As Faith considered her situation, the door to the facing car, a first-class car, suddenly opened. A young girl, perhaps ten years old, accompanied by a middle-aged woman, stepped onto the facing platform. The girl wore a wool crepe dress, pearl gray, that fit her so perfectly that Faith knew it was hand-tailored. Her hat, of the same color and material, had just as obviously been created by a milliner. Faith’s bonnet, on the other hand, had been purchased at Macy’s. And none too recently, at that.
“Hi,” the girl said, giving her perfect blond curls a little shake. “My name is Pauline.”
The woman standing behind the girl emitted a little grunt of disapproval, but Faith paid no attention. In a cheap cotton dress and the plainest of sturdy brown shoes, the woman had to be the governess. It was her job to be displeased.
“Hi,” Faith returned. “I’m Faith.”
“Don’t you just hate train rides, Faith? Soooooo boring. I much prefer touring by car,” the girl said precociously.
Faith didn’t know exactly how to respond. Her family’s trips, once to Cape Cod, once to Niagara Falls, twice to Atlantic City, were wonderfully exotic treats. Faith had looked forward to each and every one. She would have walked if that were the only way to get there—to say nothing of riding in a first-class train cabin.
“Where are you going?” Faith finally asked.
“Pocono Summit.” Pauline rolled a pair of sad blue eyes before repeating her favorite phrase. “Soooooo borrrrrring.”
“I’m going there, too,” Faith said, though she realized they were headed to the same place under much different circumstances. “My mother and I are going to stay with my Aunt Eva.”
“I’m staying with my father for the summer. His name is Jaspin Gore. He’s in mining.”
What could Faith say to that? My aunt’s in the business of scalping settlers? Instead, she asked, “Are you traveling with your mother?”
Pauline’s eyes softened and, for a moment, Faith was certain she would cry. But she only said, “My parents are divorced.” Then she smiled. “My father has a summer home on Wildwood Lake, but I hope we don’t stay there all summer. It’s soooooo borrrrrring. I hope we move to Scranton. That’s where my father really lives. In a house with so many rooms I still haven’t seen them all.”
Faith stopped listening, though the girl went on and on. A breeze had sprung up while they were talking and the topmost branches of the surrounding forest were gently swaying. Beneath her feet, the hiss and clack of the train’s wheels continued on, relentlessly, indifferently. Equally indifferent, the clouds above cast vast, moving shadows on the treetops. In the far distance, the waters of a lake reflected a white-hot drop of light.
“I’ve got to go,” Faith said, a bit abruptly. “My mother’s probably getting nervous by now.”
“Maybe we’ll see each other in Pocono Summit,” Pauline said brightly.
Faith noted the look of grim disapproval on the face of the girl’s governess. The woman’s nostrils were so pinched that Faith didn’t see how she could breathe. No, a friendship between the daughter of a man whose home had too many rooms to count and a beggar who couldn’t afford to put a roof over her head was quite out of the question.
Chapter Three
THE TRAIN CONTINUED on through the mountains for another hour, stopping at stations so small they seemed like mere afterthoughts. Faith Covington couldn’t imagine anyone disembarking there—not without a compass, a sleeping bag, and maybe a machete, anyway.
The forest remained unbroken, stolid, and dense—as immovable as the face of a rocky cliff. Faith sat beside her mother, her hands folded in her lap. She had a million questions, but was too afraid of the answers to ask them.
At the front of the car, two soldiers were drinking from a pewter flask. Suddenly, they began to sing, slurring their words, much to the disgust of the other passengers. Over and over, they sang the opening verses of “Happy Days Are Here Again,” all the while conducting a vigorous argument about the lyrics. Finally, the conductor entered the car and asked them to keep it down. The minute he was gone they started up again, this time choosing “On the Sunny Side of the Street.”
Faith was less than thrilled at the impromptu performance. Both songs suggested that folks ignore the grim realities that marked day-to-day life in New York City—the mass evictions, the homeless children living in packs, the bodies lying frozen in the streets on cold winter mornings. Just grab your coat, get your hat, leave your worries on the doorstep. Nothing to it.
Maybe, on her best day, Faith could manage to forget her troubles, but this was not her best day. No, this was about the worst day of her life.
These thoughts were still running through Faith’s mind when the train finally cleared the mountains and began a long descent into the valley. For a time, the tracks ran alongside a broad river marked by rapids wherever it narrowed to sweep around mid-water islands. A dozen canoeists had taken advantage of the spring floods. Maneuvering their canoes through the roughest spots, they braved the turbulent white water. Faith watched, fascinated, as one of the canoes flipped, its nose rising straight up before it landed on its side, throwing its two paddlers into the roiling water.
At first the paddlers were helpless, despite their life jackets. Faith knew how they must have felt.
The water was moving too fast for swimming. It spun the men around, tossing them from side to side as if they were twigs. Then the river suddenly widened, the waters calmed, and the men swam into a quiet backwater. Their canoe, unfortunately, had other ideas. It was headed downriver. Fast.
“What river is that, Mom?” Faith asked.
“The Delaware. It runs all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.”
“And that house over there?” Overlooking the river, the house Faith pointed at was midway up a steep bluff. Enormous by any standards, it featured a row of eight, white-brick chimneys that ran the length of the building’s slate roof. “Who lives in that house?”
“That’s Cliff House. It’s a resort.”
“People stay there?”
“Of course. People from the coast have been coming to Monroe County for their summer vacations for a long time. Why not? The scenery is beautiful and the summers are much cooler than in New York or New Jersey.”
“Aren’t we in New Jersey?”
“Not for long. That’s Pennsylvania on the other side of the river.”
Faith stared out the window as the train turned onto a stone bridge. From the center of the bridge, she could see a dozen resorts on the Jersey and Pennsylvania sides. Faith was cheered by the sight. She’d nearly given up hope, but here it was, civilization. She could live with this, even if she was asked to wash dishes and make beds. Even if she was asked to clean bathrooms. Though she’d much prefer to curl up in front of the radio or lose herself in a book, hard work didn’t frighten her. What frightened Faith was that unbroken wilderness, that forest as dark as it was unending.
In East Stroudsburg, a few minutes from the bridge, the train stopped long enough to take on water for the engines. Margaret and her daughter took advantage of the delay to quench their thirst with a treat: two bottles of Coca-Cola purchased at a small grocery store. As they strolled back to the train, Faith again fought an urge to ask specific questions about their final destination. Unfortunately, her mother was doing her mind-reader act again. As she and Faith slid their green glass bottles into a wooden crate, Margaret spoke without looking at her daughter.
“Where we’re going,” she announced, “is nothing like this.”
Despite Margaret’s