Walt Whitman in Mickle Street

by Elizabeth Leavitt Keller

Mrs. Davis was so worn out for sleep that even while standing her eyelids would close. She apologized, saying that she had been awake so many hours she was not at all herself. The nurse begged her to lie down at once, believing this weary, sad-looking woman must be a relative of her patient's, or a dear friend who had come there to bridge over the present crisis. Dr. Bucke had not mentioned the housekeeper's name, and the kindly, hospitable person who had been introduced as Mrs. Davis belied in every way the description of the sailor's unrefined widow. Besides, Warren called her mother.

The sick man required but few attentions during the night, and was so painfully still the nurse went to his bedside a number of times to assure herself that he was breathing. Warren came in twice to reconnoitre and turn him over, and when morning peeped into the window of the dull little anteroom and he found that no new complications had developed and that Mr. Whitman had not suffered from the change, he was jubilant over it.

After preparing breakfast, Mrs. Davis, as was her custom, went upstairs to sit with the patient while the others were below. She entered his room, and he—who up to this time had lain with downcast eyes, speechless, almost immovable—looked up, smiled, and exclaimed in a pleased voice, "Ah, Mary!" There was no mistaking the friendly relation between these two people, and before noon the nurse learned that the coarse housekeeper, the dreaded housekeeper, was no other than this pleasant, tired-out woman, whose kindness she appreciated because she had at once made her feel so much at home. What did the nurse think!

When Mr. Whitman was supposed to be dying, Mrs. Davis had in a way managed to meet the emergencies of the occasion; when a rubber sheet was called for, and no one offered to procure or order one, she gave her own oilcloth table cover to supply the need. When extra sheets were in demand and were not forthcoming from any quarter, she bought a piece of cloth, tore off the lengths, and was obliged to use them unlaundered and unhemmed, for even in this trying time only one person, besides her personal friends, had offered her the least assistance or inquired as to the straits to which she was put. This single exception was Mr. Whitman's sister-in-law, who had left a sick bed to come to Camden and do what she could.

When with the coming of the nurse, and cessation from immediate anxiety, Mrs. Davis found time to look around, she discovered more than an abundance of work. An enormous wash had accumulated, her boiler had given out, and damp and cloudy weather necessitated drying everything within doors. Then as the eaves trough had fallen down, and the kitchen ceiling leaked, Warren's skill in carpentering was in instant demand.

They found the nurse willing to assist in any way, and the housekeeper was delighted that she was plain spoken and matter-of-fact, and knew almost nothing of her patient as a writer; that she regarded him only as a sick and helpless old man, needing personal care, and not the adulation with which he was surfeited. Mr. Whitman himself took kindly to her, for like Mrs. Davis she never questioned him, and if she spoke at all, always touched upon the most simple, commonplace subjects.

On one occasion she ventured to say to him: "I suppose you would be disgusted with me if I told you that I had never heard of Leaves of Grass until I came here?" He laughed a little and replied: "I guess there are plenty of people in the world who can say the same. Leaves of Grass was the aim of my life. In these days and nights it is different: my mutton broth—my brandy—to be turned promptly and kept clean—are much more to me and appeal to me more deeply."

Little by little, much was accomplished; the sheets were hemmed, and the nurse with part of the small and only sum of money given to her soon had a new boiler on the stove; then when the table cover, which had become stiff, wrinkled and ruined, was replaced with a smooth rubber sheet, and a rubber ring purchased, which gave the patient great relief, and a few trifling articles secured, the money was exhausted. Mrs. George Whitman added some things to the supply, after which it fell to Mrs. Davis to resort to her own means as of old, and one by one the gold pieces—Warren's gift—melted away.

In the course of a couple of weeks the nurse learned that she was boarding at the expense of the housekeeper, and finding that no arrangements had been made to this effect she wrote to Dr. Bucke, laying the matter before him, as it had been agreed that she should write to him semi-weekly and in full confidence. In her next letter she told him of her own belief in Mrs. Davis as a most excellent woman; she enlarged upon her devotion to Mr. Whitman and his fondness for her, and expressed her great astonishment that a man of his experience could be so mistaken in anyone. In reply he wrote that he was pleased to know that he had been misled.

Mrs. Davis was much distressed in regard to the cleaning of the sick room. She feared it would make Mr. Whitman unhappy, and she felt that as his life was to end in so short a time, further indulgence might be granted him. But he was found to be not at all disposed to make objections; indeed, he was passive in the extreme, and when the nurse in any doubt or difficulty would occasionally appeal to him, he had but one reply: "Ask Mary."