Cassandra Austin (12 page)

Jane checked on Peggy and found her sleeping soundly. The kitten had finally settled down at the foot of the bed. In her own bedroom, Jane left the door open a crack so she would hear Peggy, certain the child would wake up hungry before morning.

She thought of the packet of letters she had found among her mother’s things, but decided not to read them tonight. She was certain she was already tired enough to sleep.

Johnny eased open the door of the toolshed to look out at the train station across the tracks. It was almost dark. He had taken refuge here earlier in the afternoon when he had run from the boxcar that had brought him into town. He had twice checked the letters on the train station with the ones on the paper the cowboy had given him. He was sure this was Clyde, Kansas, the place where they had sent his little sister.

When he had first jumped aboard a westbound train he had no idea how far he would have to go. Once during the journey, he had looked out the door of the boxcar at nothing but grass and had realized
if the railroad men caught him and forced him off the train, he would starve to death in almost no time. But he would probably go crazy even sooner.

At least here in Clyde there were a few houses, though they were short and crude and spaced too far apart like his friend Spike’s teeth. But houses meant people and people meant food. He was more than ready to let his nose lead him to somebody’s kitchen.

He eased the shed door open a crack more and slipped his narrow frame outside. Keeping in the shadows as much as possible, he set out to explore the town. If you walked too far in one direction you found yourself in that ocean of grass. He was really in the middle of nowhere. Besides that, there were no people out and about, though lights burned in several windows.

He had had plenty of time to think while he waited for dark. Unfortunately, he hadn’t figured out how he was going to find his sister. She could have been hauled out of town to some farm or other. He had seen a few of those isolated cabins from the train. Peggy must be terrified. And so was he every time he considered the possibility of never seeing her again.

Maybe he’d think better when his stomach quit growling. He was following some very pleasant smells. He hoped the houses would be easy to break into. The last thing he needed, now, was to be arrested.

The house he settled on was a large one for this little town. There were lights from some upstairs windows, but the lower level was dark. He circled to the back and discovered a faint glow in some windows there. He approached with more caution. Peeking though a window he discovered an empty kitchen with a lamp left burning on the table. Someone must be expected home. This could be tricky. Perhaps he should choose another house.

His stomach rumbled, forcing the decision. He’d pick a place to hide first thing and be on the lookout for this late arrival. He withdrew the pick from the seam of his shirt and prepared to unlock the door. The knob turned easily in his hand. They had left the door unlocked! What easy pickings this town might turn out to be.

Inside, he latched the door and scanned the room. An opened door suggested a pantry, and he moved silently toward it. He froze in the doorway when something moved in the darkness. A moment later, a kitten flitted past his feet, making him gasp before he caught himself.

He had taken another step into the room when some instinct told him the cat wasn’t its only occupant. He eased back, ready to run.

“Nonny?”

Could he have imagined a voice so clear? “Peggy?” he whispered.

“Nonny!” Before he could clamp a hand over her mouth, she had shouted it.

“Peggy,” he whispered fiercely, his hunger forgotten. He had found her! But what was she doing here, sleeping just off the kitchen? Was she the family’s maid? She was just a baby!

He heard a sound from deeper in the house. “Come on, Peggy, we have to get outta here!”

He tried to pull his sister toward the door, but she resisted, straining toward the kitten. “Come on,” he whispered again.

A door opened and a woman came through it. “It’s all right, sweetheart,” she was saying.

Johnny froze at the back door, one hand on the knob and the other holding Peggy’s. The woman froze, too, looking frightened at first, then simply curious. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “What do you want with Peggy?”

Johnny tugged on Peggy’s arm, still hoping to run, but she pulled away. He didn’t want to leave her but he couldn’t help her from a jail cell. He flung open the door and started out into the night.

“Nonny!” Peggy shrieked.

He paused, uncertain for a moment, then turned back into the house. The woman didn’t look cross or mean, but he knew he couldn’t trust her. He didn’t close the door behind him.

Peggy threw herself against him, clinging to him. He wrapped his arms around her and eyed the woman. “Don’t worry,” he murmured. “I ain’t leavin’ you.”

The woman smiled a very pretty smile. “I know
why you look familiar,” she said. “What’s your name?”

He hesitated, cautious about giving out any information. Finally he muttered, “Johnny.”

“Nonny,” Peggy echoed imperfectly.

“She’s missed you,” the woman said. “How did you find her?”

Johnny shrugged.

“I’m Jane, by the way. Are you hungry? I think Peggy is. She went to sleep before dinner.” Jane moved toward the cupboard. They had another chance to run. Johnny tugged on his sister’s hand, but the effort was only halfhearted. He was starving and Jane promised food.

She was setting plates at the kitchen table when a man stepped into the open doorway right behind Johnny. The boy flung himself away, maneuvering Peggy behind him.

“What’s going on?” Adam asked. “I heard Peggy scream and thought you might need some help. Who is this?”

“This is Peggy’s brother, Johnny,” Jane said.

The man’s face registered surprise. He asked, as she had, “How did you find her?”

Johnny scowled. “Who are you?”

Adam stuck out a hand. “Dr. Hart, Jane’s neighbor.”

Johnny eyed the hand a moment before taking it briefly. Peggy slipped away and climbed up in a
chair to watch Jane. “Food, Nonny,” she informed him. “Good food.”

Johnny watched Jane butter a slice of bread and hand it to his little sister, who took it, smiling up at the woman.

“Come sit down, Johnny,” Jane said. “You can tell us how you found your sister and how you were separated in the first place. Adam, could you bring in a couple more chairs?”

While the man she called Adam was gone, Johnny walked cautiously to the table and sat across from his sister. He would eat, at least, then look for an opportunity to escape. Adam returned with the chairs and positioned one for Jane next to Peggy. He turned his own around to straddle it. The adults gave each other a curious glance before turning to stare at Johnny.

Johnny considered his situation while he helped himself to bread and cheese and cold roast beef. If this was how they usually fed Peggy it was no wonder she trusted them. Perhaps if he told them how he had found his sister, they would let him take her and go.

“Well,” he began around a mouthful of beef, “when Peggy first disappeared, I asked around. Spike, that’s my friend, said he heard that two men and a woman took Peggy away. I figured they put her in one of them orphan asylums. I broke into four of them at night but couldn’t find my sister.”

He spread a slice of fresh bread with butter.
“Next, I started hidin’ on the playgrounds ‘til they let the kids out. Finally, I found a boy what remembered her bein’ there. He said she’d been sent out west.

“I marched right up to the prison guard, or whatever they call themselves, and demanded they send my sister back.” Johnny couldn’t help puffing out his chest a little and smiled at Peggy’s giggle.

He glanced at the adults, who seemed to be watching in shocked silence. Pleased, Johnny continued, “The guard said he didn’t know where they sent her, just that she was turned over to this society. He gave me their address, then tried to get me to go to some shelter. I lit out before he could catch me.

“Spike helped me steal some clothes and a fake mustache from a theater. You shoulda seen me, Peggy, I looked real elegant.”

“Elegant,” she mimicked. He gave her a wink.

“I found the place and said I was her uncle.” He decided not to mention that the man in the office hadn’t believed him. “I demanded to know where they’d shipped my niece. He looked up in his file and told me Clyde, Kansas.”

Johnny piled more of the beef on another slice of bread and gave the adults a moment to digest what he had told them so far. They didn’t need to know that he had thought Clyde, Kansas, was a person rather than a place or that he had nearly tripped on his way out because the stolen shoes were too big.

“How did you manage to find your way here?” the man called Adam asked.

Johnny chewed and swallowed. “I jumped a train that was heading west. After a couple of days, I was discovered and had to run. I met up with a cowboy who told me what I needed to know to get here.”

“What did you plan to do once you found your sister?” Adam asked.

Johnny shrugged. “I’ll take her back where we belong.”

“And you belong in an alley somewhere?”

“We don’t belong here, that’s for damn sure.”

“Damn sure,” mimicked Peggy.

Johnny grinned. The woman chewed on her lip like she didn’t want to laugh and the man was trying not to show his annoyance, and failing.

“And why is that?” Adam asked.

“There ain’t nothin’ here!” Johnny declared, surprised at the question. “There’s just some houses in the middle of nothin’.”

“And there are endless opportunities for you in the city?”

Johnny grinned at Adam. “For me there are.” He rubbed the tips of his fingers together:

“As a thief,” Adam provided.

Johnny tried to stare the man down, but his eyes didn’t waver. Finally Johnny looked down at his plate.

Adam asked softly, “And your sister, what are her opportunities?”

Johnny looked at Peggy. She had eaten her fill and was dropping crumbs on the floor for her kitten.

He imagined looking after the little girl in the streets of a city. He had tried and had lost her. He had thought he had left her in a safe place, as if anywhere on the streets was truly safe. He had been only a few blocks away when a constable had seen him snatch an apple from a cart. He had to run. By the time he had been sure it was safe to return, his sister was gone.

“Johnny,” Adam said into the silence. “I’m impressed that you could track your sister all the way out here—”

Johnny interrupted with a return of his old bravado. “He’s
damned
impressed, ain’t he, Peggy?”

“Damn pressed,” chimed the girl.

Johnny tossed Adam a defiant grin.

“But,” Adam continued, doing a better job this time of hiding his irritation, “your choices now are to find yourself a life out here, or go back alone.”

Johnny narrowed his eyes at the man’s challenge. Before he could respond, however, the woman said, “You don’t have to decide anything now. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like.”

She rose from her chair and brushed his hair off his brow. He surprised himself by not flinching away from her. He knew what she was thinking; his hair was just like Peggy’s.

“Johnny,” Adam said, coming to his feet. “Why

don’t you spend the night at my house? I’ll help you get cleaned up before breakfast.”

This time Johnny did flinch. “You think I’m dirty?”

“I know you’re dirty.” Adam waved the boy toward the door.

“Baths ain’t good for you,” he protested, but he stood, too, taking a tentative step toward the door. It was usually better to obey adults, or at least pretend to.

“Trust me. A bath would be good for you.”

Johnny hung his head and shuffled toward the door. Peggy climbed off her chair and ran after him.

Something passed between the man and the woman. It was almost as if the woman was pleading with the man, but Johnny didn’t understand.

The man seemed to, however. He crouched down and took Peggy by the shoulders. “Aunt Jane warnyou to stay with her tonight. Johnny’s going to go to my house for a bath.”

“Go, too,” Peggy said.

“We’ll be back for breakfast.”

“Peggy’s Nonny,” she insisted, grabbing Johnny’s hand. He held on tightly, not wanting to be separated, either.

What the woman said next was more bewildering than all the rest of the strange events of the evening. “Flip you for them,” she quipped.

A
dam wasn’t sure he should have given in. Peggy and Johnny were both sleeping in the bed off Jane’s kitchen. If he knew Jane at all, she’d be washing the sheets in the morning.

Adam’s biggest concern was that Johnny might try to take his sister and run. He had threatened the boy with jail for breaking into Jane’s house if he tried. They’d be easy to find, Adam had told him, here in the middle of nowhere.

He had further insisted that Johnny come to his house early in the morning, before his sister woke up, if possible, and get that bath. The boy seemed to prefer that to the possibility of Jane giving him one. Adam was fully prepared to go get Johnny if he didn’t come of his own accord.

Meanwhile, he lay in bed and thought of the turn things had taken this evening. After what Johnny had gone through to find his sister, it would be cruel to separate them, but he wasn’t going to make it any
easier to place the girl. It did, however, explain some of her strange habits.

Jane, on the other hand, wasn’t any less likely to want her. In fact, Jane’s inclination to protect children would probably have her volunteering to take Johnny as well. The amount of trouble that boy could get into was easy to imagine.

The next morning, Adam found Johnny waiting in his kitchen. Waiting didn’t quite describe it. Lurking did. Adam had the distinct impression the boy had been going through the cupboards and drawers and had only stopped when he heard Adam coming.

The boy himself confirmed. it. “If’n I’d picked your house last night, I’da starved.”

“I eat most of my meals at Jane’s boardinghouse.” Adam lit a lamp and went to light the stove. “Pump that pan full of water and we’ll heat it for your bath.”

“Is that why Peggy’s there—Jane’s boardin’ her?”

Adam wasn’t sure how much he ought to explain to the boy. “She was left in my care,” he said, “but Jane wanted to keep her last night.”

“She tryin’ her out to see if she likes havin’ a girl?”

Adam lifted the pan onto the stove to heat. “She knows she likes having a little girl, we’re just not sure she can take care of her and run the boardinghouse at the same time.”

Adam handed the boy a bucket. “Fill this,” he said.

“You already decided you don’t want no little girl?”

Adam brought the tub inside before be answered. “I’ve already discovered it’s hard to make house calls and keep her safe.”

“Then neither one o’ you’s gonna mind when I take her with me.”

Adam lifted the full bucket out from under the spout and poured it into the tub. He handed it back to Johnny, who turned to fill it again.

“Johnny,” Adam said after a moment, “I volunteered to help find families for a group of orphans. I’m not going to just forget about one of them.”

Johnny spun around. “Well, we ain’t no orphans. Whatcha think about that!”

Adam looked at him a moment. “You’re runaways?”

“We’re throwaways. But it ain’t none of your business. Anyhow,
Peggy
ain’t no orphan ‘cause she’s got me. And I ain’t leavin’ her.”

Adam let it go. Showing him what his sister’s life could be like out here was going to make more of an impression, anyway.

Half an hour later he had Johnny dressed in clean clothes with rolled-up cuffs and a cinched-in waist. Johnny declared that he looked funny.

“That was the whole reason for giving you a bath,” Adam said.

Johnny nodded as if he believed it, but his eyes held the grin he would have denied. “I hope Peggy’s awake causin’ trouble ‘cause I’m gone.”

“Well, I hope not, but it’s time we went to see.”

They found Peggy on her knees on a kitchen chair, sipping from a coffee cup.

“They feedin’ you coffee already?” Johnny asked.

Peggy scrambled off the chair to meet him. Before she flung herself into Johnny’s arms, Adam noticed that her face bore traces of recent tears.

“She thought she had dreamed you,” Jane said, turning from the stove.

“Bet you were hopin’ that’s all I was,” Johnny said.

Adam wanted to cuff his ear for talking to Jane that way, but she just smiled. “You’re not quite the nightmare you think you are.”.

“I’d reserve judgment,” Adam said.

Johnny shot him a wicked grin, then knelt down to give his sister his full attention. “Look at you! You got shoes. Where’d you get them shoes, baby?”

Peggy brought a leather-clad foot down on the wood floor and laughed at the sharp sound. The kitten ran up to pounce on her foot.

“You reckon I can borrow ‘em sometime?”

Peggy shook her head. “Peggy’s shoes.” She bent and picked up her kitten.

“Breakfast will be ready soon,” Jane said. “Do
you want to wait in the dining room, or in the parlor with the others?”

Before Adam could protest, Johnny spoke up. “I think we should wait in the parlor, don’t you, Dr. Hart?”

There was obvious challenge in the boy’s tone. “The parlor it is,” Adam said.

“Can the kitty stay here and have its breakfast?” Jane asked. Peggy relinquished the kitten and took her brother’s hand.

Adam led the way to the parlor, where the Cartlands already waited. Both women looked surprised when the children entered.

“Nedra and Naomi Cartland,” Adam said. “This is Peggy’s brother, Johnny,”

“He’s not wearing shoes,” remarked Naomi.

“And you ain’t wearin’ no corset,” Johnny said.

“Johnny!” Adam’s sharp command was nearly drowned out by the women’s gasps of outrage.

Johnny looked up at Adam. If he was trying for innocence, he was failing. “Go sit down,” Adam said, indicating an unoccupied settee.

Johnny helped his sister into the chair and sat down beside her. Adam took a seat nearby, ready to stop him from moving but uncertain how he would stop him from talking.

Ferris joined them, followed almost immediately by George.

“Who’s this?” George asked.

Adam explained briefly about the boy’s arrival.

“There were several farmers wanting a boy,” George said.

Adam heard Johnny’s intake of breath and put a hand on his shoulder, hoping to forestall an outburst. “I think we better try to keep them together,” he said.

George nodded. “I suppose you’re right, considering. We don’t want them running off.”

Adam’s hand on his shoulder wasn’t enough to stop Johnny this time. “Why the hell not?” the boy asked. “What difference does it make to you? Do you own her or something?”

George wasn’t as surprised at the outburst as the others. “I was thinking of your health and safety, son,” he said. “As well as your sister’s.”

“Why don’t you save yourself some trouble and just not?”

“Johnny,” Adam asked quietly, “do you want breakfast?”

Johnny cast him a rebellious glare he took to be a yes. “Then you treat everyone in this house with respect.”

Johnny settled back into the cushioned seat. “It ain’t right,” he muttered. “You put me on a farm, I ain’t stayin’.”

George looked like he was enjoying the whole situation. “What’s Jane think about the boy?” he asked.

“I don’t know, but I can guess,” Adam said. Jane
would want them both. She would think she could love the boy into angelhood.

Jane called them in for breakfast before Johnny treated them to his opinion on Jane. When they were seated around the table, Peggy and Johnny separating Adam from Jane, Bickford joined them. He gave the boy a glance and then a shrug. He evidently figured two urchins were not much different than one.

When Nedra glared at Peggy for eating with her fingers, the little girl waited for a chance to slip out of her chair.

“Where ya goin’, Peggy?” Johnny asked.

The girl pointed to the curtains. “Hide.”

“You don’t need to hide no more. I’m here.”

Peggy turned around and with Johnny’s help climbed back into her chair. He tried to encourage Peggy to use her fork but he wasn’t doing a whole lot better himself. He seemed as overwhelmed by the amount of food as Peggy had her first time.

“You always eat like this?” he asked Jane as the others were finishing up.

“No,” she said, smiling. “I fixed a little extra because I thought you might be hungry.”

The boy seemed taken aback by this news.

“Do you still want to keep Peggy. today?” Adam asked when the others had left the table.

“Sure. She can play in the yard while I garden, and help me bake a cake for dinner. I’m sure Peggy wants you to stay, too, Johnny.”

Adam guessed the boy misinterpreted that to mean Jane
didn’t
want him. Maybe he’d be on his best behavior if he thought she would send him away. Though exactly what Johnny’s best behavior might be, he didn’t know.

“You can stay,” he said, “if you help with the garden.”

“Gonna have me farmin’ one way or another, ain’t ya?”

Adam ignored him. “But first, we’re going to help with dishes.”

Jane wanted to laugh at the way Adam and Johnny squared off. Adam was sure the boy was going to cause her trouble. She was just as sure he wasn’t.

He was bound to cause Adam trouble, however. Adam watched him so closely while they dried the dishes that she was surprised either one of them got anything done.

Peggy wanted to help, too. Jane moved a chair for the little girl to stand on so she could wash. Peggy poured water from one cup to another until all the rest of the dishes were done. All in all, the chore took longer than it might have, but it was fun having her kitchen full of voices.

Especially Adam’s. She didn’t know what to think about him, what to trust, what to believe. But this morning, with the children around her and his
warm voice instructing Johnny, she decided not to think, just enjoy.

After he left, giving Peggy a hug and Johnny a pat on the back, Jane tied an old coat button to a string and gave it to Peggy to tempt her kitten with. Johnny helped Jane dig potatoes and weed the garden. These were not skills he had any experience with, but he caught on quickly enough.

He watched Peggy, too, she noticed. When she followed the kitten around to the front of the house, he called her back.

“Nonny lost,” she said, pointing in the direction the kitten had gone. “Nonny find.”

“You ain’t callin’ me the same name as that cat,” he said, putting aside his hoe and going to her. “You gotta learn to say Johnny. J-J-Johnny.”

“J-J-Nonny,” she said.

Jane could see him shake his head, but he must have been smiling because Peggy giggled. The kitten scampered into the yard, and Peggy was after him again.

Johnny came reluctantly back to the garden. “Ain’t we killed enough weeds yet?”

“Do you want to help me wash some sheets?”

“What do you think?”

Jane laughed. “Poor Johnny. This must seem awfully strange to you. How would you like to go shopping? We might find clothes that fit you better and order some shoes.”

“You don’t need to do that,” he said, giving her a wicked grin. “I can lift anything I want”

“I’m sure you can, but I’d rather you didn’t. Folks around here are liable to recognize their clothes if they see you wearing them.”

He cocked his head to one side and gave her a quizzical look. “How come you ain’t shocked?”

She smiled as she gathered the hoe and bucket of potatoes and walked back toward the house. “Maybe because you’re trying so hard to shock me. I suppose if I had to live the way you have, I’d steal, too. But you’re not on your own anymore. There are people who want to help you.”

He called his sister, then followed Jane into the house. “You think that Dr. Hart wants to help me?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I think he wants to send me to jail.”

Jane laughed. “What makes you think that?” She poured water into a basin and washed Peggy’s face and hands.

“I think it ‘cause he said it.”

“That’s called a threat,” Jane said. “He wants you to behave and stay out of trouble.” She washed her own face, then motioned Johnny to take his turn.

“You mean he won’t really do it?”

“He’d rather you heed his threat and be good,” she said, “But he might do it, all right.”

He tossed her a grin. “Is that a threat, too?”

“Don’t push your luck,” she said, tousling his hair.

Jane counted out some of her small hoard of money. She could buy a few things for Johnny without running short on the payment to the bank. Though it would mean skimping on a few things for herself, she was happy to do it.

Their first stop was Chinnock’s, where Johnny’s feet were measured for shoes. They visited several other stores, but Jane couldn’t interest Johnny in any of the clothes.

“I’ll get my own back,” he assured her.

The fact that his own were practically rags evidently hadn’t occurred to him. “I plan to feed you

so well that they’ll be too small,” she said instead.

His response was a shrug.

Peggy, with the kitten in her arms, seemed fascinated by all the merchandise in the stores and was content to simply gaze around her at each stop.

Jane bought what she needed for dinner and let Johnny carry part of it home. While Jane put things away, Johnny went outside to watch Peggy. When Jane joined them she found them on her porch eating smashed versions of the bread she had served at breakfast. Evidently they hadn’t expected to be fed again anytime soon.

“How about another slice of bread,” Jane suggested, “with some ham on it this time?”

Johnny tried to hide his surprise. “That’d be all right”

Peggy was already used to being fed on a regular basis and dropped the crumbling bread for her kitten.
“More,” she said, coming to her feet and following Jane into the kitchen. She climbed into a chair to watch Jane make the sandwiches.

“Do you like mustard?” Jane asked.

Peggy stared.

Jane took Peggy’s hand and put a drop of mustard on one of her fingers. Peggy licked her finger and made a terrible face. “Like,” she said.

Jane laughed. “You like it?”

“Nonny, too,” Peggy said.

“Which Nonny? Nonny Kitty or Nonny Johnny?”

“Nonny Nonny,” she said.

Jane put a little mustard on four sandwiches. She wrapped them in a cloth and put them in a basket along with three cups and a jar of milk. She helped Peggy out of the chair. “Let’s have a picnic,” she said.