A bell woke me up to the gray light of early dawn. A baby cried. The door opened and a girl in a raggedy green dress picked up the baby and sang a lullaby. She had a sweet voice that seemed out of place in that forlorn room. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and watched the girl tending to the baby. My swollen ear throbbed and I was desperately hungry. Boys, mostly younger than me, got out of bed and made for the door. It looked like they had slept in their clothes. Even though the girl wasn’t looking my way, I scrunched down so she wouldn’t see me putting on my pants. The flannel shirt and denim pants weren’t too warm, and it was chilly enough to wear shoes and socks. I had to get over a spell of bashfulness to ask the girl how to find the privy.
She was maybe a little older than me and plain looking, but she knew how to tend babies. It had stopped crying.
“Uh, miss, I just got here and don’t know where to wash up.”
The girl pushed a lock of brown hair away from her face and wrinkled her stubby nose, like I smelled bad. You got blood on your face. What happened to your ear?”
“That reverend fellow with the side whiskers pulled it pretty bad,” I said.
“He’s real mean. It don’t pay to make him mad. Go on down the stairs and straight through the door to wash, and that’s the way to the privies, too.”
The wash-room was nothing but a lean-to with a hand pump, a can of lye soap and a trough. I smelled the boy’s privy that was only a long board with a half dozen holes over a pit. I gagged and couldn’t go after I sat down. Maybe I didn’t have enough inside to make anything. Our privy at home didn’t stink because Pa always shoveled dirt in the pit every couple of days. I scrubbed my hands and face in ice cold water with the other boys then lined up for breakfast in the big room with long tables. Boys were on one side of the room and girls on the other.
The old witch with white hair looked for dirt on our hands and sent one boy back to scrub again. We each took a bowl and a spoon and went to the woman who ladled cornmeal mush and thin, bluish milk.
The boys at the table were no more than ten or eleven years old. Most had shaved heads that smelled like they had been treated for head lice with kerosene . Instead of digging in and eating we sat with folded hands. The girl in the green dress, holding the baby and with a bad limp came to the boys table and sat next to me. I guess it was because the baby was a boy. When everyone was quiet, Reverend Burns strutted into the room like he was the Lord Almighty hisself. He stood at a pulpit in front of the serving table with a big black bible. Everyone bowed just like in church. He said a long-winded prayer and read a passage from Judges about the people of Israel when they were evil and sinful. He scared the britches off of the kids. No wonder they sat still and didn’t eat until he gave the signal.
The mush and milk was cold and lumpy; it wouldn’t have been bad with sugar and cream but even so, I licked the spoon clean. The girl fed mush to the baby, but most dribbled down his front and got on her dress, which was already stained. She leaned down and the top of her dress popped open a little bit. For a skinny girl, she had big titties. She pushed the baby to me. “You hold him while I eat.”
She dug into her bowl of mush while I held the squirming baby until he spit up about half the mush all over my flannel shirt.
“We got to take good care of him on account of the rest of the babies died with the flux last summer. Some of the older ones died too.”
“Didn’t you give them sassafras tea?”
“Didn’t have no medicine. They either threw up the milk and mush or it squirted out their hind ends.”
I wondered why they didn’t give the babies medicine when they got sick. Hardly anyone died with the flux or fevers when they took Pa’s medicine. Doc Evans used them too. When she was done, the girl limped. That’s when I noticed she wore a leather boot with a high heel on her left foot, like one leg was short.
I scurried out with the other kids to wash my bowl and spoon at the pump just as a bell sounded. “Work time, work time,” said the old witch. Some kids swept down the hall and others went out back to the a coal shed, a barn and pens with cows.
Reverend Burns grabbed my arm and took me down a path past a little cemetery with fresh dug graves with wilted flowers among little wooden crosses. We went to a shack where a stooped, worried-looking man was laid out hoes, spades and gunny sacks.
“Set this new boy to digging potatoes,” the Reverend said.
It had quit raining, but the wind was up and the Reverend went back up the path like he had important business somewhere else. The man pushed a Union forage cap back over his head and looked me over with distant eyes like he had never seen a boy before. He was a smallish fellow with a beard and his hair was combed. If it hadn’t been for his overalls and boots, he would have looked like a teacher. “I’m Ned. The Reverend doesn’t much like being out here where he might get dirty.” he said.
We shook hands. “I am Tom Slocum.”
“Tom, Either your folks died or they just gave up on you. If you keep your nose clean and work hard, someone might take you. If they don’t, the Reverend will send you to the coal mines and that’s worse than farm work. Trouble is, the harvests are about done and farmers don’t want extra mouths to feed until it’s time for spring planting.”
“What’s so bad about the mines?”
“Those poor fellows work in dark, wet, cold tunnels where there’s no room to stand up straight. They hardly ever see the sun. The bosses like orphan boys because no one much cares if the tunnel caves in and kills a homeless kid. They ain’t nice places to work.”
Ned gave me a spade and a sack, pointed to a potato field and worked his mouth around a plug of tobacco. “Dig spuds at the far end of the field.”
The ground was wet and heavy after the rain, and the potatoes were small. A dozen skinny little boys dug in the other rows. It was heavy going and by the time the sack was half filled, my back burned like fire, I was covered with mud and my hands had blistered. A thicket of trees was at the end of the row and just beyond that, a little creek flowed between willow trees. I went down to the creek for a drink of water and had no more than sat down when a bell rang. The other boys put down their tools and scampered back to the orphanage. I was plumb wore out. We washed our faces and hands at the pump and went inside the dining room. The old witch checked each child’s face and hands for dirt. She gave my hands a whack with a stick.
“Get on back and wash your hands before you eat.”
I worked with the soap and water then went and got my bowl and spoon. A lady doled out two slices of dark bread with bacon grease and a piece of boiled cabbage. We waited through the prayer before shoveling down the food. I was still hungry and hoped for jam or butter. The girl with the baby sat next to me. I still didn’t know her name and wondered why she was so much older than all the rest. The girl didn’t eat all her bread, but pushed about half of it to me.
“You can have this. The cook gives me extra for taking care of the young ones.”
I ate every scrap while she spoon fed the baby.
“Thanks,” I whispered. “What’s your name? I’m Tom Slocum.”
“I’m Mary and this here is Timothy. Don’t talk out loud.”
I didn’t even know where to begin with all my questions and had to turn my good ear, she talked so soft.
“Don’t you have a last name?”
“None of us gits last names until some family takes us.”
Then I remembered the empty straw tick and the hard bed. “Where can I get straw for my bed?”
She nudged me in the side and whispered. “Be real quiet, so’s Mrs. Burns don’t hear. Ned can take you to the hayloft. He’s a nice man and good to everyone, but kinda strange.”
“Who’s Mrs. Burns?
“The lady who checks hands, She’s Reverend Burns wife.”
“When does school start?”
Mary looked wistful. “Sometimes a man comes from town to teach reading, writing and numbers, but that don’t start until it’s too cold to work outside.”
“What about history and Latin and science?”
“Pshaw, that stuff ain’t important. Mrs. Babbs, the cook, and Mrs. Burns teaches us girls how to cook and sew and take care of babies. That’s what people want before they take a child from here. The boys got to learn how to plow and tend livestock.” You watch out! If you don’t learn how to pitch hay and look after animals they will put you in the mines.”
“You know all about taking care of babies; how come a family didn’t take you?”
Her face clouded up, she turned away for a minute and held the baby tighter. “I was borned with this bad foot. No one wants a cripple.”
“There’s doctors who can fix anything these days. You don’t have to be crippled,” said I.
I knowed it wasn’t right, but seeing someone who was worse off made me feel some better. At least I wasn’t crippled. It was peculiar that Mary didn’t have a last name and I wondered what she meant by a family taking her in. There was a lot to learn about this place and I would have to keep my eyes open for a way out.
I washed my bowl at the pump, went upstairs and got an empty straw tick. Ned’s cabin was out beyond the privies. He was in a sunny spot on his porch, reading a book.
“Mary says to see you about getting straw,” said I.
His forage cap was pulled down to keep the sun out of his eyes and he leaned back on a straight chair. He read for a spell like then put a splinter of wood between the pages and put the book in his overall pocket.
“Follow me,” he said.
The barn was a solid wooden building, painted red. Stalls for horses and cattle and a harness room were on the first floor. A half dozen cats lazed around and a red headed boy who looked to be about twelve years old and another little fellow shoveled manure into a wheelbarrow. I wanted to stop and talk, but Ned pointed to a ladder. “Go on up to the hayloft,” said he.
I went up ladder to the dark, dusty loft and filled my tick with fresh, sweet smelling hay. When I came down, Ned was back to reading his book.
“What are you reading?” I asked.
“Can you read?”
“Yes, sir.”
He held the front of the book so’s I could see it. “Read the title.”
“The Iliad, by Homer. It’s about Greeks and the Trojans. Aunt Alice made me read it,” I said.
Ned stroked his mustache. “How come you got sent to the orphanage?”
“Pa died. Aunt Alice had to go to the poor house and Reverend Pendleton brought me here.”
“I’m sorry, that’s real sad. Take your straw tick up to your bed, then come back to the potato patch.”
That afternoon, Ned showed me an easier way to dig and I filled the sack by the time the afternoon bell rang for us to stop work. Me and the other boys emptied our sacks into a bin and washed away the dirt so the potatoes could be stored in the vegetable cellar for winter.
I had seen all the potatoes I needed that day, but supper was boiled spuds. Now spuds mashed up with a lot of butter and salt can be pretty tasty, but these were just boiled and still a little hard. That’sall there was and I dug in and ate, just like the others. After we washed our bowls, the girls went to one end of the hall with Mrs. Burns and us boys went with Reverend Burns. I sat down on the floor with the others and waited.
First the fourth prayer of the day. Next he read a verse from Matthew, about being a light for the world. He read it over and over again. “You learn this verse by heart or you get a whipping,” said the Reverend. I was plumb tuckered out. My bed was next to the a boy with red hair. Of course, he was called Red, but the other boys said his real name was Judas. Red got real mad and said Judas was a bad man and everyone had to call him Red. The other boys had names like Timothy, Luke, and Aaron. Two were named Moses. I listened to talk about how their real family lost them by accident and would come looking for them pretty soon. The others bragged about the rich people who were going to take them away from the home and give them fine clothes and all they could eat. I decided they were just spinning dreams.
While the boys were getting settled, Mary tucked baby Timothy in and sang until he went to sleep. She left the lamp on the table by the stairs and pretty soon Mrs. Burns came up to see that everyone was in bed. She slapped a boy who tried to hide a piece of bread under his blanket. Once I got the lumps out, the straw tick was pretty comfortable, but sleep wouldn’t come. Boys cried in their sleep and I was used to sleeping in a room all by myself. This was like a jail or even slavery. That made me think of Isaiah and his family who were good and kind and lots better than some white folks. Maybe, Doc Steele was right about helping people like the Indians and the darkies.