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Anna’s Story: Chapter Nine; A New Century in a New Land

A New Century in a New Land Nearly a year and a half had passed when, early New Year’s morning, Thomas, Rose, Jake and little Bridey McMahon rode up on a rented buckboard to the door of the LaRocque farmhouse. Marc LaRocque opened the door wide and began to take their coats as they stomped the snow off their boots at the doorstep. “Am I the first foot over your threshold in the new year?” Mr. McMahon asked, stepping in. “A tall, dark-haired man is good luck.” “First foot in the new century,” Mr. LaRocque acknowledged. “There’s got to be extra luck in that.” Margaret LaRocque welcomed them into the parlor and gave Mrs. McMahon a quick hug. “Happy New Year!” she said. “Anna’s up to her elbows in the kitchen, but she’ll come soon. No Tommy?” “We dropped him off at Dennis’s farm,” Mr. McMahon said. “He’ll help with the chores so they can come in the sooner. Wait, now!” He took his coat back from Mr. LaRocque long enough to reach into the large front pocket for a small paper sack. “Best of luck in the new year, Missus,” he said, handing it to Mrs. LaRocque. She began to unfold the top of the sack, but suddenly stopped and crushed it shut. “I smell it already. Oh, but it can’t be!” She opened it to look inside, then handed it to her husband. “Oh, look what they’ve brought!” He took the bag and looked inside, then reached in and brought out a small chunk of light brown sugar. “Where on earth did you find this?” he asked, popping it into his mouth with a grin. “A drummer who sells the store Eastern hardwoods brought a sack of it at Christmas,” Thomas said. “I saw it on the boss’s desk and said, ‘I know someone who needs a half-pound of that!’” “What is it?” little Bridey asked, standing on tiptoe and trying to see better. “Maple sugar,” her father answered. “The year I was lumbering in the Adirondacks, well before you were born, that’s all the sugar we had.” “We made it each spring when I was growing up on the farm in Chazy,” Mr. LaRocque said. “But I haven’t tasted maple in 20 years, not since we came west.” Jake was looking at the bag, and his father guessed what he was thinking. “Go tell your sister ‘Happy New Year’ and see that the wood box next to the stove is full,” he said. “You’ll get a taste of maple, if not now, soon enough, as many meals as you eat here!” Jake headed for the kitchen and Mr. LaRocque smiled after him. “He’s never had a meal here that he hadn’t earned,” he said. “I enjoy having him come out to visit. He works as hard as if he lived here. He’s a good boy, Thomas.” “Your Anna is a gem, as well,” Mrs. McMahon said. “We’re lucky to have found the pair of them.” “The young ones are all doing well,” Mr. McMahon said. “We start this century with a great deal to be grateful for. Our Tom is working hard in high school and then at the newspaper at night. You know, Jake worked at the newspaper in New York, but I don’t think his heart was ever in it. He’s happier coming to the lumberyard after school to help out, or to do chores with you. But Tommy has found his place at the newspaper, and he’ll make that his life, I’m sure.” Mrs. LaRocque lowered her voice a bit. “Do you know, we have a problem with Anna. She’ll finish grammar school this spring, and she wants to go on to high school and then become a teacher, but she won’t do it. She feels she owes it to us to stay home and work the farm like the other children in her class.” “Have you spoken to her about it?” Mrs. McMahon asked. “Not yet. We’re not supposed to know,” Mrs. LaRocque said. “She told Tommy, Tommy told Dennis, Dennis told us.” “There are many things those four know that we’ve no idea about,” Mr. McMahon said. Mr. LaRocque nodded, “Beginning with how Dennis persuaded that thief to give him back the money for that worthless gold mine.” Mrs. McMahon raised her hand and turned away. “All’s well that ends well, and I’m sure I don’t want the details,” she declared, as the other three laughed. “However it happened, Dennis is a better man for it,” Mr. LaRocque declared. “And not just the money. He’s a better man simply for knowing the three of them.” “I think all four are better for knowing each other,” Mrs. LaRocque said. “As are we all, all of us,” Mr. McMahon said. “It’s good to have found such friends.” The dog barked in the farmyard, and they looked out the window to see Dennis and Tommy driving up on Dennis’s wagon. “They didn’t take much time on those chores,” Mr. McMahon said. “I’m sure Dennis was up before the rooster, as well as he loves holidays,” Mr. LaRocque chuckled. “You’re lucky you didn’t leave the boy off and then find Dennis already here!” The parents paused at the parlor windows, watching Dennis and Tommy climb down from the wagon. Tommy, who was about to turn 16, was as tall as Dennis and nearly as tall as his father. They came up the porch steps and into the front hall as Anna and Jake came out from the kitchen. “Anna made four pies!” Jake declared. “And there’s a huge ham!” “Oh, Tommy, ” his mother said, coming into the hall. “When you boys go to put the horses up, bring in the sack from our wagon. There’s a loaf of soda bread in it, and the things I need for colcannon.” Then she turned to give Anna a hug. “Happy New Year, Anna, dear,” she said. “Happy New Century.” “Happy New Everything!” Anna replied. Text c. 2010,…

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Story Time with Truman

Anna’s Story: Chapter Seven; On the Orphan Train

Our story so far: Anna ran away from the cigarmaker in the tenement and found help at the Children’s Aid Society. Now they are sending her out West. “It was still dark when they woke us,” Anna said, as she, Tommy and Jake sat on the grass under the cottonwoods behind the feed store. She looked out across the rail yard, remembering. “They gave me a suitcase and told me to put my things in it. And they told us to be quiet and not wake up the other children. I put my other dress and the rest of my clothes, and my comb and brush, into the suitcase and went downstairs. “They took us to Grand Central Station, and we got on a train. There were two grown-ups from the Society and 30 of us, all in the same train car. I was sitting with another girl, Jenny, but mostly it was boys.” Anna stopped for a moment. “And I thought about you, Jake, because there was a little boy there who was about four years old, with his big brother, who was seven, and they were going west together.” She sighed a sigh that caught in her chest like a sob. “I thought, if only we had gone to the Society when Mama died, we might have gone west together, too.” Jake reached over and put his hand on hers. “We’re here now, aren’t we?” “Ya,” she agreed. “But so much had to happen to us first, so many bad things.” “We’re here now,” Jake repeated. “Yes,” Anna said. “We’re here now. And there were brothers and sisters who didn’t get to be together, who went to different families. But they tried to keep them in the same town, so they could still visit each other, just like we can, I hope.” “Did they tell you very much about the LaRocques before you got here?” Tommy asked. “No, they didn’t know who would adopt me or where I would live,” Anna explained. “We sat in the train for a day until we got to St. Louis, and then our car was put on another train and we sat some more. “When we got to Kansas, they started stopping at different towns, and we would get out and they would take us someplace, like a church or a school. And there were people there who wanted to adopt a child to work on their farms or just to have a child because they didn’t have one. “We’d line up, and someone would tell about each of us, ‘This is Anna, she is nine years old and a Roman Catholic. She works hard and she can mend and help to cook.’ And people would come closer to look at you and they might ask you questions. If they wanted you, you went away with them. If nobody wanted you, you got back on the train and went to the next town.” “How many …” Tommy started to ask, then was embarrassed and stopped. “Four,” Anna said. “Denver was the fourth town where we stopped.” She smiled at Tommy’s embarrassment. “It’s all right. It made me ashamed the first time, when they didn’t want me. After that, it just made me a little sad, a little angry. Some of them didn’t say anything, but some of them would talk to each other like you weren’t even there. Some said I was too little to be useful. Some didn’t want a child with a German accent. Some didn’t want a Catholic. Most of them wanted boys anyway because they wanted a farm worker who would grow up and be able to lift heavy things, not just someone to work in the house. But those ones didn’t even come over to look at me. “The only thing that really made me sad was that Jenny, the girl I was sitting with, got adopted at the first place, and then I had to sit on the train alone until the next town,” she remembered. “After that town, though, another girl came and sat with me, because the person she was sitting with got adopted, too. “When we got to Denver, there were 14 of us left,” she recalled. “And it was the same as the other places, but there were more people because Denver is a city. “But they lined us up and told about each of us, and the LaRocques came up to talk to me, because they wanted a girl. They already had a son, Dennis, and he helped with the farming. They wanted a girl because Mrs. LaRocque can’t have more children, and I could help her in the house and in the farmyard.” Anna put her hand to her collar and touched the chain. “And they were Catholic, too.” “He seems nice,” Tommy said, looking over at the loading dock where Mr. LaRocque was helping load a wagon. “Yes. They are very nice people,” Anna agreed. “They didn’t just want a servant. They really wanted a daughter, and their son was ready to start his own life. They had saved forever so Dennis could buy a farm nearby when he grew up, and then he and Father would help each other. Instead, he wasted all the money on a gold mine with no gold.” “Why did he do that?” Jake asked. Anna shrugged. “He wanted to be rich. A man showed him a mine in the mountains, and there was gold ore all over the ground outside, so he bought it. But there was no gold inside the mine. The man just put the ore there to fool him.” They sat quietly, watching Mr. LaRocque work. Then Jake asked a question. “Is it wrong to cheat a thief?”

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