Wanderville (3 page)

I
t started with the big blond kid stopping Frances's little brother in the aisle.

“What's your name, mick?” the kid demanded. His hair was yellow-white, and he didn't look like he had any eyebrows.

“Harold,” her brother answered.

“
Hair-red?
” barked the blond kid. Behind him two other boys laughed.

Frances stood up to fetch Harold and lead him back to their seat. But by then the blond kid's friends had moved out into the aisle on either side of him, blocking Harold in. In his new coat, which was a size too big for him, Harold seemed even smaller and very much like a snail that wanted to hide in its shell.

The train had started moving, lurching with considerably more force than the streetcars Frances was used to. The boys who were picking on Harold braced themselves against the seat backs, but poor Harold stumbled and fell down.

“Watch out, Hair-red!” one of the boys called out.

“Are you lame, Hair-red?” said the big blond one—Frances had heard his friends call him Quentin. There seemed to be something wrong with his mouth, she noticed. His top lip looked kind of smashed and curled back oddly, exposing one of his front teeth, which gave the effect of a permanent sneer.

“If you're lame, Hair-red, the folks in Kansas won't want ya,” Quentin said. “They'll send you to live in the trash dump.”

Harold shook his head, still crouched down in the aisle. “No . . . they won't,” he said haltingly.

“Leave my brother alone!” snapped Frances, her face hot. But she was back in a corner of the car, where Quentin and his friends couldn't hear her. Or else they were just ignoring her, in her new dress that she knew looked foolish. It had a puffy, lacy bow just under her chin, which itched fiercely.

The train car was all kids, orphan-train kids, and except for two more boys who came out into the aisle to gawk, the rest didn't dare to make a move as the bullies shoved her brother back and forth.

“You sure you isn't crippled?”

“Got some real spindly legs in those breeches.”

“You think he's got one of those mick tempers?”

“Quit it!” screamed Frances as she tried to push past the onlookers. She could sometimes take on an ogre like Quentin—step right in front of him and stare him down until he flinched, because big, stupid carbuncles like him didn't know how to deal with girls. But she couldn't get close enough. “Cut it out!” she cried.

“
Cut it out
,”
said a voice behind her, a boy's. Frances whirled around.

It was the black-haired kid she'd seen from the platform at the depot. He was wiry, with deep-set eyes. He'd been boarding the next car over and she'd wondered what his story was. Now he gave Frances a nod and jumped up over one of the bench seats. Then he launched himself straight toward Quentin.

Quentin toppled forward with the black-haired kid on his back. “Gah! Get off!” he sputtered. The kid had clamped his hands over Quentin's eyes so that he staggered blindly, arms flailing. A roar of laughter went up throughout the car. The other boys backed away, and Harold hurried over behind Frances. Finally the kid let go of Quentin's head and dropped down to his feet.

“Sorry,” the boy said with a grin. “Thought you were someone else.”

Maybe his escape from the fire had made Jack a little foolhardy. But after leaping two stories down into a street, Jack thought jumping on the back of some big, dumb towheaded thug was nothing. Especially after he'd seen the scared faces of some of these younger kids.

Of course, now the bully was pretty steamed. He grabbed Jack by the front of his coat and shook him. “You thought I was
what
?”

Just then, the door at the engine end of the car burst open and two women came hurrying up the aisle.

Frances could feel Harold holding onto the back of her new felt coat. “Stay where you are,” she told him under her breath. She suspected most of the younger children were together in the adjacent car, but she wasn't going to leave her brother to ride with strangers. She stepped back between seats so that Harold was hidden in the space behind her. She figured the less the Relief Society women saw of him, the better.

“What on earth is going on?” one of the women called out to Quentin and the black-haired boy. She wore her hair in a loose bun and her sleeves were already pushed up, as if she'd spent the whole morning working. By Frances's reckoning, she seemed young, about as old as a new schoolteacher. With more than twenty kids to handle on this train, Frances thought, she'd better not be
too
new. Well, at least she wouldn't have to look after Harold—Frances did that job better than anybody.

As for the second woman, she stood quietly in back, but Frances recognized her right away—the lady who had come to the home, Miss DeHaven. Indeed, the sleeves of her black traveling dress had big poufs at the shoulders. On her bodice she wore a blue badge, trimmed with a ribbon frill, bearing the letters
S C A & R
.

Quentin had let go of the black-haired boy's coat but was still glaring at him.

“Gentlemen,
please
,” the first woman said to them. “I am Mrs. Routh.” She had a round face with a sweet smile, and she had to clear her throat before raising her voice. “And it is my duty to make sure you children get to Kansas without . . . well, without murdering each other!” She sighed and shook her head. “Is there a problem already?”

“He jumped on me!” Quentin yelped.

“I took him for an old buddy of mine,” the black-haired boy explained.

Frances stepped forward and spoke up. “He thought he knew him from his gang . . .” The names of some of the notorious old Lower East Side gangs she'd heard about raced through her head: the Dead Rabbits, the Bowery Boys, the Plug Uglies, the Forty Thieves . . . “The Ugly Rabbits,” Frances finished, winking at the boy.

Mrs. Routh sighed. “‘Ugly Rabbits'?”

The black-haired boy shot Frances a grin—there was no such thing as the
Ugly
Rabbits—and went on. “Thus I greeted him in our usual scrapping fashion. Which I know is a bit rough. But clearly this fellow is man enough to take it.” The boy extended his hand to Quentin and shook it. “Jack Holderman. Pleased to make your acquaintance. I'm sorry I mistook you for an Ugly Rabbit.”

Quentin's eyes narrowed, but he shook Jack's hand back. Frances had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.

“Now that's settled,” said Mrs. Routh, gently steering Jack and the others to their seats, “Miss DeHaven from the Society for Children's Aid and Relief and I are your guardians on this journey. It will be a long one, and it will be far better on your spirits—all of our spirits—if we're kind to one another. And patient.”

“I'm hungry,” whimpered a girl a few rows back. Frances wanted to hush her. If there was one thing she'd learned from orphanage life, it was that you didn't complain.

But Mrs. Routh said only, “My goodness!” and checked the watch on the chain around her neck. “No wonder we have some empty stomachs among us. It's already past one o'clock. Miss DeHaven, perhaps you can speak more to the children about what to expect while I fetch the dinner pails?”

“Of course,” Miss DeHaven said with a thin smile.

Mrs. Routh went out the door to the next car. When it fell shut, the only sound was the metronome rhythm of the train, and though it swayed quite a bit, Miss DeHaven remained steady. Perfectly still, in fact. Only her face had changed. Her smile had gone flat.

“What to expect,” Miss DeHaven said. “It's quite simple.
Don't
expect.”

A boy sitting near Jack raised his hand.

“Put that down,” she snapped. “I said don't expect. Don't expect me to answer questions. Well-mannered children do not ask questions. Don't expect to have your sticky chins wiped clean by Mrs. Routh and me, or your shoes buttoned. And when you meet your benefactors, don't expect that the pity you see in their faces will get you anywhere. It's just pity, and you should be ashamed of it.”

The quiet throughout the car was punctuated only by the dull clattering of the train. Frances held her breath. At the home this woman had spoken so melodiously when she'd stood with the matrons and addressed the crowd in the dining hall, but here her voice was cool and measured—and, Frances was sure, her true manner of speaking.

“I know your kind,” Miss DeHaven went on. “You have become accustomed to hardship, and that is your only virtue. It is
my
duty to keep that virtue cultivated in you for the next four days. I believe that when you get to Kansas”—she paused and scowled at two little Swedish girls sitting in a row near her—“
if
you get to Kansas, you will appreciate how well I have prepared you.”

Harold had been crouched down against Frances to stay out of sight, just as she'd told him to do. She felt his little shoulders become tense with fear. Still, she didn't dare look down at him until Miss DeHaven turned her back.

“I don't want to go to Kansas!” whispered someone in the row in front of them, a tall boy named Lorenzo.

“Don't want to g
o
?” Miss DeHaven whirled back around and glared in Lorenzo's direction for a moment. Then she touched her ribboned badge and smiled sweetly.

“It doesn't matter what you want,” she told the boy. She raised her voice so that everyone could hear. “It doesn't matter what
any
of you want! We know what's best.” She narrowed her eyes. “And we know
better than you
.”

“Y
ou're all so quiet now,” Mrs. Routh remarked as she walked down the aisle with a basket full of wrapped sandwiches under her arm.

She doesn't know
, Jack thought.
She couldn't have heard what Miss DeHaven had said to them, could she?
Both women were in the train car now, passing out the food. At least Mrs. Routh was working his end of the car and not Miss Meansleeves. From what he could see, Miss DeHaven liked to pick up each sandwich by its corner, pinching it like she was holding the tail of some dead creature, and then drop it into a lap.

At home right about now, his mother would be setting out the dishes on the oilcloth with the flower pattern, the yellow and blue roses that were the only real color in the apartment. The potatoes and cabbage would be too hot, and so he and Daniel would have to wait to eat them, making funny faces at each other to pass the time. Jack idly began scrunching his mouth in imitation of Daniel's best expressions.

He heard a giggle. The little redheaded kid in the row in front of him had turned around and caught Jack making faces. Jack gave him a nod and grinned at the kid—Harold, he'd overheard his sister call him. Now Harold was like a friendly puppy, the way he kept looking back at Jack.

Just then Mrs. Routh stopped at Jack's row. She handed him—gently—a sandwich wrapped in brown paper. He hadn't realized how hungry he was until his nose picked up the tang of pickles.

“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.”