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around Samantha.
    “That’s it!” Elizabeth cried. “It’s, here! Your baby’s here!”
    With a jerk he looked down at Mrs. Burt, hoping for some sign of the child. Dear Mither of God—he prayed—protect them both at this moment!
    “I see its head,” Elizabeth went on. “Such hair. So much hair!”
    Sam fell back, her legs—indeed, her whole body—quaking with great, volcanic shudders. Back and forth he looked, his eyes moving between Samantha and Elizabeth Burt.
    “The head is here,” the woman cried out, shifting her position between Sam’s legs now, climbing up on the bed herself to kneel between the knees and shoving the sheet out of the way so that it tumbled down upon Samantha’s great, round tummy. She glanced at Seamus quickly—as if to explain that duty must now dispense with propriety.
    He nodded and looked away obediently, though he wanted so much to watch this child come forth. So much to watch its entrance into this world. Instead he turned back to kiss Sam on the forehead quickly at the moment she began to quiver with a new contraction, then began to growl as she hadn’t before.
    “Yes, Sam!” Martha Luhn prodded. “Give it all you’ve got now!
    Nettie Capron urged, “Push, Sam! Push!”
    She had her fingernails digging into the palm of his hand so deeply, he didn’t know if the dampness he felt was sweat or blood. It didn’t matter. And then he glanced at Elizabeth Burt, saw her hovering close above Sam’s belly.
    “Again!” Elizabeth ordered. “Push harder now, Sam. It’s here! Dear God—your beautiful baby’s here!”
    At Samantha’s other shoulder Nettie Capron coaxed, “Onemore good push and the baby will be out. Come, now. Give us one more good push.”
    “P-p-push!” Sam gasped, straining, her face flush.
    “That’s it!” Martha Luhn cheered.
    Then Seamus turned quickly, saw the head already cradled in Mrs. Burt’s hands. At that very moment the child burst into a hair-raising squall. With the child’s cry Sam suddenly released the pressure she had on his hand and let out a great sigh. Seamus looked down as she collapsed back against the pillows, panting openmouthed like never before, her eyes clenched shut, tears streaming from their corners. It seemed everything had suddenly gone out of her. He felt queasy in that moment, afraid like never before that she might not have the strength to see this through. All these hours of labor. And now it must surely be early morning … after all that work.
    “It’s a boy!”
    He jerked around, wide-eyed as a mule on a narrow trail, staring at what Elizabeth Burt cradled in her arms. Seeing that dark glob of hair plastered against the strange little creature’s head, its face all pinched and red, streaked with white lather and gobbed with blood. Mrs. Burt shifted the child in her forearms there between Sam’s knees as Nettie Capron came to the side of the bed with a small blanket draped over her arms to receive the child.
    “A b-boy?” Sam asked, trying to lift herself up to see, then tearing her eyes from the child for but a moment as they flicked into Seamus’s—as if asking for his approval.
    “Boy?” he repeated, his lips barely moving, practically no sound escaping from his lips.
    “You’re a father, Mr. Donegan!” Elizabeth Burt congratulated as she laid the newborn across Mrs. Capron’s arms, then went back to work between Sam’s legs, milking the umbilical cord toward the child. That done, the women tied a wrap of sewing thread around and around the cord two inches from the infant’s body, then knotted it off.
    In amazement at it all, Seamus watched Martha Luhn snip the purple cord with a pair of scissors.
    Only then did Nettie Capron straighten, shuffle back the tiny blanket from the face, and scoot down the side of the bed to lay the bundle within Sam’s arms.
    “Is he …,” Samantha started to ask.
    “Is he all right?” Elizabeth Burt repeated, still at work there between the knees. “Of course