Nettie and Nellie Crook

by E. F. Abbott

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  To the Orphan Train Riders

  and their families

  CHAPTER 1

  Nettie Crook sat at the kitchen table and swung her dangling feet in time with her sister Nellie’s. The girls were five years old, identical twins. They loved to trick people into mistaking one for the other. Father could be fooled, but never Mama.

  It was wonderful to have a sister as a best friend. Even when Father was gone for weeks at a time—Mama, sometimes, too—Nellie was always there. But one twin is always a little bit older than the other, and it bothered Nettie that her sister was the one born first. Nettie’s birthday was even celebrated a whole day after Nellie’s each year. Nellie was born late in the night of January 23, 1905, and Nettie was born in the small hours of the next morning, January 24. It didn’t seem fair for one twin to be a whole day behind the other one in life. Nettie made up for being second any way she could.

  Nettie picked up her doll from the table and set her in her lap. “My Min’s prettier.”

  “Dolly’s just as pretty,” said Nellie.

  “Says you.” Nettie crossed her eyes at Nellie. Dolly had to be the worst name ever given to a doll.

  The dolls had been birthday presents this year. Mama had made each one from a wooden spoon on which she’d painted black curls, a red smile, and china-blue eyes with dark lashes. It was the first and last birthday they would celebrate in this apartment.

  “Why do we have to move again, Mama?” Nettie said.

  “Father’s through at his job.” Mama leaned over a cardboard box to place a newspaper-wrapped dish inside, straightened up, and pushed a lock of hair from her face. “We have to move so that he can find some other work.”

  “Leon works,” Nettie said. Their brother, Leon, was not at home. He was almost nine years old—old enough to help Mr. Mead at the butcher shop sometimes after school. Mr. Mead would give him a few pennies to wash the floors and scrub the walls with a bucket and rags.

  “Not that kind of work, not a coin tossed our way now and again. A family needs steady money to live in a house and put supper on the table.”

  Nettie swung her dangling feet thoughtfully. She’d heard Father talking about dredging the Erie Canal the last time he was home, some weeks ago. He’d sat around the table with his friends, drinking from bottles that clinked. The low laughter and gentle murmur of the men was a comforting sound in the night as the girls fell asleep in the bed they shared. “Where will we go?” Nettie asked.

  “When will we go?” said Nellie.

  Mama glanced at Sissy, the twins’ younger sister, napping in a cradle pushed up against the wall. She offered a tired smile. “Come here, girls.” She pulled out a chair and sat in it, leaning heavily against the back, and patted her lap. “Come here to me.”

  Nellie and Nettie scrambled out of their chairs and climbed onto Mama’s lap, one on each knee. Like Father, Mama was often gone, sometimes for long stretches of time, and the girls and Leon didn’t know why. They didn’t know that she was a very young mother, and awfully tired and unhappy. They didn’t understand that their little sister was sick, and that Father’s work wasn’t steady. But they knew they loved their mama, especially when she took them on her lap and told them a story.

  “Once upon a time,” Mama began, “there were two little twin princesses, as fair as fairies, as gentle as lambs, and as strong and true as an oxen team.”

  This sounded so silly that the girls always laughed. “Baaaahhhh,” went Nellie, and “Mooooo,” went Nettie.

  “And the twin princesses loved each other very much,” said Mama, “and always cared for each other, no matter what. Isn’t that right, girls?”

  Nettie nodded solemnly. They surely did. Especially if the twin who was older by a whole day was apt to cry and needed the younger twin to stand up for her.

  A sound came from the cradle. Mama scooted the girls from her lap, cutting the story short. “I just bet this next place will be our forever home,” she said.

  Forever home. Maybe. But they had heard those words before. Mama had said “forever home” when they moved the last time, and the time before that.

  * * *

  At first, Nettie liked their new apartment. Though it was dark and gloomy, she liked the playful way Mama’s kerosene hurricane lamp cast flickering shadows on the walls at night. She pretended the shadows were birds or fairies from Mama’s stories, come to life. It was cozy, sleeping in the same room with Mama and the baby and Leon. Nights that Father was home, his snoring kept Nettie awake, and even that she liked because it meant he was there.

  But time went on, and Father didn’t come home very much. The baby got sicker and sicker. The little apartment seemed darker. The shadows leapt and darted like sharp-toothed demons.

  And then came the day the shadows seemed to swallow them up. Nettie and Nellie’s little sister died. There were candles at the head and foot of the small coffin at the church. Mama stood by the coffin and stared at her hands. She didn’t speak. She didn’t put her arms around her children to comfort them. Nettie stood close to Nellie, shoulders touching, and squeezed her hand in a pattern, one-two-three. I-love-you. Nellie squeezed back.

  Not many people came to the church, but kindly Mr. DiSopo, the grocer, was there. He took off his canvas cap and pressed it to his chest, praying softly in Italian words they didn’t understand. His wife, Nettie knew, had been sick and died, like Sissy. His oldest daughter had gone away to work long hours in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. “Seven dollars a week,” Nettie had heard Mr. DiSopo tell Father, “nine or more hours a day, plus Saturdays, sewing ladies’ blouses.” He stood there worrying his cap and crying.

  “Everything is upside down,” Nettie whispered to Nellie. “Mr. DiSopo’s crying, and Mama isn’t.”

  * * *

  The day after Sissy’s funeral, Mama left home and didn’t come back for weeks. Father was gone, too. The twins went out alone to ask Mr. DiSopo for bread, and he gave them loaves of coarse rye, some apples, and some eggs. Leon earned twenty-five cents selling newspapers.

  Then Father came home. When he saw the dirty kitchen, and the children’s filthy clothes and sooty faces, he yelled at them.

  “What have you done? Where is your mother? Can’t you even wash your own faces?”

  “Who cares about our old smudgy faces?” Nettie made two fists and stomped her foot. “You better ask how we been feeding our own selves!”

  Father’s face reddened, and one hand shot up high as if he was about to hit Nettie.

  Nettie stared him down. “We don’t know where Mama is,” she yelled over Nellie’s crying, “any more’n we know where you are when you’re gone!”

  There was a silence and time froze—with Father’s fist raised high, Nettie glaring fiercely at him, and Nellie holding back her sobs with both hands.

  In the next moment, Father seemed to turn his anger on the kitchen table, where there wasn�
�t any food. He slammed his fist down on it, hard. He slammed the door that Mama wasn’t walking through. And when the latch didn’t catch and the door creaked slowly open, he slammed it again as if to shut it up.

  Nellie grabbed on tight to Nettie, jumping fearfully with each blast of harsh noise. “Stop it! Somebody, help us!”

  As if in answer to Nellie’s cry, the door flew open. It was Mama. She and Father stared at each other a long moment. Slowly, he lowered his fist. He seemed to get a whole size smaller. Mama came inside. Father put his arms around her.

  Maybe this time, Nettie thought, things would get better. At least they were all together again now. Maybe things would change.

  CHAPTER 2

  Mama’s return did not make things better. But one day, change did come. It was early on a morning in December of 1910. Father was gone again. The sky was overcast, and snow tumbled lightly outside the apartment. The world seemed muffled and sounds came soft—Mama’s soapy hands rubbing wet cloth against the washboard, Leon shoveling coal into the stove, a man’s heavy footsteps coming up the outside stairs, and then, at the door, a knock.

  Mama opened the door. She stood there, hands dripping, as a man they didn’t know removed his hat.

  “Mrs. Crook,” said the man, “may I come in?”

  Nettie hugged herself and hunched her shoulders to her ears. The man spoke in a low, gentle voice, but still he was scary. He was big, his coat all shoulders and buttons, and he wasn’t one of Father’s friends come to call. He told Mama he was the justice of the peace.

  Mama said nothing but stepped aside to let him pass. She lowered herself into a kitchen chair slowly, as if she’d suddenly become an old woman.

  The man reached into his chest pocket and pulled out a sheaf of folded papers. He opened them on the table in front of Mama and spread them flat. “I’ve come to take the children,” he said.

  Mama sat very still. She didn’t look at him. She didn’t look at Nettie or Nellie. Leon was still standing by the stove, dumbly holding on to the coal scuttle as if he’d forgotten what such a thing was for.

  Nettie felt Nellie’s hand in hers, and she squeezed it.

  “Mama?” Leon broke the silence.

  Mama nodded once at Leon, and he set down the pail of coal and stepped to her. “Come here, girls,” she said, “come here to me.” Nettie and Nellie sat one on each knee, as they’d done many times before on good days when Mama was happy. She was not happy now.

  “Mama. Once upon a time,” Nettie prompted. Mama’s hair was greasy. Nettie couldn’t remember the last time any of them had bathed.

  But Mama shook her head and drew her lips in. “Not this time, girls. No story this time.”

  Mama was crying. She hadn’t even cried at Sissy’s funeral. The man with the papers must have brought very bad news.

  The justice of the peace had been told about the Crook children, the children whose father was often gone for weeks at a time, and whose mother could not be counted on to stay and care for her family. He’d seen many such children, and many worse off than these.

  Nettie watched the man as he dragged a big hand down over his eyes, nose, and mouth, as if he wanted to wring out the thoughts he’d stored up behind his face. She wondered who had told on them. Was it Mr. DiSopo? But he had been so kind to them. He’d given them bread and apples and eggs. And hadn’t she done a good job taking care of Nellie, just like twin princesses always did in stories?

  Not ten minutes later, the man with the papers told the children to come with him. Mama sat at the table and did nothing to stop him. One by one, Leon, Nellie, and Nettie hugged Mama good-bye.

  When it was Nettie’s turn, she held on tight. “Say something, Mama!” Nettie said. She knew she was just this side of crying—her throat ached and her nose was filling up—so she buried her face in Mama’s shoulder and breathed in the smell of her, pressing her cheek against the soft cotton of her blouse. “Don’t you let him take us, Mama,” Nettie whispered. “Please don’t let him.”

  Mama stayed very still. Then she reached up and pried Nettie’s arms from around her neck. Nettie swallowed back what felt like rocks in her throat. “Mama. Please, Mama.” Mama’s hands dropped to her lap. She did not raise her eyes to meet Nettie’s.

  Nettie turned away from Mama and followed Leon and Nellie out the door and down the stairs. She looked back once—was it Mama she heard? Was it Mama crying? Her feet kept moving, without sensing the ground. Her hand was numb to the man’s big hand, helping her up into the wagon. She sat but didn’t feel the seat beneath her. The wagon began to move. The horse’s hooves must be clopping, Nettie thought. The man must be speaking, because his mouth was moving. Leon was saying something back, and Nellie was crying, but all of it made no noise. All Nettie could hear was that sound, that awful sound—muffled, ragged, as if her throat was full of rocks, like Nettie’s—the sound of Mama crying.

  Nettie sat in the wagon and kept her eyes on the horse’s ears, so she wouldn’t look back. She mustn’t look back.

  Nettie and Nellie were just five years old. They would never see Mama again.

  CHAPTER 3

  The wagon stopped before a big building with dark windows that stared out from under gable roofs. Towering trees stood sentry outside the front steps, their bare limbs like the bony arms of giants, waiting to grab and scratch and hold. It was the orphanage in Kingston, New York, and this is where the man with the papers left the twins and Leon that snowy day in December of 1910.

  Nettie followed Leon up the steps to the great door. Her breath made little clouds, and she squeezed Nellie’s hand, one-two-three. One-two-three. She could hear Leon breathing shallowly as the door swung open on heavy hinges.

  “Step inside, hurry up.” It was a gray-haired woman dressed severely in black, with black heeled boots that buttoned up the sides of her ankles. The set of her mouth was as grim as her clothing. “Welcome to Kingston. I am the matron,” she said in a voice that offered no welcome at all. “Don’t let in the cold.”

  But the orphanage was cold. Standing inside, Nettie shook with it, and Nellie’s hand was like ice in hers.

  “This is where children come to live when their parents are—”

  “Our parents are not dead,” Nettie interrupted. She knew what an orphanage was. “Don’t you say that.”

  The matron fixed Nettie with a flat stare. “Dead or not fit to care for their own, it’s all the same. Their children—you children—are burdens to society,” the matron said. “You will live here from now on.”

  “No!” Nettie said, and swallowed hard. Were Nellie and Leon just going to stand there staring at their shoes? Had they given up already?

  “Children with such beginnings are seldom adopted,” said the matron. “Especially not twins, I should think. Especially not one who doesn’t know her place,” she scolded, pointing right at Nettie. “Now, say good-bye to your brother, girls.”

  Nettie had to scowl, or else she might cry. They’d already had to say good-bye to Mama. “Why do we have to? Where’s he going?” she demanded to know.

  “Boys and girls are housed separately here,” said the matron.

  Nettie felt sorrier for Leon than for herself as she watched him walk away and disappear into a different section of this terrible, cold place. Nettie and Nellie, at least, would have each other. Wouldn’t they?

  The matron led the girls to the dormitory, a room lined with small cots. She gave them each a set of new clothes—a new jumper and top, underthings, a nightgown, and a new pair of boots that buttoned up the sides like hers. Nettie picked the clothing off her cot. She reckoned she couldn’t even count as high as the number of beds in the great, long room.

  Soon it was mealtime, and it was a good thing, because the girls hadn’t eaten anything since their sliced-bread-and-no-butter breakfast with Mama back at home. What was Mama eating for supper? Nettie wondered. Was she all alone? Would she come for them? Would Father?

  They sat at a long table. Like birds at
a feeder, other girls came and sat, and the room became noisy with chatter and movement.

  “Quiet!” came a shout from the matron. The chattering stopped almost instantly.

  Nellie and Nettie sat shoulder to shoulder. Someone set a shallow pie tin before each of them. In the pan was a ladleful of thin soup, with some bits of carrot and onion floating in it. Was Leon eating the same supper? He was older and bigger. The pan of watery soup would hardly make a dent in his hunger. Nettie ate it all up, and still she was hungry.

  The matron strode the length of each long table, arms crossed over her chest. When she walked by them, Nellie spoke. “Excuse me,” she said, using her most polite voice.

  Nettie elbowed Nellie in the ribs. “Keep quiet,” she warned.

  The matron stopped and put her hands on her hips.

  “What is it?”

  Nellie held up her empty pie tin. “May I please have some more?”

  Matron gave her answer with a swat that sent the pie tin clattering on the table. Everybody heard. Nellie tucked her chin to her chest and shut her eyes tight.

  Matron took a stub of pencil and a little black-bound book from her apron pocket, ready to make a note. “Which one are you?” the matron demanded to know.

  “Nellie,” came the whispered reply.

  Matron put pencil to page.

  Nettie sat up straight. “She’s fibbing. She’s Nettie. I’m Nellie.”

  The pencil stopped. Matron looked at Nettie with pursed lips and knotted brow.

  “No, I’m Nellie, like I said.” Nellie shook her head, and tears plopped onto her cheeks. Now Matron looked from Nettie to Nellie, and a couple of girls giggled. Matron’s face got red.

  Matron narrowed her eyes at Nettie, and then again at Nellie, clearly confused about which girl was which. She closed the little book and put it in her pocket. “I’ve got my eye on you,” said the matron. “I’ve got my eye on you both.”