The Great Trouble Read online

  “I was in the doorway, on account of I’d leaped from the cab and come in first. And I was just listening quietly when suddenly everyone else burst in behind me: Betsy, and her uncle and aunt, and Dilly, and Thumbless Jake from the river.” I laughed at the memory of it and held my nose. “You can imagine that Jake sure got everyone’s attention. Every head turned to look at us.

  “ ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ demanded the gentleman in charge.

  “I could tell that Dr. Snow was too shocked to say a word. And so was Reverend Whitehead, who was there too. So it was up to me,” I told Florrie.

  “Dilly and I strode right up to stand beside Dr. Snow. ‘I’m Dr. Snow’s assistant,’ I announced. ‘I’m called Eel. And Piccadilly, that’s my dog here, she and I have tracked down an unexpected case that will prove Dr. Snow’s theory. And if you will bear with me, sirs, I believe we can convince you to take the handle off the Broad Street pump so no more people get sick.’ ”

  “My goodness, you must’ve sounded like a gentleman’s son!” Florrie clapped her hands in delight. “What did they say then?”

  “You could’ve heard a pin drop, it was that quiet. One of the men on the committee turned to Dr. Snow and said, very gruff and annoyed, ‘Dr. Snow, is what this urchin says true? Are you making a mockery of our proceedings?’

  “ ‘No, sir, not at all. I suggest we listen to this boy’s report,’ Dr. Snow replied, all calm. ‘I, for one, am eager to hear it.’

  “So I told them how I’d learned yesterday morning that a widow from Hampstead named Susannah Eley had been getting water from the Broad Street pump every day.

  “ ‘A boy named Gus from the Eley Brothers factory would take it to her in a little cart several times a week,’ I testified. ‘I myself witnessed him drawing that water on the morning of Monday, August 28, from the Broad Street pump.’ ”

  “That’s right,” exclaimed Florrie. “We were there, weren’t we? It was the day you found Queenie.”

  “Yes, and so when I saw Gus on your doorstep yesterday, I remembered that. And then he told me the woman had died last Saturday from the cholera,” I explained.

  “Go on, then. What happened next?”

  I laughed. “Well, at that point Thumbless Jake starts making a ruckus in the back of the room, jabbing Betsy’s uncle in the ribs.

  “ ‘Will you listen to that boy?’ he boomed. ‘Used to be a mudlark, he did. But I helped give him a new start in life. And now he sounds as grand as a doctor himself.’ ”

  Florrie was laughing so hard tears streamed down her cheeks. “Go on.”

  “By this time the committee chair was red in the face. He jumps up, yelling, ‘Order! Order in this meeting, please!’

  “But then Dr. Snow starts talking too, all excited because he’s so eager to hear about the unexpected case I found. ‘Please, gentlemen! Let the boy speak.’ And he motions for me to keep talking.”

  I paused to take a breath. “Here, Florrie, I’ll pretend I’m giving the speech all over again.”

  I stood up and gave a little bow. “This is what I said:

  “ ‘I am sorry for the interruption, sir. But when I heard about the Widow Eley, I decided to investigate for myself. I walked to Hampstead with Dilly here, and I found out that Susannah Eley had indeed died from cholera after drinking the water Gus brought her from the Broad Street pump.

  “ ‘Not only that, she was the only death from cholera in the neighborhood, which I think Dr. Snow will be able to confirm with the General Register Office.’ ”

  I stopped to take a breath. Florrie nodded for me to keep talking.

  “ ‘And that’s not all. I found out from a servant in Mrs. Eley’s house that her niece had been visiting and had also drunk the water. So after leaving Hampstead, I walked to the neighborhood of Islington. I found the niece’s house and confirmed that, once again, this death from cholera was the only one in the neighborhood.

  “ ‘I believe, sirs, that this evidence supports Dr. Snow’s theory that cholera is spread by water—in this case, water from the Broad Street pump. And I hope you will agree to his request to remove the handle to protect the people of Golden Square, so that no more of my friends and neighbors will die.’ ”

  I stopped, out of breath, just as I had been at the meeting. “I never made such a long speech in my life, Florrie. I tell you that by the time I was done, my legs were shaking. It was a good thing Dr. Snow came over and put his arm around my shoulders, or else I might have collapsed right there.”

  “And did they believe you?” Florrie asked. “Are they going to take the handle off?”

  “It will happen tomorrow morning at ten,” I told her. “If you are better, Danny and I will carry you down the street to see it happen. And before you know it, we’ll be sittin’ in the sun, eating hard-boiled eggs.

  “Mrs. Gaskell has a new novel, called North and South, which will come out a bit at a time in the Household Words magazine. I hear it’s got a girl heroine in it—someone brave like you. We can read it together.”

  “I’m not brave at all. I’m still awful scared,” Florrie admitted.

  “You’re gonna make it,” I promised her. “Tell me you believe it.”

  “I do. I believe we’ll soon be sittin’ in the sunshine, reading and eating hard-boiled eggs.”

  Florrie’s father came to the doorway and cleared his throat. “It’s time, son. Let her rest.”

  “I’ll come back in the morning.”

  “I’ll be here waiting.”

  And then I leaned over and touched her forehead with a kiss.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The Handle

  Friday, September 8

  “Remember this day, lad,” said Dr. Snow as we pushed our way through the crowds on Regent Street the next morning. I could hear the excitement in his voice.

  “Today we are using science—not superstition—to stop the spread of disease. You and I may not live to see the day, and my name may be forgotten when it comes, but the time will arrive when great outbreaks of cholera will be things of the past,” he declared. “And it is the knowledge of the way in which the disease is propagated which will cause them to disappear.”

  I didn’t say anything for a while. I was too busy repeating his words to myself so I could remember them always.

  When we got near Broad Street, I asked, “Dr. Snow, do I have time to stop by Florrie’s house to look in on her?”

  Dr. Snow waved a hand. “Don’t be late.”

  Danny came to the door. For a minute I stood frozen, afraid.

  “Don’t look like that,” I cried.

  “She took a turn for the worse around midnight.” He rubbed his eyes. Had he been crying? “I don’t mind telling you we were all scared.”

  “And now?” I said urgently. “Is Florrie all right now?”

  “Yes, she’s much better. Drank a lot of water, which seemed to help. Not from the Broad Street pump, of course. Said she was starting to feel like herself again.”

  “Then why are you rubbing your eyes?” I demanded, wanting to shake him. “Why do you look so awful?”

  “Sleeping,” he muttered. “All of us were sleeping for the first time in days when you come along and started banging on the door. You woke me up. Go away, Eel. Come back later.”

  He was just about to close the door when he stopped. “Oh, wait a minute. Florrie made something for you.”

  He disappeared for a moment, then returned, holding out a sheet of paper.

  “She did it after you left last night, when she wasn’t sure if she’d make it or not. Made me promise to give it to you. She said today is special or something and that you’d know what she means.”

  “I do know,” I said, taking the paper.

  It was a simple pencil sketch. Florrie had drawn the Broad Street pump. She had drawn it without the handle. And on the bottom she had scribbled the date: September 8, 1854.

  Danny yawned and disappeared inside.

  I stood on th
e doorstep with the sketch in my hand and laughed out loud.

  “Did you hear that, Dilly? Florrie’s getting better!”

  I looked around the small crowd. Dr. Snow had worked so hard for this moment. I had too. Florrie believed in what we were doing. Hundreds of people had died already because of the water from this pump. But the folks standing around us that day weren’t convinced.

  “This ’ere water is a far sight cleaner than the disgusting liquid in the cistern by my house,” said one man behind me.

  Another called out, “Who come up with this crazy idea? There ain’t nothin’ wrong with the Broad Street pump. It’s the bad air makin’ us sick. Can’t the committee do something about that?”

  I searched for familiar faces—and to my surprise, I saw Mr. Edward Huggins and Abel Cooper standing together in the back of the crowd. I gulped. Mr. Edward caught my eye and beckoned me over to him.

  “My brother told me he dismissed you for stealing last week, young man,” he said sternly. “I must say I am very disappointed.”

  “I didn’t steal anything, Mr. Huggins,” I said, raising my chin to look him in the eyes. “But … I couldn’t get Mr. Griggs to vouch for me, on account of he got sick.”

  “You didn’t bother coming back to defend yourself, though, did you?” Abel Cooper put in. “You just up and took off, and left me with that cat.”

  I took a deep breath. I’d made up my mind to tell them the truth, but now that the time had come, it was harder than I expected.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Cooper. And I apologize to you, Mr. Huggins,” I said. “I was scared. And … I thought it wouldn’t do any good, especially once I knew Mr. Griggs wouldn’t be able to speak up for me. I figured it would just be Hugz—uh, Herbert’s word against mine.”

  “So you assumed I too would think you guilty?” Mr. Edward asked.

  “But—but don’t you, sir?” I stammered.

  “That depends, lad, on what account you have to give of yourself.” Mr. Edward nodded toward Dr. Snow. “You may not have seen me, but I’ve watched you this week from my office.”

  I gulped and stared down at my feet, afraid of what he might say next.

  “Look at me, lad.”

  My head shot up.

  “I saw you helping families and the coffin man. I saw you walking the streets with Dr. Snow. I was even there in the back at the committee meeting,” said Mr. Edward. He chuckled and shook his head. “Now that’s something I’ll not soon forget—smell and all.”

  I noticed that the corner of his mouth was twitching. Mr. Edward, I realized, was trying not to laugh.

  “So, Eel, when this is over, come see me. I don’t know that I can get you your situation back,” he said. “My older brother is a stubborn man, and I’m not sure I want to subject a good-hearted lad like you to the companionship of my nephew again. But perhaps I can help you in some way.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said. “Thank you very much, Mr. Huggins.”

  Abel Cooper clapped me on the back, a wide grin on his face. “But don’t get any ideas of taking your cat back, son. Queenie is my girl now.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  In Which the Mystery Is Solved

  After that day, into the next week, though we kept asking questions of families who had lost someone, it seemed we were coming across fewer new cases of cholera. I mentioned it to Dr. Snow.

  “That could very well be, Eel.”

  “Does that mean … taking the pump handle off is working already?”

  “Well, probably the epidemic would have been winding down by now anyway, unless there had been a new source of contamination in the water,” Dr. Snow explained. “But the pump handle may have saved some lives.”

  He sighed. “It would have saved more if we could have done it even earlier.”

  There was still a lot we didn’t know. Like how the water got contaminated with the cholera poison in the first place.

  “We may never know,” said Dr. Snow one evening in his study. “And we may never find the index case either.”

  “The index case?” asked Rev. Whitehead.

  Yes, the reverend was there. For that was something else that had changed.

  Rev. Whitehead and Dr. Snow had begun to work together. Both had been asked to be part of the St. James Cholera Inquiry Committee, which was formally investigating the epidemic. And as Rev. Whitehead had talked to the families and listened more closely to Dr. Snow’s ideas, he began to change his mind about the doctor’s theory. Soon he was one of Dr. Snow’s strongest advocates.

  “The index case is the first case,” Dr. Snow was saying.

  “But wasn’t that Mr. Griggs?” I asked from where I sat by the fire, with Dilly at my feet. The nights were cooler now, and Mrs. Weatherburn was letting me sleep on a cot in a corner of the kitchen. “At least until your future is settled,” she had said.

  Dr. Snow shook his head. “It might seem that Mr. Griggs was the index case, because he was the first person we know of who got sick and died. But we have to look further to find a case that explains how the water in the Broad Street well got poisoned with cholera. Other people died during those first three days—seventy-nine on Friday and Saturday alone. They likely contracted the disease at about the same time as Mr. Griggs did. And they became sick because somehow the poison that causes cholera seeped into the well.”

  “So someone else got sick first and somehow the water became contaminated,” Rev. Whitehead said thoughtfully. “But we just haven’t found out who it was—or how that happened.”

  Annie’s father, Constable Thomas Lewis, was the last victim of the epidemic. He died on Tuesday, September 19.

  I went to see Mrs. Lewis soon after, to pay my respects and bring some fresh eggs and embroidery thread that I’d got from Mrs. Weatherburn for Annie Ribbons. I also wanted to invite Annie to come with Florrie and me to see Dr. Snow’s menagerie again.

  “You do like animals, don’t you? Weren’t you carrying some kind of creature squirming in your bag when I saw you at the pump a while back?” Mrs. Lewis asked. “I was so frantic that morning I didn’t ask you about it properly.”

  “It was a cat. She still lives at the Lion.” I grinned. “The foreman, Mr. Cooper, is quite attached to her now.”

  I thought back to the morning I found Little Queenie, when Gus had waited his turn so that he could load up a jug to bring to Mrs. Susannah Eley in Hampstead.

  “Mrs. Lewis,” I asked suddenly, “Fanny was sick that day, wasn’t she? I remember you telling me that.”

  “Yes, poor little dear,” she replied with a sigh. “She lasted until that Saturday. Dr. Rogers said she had just gotten so weak from diarrhea her little body couldn’t recover.”

  “But Dr. Rogers didn’t think she had the cholera?” I asked, my mind racing with possibilities.

  “No, he didn’t think so. After all, Fanny was sick that last Monday morning of August,” said Mrs. Lewis. “She was sick before anyone else, before the Great Trouble began.”

  Before anyone else. Fanny had been sick three days before Mr. Griggs became ill. What if Dr. Rogers had been wrong?

  I ran to find Florrie, and together we tracked down Rev. Whitehead.

  That night, all of us gathered in Dr. Snow’s study. Dr. Snow and Rev. Whitehead listened to me for a long time.

  A few days later, the St. James Cholera Inquiry Committee gathered in the cellar of 40 Broad Street to interview Mrs. Lewis. She told them that she had soaked Fanny’s diapers in buckets all during the week of the baby’s illness. Then she had dumped the soiled water out into the cesspool.

  The committee brought in Mr. York, a surveyor, to excavate the cesspool and the waste pipe that connected it to the sewer. Mr. York found that the walls of the cesspool were lined with bricks—decaying bricks. He discovered that between the cesspool and the Broad Street well, there was a lot of swampy soil, full of human waste. He also found that the well was only two feet and eight inches from the cesspool.

  And so,
what had happened was this:

  The Broad Street well had been contaminated by water and sewage seeping into its walls from the cellar of 40 Broad Street, where Mrs. Lewis had been soaking Fanny’s diapers.

  The death certificate for Fanny Lewis said that she died of exhaustion after an attack of diarrhea. But that wasn’t the full story.

  “Fanny Lewis was the first case, what we call the index case,” said Dr. Snow. “We will never know how she got it. But now we know that the cholera poison in her diapers seeped into the well, contaminating the water from the Broad Street pump.”

  Fanny had died of cholera. Cholera that had then killed 615 other people.

  “Dr. Snow, Fanny died on Saturday, a week before they took the pump handle off,” I said, trying to work out the puzzle. “Is her death why the epidemic started to slow down the second week?”

  “Yes, most likely. We’re not sure how long the cholera poison stays active, but Mrs. Lewis was no longer washing out Fanny’s diapers in the cesspool after Saturday, September second,” Dr. Snow explained. “So the outbreak was probably nearing its end by September eighth, when the pump handle came off. Fewer new cases were occurring because the cholera poison was gone from the water, although, of course, people might still have been drinking contaminated water from the well that they had stored in their homes.”

  Florrie spoke up. “But what about Fanny’s father? Didn’t he get sick too?”

  Dr. Snow nodded. “Constable Lewis was struck with cholera very late in the epidemic, on the afternoon of September eighth, the very day the pump handle was removed.”

  I tried to piece out what that meant. “So, if Mrs. Lewis emptied buckets of her husband’s waste into her cesspool in the cellar, just as she had done with Fanny’s diapers, contamination would have kept on seeping into the well.”

  “Exactly,” agreed Rev. Whitehead. “But because you and Dr. Snow were able to convince the committee to act, no one could get water from the Broad Street pump after Constable Lewis got sick.”

  “He fought for his life for eleven days,” reflected Dr. Snow.