New York Orphan
By
Rosemary J. Kind
Copyright © 2017 Rosemary J. Kind
All rights reserved. Any unauthorised broadcasting, public performance, copying or recording will constitute an infringement of copyright. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanical, including photocopying, fax, data transmittal, internet site, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Printed in the United Kingdom
First Printing, 2017 Alfie Dog Limited
The author can be contacted at: [email protected]
Cover design: Magic Owl Design http://www.magicowldesign.com/
Cover image of Peck Slip - Art and Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. "Peck Slip, N.Y., 1850." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1857. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e0-cd9e-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
Published by
Alfie Dog Limited
Schilde Lodge, Tholthorpe,
North Yorkshire, YO61 1SN
Tel: 0207 193 33 90
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the hundreds of thousands of children, then and now, living on the streets and hoping for a better tomorrow.
Acknowledgements
This book would not have happened without the help of a number of people. First and foremost I need to thank Rev. Ruth Duck for mentioning Charles Loring Brace and the Orphan Trains and setting the whole process in motion. I can only apologise that I didn’t listen to another word you said after that, because I was too busy plotting a story that took shape before my eyes.
My research would have been incomplete without the help of: Amanda Wahlmeier, former curator of the Orphan Train Museum in Concordia; John Shontz, Project Coordinator, Orphan Train Rail; Gerard Taylor Wallace, for treading the streets of New York with me and bringing them to life; Steve Areseneau of the Dowagiac Museum and Connie Black of Kusciusko History.
I am indebted to a wonderful panel of beta readers for their encouragement, questions and corrections: Henry Mitchell, Lori Mohr, Roger Noons, Brenda Kind and David Cairns. Also my thanks to my writing buddies, without whom my writing would be much the poorer: Patsy, Suzy, Sheila and Lynne.
Thanks go to Dr Sheila Glaseby for her proofreading of the final book and her far greater knowledge as to which of my over-enthusiastic use of commas to remove, and to Katie Stewart, of Magic Owl Designs, who has brought the story to life in the cover far better than I could ever have dreamed of. Thanks to Adrienne Mansfield for helping me with marketing plans and being an ever-present support and sounding-board.
Finally and particularly to Alan Kind and Chris Platt, not only for your beta reading but for your overwhelming belief and support in this book – thank you.
Introduction
Whilst this novel is a work of fiction, and all the characters have been invented purely for the story, it is based heavily on facts. In certain places extensive licence has had to be taken and the dates of some of the songs noted are unknown and may have been slightly later than the period. In the light of the humanitarian crisis resulting from millions of immigrants seeking refuge from war and famine in Europe, the Orphan Train Movement, started by Charles Loring Brace, took tens of thousands of children off the streets of New York and relocated them into families across America.
The adoptees were largely expected to work on farms, with the understanding that they should receive schooling in the winter. Some put the number of children as high as 200,000 over the course of the programme, which lasted well into the early 20th century and covered other East Coast cities as well as New York. For many, the programme turned out to be a wonderful opportunity, whilst for others it brought little more than slavery. The train journey that Tom and Daniel take on leaving New York is based on accounts of that first train from New York, although again all the characters have been changed and my account is a fictional one.
If you read the early chapters and doubt that life could have been as grim as that for them on the streets, then I regret to tell you it most certainly was, and much research has gone into trying to make their lives authentic. There are incredibly strong parallels to the current migrant crisis, and at that time America absorbed millions of incoming European migrants.
I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I have enjoyed writing it. I have included at the back the many works of reference referred to, and they are worthy of a closer look.
NOTE:
The characters are all fictitious and any resemblance they may have to children who rode the Orphan Trains and the families they were placed with is entirely coincidental. This book is not intended to suggest that the events portrayed happened to any of the children who rode the trains which are alluded to, or with the families with whom they were placed.
Prologue
“And then I prayed I yet might see
our fetters rent in twain,
and Ireland long a province,
be a nation once again.”
Thomas Davis from about 1840
“That ain’t how ya do it.” Tom snatched the blade away from Daniel’s trembling, grubby white hand. Even in the oppressive shadow of the alley, amongst the putrid remains of carcasses waiting for their bones to be picked clean and boiled, the edge of the metal caught the light. During an hour of sweat and toil, each boy had taken his turn to break through the dullness of the blunted knife, trying to sharpen it against the brickwork of the warehouse tenement. The outer edge of the blade remained marked with the murky pattern of pig, dog and human blood. The rich, red flow dried much the same, once it left a lifeless body.
Tom took rough hold of his own forearm. His penetrating green eyes caught Daniel’s gaze and urged him to look down. With his lips clenched, in one sweeping movement, Tom dragged the blade hard across his tautened skin, drawing blood at the first skim. “See.”
Daniel took the heavy-handled knife and, biting his bottom lip, with his eyes screwed tight, he plucked at his arm, a staccato tune of timidity.
Tom shook his mane of fiery red hair and laughed. “Don’t be so soft. You’re no better than Molly would be. If you don’t hurry up I’ll have to do mine again.”
Daniel looked into his friend’s sallow face, searching each freckle for the strength and courage to match his actions. Then he took a deep breath and scored his arm. A trickle of blood flowed across the blade into the dirt. He broke into a grin as he wiped away a tear with the back of his other hand and held his arm out to Tom. They linked forearms, the blood running together onto their ragged, stained clothing.
“Forever, blood brothers,” said Tom, clasping Daniel’s hand in his.
Daniel sniffed. His shaky voice cracked as he echoed, “Forever, blood brothers.” Then, as Tom released his hand, Daniel dragged his tatty sleeve across his face, sniffing into the harsh material.
Tom slid the knife back down the inside of his boot. “Best be getting back to work then.”
Daniel shrugged as he had seen his own father do in times of high emotion.
“You ought to cover your arm before you start singing. Nice folks ain’t going to give money to a child who don’t look so angelic.” Tom was ready for business without a moment’s pause.
Daniel rolled the sleeves of his shirt to their full length, leaving the frayed ends to cover the congealing scar, and prepared himself to go out into the street and draw a crowd through his songs of home.
Chapter 1
Fare thee w
ell my own true love
And farewell for a while.
I’m going away, but I’ll come again
If I go ten thousand miles.
Traditional
Daniel Flynn looked around at the magnificent warehouses, grown tall around the dock. They must have been higher than the trees around Lough Leane, higher than he could have imagined until he saw them. Whilst they displayed a majesty all their own, they shared none of the sweet meadow smell. Daniel found the noise and bustle oppressive. He swallowed hard. He had no idea what to do. He was seven years old and arriving in a strange land, alone. He shuddered. He was used to the single-storey, tumbledown cottages scattered around the lanes, not these huge buildings of brick and timber, piled ramshackle as far as his eyes could see.
“You fetid lumps of bog rot. Go back to where you came from.” A man in plaid trousers and a bright, well-tailored jacket, with an accent as alien as the buildings, hurled insults at the hundreds of starving Irish families descending from the ship.
Shoulders dropped, Daniel drew his rag-wrapped belongings closer to the tiny frame of his beleaguered body. He walked a few faltering steps before looking back at the open expanse of rigging against the cloudless sky. The view belied the cramped conditions he’d suffered below deck. Then, with his head bowed, he moved forward onto the quay. Through the gaps in the planking he could see excrement floating on the surface of the water, while the stench of rotting life filled the air. He was immune to the smell. Rot had dogged his life so far. You’d go a long way to find a worse odour than the fields of rotting potatoes, black-stalked and grey-slimed, decayed with blight, which marked the early years of his life. After that it was disease which filled the air. He thought setting sail for America would mean fresh sea air to breathe, but he reckoned without conditions on board ship. Seven weeks of waste, seasickness and death had left him wishing he were back amongst the yellow-flowered fields of Killarney, where he had loved to wander, escaping from the decay.
A dark-suited man with a neat-trimmed but extensive beard approached him. “Bread, soup and make sure your mammy and daddy vote for Kelly.”
Daniel readily took the offered food, hoping his luck was starting to change.
“Move along, young man.”
“Please, sir, I ain’t got no mammy and daddy no more.” Daniel looked up with pleading eyes into the kindly face, but the politician transferred his insincere benevolence to the next person coming off the boat, and the next, onward down the line of hungry, destitute countrymen from Cork and Kerry.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. He was accustomed to the hunger. God knew, he’d felt it long enough. He savoured the soup as he dipped the bread and drank the sops. He ate quickly, eyes darting around lest someone should take it from him.
Compared to the last few weeks, the food was fit for a king. He imagined his Uncle Seamus wagering that not many kings ventured onto the wharf. Uncle Seamus would have wagered on the date of his own wake, if he’d had anything left to wager with. For a moment Daniel almost smiled, until he remembered how far away his uncle was now.
They’d left the dockside of Cork a hopeful family, having journeyed from their native Killarney. ‘Desperate to find a better life’, that’s what his da had said. ‘A land of opportunity’ was what the great Michael Flynn told his wife and son. Their landlord helped with the passage. He was a generous man whose land could no longer support them. ‘Now don’t you go forgetting the goodness of Mr O’Connor there, Daniel. Don’t you go forgetting.’ His da was insistent they show what gratitude they could, when so many of their neighbours were left to the mercy of the poor house, forced to give up what little land they had in their desperate need of alms.
With both his parents despatched to watery graves, New York was now an opportunity Daniel Flynn faced alone. Weakened by years of famine, his ma and da hadn’t the strength to overcome seasickness and the diseases on board ship. Within five days of each other, they died, while he watched in helpless horror. First his mother and then his broken-hearted father, lost without his childhood sweetheart, were taken from him, leaving Daniel with no one to rely on but himself. Back home there’d have been family to take him in, but not here. It would have been a starving family, but it was family nonetheless. On board ship it was every man, woman and child for themselves, and with barely enough to feed their own families no one was going to give preference to someone else’s boy.
He took a deep breath, blinking back the tears, and did the only thing he’d been able to sustain himself with over the last days and nights, singing the ballads of home that his father had sung. He sat on a wooden crate, closed his eyes and sang, imagining his da might be there to hear him and wishing it were so.
“By Kilmore’s woody highland,
wandering dark and drear,
A voice of joy came o’er me,
more holy to mine ear…”
Daniel’s nasal intonation mimicked his father to perfection, but he possessed no more idea of where Kilmore was than of the layout of New York. As he sang the beautiful words of his homeland, he clung to his small bundle of belongings, barely aware of the crowd gathering around him or the halfpennies and pennies being thrown at his feet. For a few precious moments Daniel could believe he was back in Ireland with his family, with his father singing and his Uncle Patrick’s fingers dancing their own jig across the strings of his fiddle.
It was only when the suited figure’s voice broke over the music to move the crowd along that Daniel once more became aware of his surroundings and of a scruffy figure, lanky for his young age, scooping up the coins in front of him. Daniel sized him up; probably a year or two more than he was, but with a streetwise edge which to Daniel made him seem older.
“Ain’t you going to stop me? I’m easy to spot with this mop.” The boy laughed, pointing to his flame-red corkscrew curls, defying control under his weather-beaten hat.
“Stop you what?” Daniel asked, wide-eyed.
“Nicking your money.”
“What money? I don’t have any money.”
“You’re good, you are. ‘What money? I don’t have any money.’ I likes that. Folks liked your singing. I guess it reminded them of home. What others do you know?”
“All the ones me da used to sing.”
“I’m Tom,” said the boy, holding the coins out in his hand to Daniel, “and these I believe are yours.”
Daniel blinked, taking the coins from Tom’s hand and looking at their strangeness. He closed his fist around the money and held tight. “Tom?”
“Thomas H. Reilly, pickpocket extraordinaire, at your service.” Tom stood, took a sweeping bow and then opened his hand to reveal a pocket watch, a locket and a pair of gold cufflinks. “That little crowd you drew proved quite good pickings. It don’t cost me much to let you have the coins they threw. We should do it again sometime, maybe not on the waterfront where we’re likely to be seen, though. Where are you staying?”
Daniel bit his lip and shrugged. “I dunno. I don’t rightly know anything, except I’m Daniel Flynn from Killarney.” He smiled as he thrust his hand out to shake Tom’s hand and waited while Tom put his treasure store back into his trouser pocket before he could reciprocate. A feeling of relief flooded through Daniel; for the first time in three weeks he didn’t feel completely alone.
“You’d best come with me,” Tom said, offering to take Daniel’s bundle.
“It’s fine.” Daniel clutched his belongings.
“I ain’t going to nick it. Anyways, come and meet me ma. Where we live, it ain’t much, but it’s a roof. Though you gets wet when it rains. It’s not as bad as some.” He walked on across the cobbled street. “That there’s Ol’ Tinker. He’s one from the old country. He ain’t so bad.”
Tom grabbed Daniel’s arm and pulled him behind a barrel at the front of an alleyway. He pointed to a man with a curled moustache, dressed well in bright suiting and carrying a cane. “We owes him,” he whispered. “He’s our landlord, or leastways the one
who collects the rent. May as well be the same thing for the difference it makes to us. If Ma says you can stay, maybe them coins could help us pay.”
Daniel stared at the man passing the alley, his head held high, a handkerchief clasped over his nose with his left hand, leaving the extensive grey whiskers curling out at the side. Daniel nodded to Tom, holding out the coins whose value meant little without the security of a family.
“Not yet. We’ll talk to Ma.” They moved away from the barrel and onwards along Pearl Street. Further along Tom hesitated, shot darting glances over his shoulders and then guided Daniel through a narrow doorway into a rickety warehouse, piled high with wooden crates.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom, as Tom led him to an uneven staircase with as many gaps as remaining steps to negotiate in order to reach the floor above without incident. Dan opened his mouth, but Tom held his finger to his lips. Daniel nodded. Tom placed a hand on his shoulder, preventing him moving forward along the landing, and Daniel nodded again.
Tom walked on into the darkness of the building, almost dancing with an experienced step around the rotten planking. Once he was out of sight, Daniel strained his ears to hear what was happening. There was the sound of a nervous cough and then silence. After a few moments he could hear a number of metal objects, including a chain, being laid down. Daniel presumed it was the afternoon’s pickings. No words passed. He heard the items being drawn across a table top and then once more there was nothing. Moments later Tom returned, walking straight past Daniel, his jaw thrust forward in defiance. Tom headed down the staircase and Daniel struggled to follow him. As he disappeared into the street, Daniel ran to catch him up.
“They was gold, to be sure they was.”
“The cufflinks?” Daniel asked, not knowing what else to say.
New York Orphan (Tales of Flynn and Reilly Book 1) Page 1