A Family Apart (10 page)

Her thoughts were interrupted by the frantic cry of “Fire!”

The conductor threw open the door of the passenger car. “Sparks from the train set a brushfire!” he shouted. “All able-bodied males are needed to help put it out!”

“Come on!” Mike grabbed Frances’s arm and tugged her into the aisle. “ ‘All able-bodied males,’ ” he wickedly muttered under his breath. “That means you, too!”

“Don’t be frightened, boys.” Andrew stopped Frances with a firm grip on her shoulder and handed her a wet feed sack as she leapt from the railroad car. “It’s not uncommon for sparks to set small brushfires. Just take this sack and join the others.”

Deep orange and scarlet flames crawled and crackled through the burning grass, and yellow smoke rose in choking clouds.

Most of the men and boys had poured from the train, grabbed the wet sacks, and were slapping them at the smoldering grass. Frances, hands shaking with terror, copied their actions. Working hard, slamming her dripping sack on the flames, dipping it over and over into the
bucket and slamming it again, she was soon absorbed in beating back the low spurts of flame.

“Look out! You’re on fire!”

Frances jumped, but it was Amos Crandon Mike meant.

Mr. Crandon froze with fear as the back of his shirt-tail burst into flame.

“Your shirt, man! Pull it off!” Andrew shouted and began to run toward Mr. Crandon.

But Mike was faster. He dove toward the backs of Mr. Crandon’s knees. Mr. Crandon bent in two and fell over Mike, sitting down hard. Mike scrambled on top of the man and pushed him on his back, rolling him over and flinging himself across him.

Mike sat up and examined the scorched shirt. “Fire’s out,” he announced happily.

Mr. Crandon angrily sputtered, “How dare you push me to the ground? You ought to be whipped!”

Frances wanted to defend Mike but was too furious to do anything but sputter. She was glad that Andrew seemed as surprised as Mike by Mr. Crandon’s outburst. She caught her breath as Andrew spoke up: “Your shirt was on fire. Mike put it out and kept you from getting burned.”

Mr. Crandon glared at Andrew. He brushed the dirt from his clothes and, muttering to himself, unaware that two large spots of very pink skin were showing through holes in his trousers, stomped to the train.

Andrew patted Mike’s shoulder, and Frances said, “You did the right thing, Mike.” But it wasn’t at Mike that she was looking. Andrew was a fine man, a really good and kind man like Da. Oh, how Frances yearned to be called Frances Mary again!

“On board, everybody,” the conductor yelled as he
collected the dirty, charred feed sacks. “Fire’s out. Get back on board so we can get under way.”

“After this train ride is over,” Mike muttered to Frances as they climbed the steps to their car, “I hope I’ll never see ol’ Crandon again!”

The train rattled its way west, stopping every twenty-five miles or so for water and wood. Frances gazed dreamily out over the open hills, the dim forests, the tidy squares of farmland, and the rippling, gray-gold grass-lands. The train crossed trestles and bridges and passed towns that all began to look alike to Frances. Occasionally she’d wonder if this type of farm or that kind of house would be like the one where she’d live. Sometimes she’d just sit back, her arm around Petey, and let herself be rocked by the steady rhythm of the rackety wheels that clattered over and over, “New life, new life, new life.”

“But I don’t want a new life,” Frances murmured to herself.

“Mike and I are going to be together,” Danny came to tell Frances.

Terror showed in his eyes though, and Frances said what she knew he wanted to hear: “There’s a very good chance you will be.”

“The people who adopt the children—are most of them kind, do you think?” Megan whispered so softly that Frances could hardly hear her.

“I’m sure they are,” Frances said. “Why else would they come?”

“That’s a good question,” Mike said, “and I haven’t found an answer to it yet. Just why would anyone want us?”

Frances put on a brave face and even managed a
laugh. “Because we’re a fine lot, we are, and those who get us will be lucky! That’s why!”

For the moment they were content, but Frances’s heart ached as she realized her words meant nothing. If she was saying only what they wanted to hear, was that what Katherine and Andrew were doing, too?

Days became nights, and nights broke into early daylights with passengers so stiff they grimaced as they stretched their legs and rubbed their arms and necks. The children and the other passengers dozed, ate, and talked. Occasionally conversation in the car grew lively, especially when the topic turned to politics and the pros and cons of slavery. Frances listened and soaked up the words when someone echoed what Da had told her.

The children changed to another train in the massive Chicago railroad station. This one would take them to the Mississippi River, where they’d cross over, heading toward Hannibal, Missouri.

Missouri! Frances would be glad to see the long train ride end, but her hands grew damp and she found it hard to breathe whenever she thought about what might await her and her brothers and sisters in St. Joseph.

The car in which they rode southwest toward Hannibal looked much the same as the first one. Outside the city, even the farms and houses looked like those they had seen for so many days, and most of the passengers on their car were the same. Frances knew that everyone was as exhausted as she was, even the adults. She remembered the flounces and parasols and grand top hats the ladies and gentlemen wore when they got on the first train in Albany. Now their once-elegant suit coats and wide, bustled dresses were wilted and dusty.

When Petey put his mouth to Frances’s ear and whispered
loudly, “Some of the people stink,” Frances could only nod in agreement.

Mike and another boy got into a shoving match in the aisle, and Frances found herself scolding Mike with an overly sharp tongue. Mike snapped back, rudely sticking out his tongue, and it was all she could do not to slap him.

Arguments exploded among all the children as quickly and often as sparks from a burning, sap-filled log. Tousled and rumpled, Peg and Danny poked at each other unmercifully, and Petey cried over every little thing. Even Megan, who was usually gentle and even-tempered, huddled into a miserable heap next to the window.

Early one evening they reached the broad Mississippi River, which they would cross by steamboat. Standing with the others who clustered at the rail of the big paddle wheeler, Frances begged, “Please, could we stay outside to watch?”

“It’s cold and damp,” Katherine said. She touched Frances’s cheek. “You’ll be soaked by the mist rising from the water.”

“We don’t mind,” Frances said. “It’s such a big river, and so many, many boats!”

Jim stepped up beside her. “Please?” he echoed. “We want to see it all!”

Katherine laughingly agreed, but while most of the children ran up and down the deck, Jim pointed out some of the types of boats to Frances.

“I’m going to work on a boat,” he said. “Maybe one of those big steamboats with twin stacks.” His voice filled with yearning as he added, “Maybe a captain and his wife will adopt me.”

He continued to lean on the rail, eagerly studying the heavy river traffic. But Frances soon lost interest in the
boats and kept an eye on the Missouri shore ahead, watching it appear from the mists as they grew nearer.

When they arrived in Hannibal, Missouri, many passengers left to journey to St. Louis, and other passengers joined them on a third train.

We’re actually in Missouri
, Frances thought, and she couldn’t eat a bite of the food that Andrew had brought on board for their supper.

Although Danny gobbled down his meal, Mike’s appetite seemed to have disappeared, too. Frances glanced at Mike just as he looked up at her, and she knew that he shared her terror of what they might have to face when they reached St. Joseph.

“Frances,” he said, then quickly corrected himself. “Frankie, I’m sorry about all this. I know that being sent west has been awful hard on you, what with you and Ma so close.”

Frances quickly shook her head. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

“But I want to, because it’s my fault that all the rest of you are here, and I’m sorry I did this to you.”

“Oh, Mike.” Frances reached out to touch her brother’s hand. “I don’t blame you.” She tried to make her voice light. “Look at it this way. You kept telling me I’d like living in the West. Now I’ll have a chance to find out.”

But Mike didn’t respond to her attempt at humor. “This is our last time to be together. After we’re placed, who knows when we’ll see each other again?”

“We may not know when we’ll be together again, but I’m sure that we will be. I’ll write to you. Will you write back?”

Mike nodded. “Sure. And someday—”

But the train squealed to such a sudden stop that they were thrown off-balance.

“Outlaws!” a woman screamed as a heavily bearded man burst through the door to their car, waving a rifle at the passengers.

Shrieks and yells came from the other cars as men on horseback galloped at each side of the train. One of the men reined in his horse and poked a long gun in through one of the open windows of the children’s car.

The bearded man waved a small cloth sack at the passengers. “Sit down right now! All of you! And don’t do anything we don’t tell you to do,” he snapped.

As she dropped back onto the bench, Frances saw Captain Taylor glance at the man on horseback outside the window and back to the outlaw in the aisle. She held her breath, wondering what he would do. But he sat quietly and kept his hand away from his satchel and his gun.

“Everybody pay attention,” the outlaw demanded, little drops of spittle glittering on his beard. “Put your money and valuables in this sack.” When they were slow to react he yelled, “Now!” and jabbed the end of his rifle at Mr. Crandon’s stomach.

“Don’t do that!” Mr. Crandon squeaked. “I’ll give you all my money! See! Here it is!” He fumbled for a wad of bills held with a gleaming gold money clip and dropped it into the sack.

The outlaw moved up the aisle, thrusting the open sack ahead of him, his nervous eyes darting from one passenger to another. One by one the passengers obeyed as the outlaw eyed them closely. The women even stripped off their rings and bracelets and dropped them into the sack, and some of the men gave up their pocket watches.

As the outlaw came to Katherine she said, “I have no money.”

He glanced at her hand. “You have a ring. Take it off.”

“Oh, please let me keep it!” Katherine said. Frances was amazed to see tears in her eyes. “It’s not of much value, but it means a great deal to me.”

The man quickly glanced at the man on horseback, then back at Katherine, and his voice grew even more loud and harsh. “You heard me! Drop it in the sack! Now!”

As Katherine obeyed, the outlaw outside the window called, “Get a move on! We’re ready to ride!”

Cautiously, his gun held before him, the bearded outlaw began to back away from the passengers. Suddenly Mike was in the aisle, plowing into the man, and they stumbled together as the cloth bag was almost jerked from the outlaw’s hand. Angrily the man regained his balance, giving Mike such a hard clout with his left hand that he knocked him sprawling. Mike bounced off the edge of the nearest seat and landed on the floor of the car, curled facedown, not moving.

Frances gasped and rushed toward Mike as the outlaw jumped from the car. She could hear more yelling and the sound of galloping horses as he and the rest of his gang raced away from the train. The sound of gunshots exploded outside the window, and Captain Taylor shouted, “Got one of them! But just in the shoulder, blast it!”

“Mike! Wake up!” Frances begged as she threw her arms around him. Danny dove in next to her, and in the next minute Andrew and Katherine were beside her, ready to help. But Mike squirmed away from Frances,
struggled to his knees, and stood up, one fist clenched against his chest.

Frances scrambled to her feet, too, trying once more to put her arms around her brother. “Oh, Mike! Are you hurt?”

Mike pulled away to face all the other staring passengers. Frances could see him try to smile, but tears filled his eyes.

“I was a copper stealer once.” Mike’s voice was barely a whisper. “I promised Ma and I promised myself that I would never pick pockets again, but I couldn’t let that outlaw take Mrs. Banks’s ring, not when it meant so much to her.”

He held out his fist and dropped the ring into Katherine’s hand.

“Oh!” Katherine gasped. “Oh, Mike!” She held the ring up to stare at it as though she couldn’t believe it was really there, and tears came to her eyes, too. Quickly she bent to wrap Mike in a hug.

Around them people murmured, “How did he manage that?” “What did that boy do?”

“There’s more,” Mike mumbled against Katherine’s shoulder. When she stepped back he held out his hand, palm up, and opened his fingers. In it lay a wad of bills. As everyone stared, Mike gave the lot to Andrew. “I couldn’t get it all,” he apologized, “but maybe those who lost their money could divide this.”

“Good, good!” Mr. Crandon stretched to see, then scowled. “What’s this! What about me? He didn’t retrieve my gold money clip!”

One of the women began to chirp like a frightened bird. “The bag will be almost empty! What if that outlaw notices and comes back?”

Mike shook his head. “He won’t notice. I dropped my
book in the bag to give it weight.” He managed a shaky grin. “The tales in those novels about brave, daring outlaws are wrong. There wasn’t anything grand about that man. He was dirty and fat and smelled like a New York gutter in summer.’ ”

Katherine put an arm around Mike’s shoulders, hugging him again. “You risked your life!” she said. “You shouldn’t have done that.” As Mike ducked his head Katherine slipped the ring back onto her finger and added quickly, “But oh, Mike, my friend, I thank you with all my heart for retrieving my ring.”

Captain Taylor stepped forward to shake Mike’s hand. “You exhibited great courage,” he said. “I’m proud of you.”

Mr. Crandon’s booming voice almost drowned out the captain’s words. “You all heard that boy. He admitted to being a copper stealer, a common pickpocket!”