when we did.”
“How come you say that?” The older boy, again.
“Because it wouldn’t have lasted long on the river, that’s how come.”
Now the younger: “You mean it would have drownded?”
“Most likely, yes. If that little bit of a raft got tore apart on a stob or something. This basket might have floated for a bit, but sure not for long.”
Both boys were wide-eyed. Their daddy had just saved a baby from drowning and they had helped. Sobered by the weight of this reality, they sat quietly as their father turned the boat around and headed back down the river in the direction of the Cambria dock.
Back at the landing, Birdie gripped the basket firmly and climbed out of the boat while the boys held fast to the pilings. He rushed to Sam Gowdy’s bait shop.
“Sam,” he called, breathless and red-faced from exertion, “you gotta see this!”
Sam Gowdy was not a man to hurry. He took his time coming from the back of the shop. When he saw the child Birdie Wilson held in the basket his jaw dropped in disbelief. “Where ’n hell did you get a baby?” he demanded.
“She was floatin’ on the river,” Birdie said. “I swear she was, Sam, on a flimsy little raft of a thing that would’ve sunk and drowned her the first rock or stob it hit in the water.”
“The basket just setting on it?”
“It was tied on by a vine.”
“Anything unusual about the basket?”
“It looks real old.”
“What’d you do with the raft?
Birdie looked surprised. “We didn’t do nothing with it,” he said. “I guess it just floated off. It wasn’t nothing but a bunch of sticks. Think it might have been important?”
“Don’t really know, Birdie,” Sam Gowdy said. “It might have had some clues to where she came from.”
“Well I never thought about that,” Birdie said, almost apologetically. “Besides, we was busy just getting the baby and I was scared I’d drop her back in the water. What you think we oughta do, Sam?”
“We got to call the sheriff’s office. I suppose they’ll send somebody out for a case like this, though most of the time they don’t even know we’re here.”
Birdie agreed. Cambria would have been little more than a wide spot in the road, had it straddled a road instead of clinging to the river bank, and it barely registered with the rest of the county. The sheriff had never set foot there and sometimes it took a week to get a deputy. But Sam was right; a baby found floating on the Ohio River sure ought to get their attention.
Sam suggested that in the meantime they call Molly Hearst or one of the other Cambrian mothers who would know how to handle the baby until the authorities arrived and took her off their hands. Birdie did not disagree.
“Molly’s had two of her own,” Sam said. “A baby wouldn’t be anything new to her.”
Sam called the Fish and Fries Cafe where Molly Hearst waitressed. When he told her about the baby, she promised to come right away. The cafe wasn’t far from Sam’s shop and Molly arrived in minutes. She cooed lovingly over the baby, who stopped crying and smiled.
“Look at her little high-topped shoes,” Molly said. “I’ve never seen any like them before. She’s older than you’d think, being so tiny. I’d say probably nine or maybe ten months.” She promised the men that she’d get the baby warm and dry and well-fed, then she took the basket and rushed out the door.
Sam had not yet called the sheriff’s office.
“What do you think the county’s going to do with her?” Birdie Wilson asked.
“They must have somebody who’d take care of things like that.”
“I expect they’d label her Baby Jane Doe and put her right in the child welfare system.”
“I don’t think so, Birdie. They’d find out who she is and send her back.”
“Back where? Looks to me like somebody didn’t want her. You think they’d have floated her off down the river like that if they wanted her?”
Sam Gowdy, for one the very few times Birdie had ever witnessed, seemed unsure of himself. “I guess you could be right about that,” he said. “I just figured it was an accident that she got loose from somebody and floated away. You really think anybody could do that on purpose?”
“All I know is, if it was an accident they’d a been lookin’ all up and down the river. You seen or heard any kind of search goin’ on lately?”
“No . . . not lately.”
“You really want that pretty little baby stuck away in child welfare?”
“But I don’t see that we got any choice, Birdie. We got to call the law. Besides, we can’t take care of a baby.”
“Molly can. And some of the other women,” Birdie Wilson declared. “There ain’t any babies in Cambria anymore, which is one reason folks tend to get so disagreeable. But there’s still mothers who’d know what to do.”
Sam took a minute before answering. Birdie could see that he was giving ground. “Well, maybe we don’t have to call the law right away,” Sam finally said. “Somebody’ll come around looking for that baby anyway. We probably ought to let a few other people in on it, though, and that’ll cause a ruckus. No two people in this town can agree on anything.”
“You’re sure right about that, Sam.”
“I’ll call the mayor. Maybe he’d be able to pull everybody together on it.”
Sam called Town Hall. Mayor Johnny White heard him out and suggested that the two of them drop by and discuss whatever it was they had on their minds, given that Sam had made it sound particularly urgent.
Johnny White was not easily convinced. But he began to soften after he heard Birdie insist for the third time that the child welfare people would name the little one Baby Jane Doe. Birdie Wilson often wasn’t sure of himself, but on this issue he apparently held no doubt whatsoever.
“I do hate the thought of her getting moved around in foster homes,” the mayor said. “Father Jacob has told me often enough how hopeless that system is. She could get lost in it, if it’s as bad as he says.”
“That’s exactly what I been telling Sam,” Birdie said, with a pleased expression on his face. “They’d call her Baby Jane Doe.”
Sam Gowdy said, “You already mentioned that, Birdie. Several times. Let’s let the mayor handle this his way.”
Johnny White rubbed his chin stubble in an effort to look thoughtful. He liked to think of himself as a rational man who considered all the angles carefully before making a decision. He was confident that this was one reason he was well into his third term as mayor. Other Cambrians knew that nobody else would take the job.
“The whole town would have to be in on it,” the mayor said. “Now can either of you recall a single thing everybody in Cambria has ever agreed on?”
Birdie allowed that he hadn’t.
Sam Gowdy took a different tack: “You have a whole lot of influence on the good people of Cambria, Johnny. Given how they’re all most likely going to look on this little baby and see how precious she is and considering how Father Jacob has pretty much made the child welfare department seem like it was run by the devil hisself, you might be able to pull this off.”
“But what about those who don’t go to Father Jacob’s church?” the mayor asked.
“I doubt that that would matter too much, Johnny,” Sam argued. “Most everybody’s probably heard him or one of his parishioners talk about it one time or another. I sure have.”
Birdie nodded. “Nobody wants her called Baby Jane Doe,” he said.
The mayor still was not convinced. “I can just hear the folks down in the Canepatch claiming this is some kind of silliness their neighbors up on the hill dreamed up, which is reason enough for them to be against it,” he said. “Or the other way around. We’ve got too many divisions in this town. The Methodists don’t trust their Catholic brethren, the Democrats don’t trust the Republicans, the poor people don’t like the rich people—such few as there are—the fishermen don’t like the guys with the big boats . . . If folks start taking sides we’ll never pull it off.”
Sam Gowdy: “But like I just said, Johnny, you have a lot of influence.”
Johnny White sighed, signaling that he was about to give in on a point he still was unsure of. He looked squarely at Sam and then Birdie and said, “Okay, if the two of you will back me up on this I’ll see if I can get the town behind us. Once I start something, I don’t like to fail.”
On Friday night, Mayor Johnny White announced, there would be an important meeting at Town Hall. All Cambrians were expected to be there. Word spread fast.
When the time arrived, the Town Hall meeting room was filled almost to overflowing.
Molly Hearst was there early, with Jay and Justine and the newest Cambrian, now snugly dressed and well fed and apparently satisfied. Birdie and Edna Wilson and their two boys came right behind Molly and her kids, followed closely by Sam Gowdy and his wife, Alma. It was the best turnout for a town meeting anyone could remember. And as usual, people were clumped in small cliques, those in one group eyeing the others warily.
Sam Gowdy whispered to Johnny White that the big crowd proved how much influence the mayor had over the citizens of Cambria. The mayor was clearly pleased. Sam was actually thinking to himself that the big crowd proved that Cambrians had little else to do, but that was a thought he’d wisely keep to himself.
Johnny White rapped on a table with his knuckles to gain attention. The room grew quiet and he got straight to the point. “You all know by now about the baby Birdie Wilson and his boys found floating on the river,” he announced loudly from the front of the room. “That’s what we’re here to talk about. Molly’s taking care of the child for now, so it’s in good hands.”
There was a stirring among those assembled as people turned to see Molly Hearst and the baby. Molly looked as proud as she might have had she just given birth to the little girl herself.
“Now there are some things we have to consider,” Johnny White began again. “First of all, is there anybody who feels strongly that we ought to bring the law in on this right away?”
“You think we may get in trouble if we don’t?” someone called from the back of the room, a group on the right. There was more stirring.
Johnny White held up both hands to quiet the crowd. “Now I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t see how we’d be breaking any law,” he said. “Is anybody here a lawyer?”
From the back of the room, in a group on the left: “Must be some law that says you have to report it when somebody abandons a baby.”
“Well now, we don’t know that she was abandoned. Who was that? Marylee? Okay, now, Marylee, since we don’t know that she was abandoned, somebody may be looking for her right now. Wouldn’t it be better for us to keep the little tyke safe and sound and have it here for its mama if she should show up?”
Marylee Tipsworth raised her hand. “Oh, I don’t have any problem with that, Johnny,” she said. “I was just saying that if she was abandoned we probably had ought to report it to the law. That’s all.”
Johnny White smiled at Marylee. “Point well taken,” he said.
Jake Garner, among those in a small gathering closer to the front, had been shuffling his feet. “I got something to say, Johnny,” he said loudly.
“You have the floor, Jake.”
“I don’t want this to be taken wrong, you know, but what I been thinking is that it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if we kept that little baby and let her grow up right here in Cambria. It’s a real good place for kids, and a lot of us are getting along in age. There aren’t going to be too many more children born in Cambria the way things are going. We’d be doing this little girl a favor and ourselves as well if we kept her. That’s what I think.”
“You stated your case very well, Jake,” the mayor said. “Is there any more discussion?”
“I think we ought to call the sheriff.”
Johnny White looked straight at Max Barnes, standing directly in front of him, not clearly associating himself with any particular group. “Are you set in your position, Max, or would you grant a little wiggle room?”
Max brought himself up to his full five feet, three inches in height and glared at Johnny White. “You sound like you’re taking a position, Mayor,” he protested. “I thought you was supposed to be neutral. I’m a reasonable man, you know that. But I can’t see how we can justify not calling the law in on this. If the baby had been hurt or, God forbid, drowned, we sure would have.”
“I can’t quarrel with that,” Johnny White said. “Anybody else want to state an opinion?”
“They’d call her Baby Jane Doe,” Birdie Wilson called out from the back of the room, in the faction on the left. “That wouldn’t be right.”
Max Barnes slumped, and appeared to shrink an inch or so in height. He did a full about-face so he could see Birdie but his view was blocked by a tall girl standing behind him. “You sure about that, Birdie?” Max said, trying to look around the girl. “I’d think they would find out who she is, you know, and call her by her real name. Don’t you think?”
“How they gonna do that, Max? She sure ain’t carryin’ no driver’s license.”
Max turned back toward Johnny White. “You think he’s right, Mayor? They’d call her Baby Jane Doe?”
“Well, this is the child welfare people we’re talking about. They seem to go by the book. If their rules say she should be called Baby Jane Doe, I’m pretty sure they would call her Baby Jane Doe, Max.”
“I don’t like that,” Max said. “I just wish we could be sure . . .”
Mayor Johnny White: “That sounds like wiggle room to me. Anybody else have anything to say?”
Margie Zielinski, in the group at the front, raised her hand and was acknowledged by the mayor.
“I’d like to hear what Father Jacob thinks about all this,” she said.
“Very good idea, Margie. Father Jacob?”
Father Jacob stood. Like Max, he appeared not to be a part of any particular clique. He looked about the room slowly and waited for quiet, as if to give his words more impact. Then he said, “I doubt there’s many Cambrians who don’t know what I think of the child welfare department. In my opinion, saving a child from that vile system would be the Christian thing to do.”
The priest sat down and Johnny White nodded approval. “Is Pastor Mike here?” he inquired. “Ah, yes, there you are. Would you like to say anything?”
Pastor Mike, also separating himself from any of the groups, remained seated. “Well, I don’t want to make a habit of agreeing with Father Jacob,” he said loudly, “but I don’t think God would condemn us for doing what’s best for one of the least of His children.”
Johnny White: “Anyone else?”
No response.
“Okay then. We can inquire in good time about missing children and all that, because we want to do the right thing. But I’ve talked to many of you already and I know you have different views on how we ought to handle this, but you all seem to agree that we don’t want to see this innocent baby stuck away in child welfare somewhere.”
Sam Gowdy, who rarely said a word at a town meeting, cleared his throat loudly and raised a hand. Johnny White nodded recognition.
“I’ve been thinking about this all afternoon,” Sam Gowdy said. “It may be a good while before we know this little baby’s real name. It seems to me like we ought to give her a name ourselves, so’s we can talk about her with one another and call her something besides baby.”
Johnny White: “Anybody object to that?”
Murmuring in the crowd, but no response.
Sam Gowdy held up his hand again. Again, Johnny White nodded recognition.
“What I was thinking,” Sam Gowdy said, “is she came to us like a little baby river angel. I move we name her Angel.”
The murmur from the audience grew louder. Those in the group at the back of the room, on the right, began to whisper among themselves. Johnny White acted quickly. “If there’s no objection, Sam’s motion is so approved,” he proclaimed. “The little baby that Birdie and his boys pulled out of the Ohio River and saved, as long as we have her here in Cambria, will be known as Angel.”
“Is Molly gonna keep her?”
“I didn’t see who asked that question,” the mayor said. “But the answer is yes, for now. Molly’s agreed to take care of her here in the beginning. But over the long haul, depending on whether we keep her for just a little while or have her for a long time, everybody’s going to need to pitch in. Anybody have a problem with that?”
The room was quiet.
“Okay, then. We’ll start by taking up a collection right here tonight. Drop in what you can to help Molly pay for the baby’s food and get her the clothes and other things she needs. We’ll develop an organized plan in a day or so—assuming nobody comes along looking for little Angel.”
With that pronouncement, the mayor happily adjourned the meeting. A faction at a time, everybody gathered around Molly to see the baby. Johnny White set a wastebasket on a chair and made a show of dropping in a five-dollar bill. Sam Gowdy put in some carefully folded bills and Birdie’s two boys came forward and emptied their pockets of change. The Baby River Angel Fund was off to a good start.
Many of the Cambrians stayed around late into the night. Baby Angel was the most exciting thing to happen in town since most could remember, and those within every clique had ideas they felt obligated to share. Molly finally said she needed to get the child home to bed, leaving some of the townspeople disappointed that they hadn’t yet had a chance to hold the newest Cambrian. Mayor Johnny White stayed to the very end, accepting congratulations from many of his constituents and patiently hearing the concerns of others who were more guarded.
To his great relief, the mayor sensed no unified division. Hill folks and Canepatch citizens went both ways, enthusiastic and cautious. The varied attitudes notwithstanding, the mayor recognized that this night was the beginning of a new chapter in Cambria’s history.