The Quintland Sisters(12)
Sometime late in the afternoon, Grandpapa Dionne knocked at the nursery door to say that the incubator had arrived, brought by several reporters from the Toronto Star. I’d been scrubbing the walls of the sitting room, but I drifted into the kitchen to see the contraption.
Ivy, I realized, had little interest in what was being wrestled from the back of a cream-and-maroon-colored Buick. Sure enough, one of the men was the newspaper photographer Fred Davis.
The men had to partly dismantle the incubator to fit it through the door. Since we had no electricity, engineers at the University of Toronto had rigged it to run off of a noisy diesel-powered generator behind the house, with long cords coiling through the window and across the kitchen floor.
Once it was reconstructed, we settled Annette, Yvonne, and Cécile into the new device, leaving Marie and émilie in their own sealed nest. Ivy, meanwhile, took a jug of water to the Toronto newspapermen outside. The two reporters were badgering Grandpapa Dionne, asking him to track down Oliva Dionne so they could ask him some questions about the Chicago deal. Fred Davis, however, was leaning against a post on the porch grinning broadly at something Ivy was saying. She was smiling, too, the lopsided smile she’d use when she was trying to hide her crooked teeth, although at one point I saw her tip her head back and have a proper laugh. When I peeked out again, Ivy was leaning against one of the wooden struts, her arms akimbo, and Mr. Davis, having stepped down into the yard, was taking photos of her, one after another. I couldn’t see her face.
After a short while, Ivy came back inside, Fred Davis with her, and Dr. Dafoe agreed that Mr. Davis could take a picture of Ivy and Nurse de Kiriline holding two of the babies. Just then, M. Dionne burst through the front doors, fetched by his father, no doubt, from wherever he’d been lurking. The younger Dionne was holding a rolled document in one hand, batting it through the air like a truncheon, and shouting in French that photographs were prohibited. Dr. Dafoe drew himself up, his stout chest swelling manfully.
“Where is your gratitude, sir? These gentlemen have brought a new incubator for the quintuplets,” he said in English, looking sternly at the angry farmer. “This is your best chance of keeping the babies alive.” Fred Davis had his camera in both hands, raised to his chest, looking like he might at any minute start snapping shots of this altercation. I saw Ivy lay a hand on his forearm, and a look passed between them. He rolled his eyes but lowered the camera again and replaced the cap on the lens.
M. Dionne clearly understood what he’d just heard but barreled on, opening the papers he was carrying and thrusting the document toward our Toronto visitors.
“My babies!” he continued in French. “My rights.” Spittle flew from his lips. “All photographic rights now belong to Chicago, to Mr. Spears.”
Could he hear how he sounded? The idea that the Star photographers couldn’t take a single picture of the babies after driving all the way up here with what looked to be a very expensive piece of equipment—it seemed ludicrous. And Dr. Dafoe himself was working around the clock to save the babies while their own father was preoccupied with their profitability! Now, through clenched teeth, M. Dionne was growling at the Star men to leave the premises, “or else.” They retreated down the steps, and M. Dionne, still bristling like a hedgehog, sat himself on the porch to make sure they didn’t return.
Close to nightfall, the crickets chirring, Ivy and I set out to walk back to Callander. It felt like the first spring evening to truly carry the promise of summer. You could smell the lilacs in the breeze and hear the birds quibbling with their young to get them settled for the night.
Ivy was nearly falling asleep on her own feet but insisted she needed the walk and the fresh air. As we made our way along, she told me about why she’d wanted to be a nurse and how her father had managed to save up the money for her to attend the new nursing school in North Bay.
She was curious about what I was planning to do after graduating from high school in a few weeks’ time. Even the bulrushes lining the road seemed to lean in to hear my answer.
“No firm plans,” I admitted. “Mother wants me to become a midwife, but I don’t think that’s for me. A teacher, maybe. I’d love to teach art or literature. I love books.” In fact, I didn’t have the grades to train as a teacher, but I needed to say something.
“Well, I’m going to marry a Hollywood film star that I’ll meet after nursing him back to health after a film stunt and we’ll have five babies and live in California,” Ivy said.
“Oh?” I said. I’m not used to jokes and banter, so it took me a moment to realize she wasn’t delirious with fatigue. “Why not settle for a famous newspaper photographer and abscond with these quintuplets?” Ivy pretended to look shocked at the suggestion, but she couldn’t keep from smiling.
We were just a half mile outside of Callander when we heard the cough and chug of a vehicle making its way up the road behind us. With the price of gasoline where it is, trucks are relative rarities in our part of the world, and you can often catch a ride if the driver doesn’t have a load. Ivy and I took a moment to recognize the man at the wheel. M. Dionne slowed to pass us but didn’t stop, merely touching his fingers to his cap and carrying on by.
June 2, 1934 (Toronto Star)
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FEAR ONE OF QUINTUPLETS IS NEAR DEATH