Orphan Train

have borrowed them,” she says. “I found this instead.”
    I look at her, then at Mr. Nielsen, who lifts his fork and knife and begins cutting
     his pork chop into small pieces.
    “I only smoked one, to try it,” I say, though they can clearly see that the pack is
     half empty.
    “Where’d you get it?” Mrs. Nielsen asks.
    I am tempted to tell them it was Judy’s boyfriend, Douglas, but realize it will only
     be worse to drag other people in. “It was—an experiment. I didn’t like it. They made
     me cough.”
    She raises her eyebrows at Mr. Nielsen, and I can tell they’ve already decided on
     a punishment. The only thing they can really take away is my weekly Sunday-afternoon
     trip to the picture show with Judy, so for the next two weeks I stay home instead.
     And endure their silent reprobation.
    After this, I decide that the cost of upsetting them is too much. I don’t climb out
     my bedroom window and down the drainpipe like Judy; I go to school and work in the
     store and help with dinner and do my homework and go to bed. I go out with boys now
     and then, always on a double date or in groups. One boy in particular, Ronnie King,
     is sweet on me and gives me a promise ring. But I am so worried I might do something
     to disappoint the Nielsens that I avoid any situation that might lead to impropriety.
     Once, after a date, Ronnie tries to kiss me good night. His lips brush mine and I
     pull back quickly. Soon after that I give back his ring.
    I never lose the fear that any day Mr. Sorenson could be on the doorstep, telling
     me that the Nielsens have decided I’m too expensive, too much trouble, or merely a
     disappointment, and they’ve decided to let me go. In my nightmares I am alone on a
     train, heading into the wilderness. Or in a maze of hay bales. Or walking the streets
     of a big city, gazing at lights in every window, seeing the families inside, none
     of them mine.
    O NE DAY I OVERHEAR A MAN AT THE COUNTER TALKING TO M RS . Nielsen. “My wife sent me in here to get some things for a basket our church is
     putting together for a boy who came on that orphan train,” he says. “Remember those?
     Used to come through a while ago with all those homeless waifs? I went to the Grange
     Hall in Albans once to see ’em. Pitiful lot. Anyhow, this kid had one misfortune after
     another, got beat up pretty bad by the farmer who took him in, and now the elderly
     lady he went to after that has died, and he’s on his own again. It’s a scandal, sending
     those poor kids out here on their own, expecting folks to take care of ’em—as if we
     don’t have our own burdens.”
    “Ummhmm,” Mrs. Nielsen says noncommittally.
    I move closer, wondering if he might be talking about Dutchy. But then I realize Dutchy
     is eighteen now. Old enough to be on his own.
    I AM NEARLY SIXTEEN WHEN I LOOK AROUND THE STORE AND REALIZE that it has barely changed in all the time I’ve been here. And there are things we
     can do to make it nicer. A lot of things. First, after consulting Mr. Nielsen, I move
     the magazines to the front, near the cash register. The shampoos and lotions and balms
     that used to be at the back of the store I shift to shelves near the pharmacy, so
     that people filling prescriptions can also buy plasters and ointments. The women’s
     section is woefully understocked—understandable, given Mr. Nielsen’s general ignorance
     and Mrs. Nielsen’s lack of interest (she does wear an occasional coat of lipstick,
     though it always seems to have been randomly chosen and hurriedly applied). Remembering
     the long discussions about stockings and garters and makeup rituals at Mrs. Murphy’s,
     I suggest that we increase and expand this section, purchasing, for example, a hosiery
     carousel with seamed and unseamed stockings from one of the vendors, and advertise
     it in the paper. The Nielsens are skeptical, but in the first week we go through our
     entire stock. The following week Mr. Nielsen doubles the order.
    Recalling what Fanny said about ladies wanting to feel pretty even when they don’t
     have much money, I convince Mr. Nielsen to order small inexpensive items, sparkling
     costume jewelry and gloves made of cotton velvet, Bakelite wrist bangles and colorful
     printed scarves. There are several girls I watch avidly at school, a grade or two
     above me, whose well-to-do parents take them to the Twin Cities to buy clothes. I
     notice what they wear and what they eat, what music they