Nettie and Nellie Crook

by E. F. Abbott

  “You can do it,” Nettie said. “You have to. We both have to.” She glanced back toward the house. “You see how she keeps watching us? She’s just waiting for us to fall down dead our very first day here, and we won’t.”

  “I can’t. Nettie, I just can’t.” Tears filled Nellie’s eyes.

  “You can,” said Nettie. “You got to. Now, come on.” She knew she sounded sharp, but Nellie couldn’t quit on her. She just couldn’t.

  Nettie hauled her bucket toward the house and prayed Nellie would follow her. She didn’t know what would happen if Gertie Chapin found them sitting down or quitting, but it would be something bad. A moment later, she heard Nellie stumbling behind her.

  They filled the tub with clean water.

  They rinsed the clothes.

  More buckets. More water.

  They hauled water to rinse the clothes once more, this time with bluing.

  “Now wring them out, good and dry,” said Mrs. Chapin.

  They had to wring every bit of wash by hand, twisting and squeezing.

  Heavy, heavy.

  Nettie hung her head, too exhausted to speak. Too weak to rise from her knees. “There,” she breathed, at last. Her knuckles were rough and red and peeling. She sucked on the side of her thumb where the skin bled and stung. Her back and neck ached as if someone held a hot poker between her shoulder blades.

  But the laundry was, all of it, clean. Finally, finally, they were finished. The sun was low. It had been the longest day Nettie could remember in her life. She smiled at Nellie. “All done,” she said. “We did it.”

  Nellie nodded, but barely. She did not raise her gaze to Nettie’s. She didn’t manage a smile.

  Nettie heard the clomp of Mrs. Chapin’s shoes and turned her head slowly to look up at her. “Done,” she said.

  Mrs. Chapin turned her bulldog face to Nettie and looked at her a long moment. “Not quite. Go and hang the clothes out.” She turned and walked away.

  Nellie lowered her head to the edge of the tub. Nettie could see her shoulders shaking.

  Slowly, Nettie got on her hands and knees, then rose to her feet. She started to drag the clothes basket. It was too heavy to lift. A moment later, Nellie got up and began to push the basket from the other side, and together they pulled and pushed it to the clothesline beside the house. Nellie tugged at a twist of wet cloth. Unexpectedly, it came free of the tangle of clothes and flopped onto the dirt.

  Mrs. Chapin was there in an instant—like a spider, patient and deadly quick.

  “Idiot girl!” She raised her hand and slapped Nellie full across the face. Nellie cried out. Nettie, enraged, flew to Mrs. Chapin and began to beat her small fists into her soft stomach. Mrs. Chapin grabbed hold of Nettie’s wrists and held them tightly. Nettie tossed her head like a frightened horse.

  “Don’t you hit my sister!” Nettie yelled. Nellie was crying, hiding her face in her hands.

  Mrs. Chapin flung Nettie to the ground and stood there, panting and red-faced. She pointed at the laundry. “You did it wrong. Do it again.” Her voice sounded like the growl of a mean dog, the kind you hope’s tied up.

  Nettie rubbed her wrists where they hurt. “It’s only one measly apron,” she said. “We’ll fix it. We’ll just shake the dirt off it. I’ll rinse it off.”

  Mrs. Chapin’s lips went white. “Don’t you sass me,” she said. Slowly, she leaned over, took hold of the edge of the basket, and toppled the clean clothes—every last thing—onto the dirt.

  Nettie stared at Gertie Chapin’s brown lace-up shoes. Why were some people so hard and cruel? Why would anybody be?

  The shoes moved away. “Do it right this time.”

  CHAPTER 11

  After three days with Gertie Chapin, the girls were thrilled when Mr. Chapin took them to work at the store. The store was one big room, with a high ceiling and long wooden counters. On one end of the counter was a great glass urn packed full of pickled vegetables, with a Heinz label pasted to the glass. There was a big scale to measure out goods. There were sacks of flour and sugar, crates of apples and pears. The big-bellied woodstove in the center of the room pumped out heat in waves, but it was cooler at the edges of the room and in the corner where there was a bucket of small whisk brooms and a barrel of tall straw kitchen brooms.

  Mr. Chapin was pulling a crisp white apron over his head and tying it around his ample middle when the little bell above the door rang, announcing the first customer of the day. Mr. Chapin stepped right up to the counter. “Good morning, Mr. Neumann,” he said. “What can I do you for today?”

  Mr. Neumann wanted some canned goods and some fresh fruit and a bag of Chase & Sanborn’s coffee, and Mr. Chapin collected the items for him while the customer waited, smiling pleasantly at Nellie and Nettie while they busied themselves attacking the store’s many shelves with a feather duster.

  “That there’s choicest private growth coffee beans,” said Mr. Chapin as he handed the sack of groceries to Mr. Neumann. He was proud to be able to offer his customers the finest goods available, even if his wife was stingy with the same items at home. “Sell it, don’t waste it,” she’d say, if he brought her something decent from the store. He glanced at the twins. Daughters! Maybe Gertie will loosen up, he thought, with children in the house. Maybe she’d be a little softer now.

  Mr. Neumann left, and the girls climbed up a ladder to line up rows of cans, three cans high and five cans deep. Then he had them put up the signs he’d hand-lettered. He had such pretty handwriting! Canned peaches were twenty-five cents a can, or six for a dollar thirty-eight. There were cans of pineapple for twenty cents each, or six for a dollar and ten cents, and canned corn and canned cherries and plums. Peas for twelve cents a can, or six for seventy cents. The rows of cans went on and on. So much food!

  There were baskets hung on nails all around the store, marked with prices that ranged from twenty cents to a dollar. Nettie imagined them filled with colored eggs and candy, come Easter time—Hershey’s Silvertops and peanut butter Peach Blossoms, her favorite, and paper-wrapped rolls of Necco wafers.

  Mr. Chapin seemed to enjoy having the girls help. He kept smiling, and his reddened cheeks looked as merry as old Saint Nick’s.

  “Your spoon dolls could be great friends with the feather dusters!” he suggested. Then he put a bonnet on a straw broom and danced with “her,” all around the store. The girls laughed till their sides ached, and they did not miss Mrs. Gertrude Chapin one bit.

  The little bell above the door chimed, and in came a woman with a boy in tow.

  Mr. Chapin set his straw-faced dance partner aside, pulled a square handkerchief from his back pocket, and patted his brow. “Why, hello, there, Mrs. Coffin,” he said, still chuckling.

  The girls quickly set their feather dusters and spoon dolls on a shelf and snapped to attention. When she saw the boy wearing a newsboy cap, standing in Mrs. Coffin’s shadow, Nettie’s jaw dropped.

  It was Joe Wilson! Joe, the boy who had been on the orphan train with them, and who’d been separated from his older brother, Robert. Nettie had not forgotten how poor Joe sobbed on the train platform as he watched his big brother walk away, and how she and Nellie were allowed to stay together.

  “Joe! Joe Wilson!” Nettie couldn’t keep the pleasure and surprise from her voice. Joe looked at them, then just as quickly looked away.

  “Joe, it’s us!” Nettie waved her hands and waggled her fingers to get his attention, as if he hadn’t seen them. “From the train!” It was impossible that he didn’t recognize them. All their lives, people had noticed the identical twin sisters. And it had been only a matter of days since they parted.

  But here Joe was acting like he didn’t know them at all. He glanced again their way, and then at Mrs. Coffin, who held tight to his hand. Then he stared down at his boots.

  “This here is my nephew, Will,” said Mrs. Coffin deliberately, “my brother’s boy. Will Coffin,” she said, jerking the boy’s hand, “say hello to Mr. Chapin.”
r />   “Pleased to meet you,” the boy mumbled.

  “Happy to make your acquaintance, Young Master Coffin,” said Mr. Chapin. “The twins here are mistaken, aren’t you, girls?” He looked at them as if he wanted them to agree, so they did.

  “Yessir.”

  Nettie looked sidelong at Nellie. That boy sure was Joe Wilson. Why was everybody pretending he wasn’t?

  CHAPTER 12

  On Sunday morning, at the breakfast table, Mrs. Chapin declared a day of rest.

  “Thank the Lord,” Nettie muttered.

  Mr. Chapin chuckled.

  “Indeed, Sunday is the Lord’s day,” said Mrs. Chapin with a glare at Mr. Chapin. “The Lord does not appreciate your disrespectful tone, Nettie, and neither do I.”

  Nettie opened her eyes wide to look innocent and sweet, like her doll, Min. “I’m Nellie,” she said. Blink-blink.

  Nellie hid her smile with her napkin, and Nettie kicked her under the table to keep her from laughing.

  Mrs. Chapin tilted her head very slightly and snuck looks at Nellie and Nettie. “Are you trying to play me?” she said.

  “No, ma’am,” said Nellie.

  “No, we sure never have any fun with you,” Nettie said, and then realized her mistake.

  Mrs. Chapin’s bulldog face went red. She grabbed the thing closest to hand, the doll Min, and cracked Nettie on the head with her.

  “Ow!” said Nettie.

  “You watch your tone,” said Mrs. Chapin. She shoved the spoon doll into her handbag.

  When it was time, they went to church. Nellie and Nettie listened carefully and tried to pay attention to the minister’s sermon. Mrs. Chapin was watching. Whenever their eyes wandered, she’d rap the girls’ hands on the knuckles with Min’s wooden head.

  Reverend Beebe droned on, reading out of the big Bible on the stand. “‘Say not, I will do so to him as he hath done to me: I will render to the man according to his work.’” He raised his eyebrows, then looked down at the Bible again. “‘Avenge not yourselves,’” he went on, “‘but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.’”

  After the sermon was over and the recessional hymn sung out, Mr. Chapin introduced the girls to Reverend Beebe, who greeted them warmly, in spite of all his talk about vengeance and wrath. He suggested the twins play with his daughter, Abigail, and son, Henry, during fellowship hour.

  “You’re orphans, right?” Abigail Beebe said. The minister’s daughter considered them both, head to toe. She squinched up her face like she was smelling something bad.

  “No.” Nettie stuck out her chin and shoved her hands in the patch pockets of her dress. “Our mama and father aren’t dead.”

  “If they’re not dead, then why’d they send you way out here on the orphan train?” said Abigail’s brother, Henry. “Don’t they want you anymore? You must have done something evil to make them get rid of you like that.”

  Nettie felt like slugging both Beebes. But Mrs. Chapin kept glowering at them every so often, and she’d warned them to be good.

  “How old are you?” Abigail wanted to know.

  “Six.” Nellie held out six fingers.

  “Huh. I can’t tell you one from the other, so how ’bout I just call you both Pig.” Abigail tilted her head and smiled, like she was saying something friendly instead of something mean. Nettie narrowed her eyes.

  “You steal stuff, Pig?” Abigail reached out and flicked the big bow on top of Nellie’s head. “Orphans are dirty. Papa says you came out here with nothing but the clothes on your backs. I bet you stole those hair ribbons, Pig.”

  Now Abigail had gone too far. Nettie balled her hands into fists. “We never stole anything, Abigail Beebe! We never did!”

  Nettie’s shout drew the attention of Mrs. Chapin. She clutched her handbag, with poor Min stuffed inside, and marched toward the children. But the minister got there first. Nettie was so mad she couldn’t look at Reverend Beebe. He’d probably see wrath written all over her face. She stared at the white square of his collar and pressed her fists to her sides.

  “Abigail, Henry,” he said to his children, “I trust you’re making our brand-new neighbors welcome?”

  “Of course, Papa,” Abigail said sweetly.

  “Just so, just so,” said the minister, smiling and patting Nellie and Nettie on the tops of their heads.

  Nettie ducked out from under Reverend Beebe’s hand. She was so mad she could spit. For minister’s kids, these two surely were mean. Nettie and Nellie had never been made to feel this bad in all their months at the orphanage, and here this was church!

  * * *

  Back at home after church, the afternoon grew warm, and Mrs. Chapin rested on the couch with her stocking-feet up. It was too hot to be upstairs, so the girls sat in the kitchen, playing the silent game with their spoon dolls. The first one who made any noise lost. So far, they were both winning, and it wasn’t much fun. Every so often Mrs. Chapin’s light, rhythmic snoring from the other room was interrupted by a snort.

  “What say we get out of here, girls?” said Mr. Chapin, very quietly. He pointed to the next room. “We’ll just let her sleep,” he said.

  They followed Mr. Chapin outside. The door closed behind them with a quiet click.

  “You girls know how to ride a bicycle?” Mr. Chapin asked. His watery eyes managed to twinkle.

  “No, sir!” said Nellie.

  “We can sure skip rope, though,” Nettie added.

  He led them to the small barn behind the house and slid the big door open. Inside was a bicycle, painted bright red.

  “I hung it on wires from the rafters at the store, a special display,” said Mr. Chapin, “but it never sold.” He raked his fingers through his thinning hair. “Mrs. Chapin called it a waste of money, but I’m glad I kep’ it,” he said. “I must’ve known I’d have two little girls one day. Give it a spin,” he offered.

  Nettie went first. She climbed on. Even with Mr. Chapin holding on, the bicycle wobbled and teetered.

  “Whoa, this is scary!”

  “Okay, now you just hold on here, and sit tall, and I’ll get the bike moving.” Mr. Chapin held on to the seat and the handlebars, and jogged beside her down the earthen ramp of the barn. “I’ve got you,” he was saying all along. She could feel his hand steadying the seat. The bicycle was wobbling, but she was holding on.

  “I’m steering!”

  “You’re doing it!”

  She turned too hard and the bike zagged, but Mr. Chapin corrected it. Nettie kept going down the earthen ramp and along the drive beside the house and out to the road, and she pedaled all the way.

  “Good going!” Mr. Chapin grinned.

  Then it was Nellie’s turn. Right away, she fell off onto the grassy bank and grazed her cheek on a rock. But still she laughed, because it wasn’t the kind of hurt that stuck around long.

  “You’re a couple of tough little birds, aren’t you,” said Mr. Chapin.

  “Strong and true as an oxen team,” said Nettie.

  And when they started giggling, they could hardly stop, because it had been so long since they’d laughed. It had been so long since anyone had cared whether they laughed or cried.

  Mr. Chapin ran along beside them as they took turns riding for the better part of the afternoon.

  “Now you try it without me,” he said.

  “I think I just might be able,” Nettie said.

  Mr. Chapin nodded and rubbed the back of his neck. “I think so, too,” he said.

  Nettie climbed onto the bicycle. Mr. Chapin held her there, one hand on the handlebars and one behind the seat. Then he gave her a push.

  “Pedal, now! Pedal hard!”

  “Pedal, pedal! Steer!” Nellie was hopping up and down at the bottom of the ramp, clapping her hands.

  Nettie pedaled. She sat up tall and still and held the handlebars straight and pedaled hard. “I’m doing it!” she hollered. The air whooshed past her ears and blew back the h
air that had come undone from her braids. Some kind of insect hit her cheek, and she didn’t even flinch. She was riding a bicycle all by herself. She was flying!

  So this was what a forever home felt like. Wheeee!

  CHAPTER 13

  The promised day came at last. School!

  “Class, say hello to our new friends, twin sisters Nellie and Nettie Chapin.” Miss Archibald, the teacher, stood with them at the front of the classroom. It was strange to hear their last name announced as Chapin and not Crook, and Nettie felt a jolt of surprise as she looked out over the classroom full of students. There, in the back, was that boy they’d seen at the grocery store, the boy they knew was Joe Wilson. He drew his newsboy cap down low over his face and ducked his head.

  “Hats off, Will Coffin,” Miss Archibald called to him. “You’re new here, too, and we don’t yet know each other well. But if I see that cap on your head again, you and I will get to know each other better after school.” Joe pulled the cap from his head and leaned forward to stuff it in his back pocket.

  Miss Archibald had made room for the twins in seats up front that were side by side. But sitting right behind them was Abigail Beebe. She yanked Nellie’s nicely brushed hair hard enough that her head snapped back. “Chapin’s your last name now, Pig? They only got you off the train, just like a crate of canned corn from California.” Nellie ducked her head and reached up where it hurt.

  Nettie scowled. Reverend Beebe had preached that they were supposed to leave all their wrath and vengeance-taking up to God. But it was hard not to want to grab up every one of Abigail Beebe’s pencils and snap them in half right in front of her face. God might not mind a little thing like that, but Miss Archibald probably would.

  It was a long morning, relieved only by read-aloud time. Miss Archibald read to the class from a brand-new book called The Secret Garden. In it, they met an orphan named Mary Lennox.

  “Dirty orphan, just like you,” Abigail hissed. “Nobody wants dirty orphans.”