Orphan Train

other
     possibilities, and leave you in charge of Dorothy for a few days. Young lady, I trust
     that you will be appropriately polite and well behaved.”
    “Yes, sir,” I say solemnly, but my heart is swelling with joy. Miss Larsen is taking
     me home with her! I can’t believe my good fortune.

Hemingford, Minnesota, 1930
    The man who picks Miss Larsen and me up after school signals surprise at my presence with a lift of his eyebrow, but says nothing.
    “Mr. Yates, this is Dorothy,” she tells him, and he nods at me in the rearview mirror.
     “Dorothy, Mr. Yates works for my landlady, Mrs. Murphy, and is kind enough to take
     me to the schoolhouse each day, since I don’t drive myself.”
    “It’s a pleasure, miss,” he says, and I can see by his pink ears that he means it.
    Hemingford is much larger than Albans. Mr. Yates drives slowly down Main Street, and
     I gaze out at the signs: the Imperial Theatre (whose marquee trumpets NOW WITH THE TALKING, SINGING AND DANCING !); the Hemingford Ledger; Walla’s Recreational Parlor, advertising BILLIARDS, FOUNTAIN, CANDY, TOBACCO in its plate-glass window; Farmer’s State Bank; Shindler’s Hardware; and Nielsen’s
     General Store— EVERYTHING TO EAT AND WEAR .
    At the corner of Main and Park, several blocks from the town center, Mr. Yates pulls
     to a stop in front of a light-blue Victorian house with a wraparound porch. An oval
     placard by the front door announces, HEMINGFORD HOME FOR YOUNG LADIES.
    The bell tinkles when Miss Larsen opens the door. She ushers me in but holds a finger
     to her lips and whispers, “Wait here a moment,” before pulling off her gloves, unwrapping
     the scarf around her neck, and disappearing through a door at the end of the hall.
    The foyer is formal, with flocked burgundy wallpaper, a large gilt-framed mirror,
     and a dark, ornately carved chest of drawers. After looking around a bit, I perch
     on a slippery horsehair chair. In one corner an imposing grandfather clock ticks loudly,
     and when it chimes the hour, I nearly slide off in surprise.
    After a few minutes, Miss Larsen returns. “My landlady, Mrs. Murphy, would like to
     meet you,” she says. “I told her about your—predicament. I felt I needed to explain
     why I brought you here. I hope that’s all right.”
    “Yes, of course.”
    “Just be yourself, Dorothy,” she says. “All right, then. This way.”
    I follow her down the hall and through the door into a parlor, where a plump, bosomy
     woman with a nimbus of downy gray hair is sitting on a rose velvet sofa next to a
     glowing fire. She has long lines beside her nose like a marionette and a watchful,
     alert expression. “Well, my girl, it sounds as if you’ve had quite a time of it,”
     she says, motioning for me to sit across from her in one of two floral wingback chairs.
    I sit in one and Miss Larsen takes the other, smiling at me a little anxiously.
    “Yes, ma’am,” I say to Mrs. Murphy.
    “Oh—you’re Irish, are you?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    She beams. “I thought so! But I had a Polish girl here a few years ago with hair redder
     than yours. And of course there are the Scottish, though not as commonly in these
     parts. Well, and I’m Irish too, if you couldn’t tell,” she adds. “Came over like you
     as a wee lass. My people are from Enniscorthy. And yours?”
    “Kinvara. In County Galway.”
    “Indeed, I know the place! My cousin married a Kinvara girl. Are you familiar with
     the Sweeney clan?”
    I’ve never heard of the Sweeney clan, but I nod just the same.
    “Well, then.” She looks pleased. “What’s your family name?”
    “Power.”
    “And you were christened . . . Dorothy?”
    “No, Niamh. My name was changed by the first family I came to.” My face reddens as
     I realize I’m confessing to having been thrown out of two homes.
    But she doesn’t seem to notice, or care. “I guessed as much! Dorothy is no Irish name.”
     Leaning toward me, she inspects my necklace. “A claddagh. I haven’t seen one of those
     in an elephant’s age. From home?”
    I nod. “My gram gave it to me.”
    “Yes, and see how she guards it,” she comments to Miss Larsen.
    I’m not aware until she says this that I’m holding it between my fingers. “I didn’t
     mean—”
    “Oh, lass, it’s all right,” she says, patting my knee. “It’s the only thing you’ve
     got to remind you of your people, now, isn’t it?”
    When Mrs. Murphy turns her attention to the