Lucy’s Wish Read online

  Lucy nervously entered the Children’s Aid Society offices. A plump woman with a soft, kind face hurried toward her.

  Lucy took a deep breath and let her words tumble out. “My name is Lucy Amanda Griggs. I need help. My father died when I was six, and now my mother is dead. I want to go west on an orphan train to find a new mother and father and a little sister.”

  She stopped and took another gulp of air. Then she added, “And I’m hungry.”

  The woman knelt before Lucy. “My name is Miss Hunter,” she said. “The first thing we need to do is feed you, and then we’ll give you a hot bath and some clean clothing.”

  She reached for Lucy’s doll, but Lucy held tight. “You can’t have Baby. I’m the only one who takes care of her.”

  “That’s fine, dear,” Miss Hunter said. “Although I do think Baby would like to have her dress washed and ironed.”

  Lucy thought a moment, then handed Baby to Miss Hunter. “Baby has a hole in her side. Her stuffing keeps coming out.”

  “I’m very good at mending holes,” Miss Hunter told her. “You and Baby will soon feel much better.”

  “When I get a little sister I’m going to share Baby with her,” Lucy said. Miss Hunter’s eyes grew wide, but Lucy continued. “I’ll have a mother and father and a little sister.” Her wish would come true. It had to.

  Lucy was fed a meal of soup and bread, and even had a hot bath. Miss Hunter gave her a pretty blue cotton dress, underpants, a camisole and petticoat, nightgown, stockings, and shoes with just a little extra room to grow into.

  Lucy looked in the mirror and thought, Oh, Mum, I wish you could see this lovely dress.

  Miss Dolan, a thin, tired-looking woman, sat Lucy down in a tiny cubbyhole office. She told Lucy the Society’s rules for families who agreed to take in orphan train children. “The children are to be treated like one of the family. They will do chores, just as any children in a family would do. They will have good food, fresh air, and sunshine. They will be taken to church on Sundays and be schooled until the age of fourteen.”

  Miss Dolan didn’t smile as she added, “There will be thirty children in your group. I will be your escort on the train to Missouri. I expect all the children in my care to be quiet and well-behaved. I do not allow excess noise, running up and down the aisle, or leaning out the train windows. Is that clearly understood?”

  Lucy nodded.

  “Do you have any questions?”

  Lucy tried hard not to think of her own mother, because when she did tears flooded her eyes. “I … I don’t know this place called Missouri. I don’t know what it’s like. Is … is this where I’ll find a new mother and father and a little sister?”

  Miss Dolan sighed and pressed one hand to her side as if it hurt. “My dear child, there is no way we can promise that you’ll have a little sister. We’re thankful enough when we’re able to place each child. We carefully try to screen each family who applies. Most of the people who have taken in our children have been generous and kind.”

  Most? Lucy thought. Why didn’t she say “all of the people”? What was wrong with the rest of them? She was afraid to ask.

  Over the next few days Lucy met some of the other children with whom she’d be going west. She clung to Baby, who’d been cleaned and mended, and to her wish. Again and again she said to herself, I want someone to love me. I want someone to love me. And, no matter what Miss Dolan said, I am going to have a little sister.

  One day Lucy heard that the pain in Miss Dolan’s side had grown worse. She had been taken to the hospital. Frances Mary Kelly, a pretty young woman with dark hair and smiling eyes, took her place. Miss Kelly would be the one to care for the orphan train riders traveling to Missouri.

  As the children were introduced to Miss Kelly, Lucy held up her doll. “This is Baby,” she said. “I found her in a trash can, and now she’s mine.”

  “She’s lovely, Lucy,” Miss Kelly said. She smiled at Baby before she turned to the next child in line.

  A girl with flyaway golden hair reached out to stroke Baby’s head. “You’ve got a doll—a real doll,” she said. “I had a doll once. I had almost one hundred dolls.”

  “One hundred?” Lucy gasped. “Nobody has one hundred dolls.”

  “I did … when I was a princess.”

  Lucy took a careful look at the golden-haired girl. She was taller than Lucy, but she looked close to Lucy’s age. “What’s your name?” Lucy asked.

  “Virginia Hooper. But that’s not my real name. My real name is Princess.”

  “If you’re really a princess,” Lucy asked, “then why don’t you live in a palace? And why is your name Virginia Hooper?”

  Virginia looked sad. “Because somebody took me away from my palace when I was very, very young. But I remember. I remember everything.”

  Lucy didn’t believe Virginia. But before she could say so, a girl with freckles and light brown pigtails joined them. “Hello. What’s your name?” she asked Lucy.

  “Lucy Griggs,” Lucy answered. “What’s yours?”

  Virginia interrupted. “She’s Daisy Gordon, and she’s only nine.”

  “Who cares? What’s so grand about being ten?” Daisy answered. As she grinned, crinkling her pug nose, Lucy could see that Daisy was missing two teeth.

  Lucy smiled at Daisy. “Maybe my little sister will be like you,” she said.

  “I’d like to be your little sister,” Daisy said.

  “You can’t be sisters,” Virginia insisted.

  “Then we’ll be friends,” Lucy said. She sat down on a nearby bench to show Daisy her doll.

  Virginia quickly sat with them. “I don’t have any friends,” she said.

  Lucy wanted to tell snobby Virginia she didn’t care, but she remembered how Mum was always kind to everyone. She swallowed the words that wanted to come out and said, “Daisy and I are your friends.”

  Virginia studied Lucy for a moment, then nodded. “We can only be friends until we’re placed out. Then we’ll never see each other again.”

  Daisy took Lucy’s hand and gripped it tightly. “Maybe not. Maybe we’ll be neighbors,” she said.

  “I suppose,” Virginia said. She slid closer to Lucy. “I’ve been thinking, what if we’re not placed out? What if no one wants us? I heard that children who aren’t chosen are sold to peddlers.”

  Lucy gasped. “Who told you that?”

  Virginia pointed at a boy who was a head taller than the other boys with him. “Marcus Melo. He’s twelve. He knows a lot of things. He said that one of the orphans ran off into Indian country and was never heard of again.”

  Daisy shuddered and clung to Lucy even more tightly. Lucy wanted to comfort her, but fear was like a cold finger that wiggled up her backbone. For a moment Lucy was too frightened to remember her wish.

  The whispered stories grew even more frightening as the orphans got ready for their journey.

  “The United States government is building forts across the Indian Territory from North Dakota down to Texas,” Marcus said. He brushed a strand of dark hair from his eyes. “I read it in a newspaper.”

  “What are forts? Why is the government building them?” Virginia asked.

  Marcus smiled as if he knew everything. “Every day the Comanches and Arapahoes—the best of all the Indian fighters—ride out of the hills to attack. Our Sixth Cavalry has to fight back. There are terrible battles.” He put his hands around his throat and made a choking noise.

  Lucy gasped. “There aren’t any Indians where we’re going, are there?”

  “Probably lots of them,” Marcus’s friend Sam said in a low, scary voice. “They’re likely to snatch you up and carry you away if they get a chance.”

  Finally Lucy couldn’t stand hearing one more tale. She saw Miss Hunter whisk past, and she followed her into her office.

  Lucy kept a firm grip on Baby as she asked, “Is it true that orphans are sometimes carried off by Indians? Or that we’ll have to live in the barn with the animals and
eat only the slops left by the pigs?”

  Miss Hunter gasped. “Of course not! Where did you hear a dreadful story like that?”

  Lucy continued, a little more bravely. “Do orphan girls have to sit in a small room sewing all day and all night until their fingers bleed and their eyes fall out?”

  Miss Hunter knelt and held Lucy’s shoulders, looking into her eyes. “Oh, dear me,” she said. “These stories aren’t true. You’ll all be placed out with people who are approved by a committee of the town leaders. The people who come to see the orphan train riders want to have a child in the family. Maybe they’ve always wanted to have a child but couldn’t. Or maybe their children have died. We’ll do our best to find happy homes for you. I promise.”

  Lucy’s relief was so great that she threw her arms around Miss Hunter’s neck.

  Miss Hunter hugged her back. Then she said, “If all the children have heard these stories, it’s time I put an end to them.”

  Miss Hunter called all thirty children together and told them again about the placing-out system. She explained why the rumors they’d heard couldn’t possibly be true.

  “One of our agents will visit you about six months after you’ve been placed,” Miss Hunter said. “He’ll talk to you and make sure that you and your foster parents are happy. If you’re not, he’ll find a new home for you. We will do our very best to see that you have homes with good people who will take care of you.”

  Lucy smiled to herself. Now she was sure that her wish was going to come true.

  Before the group of children was taken to the train, each child was given a parcel. It held a change of clothing, a comb, and a toothbrush.

  Lucy held her parcel carefully, balancing it with Baby. She climbed into one of the three wagons that would take them to the train station.

  Daisy and Virginia crowded in beside her. Once the wagons were moving, Lucy searched the faces of the ragged street children who stared at them as they passed. Joey? she thought. Where are you? It’s time to say good-bye.

  But there was no sign of Joey.

  Lucy studied the tall buildings of New York City and the boats that sailed along the Hudson River. She wanted to remember them forever, as she would her mother and father. She’d never see her parents again. She’d never see the city again. She touched the marble in her pocket. Did Henry wonder where she had gone? Did he miss her? Lucy tried hard to keep the tears from spilling down her cheeks, but she couldn’t.

  Beside her, Daisy sniffled. Lucy put an arm around her. Other children in the wagon were crying, too.

  As much as Lucy wanted a new family, it was scary to begin the journey to find one. Were the people in Missouri like the people in New York City? Did they have enough to eat?

  Miss Kelly had told the children that many of them would be living on farms. But what did farms look like? How were they different from the one room Lucy and her parents had lived in? She wondered where the fruit and vegetables grew. In big boxes? Or on trees? Maybe there would be an onion-and-potato tree. Maybe she would climb the tree to pick the vegetables for dinner.

  Lucy glanced back at the second wagon and saw Miss Kelly perched on the board seat next to the driver. Miss Kelly smiled and waved at Lucy. Lucy waved back.

  Daisy gave another sob, and Lucy hugged her.

  “Everything is going to be all right, Daisy,” Lucy told her friend. She began to softly sing, “Rock, rock, my baby-o. Rock, rock, my baby.”

  “I’m not a baby,” Daisy mumbled.

  Lucy sighed. She needed a little sister who was young enough to sing to. “I know you’re not,” she told Daisy. “I was … I was singing to my doll.”

  Daisy raised her head. “Have you ever been on a train, Lucy?”

  “No,” Lucy said. “But it should be a wonder. Think of all the things we’ll see from the windows.”

  Daisy nodded, but she didn’t say anything. Even Virginia didn’t speak. Everyone was silent until the wagons reached the train depot and the children and Miss Kelly scrambled out.

  The train was large—much bigger than Lucy had thought it would be. It was like a giant snake that growled and grumbled to itself.

  The engine gave a sudden loud snort of steam, and Lucy jumped.

  There were people everywhere. The wooden platform next to the train was crowded with them. Lucy felt lost in a swirl of long, dark travel skirts, parasols, uniforms, frock coats, and top hats. She was glad when Miss Kelly patted her shoulder. Miss Kelly lined the children up and led them to the steps of one of the passenger cars.

  “Everybody on board!” she cried, checking off names on a paper she carried.

  Lucy climbed on board and sat in one of the wooden benchlike seats near the middle of the car. Daisy sat in the same seat next to the window, and Virginia sat on Lucy’s other side.

  While Daisy stared out the window, Lucy watched two of the older girls settle into seats with their young charges. On this trip, the older girls got to be “big sisters” to the toddlers.

  I could be a wonderful big sister, Lucy thought. I could be the best big sister in the world. She fought back a shiver of jealousy as she saw two-year-old Lizzie Ann Schultz wrap her arms around pretty Mary Beth Lansdown’s neck and plant a kiss on her cheek.

  Lucy tried to picture the family who was going to adopt her. There will be a smiling father and a mother who will hug me. And there will be a little sister who will sit on my lap and say, “I love you, Lucy.”

  “All aboard!” the conductor called.

  There was a last-minute bustle as people found their seats. The train jerked and rocked as the engine slowly began to chug forward.

  Faster and faster the train went, clicking over the tracks. Lucy took a deep breath. Her heart pounded. At last they were on their way. “To find my family,” Lucy whispered to herself.

  The train quickly left behind the cluttered streets and cramped buildings of the city. And soon there were wonderful things to see from the train’s wide windows. There were open stretches of land planted with green, growing things. Horses ran from the noisy engine and clattering cars. Cows either gave the train a curious stare or just kept grazing. And there were tidy farmhouses. Real houses! The children crowded to the windows.

  “Look at that white house with two chimneys! It’s so big. How many families do you think live in that house?” Lucy asked.

  “Just one family,” a boy named Eddie said. “Those houses are for rich folks.”

  As they passed a farmhouse, a woman put down the broom she’d been using to sweep her front stoop and waved at the children. Lucy eagerly waved back. Soon she might find herself living in a house like that one. Her new mother would be as friendly as that woman. And inside the house would be a smiling father and, best of all, a little sister.

  The days on the train seemed very long, even though Miss Kelly told stories and sang to the children. They ate bread and cheese and apples, which Miss Kelly pulled from a large basket. And they drank fresh milk, which Miss Kelly bought at some of the depots where the train stopped.

  But the seats on the train were hard, and the passenger car rocked and wobbled. The worst part was at night, when the lights were turned low. That was when Lucy was the loneliest.

  One night a few of the girls who were still awake whispered about the families who might want them.

  “At the orphan asylum we had to work or study every minute,” Aggie Vaughn said. “We had just half an hour to go outside. That was the only time we were allowed to talk to each other.”

  Jessie Kay Lester was shocked. “You could only talk for half an hour a day?”

  Virginia giggled. “Can you imagine Jessie not talking all day long?”

  Aggie didn’t smile. “Maybe the people who take us in will make us work just as hard as they did at the asylum.”

  There was silence for a moment. Then Daisy said, “They’ll be our new parents. We’ll have to do whatever they tell us to do.”

  There was a hard knot in Lucy’s stomach. She clun
g tightly to Baby. Their new parents would be good to them, wouldn’t they?

  No one had anything else to say. Daisy rested her head on Lucy’s shoulder, and Lucy used Baby as a pillow.

  I wish for someone to love me. I wish for someone to love me, Lucy repeated until the words slid away into dreams.

  The next day was the fourth day of their journey. As soon as everyone had eaten breakfast, Miss Kelly told the children that the train’s first stop would be that very day in Harwood, Missouri. Miss Kelly’s announcement made Lucy terribly nervous. She tugged at Miss Kelly’s skirt and asked, “Will you help me find a family?”

  “Of course I will,” Miss Kelly said, hugging her tightly. But Lucy knew there wasn’t much Miss Kelly could do. Lucy’s wish was her only hope. But would wishing over and over again be enough to make it come true?

  Before they arrived in Harwood, the train came to a sudden stop. A man jumped from the train, waving a gun. There were men on horseback waiting for him, and they rode away in a hurry.

  The man had been in their car, but Lucy had hardly even noticed him. The older boys were excited and talked about Confederate soldiers and robbers and murderers until Lucy became scared all over again. Was this what the West was going to be like?

  Miss Kelly soothed the children. “He’s gone,” she said. “He won’t frighten us again.”

  Lucy relaxed and turned her thoughts to more important things. Soon the train would arrive in Harwood. People would come to see them and choose them. Would her new family be there?

  Miss Kelly brushed the girls’ hair and tied ribbons into big, white bows. Lucy loved her bow. It was the first one she’d ever had.

  Each child was given a clean cotton handkerchief. Lucy shoved hers into her skirt pocket. She was surprised when her fingers touched a cool, smooth, round surface. As she pulled out the marble, she thought, Henry’s gift. The swirl of blues and greens made her think of Mum and home. Lucy held back her tears.

  The train began to slow, and Miss Kelly called out, “Settle down, children. I want you to listen.”