Orphan Train

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 shortest, which generally means oldest to youngest, with the babies
     in the arms of the children over eight. Mrs. Scatcherd pushes a baby into my arms
     before I can object—an olive-skinned, cross-eyed fourteen-month-old named Carmine
     (who, I can already guess, will soon answer to another name). He clings to me like
     a terrified kitten. Brown suitcase in one hand, the other holding Carmine secure,
     I navigate the high steps into the train unsteadily before Mr. Curran scurries over
     to take my bag. “Use some common sense, girl,” he scolds. “If you fall, you’ll crack
     your skulls, and then we’ll have to leave the both of you behind.”
    T HE WOODEN SEATS IN THE TRAIN CAR ALL FACE FORWARD EXCEPT for two groups of seats opposite each other in the front, separated by a narrow aisle.
     I find a three-seater for Carmine and me, and Mr. Curran heaves my suitcase onto the
     rack above my head. Carmine soon wants to crawl off the seat, and I am so busy trying
     to distract him from escaping that I barely notice as the other kids come on board
     and the car fills.
    Mrs. Scatcherd stands at the front of the car, holding on to two leather seat backs,
     the arms of her black cape draping like the wings of a crow. “They call this an orphan
     train, children, and you are lucky to be on it. You are leaving behind an evil place,
     full of ignorance, poverty, and vice, for the nobility of country life. While you
     are on this train you will follow some simple rules.