The Orphans' Nine Commandments

Chapter 6

q6Q I was crowded between two other kids on a narrow mattress that smelled of urine. One boy, wiggling like a worm, lay at the head of the bed, and another coiled his body around my feet. Squashed between them, I struggled to comprehend these new surroundings. In the twilight, I looked up at naked lightbulbs dangling from a high ceiling. Streaks of yellow light streamed across the barn-sized dormitory crowded with iron beds laden with sleepy children. Steam radiators hissed and rattled, struggling to heat the lofty room. At 5:30 in the morning, on Tuesday, January 1, 1935, I was once again adrift in a sea of strangers, nursing a lonely heart. My arms and legs ached from the bruises of the day before. Wintery thoughts warned me I was worse off than when I lived with the Hardt family. Experience had shaped me into a skeptical nine-year-old. I believed that grown-ups were a troublesome lot. If they offered smiles, I eyed them with caution. Promises made and broken had strengthened my mistrust. I slipped on my clothes and walked down the oak wainscotted hallway, hoping to shed the memory of my embattled arrival. I 59 glanced ahead and saw a round, full-bosomed woman waddling toward me. Her white dress sported a lace collar, and she wore pink socks with white leather shoes. One hand rested on a long wooden paddle attached to her belt and the other held a clipboard. She paused next to me and looked down. I was frightened by the large paddle even as I looked up into a friendly Baptist face. “Good morning, good morning.” She brushed back a ringlet of grey hair, and smiled. “I’m Bessie Riney, your matron. The kids call me Bessie. And how are you, Will?” “What? My name’s not Will!” I stood erect, looking at her with an unwavering gaze. She glanced at her clipboard. “I’m sorry but the court placed you here as Will Rogers.” “I’ve heard Will Rogers on the radio, but he isn’t me.” Bessie didn’t argue. She settled the matter, “Your name’s Will. Yes, Will Rogers, just like the court says.” So now they put Billy Hardt away. A new name, a new game. What was a kid to do? “Our home is crowded and we must have rules. Don’t fight, don’t sass, don’t wet the bed, and don’t wipe your nose on your sleeve.” She coughed. “And if you’re caught stealing or running away, you’ll get tossed in the Dark Room.” A bell rang sharply for breakfast as I wondered where the Dark Room might be. I washed up and walked into the hall. Bessie took my hand and led me onto the front porch, which provided a view of the stadium-shaped campus. The brick-faced Old North Building featured several white stone arches from the Spanish-mission style architecture. The Baptists had raised funds throughout the state and built the two-story structure with a basement in 1907. A grand staircase at the center led to the first floor. You climbed an interior flight of stairs to the second floor where you entered either the younger boys’ or girls’ dormitories. 60 There was a shortage of chairs so on rainy days we would spend dreary hours sitting on the oak stairs leading to the second floor. The building looked like an ancient ruin resting on a bed of winter -weary grass. The scrawny shrubs, like many of us orphans during that barren winter, looked forward to spring. Snakelike roots poked through cracks in the concrete walk; green paint flaked off walls; shards of window glass sprinkled the earth around the foundation. We strolled down the west walk as she explained that the older boys lived in the two-story building to the east and the older girls lived in the brick dorm across the way. There beside the girls’ dorm, suspended under a wooden “A” frame, hung an iron bell, large as a kettle drum. Beyond the girls’ building, we approached the dining hall. Above it was the chapel for church services and where the rhythm band practiced. She pointed to the west. “The barn back of here is overseen by Pop Hall. You’ll meet him later.” We came to the driveway’s edge. The space, unbounded by fences, stretched...