“Thank you,” he said. And then he asked, “Ma’am, are you from Kansas?”
“I sure am,” she told him. “Not far from where you’re headed, in fact. My husband is the sheriff of Malcolm County, and we live in Whitmore—the county seat. That’s why I volunteered to help out the Society on these trains. I figured they could use a local gal.”
“Where we’re going, is it . . .” He was trying to find the right words. “A nice place?”
Mrs. Routh’s smile changed a little. “I hope you think it is,” she said softly as she moved on to the next row.
There was no sense in completely hiding Harold from Mrs. Routh and Miss DeHaven when they were passing out food. Instead, Frances had him sit on his suitcase to look taller and older. She grabbed two sandwiches as quickly as she could and then slid back in next to Harold. When she handed him his food, she put her finger to her lips, a gesture that she had taught him to mean be quiet like a mouse.
But then Harold had to be a baby. “I only got half the sandwich!” he protested once he’d torn off the string and unfolded the paper wrap.
“You know how rude it is to complain,” Frances said. The last thing she wanted to do was call attention to how young her brother was, maybe too young to ride in the car with the bigger kids. “I’m sure it’s just a mistake,” she said, unwrapping her food.
But then she saw, too: It was half of a thin cheese sandwich—a tiny half, the size of a twice-folded handkerchief—with a few sliced pickles. She slipped out of her seat, pulling nervously at the awful bow on her new dress. She knew it was better to just lie low. But sometimes, when Harold was hungry enough, he sure could make a scene. So Frances steeled herself and stepped down the aisle.
“Excuse me,” she whispered to Mrs. Routh. “Will there be . . . uh, more?”
Mrs. Routh hesitated. “Not until tomorrow,” she whispered back. Their eyes met, and Frances could sense that there was shame. The woman seemed to appreciate that Frances was keeping her voice down. Then again, Frances looked around and could see that none of the other kids wanted to say anything about the food, even though they couldn’t hide the looks on their faces when they’d unfolded the thick waxed paper that made the packages look so much bigger than their contents.
“You’re welcome,” Miss DeHaven said to the silent train car.
Mrs. Routh counted the last sandwiches in her basket carefully. “I’ll get these to the children in the next car.” She hurried out.
Miss DeHaven looked around and, seeing that she was the lone adult in the car, passed out her few remaining sandwiches with even more haste. Then she brushed off her dress, shuddered as if she’d finished an especially foul chore, and rushed down the aisle in the direction Mrs. Routh had gone.
“Don’t make me come back in here,” she muttered to the children on her way out.
Now Frances could feel Harold trembling quietly next to her. She scooted closer to him on the bench, worried that at any second he’d let forth with the tears—they were already building up in his eyes like water in rain barrels.
“I hate pickles,” she lied. “You can have all of mine.”
Suddenly, Frances was startled by the sound of another voice: “Ahem.” And then a hand appeared over the seat back, three sliced pickles in its grasp. “I can’t stand them, either,” said Jack from behind them. “You should have mine, too, Harold.”
“Thank you, Frances,” Harold said, sniffling a bit. “Thank you, too, Jack.”
By now Jack was leaning over the back of the seat. “So that’s your sister’s name? Frances?” he asked.
Harold nodded. But Frances could see that Jack was waiting for her to answer.
“Yes,” she said, surprising herself. She hadn’t intended to tell her name to anyone else on the train. Not just because of the kids like Quentin, who’d learn your name and then use it against you, but because of the kids who’d learn it and you wouldn’t see each other again and then your name was just a useless word somewhere.
But there was Jack, whose eyes were kind. He leaned in with his elbow against the back of the seat, chin in hand, like he was ready to relax and stay awhile. His other hand reached out to shake hers.
“Yes,” she said again. “I’m Frances.”
Frances and Jack each gave Harold part of their sandwiches, too. Then they figured out how to move the seat backs so that their benches faced each other like a little booth. They sat there the rest of the afternoon watching the telegraph wires swoop up and down as the scenery rolled by.
“A gang called the Ugly Rabbits.” Jack laughed. “That was a good one.”
“So was when you rode piggyback on Quentin,” Frances said. “You should have seen his face.”
“Never mind Quentin. What about that Miss DeHaven?”
“I don’t like her,” Harold whispered. “She’s the scare lady. Her badge says so.”
Frances had to hold back a giggle. “The letters on her badge are S-C-A-R, Harold. They stand for Society for Children’s Aid and Relief. You’re reading them wrong.”
“Well, then, the badge is wrong,” Harold insisted. “Because she’s SCARY.”
“You’re right about that,” Jack said. “You know what I call her? Miss Meansleeves.” He started humming the song “Greensleeves,” and Frances and Harold couldn’t stop laughing.
“I bet that’s why there wasn’t enough food today,” Frances added. “She’s hiding it all in her sleeves.”
Jack snorted. “Ha! What do you think, Harold?”
Harold had turned to the window. His eyebrows were scrunched up, and he was chewing on his lip.
“What’s wrong?” Frances asked.
“Remember what Quentin said about how in Kansas they wouldn’t want you if you were lame?” he asked. “What did that mean?”
“You’re not lame,” Frances told him. “You run all over the place, silly.”
“But it does make you wonder what it’s going to be like in Kansas, doesn’t it?” Jack pointed out. “It makes you think about the . . . the rumors.”
Rumors. The word gave Frances a shivery feeling. She’d first started hearing the rumors at the home, not long after the ribbons were handed out. The whispers went from bed to bed that night. Then, at Grand Central Depot, she’d listened to the Italian kid, Lorenzo, telling another boy stories he’d heard about what happened at the end of these train journeys.
“Is it true that when you get off the train, they make you line up so the grown-ups can pick you out?” Harold asked.
“I don’t know,” Jack said. His brow was furrowed, Frances noticed. Had he heard that rumor too?
Near dusk the train made a stop outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Mrs. Routh brought in a water pail with a dipper, and everyone lined up for a drink.
Jack noticed Mrs. Routh pulling the porter aside to request the pail be refilled. “Someone was supposed to make sure the children weren’t thirsty,” she said wearily. Jack supposed she meant Miss DeHaven. “But I’ll take care of it from now on. I’m here to help, after all.”
Then the train continued in the direction of the sunset. It was getting dim inside the train car, with only a few of the kerosene lamps hanging from the top of the car flickering weakly. Some of the younger kids began to doze, but Jack and Frances talked on in low voices, with Harold doing his best to stay awake.
“A kid behind me in line said he’d heard when the adults are picking you out, they inspect your teeth,” said Jack. “Like a horse or something.”
“If someone puts their hand in my mouth, I’ll bite them,” Harold said.
“I heard they pick the strong kids for hard work, and sometimes they even send you to a factory,” Frances added.
Jack’s shoulders tensed at the word factory. A few months back it wouldn’t have sounded like the worst thing. But that was only because of Daniel.
Jack lowered h
is voice to a whisper. “So do you think it’s true about the work farm in Kansas? I overheard a kid in Quentin’s bunch talking about it in the water line. Something about a cruel family who made kids sow rocks and eat dirt clods for dinner.”
Frances whispered back. “You mean the one with a hundred kids? I thought that was in Ohio.”
“No, Ohio is where they have the factory where they make kids paint tiny numbers on watches,” Jack said. “I heard that story back in the city from a kid who I used to play stickball with whose cousin was sent on an orphan train to Ohio—something about how kids do a better job because they have smaller hands.”
Harold spoke up again. “Those are just stories, right, Frances? Just like back at the home, when people used to say all kinds of crazy things and you’d tell me not to listen to them.” He looked at his sister for confirmation, then continued before she could say anything. “They gave us nice clothes to wear, so I think we are going to nice homes with people who can take care of us.”
Frances squeezed Harold’s shoulder and looked over at Jack. She smiled a little, but not in her eyes.
“Sure,” Jack said. “Nice homes.”
It was dark now in the train. Just one of the lamps still flickered, and the only light outside was from a shard of the moon. Frances felt Harold’s head loll on her shoulder. A few minutes later he was fast asleep.
Frances was just about to nod off herself when she heard a voice, faint but familiar.
“Frances . . . hey, Frances!”
Frances sat up with a start. Jack was leaning across the seat in her direction.
“What?” she whispered back.
“Don’t tell anyone, but I’m not going to Kansas.” He sat back, but he kept his gaze steady.
Frances rubbed her eyes, certain that sleep must have dulled her senses. But when she glanced back up, Jack looked as determined as ever. “What? Of course you’re going.”
Jack looked around to make sure nobody was listening. “Nope. I’m going to get off this train and go back to New York.” He folded his arms and nodded. “And if you know what’s good for you and Harold, you won’t stay on this train, either.”
6.
A Placement and a Plan
Harold had the window seat, and for most of the next two days, he kept his forehead pressed to the glass, gaping out at the fields they passed. Frances was pretty certain that he was daydreaming about a new home. Once he even pointed out a tiny clapboard farmhouse in the distance.
“Like that, Frances,” Harold said. “I bet some good people live in a house like that, and we’ll meet them when we get off the train.”
Frances squeezed his hand and said only, “We’ll see.” She was glad that he was too busy gazing out the window to notice the doubt in her smile.
While Harold watched the view, Frances and Jack watched everything else.
They’d both noticed that Miss DeHaven hardly ever came into their car, preferring to stay in the next car over. Frances had overheard Mrs. Routh explaining to one of the porters that that was where the four youngest children, aged five and under, were seated.
“I’m surprised that she’d want to ride with the younger kids,” Jack replied after Frances got finished telling him what she’d heard.
“She doesn’t,” Frances answered automatically. “That other car is a first-class coach. I peeked in this morning. It’s got cushioned seats and everything.”
“Hmm . . . Well, that makes more sense.”
“You didn’t think she suddenly had a soft spot for the little kids, did you?”
“Good point.”
What Jack really wanted to talk about, though, was the plan to escape. But it was too risky to discuss during the daytime. The night before, he’d waited until most of the other kids, including Harold, were asleep, and he’d mentioned it to Frances again.
“But how are you going to escape?” she’d asked.
“I don’t know yet,” he’d said. “I just know that I ought to.” His brother used to tell him he should mind whenever he “got a qualm.” You know, a sense in your guts that something’s not right, Daniel would say. And for days he’d been having a qualm about where this train was headed. “And like I said, you and Harold should, too—”
“Right, ‘if we know what’s good for us,’” Frances finished. “But how do you know what’s good for us?”
Jack had wanted to say because I’m just like you. But Harold woke up just then needing a drink of water. The way Frances was such a mother hen to that kid was sweet and all that, Jack thought, but he wished she’d see that the best thing she could do for him would be to work on a plan to get off that train.
As for Frances, she wondered what Jack’s story was. When she first saw him on the platform back at Grand Central, he’d been saying goodbye to a man and a woman—were those his parents? She’d heard that some of the children here weren’t truly orphans. She’d almost asked him about it, but she stopped herself. After all, Frances tried not to think about her own situation, hers and her brother’s. If she ever asked this Jack kid about his circumstances, she’d likely have to tell him about hers, and she didn’t want Harold to overhear. Really, it was better to not say anything at all. And so Frances resolved to just stay quiet and keep an eye out for trouble.
Which is why, on the morning of the third day, as they traveled through Missouri, Frances straightened up and sat bolt upright the moment a stranger entered the car.
The stranger was a man. Frances sized him up quickly: older, stocky, his clothes plain but respectable, a beard with some gray in it. Honest, maybe. Or maybe not. From across the aisle, Jack cocked his head toward him, obviously noticing him, too.
Mrs. Routh had followed the man in, her hands fluttering as she tried to keep up with his long strides. “Sir, this is a private car,” she told him.
“Yes,” he said. “I would like to see the children.” He was clutching a paper handbill. “You are showing them in Sheltonburg, yes? That is just past my stop. But I thought that as long as I was on the train, I might see if there was a suitable child.”
He held out the handbill for Mrs. Routh to look at. “Hmm,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s all right to—”
“Of course, sir,” Miss DeHaven loudly interjected, having just appeared behind them. “All the ones here are healthy and intelligent.”
She was speaking in that tone again, Frances noticed, the one that sounded pretty and melodic. For the past two days she hadn’t been wearing her ribboned badge, but now she had it on, pinned on her dress, neat and straight.
The bearded man was looking all around, up and down the rows. Miss DeHaven clapped her hands twice. “Children! This is an occasion to be cheerful, is it not?” A few of the kids stood up straighter and smiled. Still others sat wide-eyed, watching the man.
“Sir,” Mrs. Routh said, raising her voice a bit, “perhaps we should speak in private first, sir, about your circumstances, to make sure that you’re—”
“Just the right kind of person to give one of these poor children a home!” Miss DeHaven interrupted. “But I’ve no doubt you’re perfect, and I don’t see the need for formalities, do you, Mrs. Routh? Or . . . do they know how to do things better in Kansas?”
Mrs. Routh was speechless for a moment. “It’s not my place to object,” she said at last, nodding at Miss DeHaven’s badge. “You’re the authority here.” Her mouth was a tight line.
Miss DeHaven turned to the man again. “Are you seeking a boy or a girl?”
“Not sure about a girl,” the man told Miss DeHaven. “Maybe a sturdy boy who can do chores.” He was looking over at the older boys, including Quentin, who, Frances noticed, bowed his head to hide his bad lip.
“But the girls here are quite capable. Perhaps your wife might like one? They can be trained from a much younger age than boys,” Miss DeHaven insisted.
&n
bsp; Trained. Frances was fuming. Trained, like they were talking about terrier pups.
“Well . . . the missus does need some help,” the man admitted.
At that, Miss DeHaven tugged on the arm of one of the two Swedish girls, Nell, who dutifully stepped out into the aisle, but not before exchanging a panicked look with her sister seated next to her. “Sweetheart,” Miss DeHaven said, “please recite for this gentleman that lovely verse you know. The ladies at the orphanage tell me you won a prize for memorizing it.”
Nell looked terrified, but she took a deep breath and began, in a steady voice:
“The little birds fly over,
And oh, how sweet they sing!
To tell the happy children
That once again ’tis Spring.
Here blows the warm red clover,
There peeps the violet blue;
Oh, happy little children!
God made them all for you.”
When she finished, she looked straight down at her feet.
“Why, that was awful nice,” the bearded man said, nodding abashedly at Nell. He turned to Miss DeHaven. “But I see she’s got a sister, and I can’t take them both.”
Frances felt her stomach flip over. Can’t take them both. She looked over at her brother. She and Harold were a both—what if someone wanted just one of them? She wouldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t.
“Very well, sir,” Miss DeHaven said to the man at last.
“But what about him?” the man said. He pointed to a boy of about nine who always sat by the back door of the car. Jack had spoken to him once or twice but knew only that his name was Colin.
“Ah, yes . . .” Miss DeHaven led the man over. Once the adults had moved up the aisle, Nell and her sister embraced with relief.
Jack looked down and noticed that his own fists were clenched. His whole body, in fact, had been tense as a drawn bow, as if he’d been waiting to leap out in the aisle. As if he could run all the way to the front of this train, to the huge black engine, and make it all stop.
Wanderville Page 3