Samantha bounded into her backyard holding a gingerbread cookie. She had just finished practicing the piano. She practiced piano every day now, for one whole hour. That hour certainly did seem long. She couldn’t wait to get outside when it was over.

Samantha took a deep breath of summer air and a couple of long leaps. She stopped beside the tunnel.

The tunnel was a hole worn in the lilac hedge between her house and the Rylands’, but Samantha had always called it “the tunnel.” Through it now, she could see a girl. The girl was busy hanging laundry in the Rylands’ yard. Could Eddie possibly have been telling the truth? Had this girl really come to live there? Samantha ducked through the tunnel and came closer.

“Are you Nellie?” she asked brightly.

The girl looked surprised and very timid. “Yes, miss,” she answered without stopping her work. Eddie had said Nellie was nine, but this girl seemed smaller than Samantha.

“Are you visiting the Rylands?” asked Samantha.

This time Nellie looked amused. “Oh, no, miss. I’m working here,” she said.

Samantha was surprised. Eddie hadn’t said a girl was coming to work. But it didn’t matter. Samantha thought it would be wonderful to have a friend right next door. She remembered the cookie in her hand. “Would you like some gingerbread?” she asked. “It’s just baked.”

Nellie looked at the Rylands’ house. “Oh, no, miss. I can’t.”

“Won’t they let you?” asked Samantha.

“No, I don’t think so, miss. I’ve got my job to do,” Nellie answered.

“My name’s Samantha. You don’t have to call me ‘miss.’” Samantha put her cookie and napkin down on a stone and reached for a piece of wet laundry. “I’ll help you, Nellie. Then we can play.”

“Oh, no, you shouldn’t,” Nellie said. She was embarrassed, but there was nothing she could do to stop her new friend. So instead, she hurried to finish the job before anyone could see Samantha working.

When the last of the laundry was hung, Samantha grabbed Nellie’s hand and pulled her toward the tunnel. “We can eat in here. Nobody will see us,” Samantha said. The girls just fit into the hole in the hedge, and Nellie couldn’t say no to the spicy smell of gingerbread.

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Samantha sat down next to a big rock to get shelter from the wind. It was getting colder and colder. All three girls wrapped up together in the picnic blanket, but it didn’t help much. It felt as if they sat there for hours, watching the sky get darker and darker. A chilling drizzle began to fall.

Agatha shuddered. “I hope there are no wild animals to creep up on us.”

Samantha started to say, “No, I don’t think” when they heard a rustling sound below them on the path.

“What’s that?” Agatha cried.

“Shh!” hissed Agnes.

The girls heard more rustling. It might have been the wind, but it sounded more like a bear or a wolf, pushing through the trees, coming closer and closer. Then they heard a moan!

Samantha gasped.

“Eeek!” yelped Agnes. She clutched Samantha’s arm. The girls held their breath and listened. The sounds came closer: another moan, more rustling, then a crash.

Samantha grabbed a big stick and stood up. “Get behind me,” she whispered to Agnes and Agatha.

They heard the moan once more, and then a low voice struggling to be heard over the wind. “Help! Help me!”

Samantha lowered the stick. “Who’s there?” she called.

“Help!” the voice called again. “Oh! Samantha, help!”

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Nellie slammed the lid onto the ash can so loudly, it made Samantha jump. “They’ve picked me to go on the orphan train,” said Nellie.

“What’s that?” asked Samantha.

“It’s a train that goes out West. It’s full of orphans from the city. The train stops in lots of little farm towns. People in the towns choose orphans to live with them and to work for them,” Nellie explained.

Samantha was horrified. “But Nellie, you can’t leave New York!”

“I don’t have any choice,” Nellie said. “Miss Frouchy says I have to go. I’m trained enough now, and I’m old enough to work. Farm people might want me.”

“What about Bridget and Jenny?” Samantha asked.

“They’re too young to go,” Nellie said softly. “They’ll stay here.”

“Oh, no,” said Samantha. “You’ll be separated.”

“Yes,” said Nellie. Her eyes filled with tears.

“Nellie, we can’t let that happen,” Samantha said. “You and Bridget and Jenny may never see one another again.” She looked Nellie square in the eyes. “Now you’ve got to run away.”

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“I used to work in a factory, Samantha. It’s not like that.”

Nellie had worked in a factory. Samantha had almost forgotten that. “Well, what’s a factory like, then?” she asked. Nellie was quiet. She was remembering things she didn’t want to remember. “I worked in a big room with other kids,” she said finally. “Twenty others, I guess. But that didn’t make it fun. We couldn’t play. We couldn’t even talk. The machines were too noisy. They were so noisy that when I got home at night my ears were buzzing and it was a long time before I could hear anything. We had to go to work at seven in the morning, and we worked until seven at night. Every day but Sunday.”

Nellie continued, “I worked on the machines that wound the thread. There were hundreds of spools. We had to put in new ones when the old ones got full, and we tied the thread if it broke. We had to stand up all the time. I got so tired, Samantha. My back hurt and my legs hurt and my arms got heavy. The machines got fuzz and dust all over everything. It was in the air, and it got in my mouth and made it hard to breathe.”

Nellie was quiet again. Then she went on. “The room was awful hot in the summer. But it was worse in winter because there wasn’t any heat. Our feet nearly froze. We couldn’t wear shoes.”

Samantha was shocked. “You couldn’t wear shoes?” she asked.

“We had to climb on the machines to change the spools, and shoes could make us slip. The machines were so strong, they could break your hand or your foot or pull a finger off as easy as anything. We all had to have our hair short. If your hair was long, the machines could catch it and pull it right out. They just kept winding. Once I saw that happen to a girl. She was just standing there, and then suddenly she was screaming and half her head was bleeding. She almost died.”

Nellie was running her finger along the edge of the cushion again. “They paid us one dollar and eighty cents a week.” She look straight at her friend. “That’s why thread is so cheap.”

Samantha stared at Nellie. She couldn’t move. She felt numb and cold, but her scalp was tingling and her arms had a strange ache in them.

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