Late November 1886 Aboard the Pennsylvania Railroad from New York to Chicago

The train clatters out of New York into the New Jersey farmlands in the late fall sun. Clack clack a-lack marks the miles, fields and barns and cattle, as the train devours the flat landscape. Mary Agnes sits by the window in a third-class car near the end of the train. In less than two days she will be in Chicago. First, Pennsylvania. Then Ohio and Indiana, with stops for water, coal, and crew changes. She rests her head against the dirtied pane and squints.

Everything is fuzzy, as usual.

In her bag, along with toilet items and one crisp American bill, she has a buttered bun that Mrs. Donnelly wrapped for her in brown paper. She will save it for as long as she can. Surely, she can afford a nickel for coffee or tea?

It was more tearful than she expected leaving the Donnelly family after a full month with them, although she knows it’s for the best. Just before she left, she went from youngest to oldest, patting them on the head, bending for a kiss, shaking Joseph’s hand, like a grown up. Meg was the last to let go of her skirt, and Mary Agnes wondered for a brief second if she should stay.

But she did her penance, as if the priest knew she should, especially as she never went to confession. Mary Agnes opens her bag to finger the rosary, and then recites the Apostles Creed and the Our Father and three Hail Marys and the Our Father again and is about to start the first decade of the rosary when a short, stout man of about twenty-five grazes her shoulder and she’s brought back to the present.

“Don’t mind me, miss.” His accent is thick and clearly German.

Mary Agnes shrugs it off, but her hackles are up. Traveling alone brings wits to the fore, this she knows well already. The barber at Castle Garden. The Italian men on East Seventh Street in New York.

When the man returns to his seat from the water closet at the far end of the train carriage, he stops and stands at the empty seat beside her. “Pardon me for saying, miss, but aren’t you too young to be traveling on your own? Perhaps I can be of some assistance.”

“I think not.” Mary Agnes is on high alert now. Didn’t her gram warn her about fast lads? She tries to tamp down her anger, which rises from her sternum up her neck. Her shoulders tense, like they always did around Fiach, as if preparing for a blow.

“But a young girl, such as yourself—”

At the risk of creating a scene, she says, a bit louder now, “Has just traveled half the world alone and—”

“And has no need of your assistance, young man.” An older woman of an indeterminate age bustles into the seat beside Mary Agnes. She is squat and compact, in a grey traveling suit. She wears a large, feathered hat and bandies about a large purse. Her boots, neatly polished, peek out from beneath her wide hem. “My niece here is under my charge.” She moves into the seat next to Mary Agnes and displaces the young man.

Niece?

Mary Agnes plays along, harnessing her brogue. “Thank you, Aunt. As you can see, this masher was—” She has no need to finish the sentence—rude as the barman’s son—because the rogue has beaten a hasty retreat, worn grip in hand. She stifles a laugh. “We made short work of him!”

The woman, clearly not Irish (and probably not Catholic, Mary Agnes observes from the woman’s lack of brogue or gold cross on her large bosom), settles into the seat beside her and pats her knee. “That we did, didn’t we?”

“Thank you so much, Mrs.—”

“Peirce. From Philadelphia.”

Even though this woman is clearly not Catholic, Mary Agnes knows the woman has been sent by the Purple Mary herself to intervene. Her faith is that strong.

“I noticed you right off and have been keeping my eye on you. Remember that when you are old and crippled, like me.” The woman relaxes into the cushioned seat and covers her mouth as she yawns. “We all have stories, and I’ve heard them all, most of them too sad for words. Family turns you out. Now you’re on your own, traveling to cousins if you’re lucky. Hoping for a position in a big house, like all the Irish lasses.”

Or going to university, Mary Agnes longs to say, but doesn’t want to sound presumptuous.

“No matter your story.”

But that is my story.

“I’ll be happy to keep you company until we reach Chicago,” the woman continues. “Now. I’m in need of a nap, so don’t mind me.” She closes her eyes, and within a minute, gentle snores.

Mary Agnes relaxes now into her coach seat and tries to nap, but her mind races.

Do I have to be always on high guard? There won’t be a Mrs. Peirce everywhere I go.

Ohio goes by in the dark. Mary Agnes spends the hours wondering about Mrs. Peirce’s story, but it would be impertinent to ask. A widow? A former nun? A madam?

At midnight, her stomach grumbling loudly, she can hold out no longer and eats the bun Mrs. Donnelly packed for her.

The next day, Mrs. Peirce insists on buying Mary Agnes a sandwich and a coffee as Indiana lumbers by. “To put some meat on those skinny bones of yours.” Before she knows it, Fort Wayne, Warsaw, Plymouth, Valparaiso, Gary, never-ending flat farmland without a mountain in sight, towns peppered in like an afterthought. As the train crosses the Indiana-Illinois line, she knows she’s almost to Chicago. When she arrives, the city is blanketed with a foot of snow.

She thanks Mrs. Peirce and grasps her satchel tight as she exits the station. Wind whips snow into drifts and a howling wind greets her as she hails a cart.

Twenty minutes later, after shivering in only her dress and shawl in this blizzard—and damn I don’t have a coat (or stockings or new boots or . . . or . . . or . . .)—the driver pulls up to a handsome row house on Monroe Street. After paying the driver with the last of her cash, she hurries up the walkway to the front door.

Only time will tell of it, she says again to herself.