Axie Muldoon is an New York Irish gutter snipe. She is taken from her destitute mother and shipped off on the Orphan Train to Chicago. She and her two younger siblings are separated and Axie vows to reunite them as their mother has since died. Axie works as a house maid for a midwife who also does a procedure to remove unwanted female obstructions (i.e.-abortions). She learns both trades and goes on to be very successful. The book is vibrant, charming, plucky, and is full of twists and turns and multiple story lines. 
 Axie marries, has a baby, reunites with family, becomes rich and uses her talents to help the suffering of worn out, poor, misfortunate women with no where else to turn. She also delivers hundreds of babies and saves many a woman from childbirth death. Due to the misplaced zeal of white "Christian" men (sound familiar) she is put out of business and jailed for her surgical crimes. I will let you discover what becomes of her for yourself. I found this read particularly salient given that a woman's right to chose and control her own fertility is being threatened 150 years since the above story (which is based on a real midwife). Scary times.