Read Ebook: Big Brother by Johnston Annie F Annie Fellows

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Ebook has 263 lines and 14432 words, and 6 pages

"You have had a tiresome journey," Mrs. Estel remarked pleasantly after thanking her.

"Yes, indeed, ma'am!" answered the girl, glad of some one to talk to instead of the children, whose remarks were strictly of an interrogative nature. It was an easy matter to draw her into conversation, and in a short time Mrs. Estel was listening to little scraps of history that made her eyes dim and her heart ache.

"Do you mind telling me your name?" she asked at length.

"Ellen, ma'am."

"But the other," continued Mrs. Estel.

"We're not to tell, ma'am." Then seeing the look of inquiry on her face, explained, "Sometimes strangers make trouble, hasking the little ones hall sorts hof questions; so we've been told not to say where we're going, nor hany think helse."

"I understand," answered Mrs. Estel quickly. "I ask only because I am so much interested. I have a little girl at home that I have been away from for a week, but she has a father and a grandmother and a nurse to take care of her while I am gone. It makes me feel so sorry for these poor little things turned out in the world alone."

"Bless you, ma'am!" exclaimed Ellen cheerfully. "The 'omes they're going to be a sight better than the 'omes they've left behind. Naow there's 'Enery; 'is mother died hin a drunken fit. 'E never knew nothink hall 'is life but beating and starving, till the Haid Society took 'im hin 'and.

"Then there's Sally. Why, Sally's living 'igh naow--hoff the fat hof the land, has you might say. Heverybody knows 'ow 'er hold huncle treated 'er!"

Mrs. Estel smiled as she glanced at Sally, to whom the faucet of the water-cooler seemed a never-failing source of amusement. Ellen had put a stop to her drinking, which she had been doing at intervals all the morning, solely for the pleasure of seeing the water stream out when she turned the stop-cock. Now she had taken a tidy spell. Holding her bit of a handkerchief under the faucet long enough to get it dripping wet, she scrubbed herself with the ice-water, until her cheeks shone like rosy winter apples.

Then she smoothed the wet, elfish-looking hair out of her black eyes, and proceeded to scrub such of the smaller children as could not escape from her relentless grasp. Some submitted dumbly, and others struggled under her vigorous application of the icy rag, but all she attacked came out clean and shining.

Her dress was wringing wet in front, and the water was standing in puddles around her feet, when the man who had them in charge came through the car again. He whisked her impatiently into a seat, setting her down hard. She made a saucy face behind his back, and began to sing at the top of her voice.

One little tot had fallen and bumped its head as the train gave a sudden lurch. It was crying pitifully, but in a subdued sort of whimper, as if it felt that crying was of no use when nobody listened and nobody cared. He picked it up, made a clumsy effort to comfort it, and, not knowing what else to do, sat down beside it. Then for the first time he noticed Mrs. Estel.

She had taken a pair of scissors from her travelling-bag, and had cut several newspapers up into soldiers and dolls and all kinds of animals for the crowd that clamored around her.

They were such restless little bodies, imprisoned so long on this tedious journey, that anything with a suggestion of novelty was welcome.

When she had supplied them with a whole regiment of soldiers and enough animals to equip a menagerie, she took another paper and began teaching them to fold it in curious ways to make boxes, and boats, and baskets.

One by one they crowded up closer to her, watching her as if she were some wonderful magician. They leaned their dusty heads against her fresh gray travelling-dress. They touched her dainty gloves with dirty, admiring fingers. They did not know that this was the first time that she had ever come in close contact with such lives as theirs.

They did not know that it was the remembrance of another child,--one who awaited her home-coming,--a petted little princess born to purple and fine linen, that made her so tender towards them. Remembering what hers had, and all these lacked, she felt that she must crowd all the brightness possible into the short afternoon they were together.

Every one of them, at some time in their poor bare lives, had known what it was to be kindly spoken to by elegant ladies, to be patronizingly smiled upon, to be graciously presented with gifts.

But this was different. This one took the little Hodge girl right up in her lap while she was telling them stories. This one did not pick out the pretty ones to talk to, as strangers generally did. It really seemed that the most neglected and unattractive of them received the most of her attention.

From time to time she glanced across at Robin's lovely face, and contrasted it with the others. The older boy attracted her still more. He seemed to be the only thoughtful one among them all. The others remembered no past, looked forward to no future. When they were hungry there was something to eat. When they were tired they could sleep, and all the rest of the time there was somebody to play with. What more could one want?

The child never stirred from his place, but she noticed that he made a constant effort to entertain Robin. He told him stories and invented little games. When the bundle came flying in through the window he opened it with eager curiosity.

Grace had hurried into the village store as soon as the train stopped and had bought the first toy she happened to see. It was a black dancing bear, worked by a tiny crank hidden under the bar on which it stood. Robin's pleasure was unbounded, and his shrieks of delight brought all the children flocking around him.

"More dancin', Big Brother," he would insist, when the animal paused. "Robin wants to see more dancin'."

So patient little "Big Brother" kept on turning the crank, long after every one save Robin was tired of the black bear's antics.

Once she saw the restless 'Enry trying to entice him into a game of tag in the aisle. Big Brother shook his head, and the fat little legs clambered up on the seat again. Robin watched Mrs. Estel with such longing eyes as she entertained the others that she beckoned to him several times to join them, but he only bobbed his curls gravely and leaned farther back in his seat.

Presently the man strolled down the aisle again to close a window, out of which one fidgety boy kept leaning to spit at the flying telegraph poles. On his way back Mrs. Estel stopped him.

"Will you please tell me about those two children?" she asked, glancing towards Robin and his brother. "I am very much interested in them, and would gladly do something for them, if I could."

"Certainly, madam," he replied deferentially. He felt a personal sense of gratitude towards her for having kept three of his most unruly charges quiet so long. He felt, too, that she did not ask merely from idle curiosity, as so many strangers had done.

Then he gave her their history in a few short sentences. Their father had been killed in a railroad accident early in the spring. Their mother had not survived the terrible shock more than a week. No trace could be found of any relatives, and there was no property left to support them. Several good homes had been offered to the children singly in different towns, but no one was willing to take both. They clung together in such an agony of grief, when an attempt was made at separation, that no one had the heart to part them.

Then some one connected with the management of the Aid Society opened a correspondence with an old farmer of his acquaintance out West. It ended in his offering to take them both for a while. His married daughter, who had no children of her own, was so charmed with Robin's picture that she wanted to adopt him. She could not be ready to take him, though, before they moved into their new house, which they were building several miles away. The old farmer wanted the older boy to help him with his market gardening, and was willing to keep the little one until his daughter was ready to take him. So they could be together for a while, and virtually they would always remain in the same family.

Mr. Dearborn was known to be such an upright, reliable man, so generous and kind-hearted in all his dealings, that it was decided to accept his offer.

"Do they go much farther?" asked the interested listener, when he had told her all he knew of the desolate little pilgrims.

"Only a few miles the other side of Kenton," he answered.

"Why, Kenton is where I live," she exclaimed. "I am glad it will be so near." Then as he passed on she thought to herself, "It would be cruel to separate them. I never saw such devotion as that of the older boy." His feet could not reach the floor, but he sat up uncomfortably on the high seat, holding Robin in his lap. The curly head rested heavily on his shoulder, and his arms ached with their burden, but he never moved except to brush away the flies, or fan the flushed face of the little sleeper with his hat.

Something in the tired face, the large appealing eyes, and the droop of the sensitive mouth, touched her deeply. She crossed the aisle and sat down by him.

"Here, lay him on the seat," she said, bending forward to arrange her shawl for a pillow.

He shook his head. "Robin likes best for me to hold him."

"But he will be cooler and so much more comfortable," she urged. Taking the child from his unwilling arms, she stretched him full length on the improvised bed.

Involuntarily the boy drew a deep sigh of relief, and leaned back in the corner.

"Are you very tired?" she asked. "I have not seen you playing with the other children."

"Yes'm," he answered. "We've come such a long way. I have to amuse Robin all the time he's awake, or he'll cry to go back home."

"Where was your home?" she asked kindly. "Tell me about it."

He glanced up at her, and with a child's quick instinct knew that he had found a friend. The tears that he had been bravely holding back all the afternoon for Robin's sake could no longer be restrained. He sat for a minute trying to wink them away. Then he laid his head wearily down on the window sill and gave way to his grief with great choking sobs.

She put her arm around him and drew his head down on her shoulder. At first the caressing touch of her fingers, as they gently stroked his hair, made the tears flow faster. Then he grew quieter after a while, and only sobbed at long intervals as he answered her questions.

His name was Steven, he said. He knew nothing of the home to which he was being taken, nor did he care, if he could only be allowed to stay with Robin. He told her of the little white cottage in New Jersey, where they had lived, of the peach-trees that bloomed around the house, of the beehive in the garden.

He had brooded over the recollection of his lost home so long in silence that now it somehow comforted him to talk about it to this sympathetic listener.

Soothed by her soft hand smoothing his hair, and exhausted by the heat and his violent grief, he fell asleep at last. It was almost dark when he awoke and sat up.

"I must leave you at the next station," Mrs. Estel said, "but you are going only a few miles farther. Maybe I shall see you again some day." She left him to fasten her shawl-strap, but presently came back, bringing a beautifully illustrated story-book that she had bought for the little daughter at home.

"Here, Steven," she said, handing it to him. "I have written my name and address on the fly-leaf. If you ever need a friend, dear, or are in trouble of any kind, let me know and I will help you."

He had known her only a few hours, yet, when she kissed him good-by and the train went whirling on again, he felt that he had left his last friend behind him.

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