Fever 1793

The next morning, Matilda leaves Grandfather to sleep and regain his strength, and gives herself a bath. Despite the dismal circumstances, she “nearly [has] fun” (131) gardening in her nightclothes as she waits for water to heat, and the bath feels “like a special occasion” (131). She can’t put on her dirty clothes again, and all her others are still in the farmer’s wagon, so she must wear some of her mother’s clothes, which “fit better than I had imagined” (132).

Matilda wakes Grandfather and is worried to see his chest “rattl[ing]” and his complexion “the color of spoiled cream” (132). Matilda makes a soup from the few vegetables she has left and encourages Grandfather to bathe. They need to find bread and meat, but Grandfather thinks it’s safer to “‘stick to home,’” at least until “‘we don’t have a choice’” (135). Matilda waters the garden all afternoon, but Grandfather is too sick to help.

Matilda is ecstatic to find six potatoes and thinks she’s never “‘seen anything as beautiful’” (135). That night, Matilda sleeps downstairs on the floor to avoid Grandfather’s snoring, and she is proud to think she’s “managed rather well on my own” (137). She reads a Bible passage before falling asleep—a habit she intends to keep her entire life, even when she becomes “so rich I would have a library full of novels to choose from” (137).

Matilda is dreaming of a feast when she wakes to a footstep near the window and two unknown voices. She sees one man inside and another climbing in from the window, and deduces from their conversation that they’re planning to look for hidden valuables. She tries to creep toward the window, hoping she can climb out before they see her and scare them off from outside the house, but she gets angry when one thief refers to Grandfather’s sword as “‘a piece of junk’” (141).

The taller thief plays with the sword, swiping it close to Matilda’s neck and causing her to scream. Matilda runs out the back door as the thieves chase after her; the tall one knocks her to the ground, picks her up, and carries her back inside. He wants Matilda to tell him where the silver and strongbox are, but she spits at him and he slaps her. Matilda tells him all their valuables have already been stolen, but before he can hit her again, they hear a noise upstairs.

Grandfather soon appears with his rifle pointed at the tall man and the short man escapes out the window. Grandfather shoots at the tall one, but his misses and the thief attacks Grandfather. Matilda grabs Grandfather’s sword and strikes the thief in the shoulder, but the man has already hit Grandfather’s head against the floor, and Grandfather’s eyes are closed.

Matilda tells the thief to “‘Get out of my house, before I cut out your heart’” (146). When the man hurries out the window, she runs after him for a block before deciding she must return to Grandfather. Grandfather is sitting up but struggling to speak; he tells Mattie she’s “‘a fighter’” and apologizes for “‘leaving you alone’” (146). Matilda sobs, begging her grandfather not to die, but she thinks she makes out his final words: “‘Love you’” (147).

Unable to believe her Grandfather has died after surviving so much, Matilda reaches a breaking point as she lets out a cry “as sharp as the point of a sword” and “pound[s] the floor with rage” (147). Once she’s calmed down, she tries to remember funerals she’s witnessed; recalling seeing an older woman’s body with a bandage keeping her jaw closed, she does the same for Grandfather. She covers his body with a tablecloth, but can’t bear to hide his “kind face” (149). She spends the night crying beside “the finest man [she] had ever known” (149). 

Matilda wakes hearing a man shout “‘Bring out your dead!’” (150). Knowing she must bury Grandfather soon in the heat, she runs after the man and his death cart, and the man returns to her home to load up Grandfather’s body. The man waits for Matilda to find Grandmother’s portrait and place it under Grandfather’s arm—because she can’t bury Grandfather beside his wife, this is the next best option.

Matilda helps the man push the death cart to the burial square, thinking Captain Cook should have had a “loud and long” funeral procession “crowded with friends” (152). Instead, strangers working at the burial square sew Grandfather’s body into a shroud and prepare to throw it into the open grave. Matilda stops them, saying the minister must pray, but one man says there is too much else for the ministers to do. Despite a voice in Matilda’s head insisting she’s a “silly child” who shouldn’t “order […] these men around” (153), she shoves the man who’s spoken to her, grabs his shirt and tells him Grandfather was “‘a great man’” (153) and will be buried with prayer. The cart pusher speaks up for Matilda, gives her a book of Psalms, and asks her to read. The gravediggers take off their hats, bow their heads, and speak along with her as she reads “‘The Lord is my shepherd’” (154). Matilda walks away, allowing the men to bury her grandfather.

Matilda walks for blocks without seeing anyone and wonders how she will live now. She reaches the market and finds it completely empty, to the point that “a chest of gold wouldn’t buy any food here today” (156). On her way home, she passes the office of the Federal Gazette and is surprised to see the printer, Mr. Brown. She asks him to print an advertisement asking about her mother’s whereabouts, but Mr. Brown can’t—his is the only paper left in the city, and he’s keeping it running to print doctors’ and mayors’ notices, though he wishes he “‘could flee’” (157). More than half of Philadelphia’s citizens have left, while over 3,000 have died.

Matilda leaves and approaches the Warners’ hat shop. The Warners were friendly with her mother, and Matilda asks an old woman lingering nearby what happened to the family. The family left after the youngest daughter contracted the fever. When Matilda says she had the fever herself but survived, the woman attacks her with her cane until Matilda runs. She continues to walk, attempting “not to remember or feel” (160) all the tragedy around her, but her thoughts edge toward despair. She tells herself not to be “weak and foolish,” but instead to stay strong, to “captain [her]self” (161).

Matilda sees a broken doll in the street, picks it up, and hears crying from an open door. She finds a small blonde girl inside who says the doll is broken. When Matilda asks where her mother is, the girl responds that “‘Mama’s broken too’” (162).

The little girl’s name is Nell, and her mother has died from the fever. Matilda realizes she must find someone to care for the child, but none of the neighbors will take her in. One neighbor suggests Matilda find “‘Reverend Allen’s group’” (164) and tells her where to locate them. It’s a long walk through a bad part of town, but on the way she sees a woman she thinks is Eliza. A man from a tavern chases Matilda and Nell, and Nell bites the man’s hand. By the time Matilda gets away, Eliza is gone.

They continue on to the Simon house, which has a yellow rag on the door. Matilda hesitates to bring Nell closer to the fever, but then remembers Nell already lived in “a fever house” (166), and she and the child enter.

Matilda learns that two women from the Free African Society just delivered rolls to the Simon house. Knowing that Eliza must be nearby, Matilda goes outside and calls Eliza’s name. Eliza hears Matilda, runs out of a nearby house, and the two embrace.

Matilda is so relieved to have found Eliza that she “crie[s] a river” (169), but when she asks why Eliza isn’t at the farm, Eliza reveals that neither she nor Mother ever arrived there. Eliza invites Matilda to her brother Joseph’s house, and on the way Matilda briefly tells her what happened to her and Grandfather. Matilda is still worried about her mother, and Eliza says the last she knew, Mother was “‘bent on following’” (171) Matilda to the Ludingtons’.

They arrive at Joseph’s apartment above the cooperage, where he makes barrels. Joseph’s wife died of the fever, and Joseph became ill as well but is recovering. His twin boys, Robert and William, haven’t caught the disease. Matilda meets Mother Smith, “the oldest person [Matilda] had ever seen” (172), who leaves but promises Eliza she’ll be back in the morning. Joseph, Matilda, and the children eat their meager portions of stew, and Matilda helps Eliza put the children to bed. Eliza recommends that Matilda and Nell go to the orphanage. Matilda insists that she “‘can take care of [her]self’” (175), and Eliza says they’ll discuss it in the morning.

Eliza explains that Dr. Rush asked Reverend Allen and his Free African Society for help because doctors believed Africans couldn’t contract the yellow fever. Eliza and fellow members of the Society have been tending to thousands of fever victims “‘without taking notice of color’” (176)—but they’ve discovered that black people can sicken just like white ones. Matilda wonders if they’ll all die, and Eliza tells her the fever will “‘vanish’” (177) with the frost—they “‘just have to find a way to make it until then’” (177).

Matilda washes all three children and their soiled bedding. Eliza leaves to tend to the sick. Mother Smith arrives and warns Matilda not to “‘love’” (180) little Nell; the more attached she becomes, the tougher it will be to give Nell away. Matilda agrees that she must “do right by Nell” (181) and not cause her further pain.

Matilda and Eliza visit the orphanage, but it’s so overcrowded it’s become “‘the house of last resort’” (184). Matilda is so relieved she doesn’t have to abandon Nell that she “want[s] to dance” (185). On the way back to Joseph’s home, they pause before the Ogilvie mansion, and Matilda asks Eliza if she knows what happened to them.

Eliza recounts a story she heard in the market: When Colette contracted the fever, she started screaming for Louis, her French tutor. The family discovered that Colette and Louis eloped, even though Colette was engaged to Roger Garthing. The younger Ogilvie daughter, who was also “‘sweet on’” the tutor (187), had a fit, and the mother fainted. The story makes Matilda laugh, and Eliza says the entire family, including Louis, are alive and living in Delaware, “‘making each other miserable’” (187).

As they continue walking, Nell finds several daisies lying on the ground and a few floating in the air. Matilda spies Nathaniel throwing the flowers from a window in Mr. Peale’s house. Matilda is so happy to know Nathaniel is alive, she “could have skipped all the way back to Eliza’s” (189).

After two days, Mother Smith leaves the family to care for eight children who lost their mother. Joseph says he’s strong enough to care for himself and the children now, and he doesn’t need Matilda’s help. Matilda prepares to join Eliza as she tends to the city’s sick.

Matilda is “not prepared for the heartache” (192) of helping the dying in their own homes and comforting the survivors. The days pass and October arrives, but it’s still as hot as July. One woman warns that soon the flour will be gone and they’ll have to make bread with sawdust, and the shelves are nearly empty at Barrett’s apothecary. Eliza calls Barrett a “‘scurrilous dog’” (194) for raising the prices of medicine and profiting over others’ misfortune.

Matilda and Eliza care for the Sharps, a merchant family. When a servant girl caught the fever, Mrs. Sharp wouldn’t abandon her. The girl survived, but Mr. Sharp did not, and now the two Sharp children are sick. Before his death, Mr. Sharp lost his mind and “‘raged […] like a mad bull’” (195), breaking furniture, mirrors, and doors.

They return home to find the twins have caught the fever. The stifling air in the small apartment doesn’t help their condition. So Matilda suggests they take the children to a place full of windows and empty rooms—the coffeehouse.