Orphan Train (14 page)

When I’m done, we go back in the sewing room and Fanny finds a small pair of scissors, two spools of thread, black and white, a pincushion and pins, and a cellophane packet of needles. She adds a cardboard flat of opalescent buttons for my unfinished dress. Then she wraps it all in cheesecloth for me to tuck in the top of my suitcase.

“Won’t you get in trouble for giving me these?” I ask her.

“Pish,” she says. “I don’t even care.”

I do not say good-bye to the Byrnes. Who knows where Mr. Byrne is, and Mrs. Byrne doesn’t come downstairs. But Fanny gives me a long hug. She holds my face in her small cold hands. “You are a good girl, Niamh,” she says. “Don’t let anybody tell you different.”

Mr. Sorenson’s vehicle, parked in the driveway behind the Model A, is a dark-green Chrysler truck. He opens the passenger door for me, then goes around to the other side. The interior smells of tobacco and apples. He backs out of the driveway and points the car to the left, away from town and toward a direction I’ve never been. We follow Elm Street until it ends, then turn right down another quiet street, where the houses are set back farther from the sidewalks, until we come to an intersection and turn onto a long, flat road with fields on both sides.

I gaze out at the fields, a dull patchwork. Brown cows huddle together, lifting their necks to watch the noisy truck as it passes. Horses graze. Pieces of farm equipment in the distance look like abandoned toys. The horizon line, flat and low, is straight ahead, and the sky looks like dishwater. Black birds pierce the sky like inverse stars.

I feel almost sorry for Mr. Sorenson on our drive. I can tell this weighs on him. It’s probably not what he thought he was signing up for when he agreed to be an agent for the Children’s Aid Society. He keeps asking if I’m comfortable, if the heat is too low or too high. When he learns I know almost nothing about Minnesota he tells me all about it—how it became a state just over seventy years ago and is now the twelfth largest in the United States. How its name comes from a Dakota Indian word for “cloudy water.” How it contains thousands of lakes, filled with fish of all kinds—walleye, for one thing, catfish, largemouth bass, rainbow trout, perch, and pike. The Mississippi River starts in Minnesota, did I know that? And these fields—he waves his fingers toward the window—they feed the whole country. Let’s see, there’s grain, the biggest export—a thrasher goes from farm to farm, and neighbors get together to bundle the shocks. There’s sugar beets and sweet corn and green peas. And those low buildings way over there? Turkey farms. Minnesota is the biggest producer of turkeys in the country. There’d be no Thanksgiving without Minnesota, that’s for darn sure. And don’t get me started on hunting. We’ve got pheasants, quail, grouse, whitetail deer, you name it. It’s a hunter’s paradise.

I listen to Mr. Sorenson and nod politely as he talks, but it’s hard to concentrate. I feel myself retreating to someplace deep inside. It is a pitiful kind of childhood, to know that no one loves you or is taking care of you, to always be on the outside looking in. I feel a decade older than my years. I know too much; I have seen people at their worst, at their most desperate and selfish, and this knowledge makes me wary. So I am learning to pretend, to smile and nod, to display empathy I do not feel. I am learning to pass, to look like everyone else, even though I feel broken inside.

Hemingford County, Minnesota, 1930

After about half an hour, Mr. Sorenson turns onto a narrow unpaved road.
Dirt rises around us as we drive, coating the windshield and side windows. We pass more fields and then a copse of birch tree skeletons, cross through a dilapidated covered bridge over a murky stream still sheeted with ice, turn down a bumpy dirt road bordered by pine trees. Mr. Sorenson is holding a card with what looks like directions on it. He slows the truck, pulls to a stop, looks back toward the bridge. Then he peers out the grimy windshield at the trees ahead. “No goldarn signs,” he mutters. He puts his foot on the pedal and inches forward.

Out of the side window I point to a faded red rag tied to a stick and what appears to be a driveway, overgrown with weeds.

“Must be it,” he says.

Hairy branches scrape the truck on either side as we make our way down the drive. After about fifty yards, we come to a small wooden house—a shack, really—unpainted, with a sagging front porch piled with junk. In the grassless section in front of the house, a baby is crawling on top of a dog with black matted fur, and a boy of about six is poking a stick in the dirt. His hair is so short, and he’s so skinny, that he looks like a wizened old man. Despite the cold, he and the baby are barefoot.

Mr. Sorenson parks the truck as far from the children as possible in the small clearing and gets out of the truck. I get out on my side.

“Hello, boy,” he says.

The child gapes at him, not answering.

“Your mama home?”

“Who want to know?” the boy says.

Mr. Sorenson smiles. “Did your mama tell you you’re getting a new sister?”

“No.”

“Well, she should be expecting us. Go on and tell her we’re here.”

The boy stabs at the dirt with the stick. “She’s sleeping. I’m not to bother her.”

“You go on and wake her up. Maybe she forgot we were coming.”

The boy traces a circle in the dirt.

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

He shakes his head. “Don’t want a whupping.”

“She’s not going to whip you, boy! She’ll be glad to know I’m here.”

When it’s clear the boy isn’t going to move, Mr. Sorenson rubs his hands together and, motioning for me to follow, makes his way gingerly up the creaking steps to the porch. I can tell he’s worried about what we might find inside. I am too.

He knocks loudly on the door, and it swings open from the force of his hand. There’s a hole where the doorknob is supposed to be. He steps into the gloom, ushering me in with him.

The front room is nearly bare. It smells like a cave. The floor is planked with rough boards, and in places I can see clear through to the ground below. Of the three grimy windows, one has a jagged hole in the upper-right corner and one is seamed with spidery cracks. A wooden crate stands between two upholstered chairs, soiled with dirt, stuffing coming out of split seams, and a threadbare gold sofa. On the far left is a dark hallway. Straight ahead, through an open doorway, is the kitchen.

“Mrs. Grote? Hello?” Mr. Sorenson cocks his head, but there’s no response. “I’m not going into a bedroom to find her, that’s for sure,” he mutters. “Mrs. Grote?” he calls, louder.

We hear faint footsteps and a girl of about three, in a dirty pink dress, emerges from the hall.

“Well, hello, little girl!” Mr. Sorenson says, crouching down on his heels. “Is your mama back there?”

“We sleeping.”

“That’s what your brother said. Is she still asleep?”

A harsh voice comes from the hallway, startling us both: “What do you want?”

Mr. Sorenson stands up slowly. A pale woman with long brown hair steps out of the darkness. Her eyes are puffy and her lips are chapped, and her nightgown is so thin I can see the dark circles of her nipples through the cloth.

The girl sidles over like a cat and puts an arm around her legs.

“I’m Chester Sorenson, from the Children’s Aid Society. You must be Mrs. Grote. I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am, but I was told you knew we were coming. You did request a girl, did you not?”

The woman rubs her eyes. “What day is it?”

“Friday, April fourth, ma’am.”

She coughs. Then she doubles over and coughs again, harder this time, into her fist.

“Would you like to sit down?” Mr. Sorenson goes over and guides her by the elbow to a chair. “Now, is Mr. Grote home?”

The woman shakes her head.

“Are you expecting him soon?”

She lifts her shoulders in a shrug.

“What time does he get off work?” Mr. Sorenson presses.

“He don’t go to work no more. Lost his job at the feed store last week.” She glances around as if she’s lost something. Then she says, “C’mere, Mabel.” The little girl slinks over to her, watching us the whole time. “Go check and see that Gerald Junior’s okay in there. And where’s Harold?”

“Is that the boy outside?” Mr. Sorenson asks.

“He watching the baby? I told him to.”

“They’re both out there,” he says, and though his voice is neutral, I can tell he doesn’t approve.

Mrs. Grote chews her lip. She still hasn’t said a word to me. She’s barely looked in my direction. “I’m just so tired,” she says to no one in particular.

“Well, I’m sure you are, ma’am.” It’s clear Mr. Sorenson is itching to get out of here. “I’m guessing that’s why you asked for this here orphan girl. Dorothy. Her papers say she has experience with children. So that should be a help to you.”

She nods distractedly. “I got to sleep when they sleep,” she mumbles. “It’s the only time I get any rest.”

“I’m sure it is.”

Mrs. Grote covers her face with both hands. Then she pushes her stringy hair back behind her ears. She juts her chin at me. “This is the girl, huh?”

“Yes, ma’am. Name’s Dorothy. She’s here to be part of your family and be taken care of by you and help you in return.”

She focuses on my face, but her eyes are flat. “What’s her age?”

“Nine years old.”

“I have enough kids. What I need is somebody who can help me out.”

“It’s all part of the deal,” Mr. Sorenson says. “You feed and clothe Dorothy and make sure she gets to school, and she will earn her keep by doing chores around the house.” He pulls his glasses and the sheet of paper out of his various pockets, then puts his glasses on and tilts his head back to read it. “I see there’s a school four miles down. And there’s a ride she can catch at the post road, three-quarter mile from here.” He takes his glasses off. “It’s required that Dorothy attend school, Mrs. Grote. Do you agree to abide by that?”

She crosses her arms, and for a moment it looks as if she’s going to refuse. Maybe I won’t have to stay here, after all!

Then the front door creaks open. We turn to see a tall, thin, dark-haired man wearing a plaid shirt with rolled-up sleeves and grungy overalls. “The girl will go to school, whether she wants to or not,” he says. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Mr. Sorenson strides over and extends his hand. “You must be Gerald Grote. I’m Chester Sorenson. And this is Dorothy.”

“Nice to meet you.” Mr. Grote clasps his hand, nods over toward me. “She’ll do just fine.”

“All right, then,” Mr. Sorenson says, clearly relieved. “Let’s make it official.”

There’s paperwork, but not a lot. It’s only a few minutes before Mr. Sorenson has retrieved my bag from the truck and is driving away. I watch him through the cracked front window with the baby, Nettie, whimpering on my hip.

Hemingford County, Minnesota, 1930

“Where will I sleep?” I ask Mr. Grote when it gets dark.

He looks at me, hands on his hips, as if he hasn’t considered this question. He gestures toward the hallway. “There’s a bedroom yonder,” he says. “If you don’t want to sleep with the others, I guess you can sleep out here on the couch. We don’t stand on ceremony. I been known to doze off on it myself.”

In the bedroom, three old mattresses without sheets are laid across the floor, a carpet of bony springs. Mabel, Gerald Jr., and Harold sprawl across them, tugging a tattered wool blanket and three old quilts from each other. I don’t want to sleep here, but it’s better than sharing the couch with Mr. Grote. In the middle of the night one kid or another ends up under the crook of my arm or spooned against my back. They smell earthy and sour, like wild animals.

D
ESPAIR INHABITS THIS HOUSE
. M
RS
. G
ROTE DOESN
’
T WANT ALL
these kids, and neither she nor Mr. Grote really takes care of them. She sleeps all the time, and the children come and go from her bed. There’s brown paper tacked over the open window in that room, so it’s as dark as a hole in the ground. The children burrow in next to her, craving warmth. Sometimes she lets them crawl in and sometimes she pushes them out. When they’re denied a spot, their wails penetrate my skin like tiny needles.

There’s no running water, and no electricity or indoor plumbing here. The Grotes use gas lights and candles, and there’s a pump and an outhouse in the backyard, wood stacked on the porch. The damp logs in the fireplace make the house smoky and give off a tepid heat.

Mrs. Grote barely looks at me. She sends a child out to be fed or calls me to fix her a cup of coffee. She makes me nervous. I do what I’m told and make an effort to avoid her. The children sniff around, trying to get used to me, all except for two-year-old Gerald Jr., who takes to me right away, follows me like a puppy.

I ask Mr. Grote how they found me. He says he saw a flyer in town—homeless children for distribution. Wilma wouldn’t get out of bed, and he didn’t know what else to do.

I feel abandoned and forgotten, dropped into misery worse than my own.

M
R
. G
ROTE SAYS HE
’
LL NEVER GET ANOTHER JOB IF HE CAN MANAGE
it. He plans to live off the land. He was born and raised in the woods; it’s the only life he knows or cares to know. He built this house with his own two hands, he says, and his goal is to be entirely self-sufficient. He has an old goat in the backyard and a mule and half a dozen chickens; he can feed his family on what he can hunt and find in the woods and on a handful of seeds, along with the goat’s milk and eggs from the chickens, and he can sell things in town if he has to.

Mr. Grote is lean and fit from walking miles every day. Like an Indian, he says. He has a car, but it’s rusted and broken down behind the house. He can’t afford to get it fixed, so he goes everywhere on foot or sometimes on the old mule that he says wandered off from a horsemeat truck that broke down on the road a few months back. His fingernails are rimmed with grime made up of axle grease and planting soil and animal blood and who knows what else, ground in so deep it can’t be washed off. I’ve only ever seen him in one pair of overalls.