fine job. She also agreed it was necessary to find Edmund a nice family home first however, or I would be unable to help her on subsequent trips.
Most of the children had been adopted or exchanged for work at this point in our journey. There were five of us left including me and Eddie, a set of twin girls with criss crossed eyes, and a lad about the age of seven who was sullen and not so bright. The lad repeatedly hit himself in the forehead and screamed out curse words in feverish torrents frightening the smaller children on board.
We donned our finest clothes, Agnes reminded us of our good manners and to smile big for the crowd, then we met up with the coordinating Sister who led us to the Towne Center for our appraisals. Few families had come in to see us but one family that was present was most certainly of the do-gooder variety. They had children of their own but felt it was Christian to adopt a child in need bringing them into the folds of their family showing them the ways of the Lord. The woman of the family held the Holy Bible tightly across her chest while glancing at the five of us before her. She whispered to her husband, a stout man with a neatly manicured mustache that curled up on each end. He pulled out his glasses and put them on his beady eyes glancing closer at the twins. They clasped their hands together and smiled their best smiles that to me seemed to make their eyes cross even more towards their noses. The family walked towards the girls for introductions and soon laughter ensued because the girls learned they were to be adopted by none other than an optometrist who could fit them with glasses to strengthen their eyes and redirect their gaze. They were giddy with excitement and the best of all they weren’t to be separated as other siblings before them had been. The six year old twins ran to say their good byes to Agnes and they hugged Edmund and me as well before skipping off hand in hand with their new parents.
I smiled inside my heart because if two little girls with mousy hair and criss crossed eyes can get a family to love them then surely Edmund and I could. We just haven’t found them yet, or rather, they haven’t found us.
The last three of us unclaimed children boarded the train with Agnes and headed back to New York City. I was looking forward to the hustle and bustle of the city after seeing so much boring countryside. The possibility that I might see Scotty again loomed large within me. I liked him, he was my one and only true friend in the city. I thought maybe he could ride the next train bound west with me and find a place of his own or at least good honest work that he could be paid for doing. Scotty had a tough exterior but I suspected he was soft on the inside like the rest of us.
Our train pulled into the New York City Grand Central Station and rather than being met by large crowds milling about, kids selling the papers and or matches, we were met with emptiness.
“What’s this?” Sister Agnes asked, searching the barren station.
Spring brought a substantial rise and resurgence of cholera while we were traveling, the newspaper described it as an epidemic similar to the outbreak of 1831, one that took thousands of lives. Panic ensued. The widespread disease began taking lives shortly after we left on the orphan train. The Sisters remained healthy but many of the children from the slums were sickly or passed away. People in stagecoaches, livery coaches, or on horseback were leaving the city in droves. Inhabitants were forewarned not to eat or drink too heartily and not to sleep anywhere where there could be a draft. Posters lined the train station telling people to tend immediately to problems of the bowels and not to take any medicine without doctor’s advice, not to get wet, and or drink cold water. Yet no one knew what really caused the cholera; only that it spread.
The symptoms of cholera appeared instantly. Someone who appeared healthy in the morning could grow
Most of the children had been adopted or exchanged for work at this point in our journey. There were five of us left including me and Eddie, a set of twin girls with criss crossed eyes, and a lad about the age of seven who was sullen and not so bright. The lad repeatedly hit himself in the forehead and screamed out curse words in feverish torrents frightening the smaller children on board.
We donned our finest clothes, Agnes reminded us of our good manners and to smile big for the crowd, then we met up with the coordinating Sister who led us to the Towne Center for our appraisals. Few families had come in to see us but one family that was present was most certainly of the do-gooder variety. They had children of their own but felt it was Christian to adopt a child in need bringing them into the folds of their family showing them the ways of the Lord. The woman of the family held the Holy Bible tightly across her chest while glancing at the five of us before her. She whispered to her husband, a stout man with a neatly manicured mustache that curled up on each end. He pulled out his glasses and put them on his beady eyes glancing closer at the twins. They clasped their hands together and smiled their best smiles that to me seemed to make their eyes cross even more towards their noses. The family walked towards the girls for introductions and soon laughter ensued because the girls learned they were to be adopted by none other than an optometrist who could fit them with glasses to strengthen their eyes and redirect their gaze. They were giddy with excitement and the best of all they weren’t to be separated as other siblings before them had been. The six year old twins ran to say their good byes to Agnes and they hugged Edmund and me as well before skipping off hand in hand with their new parents.
I smiled inside my heart because if two little girls with mousy hair and criss crossed eyes can get a family to love them then surely Edmund and I could. We just haven’t found them yet, or rather, they haven’t found us.
The last three of us unclaimed children boarded the train with Agnes and headed back to New York City. I was looking forward to the hustle and bustle of the city after seeing so much boring countryside. The possibility that I might see Scotty again loomed large within me. I liked him, he was my one and only true friend in the city. I thought maybe he could ride the next train bound west with me and find a place of his own or at least good honest work that he could be paid for doing. Scotty had a tough exterior but I suspected he was soft on the inside like the rest of us.
Our train pulled into the New York City Grand Central Station and rather than being met by large crowds milling about, kids selling the papers and or matches, we were met with emptiness.
“What’s this?” Sister Agnes asked, searching the barren station.
Spring brought a substantial rise and resurgence of cholera while we were traveling, the newspaper described it as an epidemic similar to the outbreak of 1831, one that took thousands of lives. Panic ensued. The widespread disease began taking lives shortly after we left on the orphan train. The Sisters remained healthy but many of the children from the slums were sickly or passed away. People in stagecoaches, livery coaches, or on horseback were leaving the city in droves. Inhabitants were forewarned not to eat or drink too heartily and not to sleep anywhere where there could be a draft. Posters lined the train station telling people to tend immediately to problems of the bowels and not to take any medicine without doctor’s advice, not to get wet, and or drink cold water. Yet no one knew what really caused the cholera; only that it spread.
The symptoms of cholera appeared instantly. Someone who appeared healthy in the morning could grow
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