Read Online Separate Roads by Tracie Peterson, Judith Pella - Free Book Online

milk would just curdle in his stomach. I suggest a bit of ginseng tea. The mother will know how to make it. Their constitution is different from ours, don’t you know? He’ll respond better if given something his own kind is familiar with. Maybe have the mother boil in a little wild lettuce to ease the child’s pain. Keep the room dark; the light can cause blindness in measles victims. Especially in the weaker Chinese.”
    Victoria bristled at his suggestion that the Chinese were somehow inferior to their race. Still, she recalled that her mother’s freed slave Miriam had many remedies that her own people had used for generations. Remedies that the doctors scoffed at and chided as being “black medicine.” Were they really so different in their body’s construction that they required two different kinds of medicine? Had she caused baby Jia more harm than good?
    But as if receiving affirmation that her choices had been wise, she found Jia feeling a little better when she returned to the apartment. He actually smiled at her for just a moment before snuggling back to sleep in his mother’s arms.
    “He not so hot now. I think fever not so high,” Li told Victoria.
    Victoria reached out to touch the child and smiled. Jia’s skin felt cooler to the touch. “Yes, I think you’re right.”
    “You talk to doctor?” Li asked, knowing that this had been Victoria’s plan.
    “Yes. He said not to give the baby milk. But instead to make tea. Ginseng tea, with a little wild lettuce boiled in.”
    Li nodded. “I can make this.” She got up and put the now sleeping infant in the padded dresser drawer Victoria had arranged for him. “I go home and make tea.”
    “You can make it here, but you’ll have to bring the ingredients,” Victoria said apologetically. “I’m afraid I have neither ginseng nor wild lettuce.”
    Li nodded and bowed slightly. “I have both.” She pulled on her straw hat and headed to the door without any further explanation.
    Victoria smiled and watched the woman hurry away, her linen sahm fluttering gracefully. Unlike many Chinese women, Li’s feet had never been bound, thus she had no difficulty running or walking great distances. Her parents had been poor farmers in China—at least this was what Victoria understood from Li. They needed Li’s help in the fields, and bound feet were of no use to them. However, Li had explained, without bound feet she could never hope to be given in marriage to a wealthy man of influence.
    Li had known a very hard life in China. Her family barely kept food in the mouths of their five children. Victoria frowned as she remembered Li speaking of being sold to a Chinese merchant in order to save the family after a particularly bad harvest. He was supposed to take her to work for his family; instead, he sold her again to a grizzled old sea captain who was headed to America with a cargo of Chinese and a variety of antiquities. The life Victoria had known in California had been hard, but it was nothing compared to the horror stories told to her by Li. She was still lost in such thoughts when Li returned with the needed ginseng root and dried lettuce.
    “Husband back from railroad,” Li told her. “He say they will let him come to do laundry. We will go soon.”
    Victoria had known that Xiang was absent from Sacramento. Men from the board of directors had sent him up the line to visit with construction supervisors to inquire about the need or interest in setting up his business along the railroad. Li had proudly told Victoria of Xiang’s desires to make a business for their family by taking in laundry and mending. Now it appeared Xiang had received the approval he needed in order to feel confident of taking his family from their meager comforts in Sacramento.
    “I wish you didn’t have to go,” Victoria replied. “Or better yet, if it would take me closer to Kiernan, I wish I were going along.”
    “You come with us. I think husband not mind. I will