Orphan Train (19 page)

I
AM RUNNING IN A YELLOW FIELD, THROUGH A MAZE OF HAY BALES
, unable to find my way . . .

“D
OROTHY
?” I
FEEL A HAND ON MY SHOULDER
,
AND SPRING AWAKE
. It’s Mr. Post. “What in God’s name . . . ?”

For a moment I’m not sure myself. I look up at Mr. Post, at his round red cheeks and puzzled expression. I look around at the pile of rough-cut wood, the wide whitewashed planks of the porch walls. The door to the schoolroom is ajar, and it’s clear that Mr. Post has come to get wood to start the fire, as he must do every morning before heading out to pick us up.

“Are you all right?”

I nod, willing myself to be.

“Does your family know you’re here?”

“No, sir.”

“How’d you get to the school?”

“I walked.”

He stares at me for a moment, then says, “Let’s get you out of the cold.”

Mr. Post guides me to a chair in the schoolroom and puts my feet on another chair, then takes the dirty blanket from my shoulders and replaces it with a clean plaid one he finds in a cupboard. He unlaces each of my boots and sets them beside the chair,
tsk
ing over the holes in my socks. Then I watch him make a fire. The room is already getting warm when Miss Larsen arrives a few minutes later.

“What’s this?” she says. “Dorothy?” She unwraps her violet scarf and takes off her hat and gloves. In the window behind her I see a car pulling away. Miss Larsen’s long hair is coiled in a bun at the nape of her neck, and her brown eyes are clear and bright. The pink wool skirt she’s wearing brings out the color in her cheeks.

Kneeling by my chair, she says, “Goodness, child. Have you been here long?”

Mr. Post, having completed his duties, is putting on his hat and coat to make the rounds in the truck. “She was asleep out there on the porch when I arrived.” He laughs. “Scared the bejeezus out of me.”

“I’m sure it did,” she says.

“Says she walked here. Four miles.” He shakes his head. “Lucky she didn’t freeze to death.”

“You seem to have warmed her up nicely.”

“She’s thawing out. Well, I’m off to get the others.” He pats the front of his coat. “See you in a jiff.”

As soon as he leaves, Miss Larsen says, “Now then. Tell me what happened.”

And I do. I wasn’t planning to, but she looks at me with such genuine concern that everything spills out. I tell her about Mrs. Grote lying in bed all day and Mr. Grote in the woods and the snow dust on my face in the morning and the stained mattresses. I tell her about the cold squirrel stew and the squalling children. And I tell her about Mr. Grote on the sofa, his hands on me, and pregnant Mrs. Grote in the hallway, yelling at me to get out. I tell her that I was afraid to stop walking, afraid that I would fall asleep. I tell her about the gloves Fanny knitted for me.

Miss Larsen puts her hand over mine and leaves it there, squeezing it every now and then. “Oh, Dorothy,” she says.

And then, “Thank goodness for the gloves. Fanny sounds like a good friend.”

“She was.”

She holds her chin, tapping it with two fingers. “Who brought you to the Grotes’?”

“Mr. Sorenson from the Children’s Aid Society.”

“All right. When Mr. Post gets back, I’ll send him out to find this Mr. Sorenson.” Opening her lunch pail, she pulls out a biscuit. “You must be hungry.”

Normally I would refuse—I know this is part of her lunch. But I am so ravenous that at the sight of the biscuit my mouth fills with water. I accept it shamefully and wolf it down. While I’m eating the biscuit Miss Larsen heats water on the stove for tea and cuts an apple into slices, arranging them on a chipped china plate from the shelf. I watch as she spoons loose tea into a strainer and pours the boiling water over it into two cups. I’ve never seen her offer tea to a child before, and certainly not to me.

“Miss Larsen,” I start. “Could you ever—would you ever—”

She seems to know what I’m asking. “Take you home to live with me?” She smiles, but her expression is pained. “I care about you, Dorothy. I think you know that. But I can’t—I’m in no position to take care of a girl. I live in a boardinghouse.”

I nod, a knob in my throat.

“I will help you find a home,” she says gently. “A place that is safe and clean, where you’ll be treated like a ten-year-old girl. I promise you that.”

When the other kids file in from the truck, they look at me curiously.

“What’s she doing here?” one boy, Robert, says.

“Dorothy came in a little early this morning.” Miss Larsen smooths the front of her pretty pink skirt. “Take your seats and pull out your workbooks, children.”

After Mr. Post has come in from the back with more wood and arranged the logs in the bin by the stove, Miss Larsen signals to him, and he follows her back to the entry vestibule. A few minutes later he heads outside again, still in his coat and cap. The engine roars to life and the brakes screech as he maneuvers his truck down the steep drive.

About an hour later, I hear the truck’s distinctive clatter and look out the window. I watch as it slowly makes its way up the steep drive, then comes to a stop. Mr. Post climbs out and comes in the porch door, and Miss Larsen excuses herself from the lesson and goes to the back. A few moments later she calls my name and I rise from my desk, all eyes on me, and make my way to the porch.

Miss Larsen seems worried. She keeps touching her hair in the bun. “Dorothy, Mr. Sorenson is not convinced . . .” She stops and touches her neck, glances beseechingly at Mr. Post.

“I think what Miss Larsen is trying to say,” he says slowly, “is that you will need to explain what happened in detail to Mr. Sorenson. Ideally, as you know, they want to make the placements work. Mr. Sorenson wonders if this might simply be a matter of—miscommunication.”

I feel light-headed as I realize what Mr. Post is saying. “He doesn’t believe me?”

A look passes between them. “It’s not a question of believing or not believing. He just needs to hear the story from you,” Miss Larsen says.

For the first time in my life, I feel the wildness of revolt. Tears spring to my eyes. “I’m not going back there. I can’t.”

Miss Larsen puts an arm around my shoulder. “Dorothy, don’t worry. You’ll tell Mr. Sorenson your story, and I’ll tell him what I know. I won’t let you go back there.”

The next few hours are a blur. I mimic Lucy’s movements, pulling out the spelling primer when she does, lining up behind her to write on the board, but I barely register what’s going on around me. When she whispers, “Are you all right?” I shrug. She squeezes my hand but doesn’t probe further—and I don’t know if it’s because she senses I don’t want to talk about it or if she’s afraid of what I might say.

After lunch, when we are back in our seats, I see a vehicle way off in the distance. The sound of the motor fills my head; the dark truck coming toward the school is the only thing I see. And here it is—puttering up the steep drive, screeching to a stop behind Mr. Post’s truck.

I see Mr. Sorenson in the driver’s seat. He sits there for a moment. Takes off his black felt hat, strokes his black mustache. Then he opens the car door.

“M
Y
,
MY
,
MY
,” M
R
. S
ORENSON SAYS WHEN
I’
VE FINISHED MY STORY
. We are sitting on hard chairs on the back porch, warmer now than it was earlier in the day from the sun and the heat of the stove. He reaches out to pat my leg, then seems to think better of it and rests his hand on his hip. With his other hand he strokes his mustache. “Such a long walk in the cold. You must have been very . . .” His voice trails off. “And yet. And yet. I wonder: the middle of the night. Might you perhaps have . . . ?”

I look at him steadily, my heart pounding in my chest.

“ . . . misconstrued?”

He looks at Miss Larsen. “A ten-year-old girl . . . don’t you find, Miss Larsen, that there can be a certain—excitability? A tendency to overdramatize?”

“It depends on the girl, Mr. Sorenson,” she says stiffly, lifting her chin. “I have never known Dorothy to lie.”

Chuckling, he shakes his head. “Ah, Miss Larsen, that’s not at all what I’m saying, of course not! I merely meant that sometimes, particularly if one has been through distressing events in one’s young life, one might be inclined to jump to conclusions—to inadvertently blow things out of proportion. I saw with my own eyes that living conditions in the Grote household were, well, less than optimal. But we can’t all have storybook families, can we, Miss Larsen? The world is not a perfect place, and when we are dependent on the charity of others, we are not always in a position to complain.” He smiles at me. “My recommendation, Dorothy, is to give it another try. I can talk to the Grotes and impress upon them the need to improve conditions.”

Miss Larsen’s eyes are glittering strangely, and a red rash has crept up her neck. “Did you hear the girl, Mr. Sorenson?” she says in a strained voice. “There was an attempted . . . violation. And Mrs. Grote, coming upon the appalling scene, cast her out. Surely you don’t expect Dorothy to return to that situation, now, do you? Frankly, I wonder why you don’t ask the police to go out there and take a look. It doesn’t sound like a healthy place for the other children there, either.”

Mr. Sorenson is nodding slowly, as if to say
Now, now, it was just a thought, don’t get shrill, let’s all calm down.
But what he says is, “Well, then, you see, we’re in a bit of a pickle. There are no families that I know of at the moment seeking orphans. I could inquire farther afield, of course. Contact the Children’s Aid in New York. If it comes down to it, Dorothy could go back there, I suppose, on the next train that comes through.”

“Surely we won’t need to resort to that,” Miss Larsen says.

He gives a little shrug. “One would hope not. One doesn’t know.”

She puts her hand on my shoulder and gives it a squeeze. “Let’s explore our options then, Mr. Sorenson, shall we? And in the meantime—for a day or two—Dorothy can come home with me.”

I look up at her with surprise. “But I thought—”

“It can’t be permanent,” she says quickly. “I live in a boardinghouse, Mr. Sorenson, where no children are allowed. But my landlady has a kind heart, and she knows I am a schoolteacher and that not all of my children are”—she appears to pick her words carefully—“housed advantageously. I think she will be sympathetic—as I say, for a day or two.”

Mr. Sorenson strokes his mustache. “Very well, Miss Larsen. I will look into other possibilities, and leave you in charge of Dorothy for a few days. Young lady, I trust that you will be appropriately polite and well behaved.”

“Yes, sir,” I say solemnly, but my heart is swelling with joy. Miss Larsen is taking me home with her! I can’t believe my good fortune.

Hemingford, Minnesota, 1930

The man who picks Miss Larsen and me up after school signals surprise at
my presence with a lift of his eyebrow, but says nothing.

“Mr. Yates, this is Dorothy,” she tells him, and he nods at me in the rearview mirror. “Dorothy, Mr. Yates works for my landlady, Mrs. Murphy, and is kind enough to take me to the schoolhouse each day, since I don’t drive myself.”

“It’s a pleasure, miss,” he says, and I can see by his pink ears that he means it.

Hemingford is much larger than Albans. Mr. Yates drives slowly down Main Street, and I gaze out at the signs: the Imperial Theatre (whose marquee trumpets
NOW WITH THE TALKING, SINGING AND DANCING
!); the
Hemingford Ledger;
Walla’s Recreational Parlor, advertising
BILLIARDS, FOUNTAIN, CANDY, TOBACCO
in its plate-glass window; Farmer’s State Bank; Shindler’s Hardware; and Nielsen’s General Store—
EVERYTHING TO EAT AND WEAR
.

At the corner of Main and Park, several blocks from the town center, Mr. Yates pulls to a stop in front of a light-blue Victorian house with a wraparound porch. An oval placard by the front door announces,
HEMINGFORD HOME FOR YOUNG LADIES.

The bell tinkles when Miss Larsen opens the door. She ushers me in but holds a finger to her lips and whispers, “Wait here a moment,” before pulling off her gloves, unwrapping the scarf around her neck, and disappearing through a door at the end of the hall.

The foyer is formal, with flocked burgundy wallpaper, a large gilt-framed mirror, and a dark, ornately carved chest of drawers. After looking around a bit, I perch on a slippery horsehair chair. In one corner an imposing grandfather clock ticks loudly, and when it chimes the hour, I nearly slide off in surprise.

After a few minutes, Miss Larsen returns. “My landlady, Mrs. Murphy, would like to meet you,” she says. “I told her about your—predicament. I felt I needed to explain why I brought you here. I hope that’s all right.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Just be yourself, Dorothy,” she says. “All right, then. This way.”

I follow her down the hall and through the door into a parlor, where a plump, bosomy woman with a nimbus of downy gray hair is sitting on a rose velvet sofa next to a glowing fire. She has long lines beside her nose like a marionette and a watchful, alert expression. “Well, my girl, it sounds as if you’ve had quite a time of it,” she says, motioning for me to sit across from her in one of two floral wingback chairs.

I sit in one and Miss Larsen takes the other, smiling at me a little anxiously.

“Yes, ma’am,” I say to Mrs. Murphy.

“Oh—you’re Irish, are you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She beams. “I thought so! But I had a Polish girl here a few years ago with hair redder than yours. And of course there are the Scottish, though not as commonly in these parts. Well, and I’m Irish too, if you couldn’t tell,” she adds. “Came over like you as a wee lass. My people are from Enniscorthy. And yours?”

“Kinvara. In County Galway.”

“Indeed, I know the place! My cousin married a Kinvara girl. Are you familiar with the Sweeney clan?”

I’ve never heard of the Sweeney clan, but I nod just the same.