Orphan Train Romance Series: Five Books in One! (Clean Western Historical Romances)

by Zoe Matthews

  Lydia bent town to Lizzy’s level. “Hello, Lizzy,” she said to the child. Lizzy hid her face against Joseph’s arm and would not look at her. Lydia wanted to brush some of the curly hair away from Lizzy’s eyes. She wanted to hold the child, but she could tell she needed to go slow and allow Lizzy to become comfortable with being with her brothers and her new family.

  “Let’s take them to the hotel to wait for Mr. Carver,” Clinton finally suggested and he herded the children towards the large building down the street from the train station.

  The small family was soon in the cool hotel lobby and they settled on a couch. Lydia noticed that Lizzy would not let go of Joseph’s hand. It was as if she thought her brother would disappear if she let go, so Lydia resigned herself to the fact that Lizzy would need some time to get used to her.

  She sat back on the sofa and allowed herself to enjoy the talking that was going on between the three siblings. She felt so grateful they were able to reunite them and that she was their mother.

  Soon, Mr. Carver arrived with the necessary paperwork and very quickly all the papers were signed. Lizzy was now theirs. He seemed to be in a hurry, which Lydia could understand as he had another group of children to find homes for, so they bid him goodbye.

  “Why don’t we eat at the hotel’s restaurant before we take the train back to Maple Grove,” Clinton suggested. Joseph and James thought that was a fine idea and agreed loudly with him.

  Lydia laughed to herself, thinking that this meal was going to be an interesting one with the boys showing so much excitement.

  The boys walked towards the hotel’s restaurant with their sister in between them, each holding one of her hands. Lydia felt Clinton take her own and she smiled up at him. She had a family, a promised family, and she was content.

  THE END

  BIG SPRING RANCH BRIDES: ANNA

  (Orphan Train Romance Series, Book 3)

  Written by Zoe Matthews

  Copyright © 2014

  All rights reserved

  No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author's imagination and used fictitiously.

  PREFACE

  The conditions on the orphan trains were sometimes primitive. The children were usually kept in the same train car in tight quarters. They had very little belongings with them, usually only a change of clothes.

  Although this story depicts that the main character and her friends were given a choice to leave the orphanage for a better life, most of the time the children were not given a choice. In fact, sometimes the children didn’t even know what was going on or where they were going.

  The food that the children ate on the train was simple, usually bread and butter. Fresh fruit and vegetables were purchased when they were available.

  When the train stopped in a town, the children were usually displayed in front of everyone in the town hall or church. Sometimes people would come just to watch the proceedings. Babies were placed very quickly while older children, especially if they were older than 14, were harder to place. Sick and disabled children were also hard to place.

  If they did not find a home, the children were taken back to the orphanage. Sometimes these children were put on trains multiple times before they were finally placed.

  The orphanage was supposed to send an agent to check on the children once about six months or a year after placement to make sure the placement was a good one. If it wasn’t, the child was supposed to be removed, but this rarely happened and abusive situations were usually easy to hide.

  CHAPTER 1

  New York City Orphanage

  Anna Blake walked into the large kitchen of the orphanage to help the cook, Mrs. O’Brian, with preparing lunch. She groaned to herself when she saw the mound of cabbage on a scarred wooden table waiting to be chopped. Cabbage soup, again. She greeted Mrs. O’Brian, washed her hands in an old dented basin, and started to wash the cabbages without being asked.

  “I think we can stretch the cabbage to make enough soup so everyone can get a full bowl this time,” Mrs. O’Brian commented as she stirred something in a large bowl. “I can make biscuits with the flour that is left from making bread yesterday.”

  Anna nodded her agreement, but tuned the cook’s voice out. Mrs. O’Brian loved to talk and would converse to anyone who was around and willing to listen. Anna had learned that all she needed to do was nod her head or say “hmm, hmm” every so often and Mrs. O’Brian would think she was listening.

  As she lifted a head of cabbage and started to chop, Anna started to think about something she had been worrying about for the last few weeks. She was going to be turning 13 in a few months. She knew that the director of the orphanage liked to find jobs or work as an apprentice for the children when they turned 13. This solved two problems. The first one was that the older children had a chance to learn a trade to support themselves when they were grown and the second reason was that it opened up room for more children who needed a place to stay.

  Anna was hoping that the director, Mrs. Young, would be willing to keep her and allow her to work as an assistant to Mrs. O’Brian since she had been helping in the kitchen for two years now. Her main concern was the possibility of being separated from her two best friends, whom she considered her sisters, Serena and Katrina. All three of them had been living at the orphanage for most of their lives. Anna had been there the longest, having been abandoned at a nearby church soon after her birth. Her birth mother had not even bothered to name her and the director of the orphanage at the time gave her the name of Anna Blake.

  Serena and Katrina were the same age as her, 12 years old, and they were also wondering about what would happen to them. Anna would be turning 13 years old in a few months. Serena would be having a birthday in a few weeks, and then Katrina a few months after that.

  Anna did not mind the idea of living her entire life at the orphanage. She really did not know any different, just stories that other children had told her, children who had come to live at the orphanage when they were older. When she was younger, sometimes late at night after everyone was asleep, she would imagine what it would be like to have a family, a mom and dad who loved her so much they would have kept her. Sometimes she added a sister or brother to her pretend family. She would picture the house they would live in, the flower gardens that surrounded the home, and maybe even a small dog as a pet. As she grew older, she stopped imagining a pretend family, as she slowly realized her parents were never going to claim her and she was getting too old to be adopted.

  Sometimes, during the day while she went about her duties, school in the mornings and afternoons, helping with lunch and dinner after classes, she could not help but think about what her life could have been like. Lately though, the only thing she thought about was what would happen to her when she had her next birthday.

  She figured she probably would become a maid to some rich family. That was what most older girls did when they left. She enjoyed learning how to cook, but she did not think she would like to be a maid to someone else.

  Her biggest concern was the likelihood of being separated from Serena and Katrina. She could not imagine her life without them. Tears came to her eyes just thinking about never seeing her friends again, but she quickly blinked them away so Mrs. O’Brian wouldn’t notice. Crying did not help anyway. It just made your eyes red and puffy and made your nose run. When the crying was done, the problem was still there.

  “I think you chopped that head of cabbage small enough,” Mrs. O’Brian commented as she looked over Anna’s shoulder. “If you cut that any smaller, we won’t even be able to see that it’s cabbage soup.” The older woman chuckled as she scooped up the cabbage into a large soup pan.

  Anna smiled with embarrassment, but from then on she paid attention to what she was doing an
d quickly cut up the rest of the cabbage. After she was done, she washed some dishes in an old chipped basin and made sure there were enough clean bowls and spoons for the lunch meal.

  There were strict rules in the orphanage during meals. There were over 50 children and they all had to be fed in a short period of time. The younger children were fed first, and then the older children. Boys were kept separate from the girls. No talking was allowed and when a child was finished eating, he or she was supposed to set his or her spoon down next to the bowl or plate and wait until everyone else was done. It was considered a huge deal if a child did not finish the food that was put in front of them, but that usually was not an issue. Most of the time, the children left the table still hungry.

  “Oh, I almost forgot.” Mrs. O’Brian suddenly broke into Anna’s thoughts. “Mrs. Young wants to see you in her office right after you eat lunch. I guess I will have to get Patty to help with the dishes.” She named a younger girl that sometimes worked in the kitchen.

  Mrs. O’Brian’s words scared Anna. No one was sent to talk to the director unless they were in trouble or leaving the orphanage. Sometimes leaving the orphanage was a good thing. It meant a family wanted to adopt the child, but that usually only happened to very young children. No one wanted to adopt an older child, especially someone who was already 12 years old.

  “Do…do you know why she wants to see me?” Anna asked in a very small voice.

  “No,” Mrs. O’Brian shook her head. “I guess you’ll just need to go and find out for yourself.”

  “I guess,” Anna agreed, but she wished she could run and hide. Something deep inside was telling her that her life was about to change.

  ****

  During lunch, Serena quietly whispered to her that she and Katrina were also supposed to go see Mrs. Young. When Anna heard the news, she felt a little bit better. Maybe what the director had to say would not be bad.

  After the three girls ate and stacked their bowls to be washed, they were given permission to leave for their appointment with Mrs. Young. They walked down the long hall towards the front office. The building the orphanage was housed in was not very large. There were two floors. On one end of the main floor, there was the kitchen and dining area. There were also a few storage closets. Classrooms were in the middle and one room was used as a chapel. On the other end were a few offices, one of which was Mrs. Young’s.

  The bedrooms were on the second floor. The boys slept in a large room on one side of building and the girls on the other. The oldest girls slept in one large room with some of the younger children so they could help care for them when needed. There was a smaller room for the very young babies.

  Anna walked quickly beside her friends. Neither Serena nor Katrina said anything and Anna was quiet as well. They all felt nervous about this meeting. When they arrived at the office, the door was closed. Anna took a deep breath and looked at her friends.

  “I’ll knock,” Serena offered and quietly hit the wooden door a few times with her small fist.

  “Come in,” Mrs. Young called through the closed door and Anna slowly opened the door. She walked apprehensively into the office and her friends slowly followed. Anna saw Mrs. Young, but she also saw another heavyset woman sitting next to the desk.

  “Girls,” Mrs. Young stood and greeted them. The heavyset woman stood as well. “Come in and let me introduce you to Mrs. Carver.” She gestured to the girls to move closer to her desk.

  “These are the girls I was telling you about,” Mrs. Young spoke to the woman. “This is Anna, Serena and Katrina.” She pointed to each girl as she said their names. “Girls, this is Mrs. Carver. Why don’t we all sit down and I will let you know why I wanted to talk to you.”

  Anna sat on the edge of one of the chairs that was in front of the desk and Serena and Katrina did the same. She felt Serena’s hand slip into her own and she grasped it tightly.

  “Mrs. Carver and her husband are planning a trip. They want to take some of the children from this orphanage and take them on a train ride to a town in the state of Texas,” Mrs. Young said as she pushed some papers around on her desk. “They want to take some older children as well as younger ones. When the train reaches Texas, it will stop in stations of various small towns. All the children on the train will be given an opportunity to be placed with families that live in these towns. The idea is if a family agrees to take a child, they will treat them as part of their family. They will be able to continue their education and have an opportunity to have a family life.

  “I am sure you girls know you will need to leave the orphanage in a few months. I want to give you the opportunity to go with Mr. and Mrs. Carver and have a chance at a new life.”

  “Do you mean we could have a family?” Serena asked as if she could not believe her good fortune. It was Serena’s greatest wish that she be adopted into a good family.

  “We can’t promise that the people who offer you a home will be like a family, Serena,” Mrs. Young responded.

  Anna could tell Serena was not listening. “I want to go,” Serena announced excitedly.

  “Do we have to decide right now?” Katrina asked with apprehension. Anna knew Katrina had a hard time adjusting to any type of change in her life.

  “No, but we would like you to decide by tomorrow evening,” Mrs. Carver requested gently. “You girls are old enough to decide for yourselves which direction you want your life to go, but we would need to know soon because we can only take a certain number of children. If you decide not to come, we would need time to extend this offer to some other children.”

  Anna nodded her understanding along with her friends.

  “When would we leave?” Serena asked, still excited for the idea.

  “One week from today. If you don’t have any more questions, you girls may continue your duties,” she said, dismissing them.

  Anna actually had many questions. She wanted to know where in Texas the train would be stopping. She wanted to know how long it would take to get to Texas. What if a family took her in, but they didn’t like her or she didn’t like them? However, she could tell that Mrs. Young was done with the conversation and wanted them to leave, so she stood along with her friends and they left the office.

  “Wow!” Katrina breathed as the three girls walked down the hallway. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “I want to go,” Serena said again, unnecessarily.

  “We need to go to class,” Anna said. “Let’s see if we can talk about this later.” Serena and Katrina agreed and they each went their separate ways.

  They were not able to talk to each other again until that evening right before bedtime. Katrina and Serena were all ready for bed by the time Anna arrived later than usual. Anna was worried because there was a strict no talking policy after the lights were turned out and she really wanted to talk to her friends about this. She had been thinking about this new opportunity all afternoon and she had decided she would rather see if she could be taken in by a kind family than work as a maid or be forced to work at another job.

  “I couldn’t get away until now,” Anna said as she quickly changed out of her gray drab-style dress that all the orphan girls wore and into her equally gray nightclothes.

  “We need to talk quickly,” Katrina said as she helped Anna fold her dress at the foot of her bed like they had been taught to do. “What do you think about what Mrs. Young told us? Do you still want to go, Serena?”

  “Yes,” Serena said. “I want a family.”

  “I am really scared about going. But I think we should all go together. Then maybe it won’t be so bad,” Katrina said. “Maybe we can all be adopted in the same town with families that live close to each other.”

  “I agree,” Anna nodded her head. “I just hope it works out like we want it to.”

  “What if we can’t stay together?” Serena asked.

  “We will just have to make sure we do, or at least stay in touch somehow,” Katrina stated firmly.

  The next day
, the three girls let Mrs. Young know they wanted to go on the train. Mrs. Young looked relieved that all three had decided to go. She promised to talk to Mrs. Carver about trying to keep the girls together, but she would not promise anything, she made sure that the girls understood that things might not work out exactly the way they wanted.

  CHAPTER 2

  2 Weeks Later

  “Children, please listen to me,” Mr. Carver called over the noise that children tend to make. He waited for a moment for the children to quiet down, and then continued. “We will be arriving in Maple Grove, Texas in about 10 minutes. Please make sure all your belongings are with you. Older children, please help with the younger children.”