Orphan Train: A Novel by Kline Christina Baker

Author:Kline, Christina Baker [Kline, Christina Baker]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-04-01T16:00:00+00:00

Hemingford County, Minnesota, 1930

Trudging forward like a sleepwalker in the bitter cold, I make my way down the driveway, then turn left and plod up the rutted dirt road to the falling-down bridge. In places I have to crunch through the top layer of snow, thick as piecrust. The sharp edges lacerate my ankles. As I gaze up at the crystal stars glittering overhead, cold steals the breath from my mouth.

Once I’m out of the woods and on the main road, a full moon bathes the fields around me in a shimmering, pearly light. Gravel crunches loudly under my boots; I can feel its pebbly roughness through my thin soles. I stroke the soft wool inside my gloves, so warm that not even my fingertips are cold. I’m not afraid—it was more frightening in that shack than it is on the road, with moonlight all around. My coat is thin, but I’m wearing what clothing I could salvage underneath, and as I hurry along I begin to warm up. I make a plan: I will walk to school. It’s only four miles.

The dark line of the horizon is far in the distance, the sky above it lighter, like layers of sediment in rock. The schoolhouse is fixed in my mind. I just have to get there. Walking at a steady pace, my boots scuffing the gravel, I count a hundred steps and start again. My da used to say it’s good to test your limits now and then, learn what the body is capable of, what you can endure. He said this when we were in the throes of sickness on the Agnes Pauline, and again in the bitter first winter in New York, when four of us, including Mam, came down with pneumonia.

Test your limits. Learn what you can endure. I am doing that.

As I walk along I feel as weightless and insubstantial as a slip of paper, lifted by the wind and gliding down the road. I think about the many ways I ignored what was in front of me—how blind I was, how foolish not to be on my guard. I think of Dutchy, who knew enough to fear the worst.

Ahead on the horizon, the first pink light of dawn begins to show. And just before it, the white clapboard building becomes visible halfway up a small ridge. Now that the schoolhouse is within sight my energy drains, and all I want to do is sink down by the side of the road. My feet are leaden and aching. My face is numb; my nose feels frozen. I don’t know how I make it to the school, but somehow I do. When I get to the front door, I find that the building is locked. I go around to the back, to the porch where they keep wood for the stove, and I open the door and fall onto the floor. An old horse blanket is folded by the woodpile, and I wrap myself in it and fall into a fitful sleep.

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