Orphan Train Read Online Free PDF

hair.”
    “Unfortunate,” the plump woman beside her says, then sighs. “And those freckles. It’s
     hard enough to get placed out at her age.”
    The bony one licks her thumb and pushes the hair off my face. “Don’t want to scare
     them away, now, do you? You must keep it pulled back. If you’re neat and well mannered,
     they might not be so quick to jump to conclusions.”
    She buttons my sleeves, and when she leans down to retie each of my black shoes, a
     mildewy smell rises from her bonnet. “It is imperative that you look presentable.
     The kind of girl a woman would want around the house. Clean and well-spoken. But not
     too—” She shoots the other one a look.
    “Too what?” I ask.
    “Some women don’t take kindly to a comely girl sleeping under the same roof,” she
     says. “Not that you’re so. . . . But still.” She points at my necklace. “What is that?”
    I reach up and touch the small pewter claddagh Celtic cross I have worn since I was
     six, tracking the grooved outline of the heart with my finger. “An Irish cross.”
    “You’re not allowed to bring keepsakes with you on the train.”
    My heart is pounding so hard I believe she can hear it. “It was my gram’s.”
    The two women peer at the cross, and I can see them hesitating, trying to decide what
     to do.
    “She gave it to me in Ireland, before we came over. It’s—It’s the only thing I have
     left.” This is true, but it’s also true that I say it because I think it will sway
     them. And it does.
    W E HEAR THE TRAIN BEFORE WE CAN SEE IT . A LOW HUM , A RUMBLE UNDERFOOT , a deep-throated whistle, faint at first and then louder as the train gets close.
     We crane our necks to look down the track (even as one of our sponsors, Mrs. Scatcherd,
     shouts in her reedy voice, “Chil-dren! Places, chil-dren!”), and suddenly here it
     is: a black engine looming over us, shadowing the platform, letting out a hiss of
     steam like a massive panting animal.
    I am with a group of twenty children, all ages. We are scrubbed and in our donated
     clothes, the girls in dresses with white pinafores and thick stockings, the boys in
     knickers that button below the knee, white dress shirts, neckties, thick wool suit
     coats. It is an unseasonably warm October day, Indian summer, Mrs. Scatcherd calls
     it, and we are sweltering on the platform. My hair is damp against my neck, the pinafore
     stiff and uncomfortable. In one hand I clutch a small brown suitcase that, excepting
     the cross, contains everything I have in the world, all newly acquired: a bible, two
     sets of clothes, a hat, a black coat several sizes too small, a pair of shoes. Inside
     the coat is my name, embroidered by a volunteer at the Children’s Aid Society: Niamh
     Power.
    Yes, Niamh. Pronounced “Neev.” A common enough name in County Galway, and not so unusual
     in the Irish tenements in New York, but certainly not acceptable anywhere the train
     might take me. The lady who sewed those letters several days ago tsk ed over the task. “I hope you aren’t attached to that name, young miss, because I
     can promise if you’re lucky enough to be chosen, your new parents will change it in
     a second.” My Niamh , my da used to call me. But I’m not so attached to the name. I know it’s hard to
     pronounce, foreign, unlovely to those who don’t understand—a peculiar jumble of unmatched
     consonants.
    No one feels sorry for me because I’ve lost my family. Each of us has a sad tale;
     we wouldn’t be here otherwise. The general feeling is that it’s best not to talk about
     the past, that the quickest relief will come in forgetting. The Children’s Aid treats
     us as if we were born the moment we were brought in, that like moths breaking out
     of their cocoons we’ve left our old lives behind and, God willing, will soon launch
     ourselves into new ones.
    Mrs. Scatcherd and Mr. Curran, a milquetoast with a brown mustache, line us up by
     height, tallest to