Chapter Sixteen

Last Stop in Iowa

By the time the Orphan Train chugged into Sioux City, their last stop in Iowa, the remaining Chicago children and one boy from Briarlane had been adopted, placed in Glidden, Vail, and Mapleton.

“Looks like there’s just us now,” Riley commented as they left the last little town behind.

“Us” included Riley, Bert, and the four Coopers.

“Bert here needs to find a home. It won’t matter so much about me. I can apprentice somewhere even if there is no family that wants me. I’m old enough to be on my own.”

Yet Riley’s voice was wistful, and Ethan knew Riley really longed for parents of his own who would give him more than a job to do. Ethan recalled the picture of the young woman he had found on the floor near Riley’s bed at Briarlane. It had been Riley’s mother, and Ethan knew the older boy treasured the picture.

“What do you want to do, Riley? What kind of job you going to apprentice for?” Bert was curious. “I wish I was old enough to do that. But I guess I still have to go to school.”

“I’ve been thinking on it,” Riley replied. “I’d like to do something to help people, like Mr. Glover does. But maybe there’s not much call for boys in that kind of business.”

“There’s always room for a boy who likes people and wants to help them,” Mr. Glover assured him. “It may mean that you’ll need another trade too, and maybe even go to school. But the world can’t have too many who are willing to spread the good news of the gospel and work to make things better. I think you’ve made a good choice.”

“Yes, Riley,” Matron said, “you’re just the kind of boy who’s needed in that work. I couldn’t have handled all these children without your help. We’ll pray about a special place for you.”

“I guess I’ll do whatever my new folks want me to,” Ethan said. “I know I’ll learn to be a good farmer.”

“And Alice will be a good housekeeper,” Matron added as she hugged the little girl to her. “Your family can’t help but love all of you.”

“What would you like to do if you could choose anything, Ethan?” Bert asked.

“I’d probably be an artist. I like to put what I see on paper.”

“You like to put it on pigs, too,” Bert reminded him. “Remember how you whitewashed the hog last year?”

Ethan grinned. He pulled his drawing book from the overhead rack. “I drew it so I wouldn’t forget.”

The others looked at the picture and laughed. The huge pig lay on his side, sound asleep, while Ethan held a brush, dripping with whitewash, over his back.

“I remember that too,” Matron said. “What I recall best is scrubbing you boys clean after that day’s business, even with your quick bath in the river. But you’re an excellent artist, Ethan. You must continue to draw, even if it isn’t to be your life’s work.”

The train spent part of the day in Sioux City. Matron fixed a lunch that they could carry with them, and while Charles shopped, she and the children set out to explore the city. They hadn’t gone far when they found a lovely green park on the banks of the Floyd River.

“What a great place!” Riley exclaimed. “We can play stickball, and everyone has lots of room to run.”

Matron agreed and settled herself in the sun on the riverbank. Alice and Will fed the ducks with a piece of bread from the lunch bag while the older boys raced each other from tree to tree. The day was beautiful, with a bright-blue sky and fluffy clouds scuttling from the west.

Later, Riley lay on his back and watched the clouds as the boys rested for a few minutes. “I wonder if Nebraska is as pretty as this.”

“I’m sure it will have a beauty all its own,” Matron answered. “I understand there’s lots of prairie out there, and not many cities. Mr. Glover says even the small towns are far apart.”

“I suppose folks get lonesome if they don’t have close neighbors,” Bert said. “If I’m going to live out there, I hope I can have me a horse. I’ll need one to come visit you, Ethan.”

“The longer we’re together on the train, the closer we’ll live to each other,” Ethan said. “Maybe we’ll be close enough to walk.”

When the boys suggested this to Charles that evening, the agent wasn’t so sure. “In Nebraska, you can’t walk between farms, let alone towns,” he told them. “There are miles and miles of land with nothing on it but prairie grass. Farmers own sheep and cattle that have never been near a house.”

The boys had trouble imagining anything that desolate. “You better like the folks you live with if they’re all you’re going to see,” Bert commented. “I guess you’d have to have a horse to go to school and church. I think when I grow up, I’d like to write for a newspaper so people can read about what their neighbors are doing.”

Matron smiled. “That sounds like a worthy career. You’d make a good newspaperman, Bert. You always know what’s going on.”

By evening, when the train moved on, the wind was beginning to blow hard. The children watched from the windows, fascinated by the big tumbleweeds that rolled along by the train.

“Some of those things are as tall as I am!” Riley exclaimed. “They’re picking up pieces and getting bigger all the time. That wind could blow you over!”

The next morning they awoke to a world that none of them had ever seen before. The sun was visible as a bright spot in the eastern sky, but there was no way to tell where the sky and the land met. Dust and sand blew against the windows, and the children couldn’t see beyond the train tracks.

“I think I’m chewing sand,” Simon complained. “It’s all over my seat, too. How does it get in through the windows?”

“Dust storms like this are common in Nebraska,” Charles Glover told him. “No matter how tight the doors and windows are, it blows in. You’ll be chewing it for a while until we get through this storm.”

“Wow,” Ethan called, “look at this! This stuff is going around in a circle and straight up off the ground!”

“That’s called a ‘dust devil,’” Mr. Glover explained. “There’s so much open space that the earth is picked up in a whirlwind. We can be thankful that we aren’t out in it. People have gotten lost in dust storms. It’s impossible to see where you’re going.”

“I can imagine what a cleaning job there would be after one of those storms,” Matron put in. She picked up a blanket by the corner, then dropped it back on the seat. “I’d better not shake that, or we’ll be as bad off as they are outdoors. How long do these storms last?”

“Sometimes for days,” Mr. Glover replied, “but we may be heading out of this one. I hope so, because sometime tomorrow we’re due in the little town of Kelsey. We’ll stay overnight there. Then in another two days, we’ll be in Willow Creek. That’s where your new family is, Ethan. I imagine they’re anxious for you to arrive.”

Ethan and Bert looked at each other soberly. Only three days left before they would be separated.

“I’m not ever going to forget you, Bert,” Ethan said. “You’re my best friend in the whole world.”

“Just wait,” Bert declared. “When we’re grown up, with our own families, we can have farms right next to each other. We’ll always be friends.”