Flower (5 page)

“‘My father, Albert Carr, worked with horses all his life. He was a stableman for a London horse bus company. One day he let me go with him to the stables. I watched him groom and feed the horses. “They’ll never let you down if you treat them right,” he said. Then he lifted me up onto the back of a big glossy brown mare. She twitched her ears and flicked her tail when I patted her neck. After I got down, Father took an apple out of his pocket and handed it to me. “Give it to the horse,” he said. Not too many apples came my way, but it never entered my head to eat it myself. I’ve never forgotten that day–that was when I knew.

“‘Will we tell Frankie?” I asked him on the way home. Frankie was my brother, a year and a half younger than me. Father said Frankie would get his turn when he was a bit older. Frankie never did get his turn.

“‘I was five years old in 1900, the year my father went off to South Africa to fight in the Boer War. “Don’t you fret. I’m off to take care of
the colonel’s horses,” he said. He gave Frankie and me a whole penny each and told us to look after our mother. He turned at the door, saluted, and then he was gone. He didn’t come back.

“‘We had to move from our neat little house to a smaller one. Mother took in washing to eke out the small pension she received as a soldier’s widow. Frankie and I helped as best we could. We carried bucket after bucket of water from the pump we shared with the other families in the lane, and Mother heated the water on the kitchen stove. She spent her days bent over a basin of hot soapy water, scrubbing other people’s soiled clothes on the washboard. The kitchen walls ran with steam. When the clothes were dry, Mother ironed them with heavy flatirons.

“‘Frankie and I delivered the laundry. Now and then we made the odd copper shoveling manure from the streets and selling it. We never kept the money–it was for Mother. We tried to look after her like Father had said we should.

“‘Sometimes Mother sent us to the street market on a Saturday to buy a head of cabbage. While I bargained with the stall owner, Frankie stuffed his pockets with carrots and onions. We did what we had to do. We never thought of it as stealing.

“‘There were many days when we all went to bed without supper. Mother often didn’t finish her meal. “You have mine, boys,” she’d say, “I’m not feeling hungry.”

“‘One day Frankie and I got home and emptied our pockets of bits of coal we’d manage to scrounge from the back of the coal delivery carts. Mother made us wash our hands before she let us sit down to the soup she’d made. I saw that there was a bit of bacon in our bowls, as well as potato and onion. “For a treat,” Mother said.

“‘After we’d scraped our bowls clean, she told us we had to be brave. “I’ve sold everything I can and there still isn’t enough to pay this month’s rent.” That was when I noticed that Father’s chair had gone. “You both need boots, and Frankie’s too thin. I’ll have to go into service. Barnardo’s Home will take you in. It won’t be for long, just till I get on my feet.” I was nine years old, and I wanted to believe her.

“‘At the orphanage, Frankie clung to her skirts and cried like a baby. They told us Mother was allowed to visit in three months’ time and we could write to her once a month. Then she signed a paper, kissed us good-bye, and was gone. The big door closed behind us and I couldn’t stop thinking that Frankie and me were
on the wrong side of it. Father had said to look after her.

“‘After Mother left, a doctor checked us over – eyes, ears, chests. He wore a white coat, and wrote things down. Our hair was clipped short. We were told to scrub in the bath and to dress in new clothes and boots made in the Home’s own workshop. That evening we sat at long tables in the dining hall, eating bread and dripping, drinking cocoa, and looking exactly like all the other orphans.

“‘Later, in the big dormitory where over a hundred boys of all ages slept in tidy rows, I whispered to Frankie, “You and me, we aren’t like them, Frankie. We’re not orphans.”

“‘We soon got used to the discipline and routine of the orphanage. Every morning we scrubbed, polished, mopped, and swept. If it wasn’t done right, we did it all over again. And it had to be finished before we were allowed to eat our breakfast of bread and tea. Then there were lessons and, in the afternoon, we learned a trade–carpentry or shoe making, upholstering, printing, or tailoring.

“‘Every minute was planned. We were never alone. On Sunday there was church, but there was also a pudding if we’d behaved ourselves all
week. If we broke the rules, we got beaten and every boy was made to watch. It wasn’t all bad–we ate three meals a day. Christmas was the best time; we got an orange, and there was a tree.

“‘For the first two years, Mother came to see us every visiting day. One morning, when I was eleven, I was called into the superintendent’s office. Frankie was in the country by this time as a foster family had been found for him. The doctor’d said he had a weak chest and wanted him to have fresh air. Frankie wrote that they let him keep rabbits.

“‘I was glad Frankie wasn’t there when they told me Mother had passed away. I was allowed to stay in the dormitory all that day. “Be brave. It’s for the best,” they told me.
How could it be for the best?
I thought. I wrote and told Frankie. I said that one day we’d be together, and he was to get well.

“‘Every year the orphanage sent boys overseas. They had to make room for the new boys coming in. That’s what all our training was for: to get us ready to take our places in the world, especially the New World.

“‘One day, just before my twelfth birthday, we were summoned into the dining hall to listen to a talk about Canada. “Good generous families
are waiting eagerly, boys, to take you in. Are you ready for the challenge, lads? Are you ready to work and make us proud of you?” I thought,
Isn’t that what we’ve been doing? Haven’t we all been working from morning to night?

“‘I never took my eyes from the man who had the power to put us on the Canada list, or to leave us here for another year. “Only the very best are chosen for the greatest adventure of your lives,” he said. “Canada is a fine country with great mountains and rivers and wildlife. In winter you will skate across frozen lakes; in summer the trees are heavy with fruit waiting to be picked. Who wants to go?” Almost every boy put up his hand.

“‘The man said, “Our founder, Dr. Barnardo, would be proud of you. ‘The flower of the flock,’ he used to say, ‘we are sending the flower of the flock.’” He wrote down our names and that’s how I got on the list.

“‘Frankie and his new parents came down to London to say good-bye to me. Frankie gave me a packet of toffee. I stuffed a piece into my mouth, so I’d have an excuse not to speak for a minute. I had such a lump in my throat. Before they left, I promised to write. I watched them go, and suddenly I was filled with hope. We were on
our way to a big new country! There’d be horses and farms. I could be anything I wanted to be. I knew people didn’t adopt big boys of twelve, though I wasn’t very tall for my age, and I was skinny. But if I was a foster boy, wouldn’t I be like one of the family? Frankie might come out for a visit.

“‘We had a fine send-off. New clothes and boots to wear, and trunks made in our own workshop. Inside there was a bible and a hymn book and work clothes, as well as an outfit for Sunday. A marching band played as we walked to the Barnardo Special–the train that took us to the Liverpool docks. A crowd of people cheered us on as we went up the gangway of the
Sardinia–
the ship on which we were to sail to Canada.

“‘Over a hundred and fifty boys and almost the same number of girls, dressed in red-and-gray outfits, left England that day. They kept the boys and girls separate. Most of the time we were too seasick to give the girls a thought. We couldn’t even enjoy the meals served to us by the stewards in their white jackets. The sea is rough in April, so you can imagine the stench down in steerage, where we slept. However sick we felt, it was up at six for a wash and prayers and breakfast.

“‘I went on deck as much as I could, looking over the railings at the dark Atlantic, hoping I’d be the first to spot the icebergs they’d told us about, and dreaming of the horses I’d ride through the meadows. I planned my first letter to Frankie, so that he’d know I was having a good life too.

“‘One morning, about a week after the ship left England, I was on deck as usual. I’d become accustomed to the rolling of the ship by now. The wind was blowing hard, and waves spilled onto the deck. I had to grip the railings to keep my balance. My lips tasted of salt, and I shouted words into the wind just for the joy of being there, being part of all that sky and water and open space.

“‘Not far from me I saw a girl. I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed her earlier. She was kneeling down on deck, as if searching for something she’d lost in the ocean. The hem of her skirt was soaked. I knew she must be one of the orphan girls because of her red cloak. She’d get in trouble for that, I thought–’”