FICTION

A Straw Mattress in Madison

A baby to hold and love

Photo Ad Meskens of painting by Newbold Hough Trotter (1827–1898)/Public domain)

Chapter two of the life of Anna Raymond Beardsley.

The bed was not fine, the room quite small, and it was not a hotel. The birthing was attended to by the widow who rented her rooms to Westward travelers, and the birth struggles were already fading from Charlotte’s mind. All considered, when compared to the…