The Boxcar Children Beginning: The Aldens of Fair Meadow Farm (7 page)

“Good-bye, Rubin,” he said.

Rubin watched Henry walk away.

“Good-bye,” whispered Rubin.

Henry and Jessie hadn’t thought about dinner. But Belle had. She brought a stew and put it on the stove and heated it for them. She set the table without saying anything. Belle didn’t talk very much.

“Thank you, Belle,” said Henry.

She looked at him. She took some money from her pocket and handed it to him.

“From Rubin. He owed your father,” she said.

“Thank you,” said Henry.

“You’ll be fine,” she said.

“Yes,” said Henry. “We will.”

Belle started to cry then.

Benny put his arms around Belle’s waist.

“Don’t cry, Belle,” he said, which made her cry more. “I’ll draw you a picture. And we’ll come back.”

Belle wiped her eyes.

“I will wait for that,” she said.

She looked at all of them and went to the door.

“I’ll come clean up tomorrow and pick up my stew pot,” she said. She opened the door and looked back at them once.

“You’ll be fine,” she repeated.

They ate silently, early, while there were still hours of light yet.

It was after dinner that Benny disappeared.

“Benny! Henry, is Benny with you?” called Jessie.

Henry ran inside the house.

“No. Where’s Violet?”

“I’ll check all the bedrooms,” said Jessie.

“I’ll look for Violet,” said Henry.

“Violet! Violet!”

Violet came around the house.

“I’m here.”

“Where’s Benny? Have you seen him?”

Henry’s voice didn’t sound like his voice. He couldn’t remember ever being so frightened.

Violet shook her head.

“Where should I look?” she said.

“Go through the barn, then out in the field. Maybe he went to Rubin’s.”

Jessie came out of the house. She shook her head.

“Not inside,” she said.

Her eyes were big.

“It’s going to get dark in another hour,” she said. “We have to find him.”

Together they searched their meadow and down by the stream that trickled there. They called his name over and over.

“Benny! Benny!”

“He couldn’t go much farther than this,” said Jessie.

They turned back. It had been an hour. Benny had never been gone for an hour. Benny had never been gone at all.

And then they saw Violet waving to them at the edge of the meadow. Beside her was a small figure.
Benny
!

Henry grabbed Jessie’s hand, and they ran. Benny looked tired.

“I found him in the barn hideaway. Sleeping. He never heard us calling,” said Violet.

Henry took Benny in his arms and they walked back to the house.

No one spoke.

There were no words.

Jessie slept with Benny and Benny’s bear.

“I should help you with the packing,” Jessie said in a low voice.

“Benny needs you,” Henry whispered to her in the darkness. “Having you near will make it easier for him.”

“Having us
all
together will make it easier for him,” said Jessie. “For all of us,” she added. “We can’t lose Benny again.”

“Remember? Mama called us lambs before she left?” said Violet from the other bed. “She said to take care of one another.”

“Violet, you’d better go to sleep,” said Jessie. “Tomorrow’s a long day.”

Henry sat on Violet’s bed.

He held her hand.

“You’re right, Violet. We do know how to do this. We will be a little herd of lambs.”

“And I will be the fixer lamb,” said Violet, yawning.

“You will,” said Henry.

Benny turned over in bed.

“Jessie?” he cried out.

“I’m here, Benny. Go to sleep now.”

“I will,” said Benny, already partway back to sleep.

“Good night, Jess,” said Henry, touching Jessie’s hair. “I’ll be through with the packing soon.”

“Good night, Henry.”

At the doorway to the bedroom, Henry turned.

“We’ll be all right, Jess.”

“Yes,” whispered Jessie. “Remember, Mama once told us we were the best family of all.”

They all ate breakfast in sunlight.

“It’s almost too bright,” Jessie whispered to Henry. “Too cheerful.”

“It’s better for Violet and Benny,” said Henry.

The food was packed. The clothes were packed.

“We can pack one very small bag of things you want to take,” said Jessie to Violet and Benny. “Only one bag. And we’ll have to carry it.”

“Remember William and Meg,” said Henry.

“I’ll take my sewing bag—the little screwdriver Jake gave me,” said Violet. “And the spool of brown thread,” she added in a soft voice. She looked at her Mama’s chipped cup on the windowsill.

“I can’t take that,” she whispered.

“You can if you can carry it,” said Henry. He smoothed her hair.

He watched Violet wrap the mended cup in a shirt and put it in her bag.

“I’ll carry the bag of clothes and food,” he said.

“We have the bread, some cheese, and fruit,” said Jessie. “Belle left biscuits and cookies.”

“May I take Bear?” asked Benny.

“Yes,” said Jessie.

Benny smiled and Jessie smiled, too.

“Bear will like the venture,” said Benny.

“Adventure,” corrected Violet.

“Then let’s clean up and go,” said Henry.

Benny ran into the bedroom and came back with a paper. It was a drawing of four children, from tall to little.

“I promised Belle,” he said, putting it on the table.

“That is us,” Benny added with a smile.

Jessie put her arm around Benny.

“It is us,” she said, her voice soft.

Henry looked at the turn-around globe sitting in the middle of the kitchen table.

“Do you know which way we’re going?” asked Jessie.

Henry nodded.

“We’ll go back roads away from town so nobody we know sees us.”

Violet pointed at a spot on the globe.

“That’s where Sarah and Jake live,” she said.

“And William and Meg. And Joe,” said Benny. “Could we go there?”

“Maybe. It’s a longer journey than it looks, Benny,” said Henry. “But we will be together, the four of us, no matter what. We’ll take care of each other. And maybe one day we’ll visit them.”

“Get the money in the cookie jar,” said Jessie, “and Jake and Sarah’s address, so we have it,” she whispered.

“Now.” Henry looked around the room. “Pick up what you’re taking. And we will begin our …”

“Adventure!” said Benny.

They went out the door and up through the yard.

“Good-bye, Betty! Good-bye, Boots!” said Benny.

Boots didn’t look up, but Betty watched them as they walked across the yard and up to the road in sunlight.

They walked past the sign that said Fair Meadow Farm and down the road, Henry and Jessie in front, Violet and Benny behind them. Four lambs.

They walked quietly until soon the Alden farm was out of sight. After a while they passed houses and meadows and streams they had never seen before.

When Jessie looked back she saw that Violet and Benny were holding hands.

Jessie looked sideways at Henry. Then she reached out and took Henry’s hand to let him know, in her own quiet way, that it was all right that tears came down his face.

Henry squeezed her hand.

The four lambs were on their way.

It was a pleasure to write what I call the “beginning before the beginning” of the Boxcar Children stories by Gertrude Chandler Warner.

I love these children—Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny Alden. To be able to comfort one another and share the adventure of making a home in a boxcar has long been exciting for many child readers.

They are independent, intelligent, inventive, kind, and caring toward each other—the true qualities that make their little family work. I admire the strengths and bravery that they developed from being all on their own.

I tried to show these qualities in the Aldens as they lived their peaceful, full life in the months before they set off on their journey.

Before I began writing the book, I visited Gertrude Chandler Warner’s hometown of Putnam, Connecticut, where she lived her whole life. The Boxcar Children Museum is there, too, alongside the train tracks, inside a real boxcar! I learned much about how a boxcar feels and looks and what it would have been like for the children to live there. I hope all readers visit the museum, either online or in person.

Ms. Warner was an elementary school teacher in Putnam for many years, and she often shared her stories with her students including her stories about the Aldens. I had the chance to meet with some of her former students during my visit to

Connecticut, and they spoke glowingly about her kindness to them during their early school years.

I hope that this story of the Aldens of Fair Meadow Farm sets the scene for all the stories that follow.

—Patricia MacLachlan

I’d like to thank Fred Hedenberg and Barbara Scalise for their wealth of information about the Gertrude Chandler Warner Boxcar Children Museum in Putnam, Connecticut. Thanks also to Bob Viens, who lives in Ms. Warner’s grandfather’s house in Putnam.

I appreciate the enthusiasm of Ms. Warner’s students from 1942 and their warm memories about her. They are John Champeau, Roger Franklin, Edeo Clark, Julia Duquette, Dorothy Defillipo, and Sandra Ames. Also, Geraldine Tetreault, Eileen Bourque, and John Millard Alvord.

Patricia MacLachlan (b. 1938) is the bestselling author of more than a dozen books for young readers, including the Newbery Medal–winning novel
Sarah, Plain and Tall.

Although a longtime resident of Massachusetts, MacLachlan was born in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and has long identified with the Great Plains states. She moved east when she was a child, but for years carried with her a leather pouch full of Wyoming dirt to remind her of her roots. Later, she attended the University of Connecticut, where her father served as the director of curriculum.

MacLachlan tapped into that love of the plains in the mid-1980s, when she began writing
Sarah, Plain and Tall
. Set on the prairie in the late nineteenth century, it tells the story of a mail-order bride named Sarah who moves west from Maine to raise the family of a man she has never met.