Family Lessons - Allie Pleiter Orphan Train

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the lump in her own throat grow larger and thought about how the horrible gray morning after the flood had seemed to snatch away every good thing in Evans Grove. She’d stood that morning and watched the sun fail to rise over Fourth Street, fail to part the gray that cloaked the battered homes. Houses of folks she knew and loved looked like piles of strewn kindling. Soaked and bone tired, Holly had asked the same question of Reverend Turner.

      Holly now gave Rebecca the same answer the Reverend had given her. “That’s not ours to know tonight. Let’s hand it over to the Almighty for a while so we can sleep.”

      Rebecca shook her head. “Lord only knows what will happen to those children.” She dabbed her eyes. “I’ve lain awake praying that God would find them homes even before Newfield. Nothing’s come of it. These children have been passed over stop after stop. I’ve been delighted to see so many of the children we set out with find spots in good homes, but I never expected these last ones to pull on my heart so much. The whole point of the Orphan Salvation Society is to take these boys and girls out of the grime of the city and give them a hopeful future. I know a foster family isn’t the same as an adoption, but it’s close. Only we haven’t come close for these children at all. Greenville is our last stop. If they’re not placed, I’ll have to take them back to New York unplaced...” She clenched her jaw to stop a sob. The desperation in her voice told Holly that whatever waited in New York wasn’t good.

      “Shush now. All of that can wait for daylight.” Holly pulled up one of her mama’s favorite sayings from memory. “God hasn’t closed his eyes, but you ought to.” She checked the kettle. “Evans Grove is full of good people who’ll help you get over this rough patch, you wait and see.” Her mind cast back to the ragtag handful of children. They were neither strong nor pretty; surely not the kind to be caught up by families at first sight. Still, the teacher in her could already see bits of character and personality that made them special—even if they didn’t know it themselves. All God’s children were worthwhile, were deserving of love and security. “God’s watched over them today, hasn’t He?”

      Rebecca voiced the thought that came immediately to Holly’s mind. “And how has God watched over Stuart Arlington today? I can’t see the point in something so senseless. Those men had no reason to shoot Mr. Arlington. None at all.” She began to cry harder. “So much has been lost.”

      Holly put an arm around the poor woman. “Now don’t go thinking such things. We just can’t know the Lord’s hand in something like this. He’s mightier than those horrid men, even if it’s hard to see at the moment.” She was talking to herself as much as Miss Sterling. “Sheriff Wright will see that justice is done. He saw to our safety, even risked his own life to do so. Why, he even got back your bag and jewelry, didn’t he?” It seemed a poor consolation, but Holly was grasping for any silver lining.

      “Baubles,” Rebecca said bitterly. “Trinkets.”

      The kettle whistled, and Holly turned to tend to tea, taking comfort from the warm scent of the brew as it filled the home. “A good meal and a cup of tea. Some of the best medicine for a heavy heart I know, short of prayer.”

      Rebecca laid her chin in her hand. “I fear I’m plum prayed out.”

      Holly set a cup in front of each of them and sat down. “Of course you are. I’m down to just groaning toward heaven now. Still, God hears every groan. I like to think He hears the groans especially. Sugar?”

      “Thank you, yes.” The woman’s elegant fingers traced the china handle. “They are lovely teacups.”

      There, for just a moment, was the refined lady Holly had admired on the train. “They belonged to my Grannie Hollyn. I’m named after her. She loved pretty things like this.”

      Rebecca’s blue eyes looked straight into Holly’s. “You are so kind.”

      Holly’s conscience pinched at the way she’d envied Rebecca on the train. I’m not proud of that. Forgive my unkind spirit, Lord. I was so very wrong. “They’re dear children, the lot of them. They deserve a happy ending, and we’ll just have to find one in all this. Now finish your tea and let’s get you cleaned up. I expect you’ll fall asleep as fast as the rest of them.”

      Rebecca smiled and drank her tea, but Holly knew it was more likely that neither of them would sleep soundly. Tired as she was, too many things piled into her memory every time she closed her eyes. It would be hard for sleep to befriend her tonight.

      * * *

      An hour later, Grandpa’s clock on Holly’s mantel chimed ten as Holly slipped under the familiar coverlet and felt her body sink into the mattress. Every inch felt tied in knots; every joint seemed to groan. Dickens, her shy calico who’d stayed hidden under the bed during Rebecca’s visit as he always did on the rare occasion Holly had company, jumped up to curl against her side. “What a day, hmm, Dickens? Mama was right; one should never pray for excitement.”

      Dickens offered only a low purr in reply. Holly stroked the black and brown patches that covered his back, seeking solace in his large yellow eyes. “I’m safe,” she said to the both of them, aloud so she’d believe it. “I’m safe, thank heaven.”

      You’re safe. Those had been the words Mason Wright had said to her as he led her away from the spot where Stuart Arlington’s body lay bleeding into the Nebraska soil. She didn’t feel it yet—she mostly felt alone and lifeless. Help me, Lord, she prayed as she stroked the cat and waited for sleep to wipe the day from her bones. I want to trust You, but it’s hard to see how You’d want any of this. Rebecca and Mr. Arlington were trying to do right by those children. Those men were only out for greed. I know you still brought our funds to Evans Grove, and You brought them more quickly than we’d dared to hope, but this? Why such pain when we’ve already known so much loss?

      Her eyes grew heavy enough so that even the specter of Mr. Arlington’s lifeless eyes could not fight off their closing. “Now I lay me down to sleep,” she recited the childhood prayer, somehow needing the peace of her youth, “I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”

      She left off the final couplet. The Lord had taken enough souls today.

      * * *

      “You’re serious.” Reverend Turner looked shocked—but not unpleasantly so—when Holly knocked on his door far too early the next morning. She was unable to wait one minute longer to tell him of her idea.

      Holly pulled her shawl closer against the morning drizzle. “I shot up out of bed wide awake sometime near four. The whole thing came to me just that quick. Just that strong.”

      Poor Reverend. Holly had been dressed before dawn, had bolted out of the schoolhouse the minute Charlotte and Amelia Hicks had come to tend to the children’s breakfast. She’d barely been able to keep her idea from Rebecca, knowing Reverend Turner was the first person she must tell. Still, the children’s waking faces sealed her determination, as if the idea was doubling in size and strength every moment she delayed. She’d practically run through the fine morning rain to the Reverend’s house to knock down his door with her plan.

      Holly grabbed his arm. “Reverend Turner, I don’t see how that could be anything other than the work of the Spirit, don’t you?”

      He stifled a yawn. “It very well could be.”

      Holly reined in her exasperation. “Of course it can, Reverend. It must. These children could so easily stay here, find homes here among our families.”

      “It’s possible.”

      Reverend Turner’s wife, Mary, called from behind him. “For goodness’ sake, James, don’t make Holly stand in the doorway like some kind of stranger.” Mary affectionately nudged her husband out of the way to pull Holly into the warm room. “How are you, dear? Such a horrid episode. Curdles the blood to think what you all went through and those poor, poor children.”

      “Holly has had an idea about those young ones.” Reverend Turner shut the door and adjusted the suspenders he’d thrown on in a hurry. “She thinks they ought to stay.”

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