Across the Border
Authors: Arleta Richardson
Tags: #historical fiction for middle school;orphan train history;orphan train children;history books for children;historical fiction series
As fast as she could, Polly continued on. The street twisted and turned, and there was still no sign of Ethan. Confused now, Polly was beginning to tire. Removing the shawl from her head, she sank onto a wooden step in front of a deserted-looking building.
There sure ain't much of anybody livin' back here
,
she thought.
I ain't seen another soul since I passed that donkey.
Suddenly two large black boots appeared in front of her. Slowly she raised her head and looked at the man who was in them. Gripping her basket, she moved as close as she could to the building.
A bandit! Polly knew a bandit when she saw one. The man was dressed in a black shirt and black pants and had black hair and a mustache. Even the eyes peering down at her were like pieces of coal in his tanned face. Mutely, Polly held out the bag that contained her remaining
centavos
.
Looking for Home
Whistle-Stop West
Prairie Homestead
Across the Border
ACROSS THE BORDER
Published by David C Cook
4050 Lee Vance View
Colorado Springs, CO 80918 U.S.A.
David C Cook Distribution Canada
55 Woodslee Avenue, Paris, Ontario, Canada N3L 3E5
David C Cook U.K., Kingsway Communications
Eastbourne, East Sussex BN23 6NT, England
The graphic circle C logo is a registered trademark of David C Cook.
All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes,
no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form
without written permission from the publisher.
This story is a work of fiction. All characters and events are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is coincidental.
All Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible. (Public Domain.)
LCCN 2015952815
ISBN 978-0-7814-1358-9
eISBN 978-0-7814-1437-1
© 1996, 2016 Arleta Richardson
The Team: Catherine DeVries, Ramona Tucker, Ingrid Beck, Amy
Konyndyk, Jon Middel, Nick Lee, Tiffany Thomas, Susan Murdock
Cover Design: DogEared Design, Kirk DouPonce
Cover Photo: Kirk DouPonce and iStockphoto
Second Edition 2016
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
112315
To the twenty-three grandchildren and thirty-three great-grandchildren
of John and Jennie Green,
the inspiration for the Beyond the Orphan Train series.
Decisions
Winner, South Dakota
May 1912
“Ethan, Polly said to tell you that lunch is ready,” Alice said.
The boy nodded without turning to look at his sister. “I heard the bell.”
Alice leaned against the fence beside him and looked out over the fields. “What do you see out there?”
“Work. All the stuff we planted and have to harvest in a few months.” He shifted against the fence post, and the letter in his overall pocket crackled. He needed to make up his mind about that letter, but it wasn't easy.
Ethan knew every word that was there and reread the letter in his mind, half listening to Alice's chatter as they walked toward the house.
Dear Ethan,
I have some exciting news! As soon as the harvest is in this fall, Papa is letting me go to Kansas to school! Will you ask your father if you can come too? We can room together and work for our board.
The letter was from Ethan's best friend, Bert. Ethan remembered the wet spring day five years ago when he had met the cheerful, freckle-faced boy. Ma had died, and Ethan, Alice, and their two little brothers, Simon and Will, had been sent to Briarlane Christian Children's Home, the county orphanage. Bert had taken it upon himself to shepherd Ethan through the difficult way of life at the orphanage.
When the opportunity came for children to be selected for the Orphan Train, Bert and all the Coopers had been among those chosen who had agreed to the move. The boys had stuck together. One by one the children were left in small towns and communities across the West until only the Coopers and Bert remained on the train. All of them were adopted in Willow Creek, Nebraska.
Bert went to live with a happy young couple, Carl and Hannah Boncoeur.
“Matron was right when she said the Lord had a place for us,” Bert had said. “He sure picked a good one for me!”
Ethan hadn't been so sure about the reception his family received. He had tried to answer Simon's question about their new parents.
“Do they want us?”
“Of course they do. They wouldn't have asked for us if they didn't want us.”
But, Ethan concluded to himself, perhaps Mr. and Mrs. Rush hadn't been ready for four children all at once.
In time, however, they had become a family, together with Frances, an older daughter the Rushes had adopted from Briarlane when she was eight, along with Robbie, her eighteen-month-old brother. Three years ago, Mr. Rush had moved them all to a homestead in South Dakota. Life there hadn't been easy, Ethan thought as he looked at the big house surrounded by cottonwood trees. He'd worked every daylight hour along with Luke and Henry, the two hired hands who had come with them. Mr. Rush was known among his acquaintances as a hard man who was successful and relentless in his pursuit of land and stock. He expected as much of his help, including Ethan, as he did of himself.
Nevertheless, Ethan had earned his new father's grudging respect by refusing to quit when things were hard. The boy felt that he belonged and that he was fulfilling the promise he made to Ma before she died to look after his younger sister and brothers.
Polly opened the screen door as Alice and Ethan came up the steps. “How come you're lollygaggin' over the fence when dinner's on the table?” she scolded. “You waitin' for me to bring it out to you?”
She sounded fierce, but Polly was kindness itself when it came to any of the children. No longer considered “hired help,” Polly was a full member of the family. Her elderly mother had died the year before, and Polly had no place to go back to even if she'd had a mind to return to Nebraskaâwhich she did not. Manda needed her to raise this raft of young 'uns, and Polly knew her duty when she saw it.
The dining room the children entered was well furnished, with a big window overlooking Cottonwood Creek. The creek was a river in size, a fact discovered when floods one year had caused it to creep dangerously close to the house. Yet for most of the year, the water ran smoothly, and it was a safe place for the younger children to play.
The rest of the family was already gathered around the table, and Ethan and Alice took their places with the others.
Mr. Rush bowed his head to pray. “O Lord, we thank Thee for this food and for the health to enjoy it. May we be ever grateful for Thy bounty. Amen.”
“School this afternoon,” Frances announced as they began to eat. “Simon, arithmetic before your organ lesson. Will, reading and spelling. Alice, we'll be sewing. You have yesterday's seam to take out. It's much too crooked.”
This information was met with groans and sighs from the three students.
“It's only a doll dress,” Alice protested. “Who's going to notice it?”
“I am. And the Lord will. We do our best on anything we attempt.”
Ethan grinned as he remembered Matron back at Briarlane telling him that the Lord cared how he made his bed. It had been a comfortable feeling to know that the Lord was interested in the little things of his life. Alice would find it so too, he was sure.
From the roll of Simon's eyes, it was clear he would have preferred the organ lesson first or, better yet, in place of arithmetic. But since all the children knew any such suggestions would be met with a lecture, Simon simply nodded and went on with his dinner. Seven-year-old Will, who would soon be eight, looked appealingly at his mother, but in matters of schooling, Frances was in charge, and Manda wasn't going to rescue him.
Frances, at seventeen, was a lovely young lady with wavy brown hair and a pleasant face. She loved to teach the children. She'd secretly shared with Ethan that in another year, she would like to apply for a teaching position in the little town of Winner, just east of them. It would mean staying in town during the winter when the weather was harsh. This, she knew, wouldn't please her father, and for that reason she hadn't yet approached him on the subject.
Ethan took a deep breath and told Pa about Bert's plan. To his surprise, his father didn't answer with a flat no but thought it over in silence for some time.
“You're thirteen now, Ethan,” he said finally. “In November, you'll be fourteen. You know that at sixteen you're free to do as you like without permission. You've been a good hand on the farm, and Simon isn't old enough to take your place. Why do you think you need to go to school?”
Ethan didn't want to say that he looked forward to spending time with his friend Bert, so he answered, “I want to get a good education. Even if I'm going to be a farmer the rest of my life, I need to learn all I can.”
“You've finished your eighth reader with Frances, and you can cipher through the twelves. Do you think you need more than that?”
Ethan couldn't think of a reasonable answer, so he remained silent.
“You're a responsible boy,” Mr. Rush said at last. “You make up your mind what you should do. The decision is totally yours.”
The answer should have made Ethan happy, but it didn't. Back at work in the barn, he talked it over with Henry.
“I know Pa doesn't think I should go. If I decide to leave, he won't like it. Why doesn't he just tell me no?”
“You're old enough to think for yourself,” Henry told him. “You got to decide whether you can live with the consequences. One of 'em is sure to be that Chad won't like it. Have you prayed about it?”
“Yeah, but I don't hear the Lord telling me what to do.”
Luke had been listening to the conversation. Now he voiced his opinion. “I don't hold much with the Lord speakin' to people, but I reckon that if I make up my mind to do something, and I keep feelin' uneasy about it, I probably better not do it. When it's the right thing, you feel sort of comfortable with it.”
Ethan thought that over as he worked in the field. He didn't feel comfortable about it, but he couldn't understand why. He'd worked hard and done his best for his father for four yearsâone year at their old Nebraska home outside Willow Creek, and three here in South Dakota. Mr. Rush admitted that Ethan had been capable and faithful. He had received his schooling in the evenings and during the winter days when they were shut in. As required for all Orphan Train children, Ethan had also been given religious training. Whenever possible the family went into the town of Winner for church services. The rest of the time, they worshipped together at home. His adoptive parents had fulfilled all the terms of the written contract. Why, then, was his pa reluctant to give him permission to go away to school?
By suppertime Ethan had decided to finish out the summer's work and then, directly after the harvest, leave for Kansas. He pushed away the thought that he might be making a mistake. After all, Simon was as old now as Ethan had been when he started working on the farm in Willow Creek. They could get along without Ethan. In the fall, he would announce to the family that he was going away to school.
But at the supper table, Mr. Rush had an announcement of his own.
“I've had word from my brother that he plans to stake a claim in the state of Wyoming. That means George can't manage the Willow Creek property any longer, and he wants to know what I'll do with it. I've decided to sell the house and the section it sits on and lease the other five sections for the time being. I'll have to go back to hold a public sale. Henry and Ethan will go with me.”
Having delivered that lengthy speech, Mr. Rush resumed his meal, not seeming to notice the stunned silence around the table. Mrs. Rush was pale. Frances looked stricken. Ethan himself was shocked. The younger children ate silently, seemingly aware that something important was being discussed but not sure what it was all about.
Finally Frances spoke. “Papa! Sell the house in Willow Creek? I thought we were going back there to live.”
“We're not.”
“You're going to sell all the livestock and machinery, Chad? ⦠And our home?” Mrs. Rush's voice wavered.
“This
is our home, Manda. You had everything shipped out here that you wanted for the new house. It wouldn't be practical to move animals and farm equipment this far.”
The matter was settled, Ethan knew, as far as his father was concerned. Mr. Rush continued eating calmly, and nothing more was said.
A heavy silence fell over the room.
“You could've cut the air in that room with a knife,” Polly told Henry and Luke in the kitchen after she returned from serving the cake to the family in the dining room. “You'd think he'd threatened to move 'em all across the country again by the looks on their faces. I thought Manda was beginnin' to like this place.”
“Her home was in Nebraska. Her friends were there,” Henry said. “I ain't surprised that she'd grieve over it. You wouldn't think Chad would break it to 'em like that.”
“It's just what I'd âspect him to do.” Polly forked a generous slice of cake onto each man's plate. “If he told Manda when they was alone, he'd get the sharp edge of her tongue. There's safety in numbers, they say.” She chewed reflectively on her dessert. “'Course, there ain't no guarantee he won't get a mouthful anyway, once the family's in bed. Not that it'll change nothin'. They've both mellowed a lot since them children came on that Orphan Train, but some things die awful hard. Wantin' to do everything their own way is one of 'em.”
As Polly washed dishes and cleaned up the kitchen, she thought back to the first day they had seen this house being moved by teams of oxen toward the foundation on which it now stood. Manda had been disappointed to learn that she wouldn't have a home built to her specifications but would have to adapt a large two-story house that someone else had abandoned.
Polly looked around her kitchen with satisfaction. It had turned out well. The whole house was nicely decorated and comfortably furnished with the things Manda had enjoyed in the Nebraska home. Lilacs and roses bloomed under her care. Her family of five children was well dressed, and her household ran smoothly under her direction. No, Polly didn't understand it. Why should Manda be upset about not returning to Willow Creek?