BIG BROTHER

"Cosy Corner Series"

BIG BROTHER

BY

ANNIE FELLOWS-JOHNSTON

BOSTON JOSEPH KNIGHT COMPANY 1894

Copyright, 1893 by Joseph Knight Company

BIG BROTHER.

Every coach on the long western-bound train was crowded with passengers. Dust and smoke poured in at the windows and even the breeze seemed hot as it blew across the prairie cornfields burning in the July sun.

It was a relief when the engine stopped at last in front of a small village depot. There was a rush for the lunch counter and the restaurant door, where a noisy gong announced dinner.

"Blackberries! blackberries!" called a shrill little voice on the platform. A barefoot girl, wearing a sunbonnet, passed under the car windows, holding up a basket full, that shone like great black beads. A gentleman who had just helped two ladies to alight from the steps [2]of a parlor car called to her and began to fumble in his pockets for the right change.

"Blackberries! blackberries!" sang another voice mockingly. This time it came from a roguish-looking child, hanging half-way out of a window in the next car. He was a little fellow, not more than three years old. His hat had fallen off, and his sunny tangle of curls shone around a face so unusually beautiful that both ladies uttered an exclamation of surprise.

"Look, papa! Look, Mrs. Estel!" exclaimed the younger of the two. "Oh, isn't he a perfect picture! I never saw such eyes, or such delicate coloring. It is an ideal head."

"Here, Grace," exclaimed her father, laughingly. "Don't forget your berries in your enthusiasm. It hasn't been many seconds since you were going into raptures over them. They certainly are the finest I ever saw."

The girl took several boxes from her basket, and held them up for the ladies to choose. Grace took one mechanically, her eyes still fixed on the child in the window.

"I'm going to make friends with him!" she exclaimed impulsively. "Let's walk down that way. I want to speak to him."

"Blackberries!" sang the child again, merrily [3]echoing the cry that came from the depths of the big sunbonnet as it passed on.

Grace picked out the largest, juiciest berry in the box, and held it up to him with a smile. His face dimpled mischievously, as he leaned forward and took it between his little white teeth.

"Do you want some more?" she asked.

His eyes shone, and every little curl bobbed an eager assent.

"What's your name, dear," she ventured, as she popped another one into his mouth.

"Robin," he answered, and leaned farther out to look into her box. "Be careful," she cautioned; "you might fall out."

He looked at her gravely an instant, and then said in a slow, quaint fashion: "Why, no; I can't fall out, 'cause big brother's a holdin' on to my feet."

She drew back a little, startled. It had not occurred to her that any one else might be interested in watching this little episode. She gave a quick glance at the other windows of the car, and then exclaimed: "What is it, papa,—a picnic or a travelling orphan asylum? It looks like a whole carload of children."

Yes, there they were, dozens of them, it [4]seemed; fair faces and freckled ones, some dimpled and some thin; all bearing the marks of a long journey on soot-streaked features and grimy hands, but all wonderfully merry and good-natured.

Just then a tired-looking man swung himself down the steps, and stood looking around him, knitting his brows nervously. He heard the girl's question, and then her father's reply: "I don't know, my dear, I am sure; but I'll inquire if you wish."

The man's brows relaxed a little and he answered them without waiting to be addressed. "They are children sent out by an aid society in the East. I am taking them to homes in Kansas, mostly in the country."

"You don't mean to tell me," the old gentleman exclaimed in surprise, "that you have the care of that entire car full of children! How do you ever manage them all?"

The man grinned. "It does look like a case of the old woman that lived in a shoe, but there are not as many as it would seem. They can spread themselves over a good deal of territory, and I'm blessed if some of 'em can't be in half a dozen places at once. There's a little English girl in the lot—fourteen years or [5]thereabouts—that keeps a pretty sharp eye on them. Then they're mostly raised to taking care of themselves." Some one accosted him, and he turned away. Grace looked up at the bewitching little face, still watching her with eager interest.

"Poor baby!" she said to herself. "Poor little homeless curly head! If I could only do something for you!" Then she realized that even the opportunity she had was slipping away, and held up the box. "Here, Robin," she called, "take it inside so that you can eat them without spilling them."

"All of 'em?" he asked with a radiant smile. He stretched out his dirty, dimpled fingers. "All of 'em," he repeated with satisfaction as he balanced the box on the sill. "All for Big Brother and me!"

Another face appeared at the window beside Robin's, one very much like it; grave and sweet, with the same delicate moulding of features. There was no halo of sunny curls on the finely shaped head, but the persistent wave of the darker, closely cut hair showed what it had been at Robin's age. There was no color in the face either. The lines of the sensitive mouth had a pathetic suggestion of suppressed [6]trouble. He was a manly-looking boy, but his face was far too sad for a child of ten.

"Gracie," said Mrs. Estel, "your father said the train will not start for fifteen minutes. He has gone back to stay with your mother. Would you like to go through the car with me, and take a look at the little waifs?"

"Yes, indeed," was the answer. "Think how far they have come. I wish we had found them sooner."

A lively game of tag was going on in the aisle. Children swarmed over the seats and under them. One boy was spinning a top. Two or three were walking around on their hands, with their feet in the air. The gayest group seemed to be in the far end of the car, where two seats full of children were amusing themselves by making faces at each other. The uglier the contortion and more frightful the grimace, the louder they laughed.

In one corner the English girl whom the man had mentioned sat mending a little crocheted jacket, belonging to one of the children. She was indeed keeping a sharp eye on them.

"'Enry," she called authoritatively, "stop teasing those girls, Hi say. Pull the 'airs from your hown 'ead, and see 'ow you like that [7]naow! Sally, you shall not drink the 'ole enjuring time. Leave the cup be! No, Maggie, Hi can tell no story naow. Don't you see Hi must be plying my needle? Go play, whilst the car stops."

Robin smiled on Grace like an old friend when she appeared at the door, and moved over to make room for her on the seat beside him. He had no fear of strangers, so he chattered away in confiding baby fashion, but the older boy said nothing. Sometimes he smiled when she told some story that made Robin laugh out heartily, but it seemed to her that it was because the little brother was pleased that he laughed, not because he listened.

Presently Mrs. Estel touched her on the shoulder. "The time is almost up. I am going to ask your father to bring my things in here. As you leave at the next station, I could not have your company much longer, anyhow. I have all the afternoon ahead of me, and I want something to amuse me."

"I wish I could stay with you," answered Grace, "but mamma is such an invalid I cannot leave her that long. She would be worrying about me all the time."

She bade Robin an affectionate good-by, [8]telling him that he was the dearest little fellow in the world, and that she could never forget him. He followed her with big, wistful eyes as she passed out, but smiled happily when she turned at the door to look back and kiss her hand to him.

At the next station, where they stopped for a few minutes, he watched for her anxiously. Just as the train began to pull out he caught a glimpse of her. There was a flutter of a white handkerchief and a bundle came flying in through the window.

He looked out quickly, just in time to see her stepping into a carriage. Then a long line of freight cars obstructed the view. By the time they had passed them they were beyond even the straggling outskirts of the village, with wide cornfields stretching in every direction, and it was of no use to look for her any longer.

Mrs. Estel lost no time in making the young English girl's acquaintance. She was scarcely settled in her seat before she found an opportunity. Her umbrella slipped from the rack, and the girl sprang forward to replace it.

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

"Yes, indeed, ma'am!" answered the girl, [9]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, [10]"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 [11]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, [12]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 [13]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?

[14]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 [15]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.

"Yes, everybody asks about them, for they are uncommon bright-looking, but it's very little anybody knows to tell."

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 [16]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 [17]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 [18]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 [19]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.