Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Title: To Hear, To See, To Touch - a Girllove Romance
Author: Teglin
Keywords: Mg, Cons, Pedo, Preteen, Rom

   This girllove romance is totally fictional.  If you are under age 18, or
the concept of a man/girl relationship offends you, don't read further.

   Copyright 2012 by Teglin.  You may freely copy this girllove romance and
distribute it.  Please have the courtesy not to alter it in any way.

   Introduction

   I didn't need any help.

   At 6 foot 3 in my stocking feet, and 250 pounds of pretty much nothing
but muscle, I could and did do the work of two men.  Nobody ever had cause
to say anything bad about the way I kept up my homestead.  They said a lot
of other hurtful things about me over the years, but not about my
willingness to get a job done.

   So why was I standing there at the back of a crowd right now, next to
the train station, watching other folks claim a child from the orphan
train?

   No, I didn't need any help.  That's what a lot of these people were here
for.  To get an unpaid hand around their place.  Someone to do chores. 
Someone to help with the washing.  That was of no interest to me.  But I
needed something that ...  dammit, it hurts so much to put it into words,
but I've been living with it all my life, why can't I talk about it now?

   Talk.  Now that's a strange way for me to put it.  I'm pretty much stone
deaf, and haven't spoken a word since my Daddy tried to blow out a stump
back on our farm in Missouri, when I was five.  He didn't know what he was
doing, and the powder went off too early - before he could get me behind
the side of the barn.  He shielded me with his body, but I lost my hearing.
And I lost him.

   People called me damaged goods after that.  For the first few years I
didn't speak because I was crying inside.  Boys aren't supposed to cry, and
I was damned if I was ever going to let anyone hear me cry out loud.  Momma
understood, but later on she regretted not forcing me out of my melancholy
- I just plain lost the knack of speech.  It takes hearing, after all, to
know what sounds you're making.  She made darned sure I could read, though.
And write.

   When we moved out here to Nebraska in 1880, I was ten.  No one around
here knew my story, so I was just considered not only deaf, but dumb.  And
not just because I didn't talk.  The other kids were cruel in the
unthinking way that kids can be sometimes.  To them I was a freak.  Growing
big and tall and stronger than any of them, I was quick to strike out when
they taunted me or made me the butt of schoolyard jokes.  But I must have
just seemed like a stupid oaf.  I don't really blame them.  I was an ornery
cuss, to be sure.  My hurt inside had turned to anger as I got older, and I
no doubt wasn't all that pleasant to be around.

   Of course all the adults learned about me through their kids, so I was
shunned by them too.  Or just plain ignored, like a bad tooth that you
can't do anything about - either ignore it or get rid of it.

   I never had a friend.  Not to mention a girlfriend.  Just ...  no
chance, for me.  Big Dumb Ben Colter - damaged goods.  I worked our
homestead.  Momma taught me to read everything I could get my hands on, so
I probably got a better education than any of the other kids - and long
after she passed on, I'm still at it.  What cash I do come by, I spend on
my place, and on books.  A book can be a good friend.

   Now, I'm close to totally deaf, but there is a small range of sounds
that I can hear faintly, like far away echoes of good times long gone - the
tinkling of a bedside bell, the twitter of birds, and that glorious song
that little girls make when they laugh and chatter and play.  Girlsong, I
call it.  It's all wrapped up in my mind, with images of many-colored
frills and bouncing curls and sweet smiles of innocence.  I know those
things exist, because I've seen them from afar, and heard the ever-so-faint
traces of their sweet sounds.  They are elements of life that have been
denied me in actuality, but are ever-present in my thoughts and dreams of
what life could be.

   One time when I was about 12 - the last year I attended school - I
followed some of the other boys out across the playground to a little
hidden nook around the corner of a shed.  I could see them giggling and
pointing at something one of the boys was holding.  So intent were they,
that I got close enough to look over their shoulders.  They were ogling
some picture postcards, washed out in sepia tones, but clear enough for me
to see that they were images of naked women.  I wasn't close enough to make
out much, but I was a normal kid and just as amazed as any of the others. I
wanted nothing more than to wedge my way into the group and get a closer
look, but I knew what would have happened if I had tried.  They would have
pushed me away, I would have lashed out, and so much for seeing the
pictures!

   The boy in possession of the cards was quickly shuffling through them
and came to one that caused all the boys to laugh uproariously.  The holder
tossed that card to the ground.  I watched it sail as if in slow motion,
till it landed half under the upraised foundation of the shed.

   The bell rang for the resumption of class - I could hear a faint echo of
it, and had to stand back as the group of boys broke up and stampeded back
away for the schoolhouse.  Quickly I stooped to retrieve the discarded
postcard, my heart thumping hard, realizing that I was now in possession of
something so salacious and naughty that it would mean a thrashing from my
momma if she ever found out.  I didn't look at it, but slipped it in my
pants pocket.

   Only late that evening, under candle-light in my darkened room, did I
dare retrieve the picture card and gaze upon it.  Not a woman, at all, but
a little girl.  The other boys had tossed her away.  I had saved her from
oblivion.

   I knew the difference between nude and naked, and this girl was not
naked - she lay upon a couch draped in silks, reclining on her side, one
leg outstretched along the cushion, the other held straight up, pointing
high to an unseen sky.  One hand she held gracefully up to touch her
fingers to her upraised leg, with the other, she had propped up her head,
so that she was gazing at me languidly, her hair falling in curls to rest
upon her arm, over her neck and chin, with rivulets dangling across her
bare flat chest, just grazing her tiny nipples.  One errant strand fell
across her cheek, kissing her lips.  An angelic smile traced those lips. 
She was completely and willingly open to me - ME - for she seemed to be
looking through the camera that had captured her image.  'Set your gaze
upon me freely, Ben Colter.  You who have been denied even the simplest of
kind words, I deny you nothing.  See that most private, untouched sanctuary
between my wide-spread legs, see my not-yet budding breasts.'

   I cried hearing that soft utterance in my mind - it became the essence
of 'girlsong' to me.  I hear that little girl's voice every night, even now
so many years later.  I don't know her name, and I've never tried to give
her one, but I often dream that she is real, in the form of little girls
everywhere in the world.

   I'm a man, with all the needs of a man.  So I do not deny myself, what
the little girl of my dreams would not deny me.  Every night I hold her
card in the dim candle-light, and stroke myself, imagining the love that I
could give her, if fate should ever bring us together.  I spill my seed in
my hand or on a napkin, but don't feel that I've soiled what my dream girl
has offered me.  I'm offering her my essence, as she has hers.

   What does it make me, that my ultimate dream is of this girlsong, and
that my most intimate moments are with an imaginary girl whom I have
created from faded colors on an old piece of cardstock paper?  Perhaps the
loneliest and most pitiful creature on Earth?  And yet, I wonder, is she
out there?  The girl who would not deny me her love, and would accept mine?

   So has been my solitary existence for most of my 38 years, and so it
looks to be for whatever time is left me.  Perhaps that is enough to
explain what I felt when I picked up the town newspaper two nights ago and
read about the orphan train.

   I'm never going to find a wife.  The women my age round abouts, they all
know about me.  If any one of them had ever considered giving me a second
glance, they would have done it by now.  I'm the deaf mute, to all of them.
The loner.  Damaged Goods, but wanting to be a man.  A husband, a father, a
...  a friend ....  Middle aged, I am now.  With a homestead to keep up. 
But hardly a home.  Cupboards to fill up, but only one cup needed.  Beds to
sleep in, but their covers forever waiting to be drawn down.  Closets
enough to clothe a family, but only one half used.  Drawers to be filled,
but the chair beside my own bed sufficient for me alone.  I'll never ... 
have a little girl's song, all my own.  The song, and every lyric that is a
part of it - the being needed, the being wanted, the giving ...  the
getting.

   I'd give ...  whatever of any treasure that I have, if only that train
would bring me ...  my girlsong ....

   So there I was, backed up against buggies and wagons that other folks
had brought to town.  They had every expectation of needing them, to take
home a new member of their family, from that train.

   And what did I expect?  Why did I even show up?  Certainly I brought no
wagon.  No buggy needed for me.  Perhaps I showed up simply because the
most pitiful creature on earth still clings to hope.  What if ...  no, it
is an impossible dream.  But what if ...  just perhaps, these people would
see me as the last hope for a boy?  Propriety would allow me that, surely?
Never a girl, but perhaps a boy child?  One who has no other hope, and who
is as desperately alone as I am?  I would be a good father to a boy.

   No, I didn't need any help ...  unless there was someone on this train
who needed me ....

   -----------------------------

   Lera awoke to the pain.  She could escape it only in whatever fitful
moments of sleep that were possible for her on the crowded train.  Since
the accident, the throbbing, sometimes searing pain in the flesh around her
eyes and up over her scalp was a constant, matched in intensity only by the
ever-present darkness, the noise and commotion of the thirty remaining
orphans who occupied her car, and the bumps and swayings and
clickety-clacks of the moving train.

   But now there was only the pain and the inescapable darkness.  The train
had stopped.  The other children were gone.

   She made no effort to rise up off the pallet that Sister Mary had spread
for her on the floor between two seats.  The waves of pain were so intense
at this waking moment that she knew she might simply faint if she tried to
stand and make her fumbling way, feeling for handholds in the pitch black
of her blindness, to follow the others out onto the platform.

   No need anyway.  She knew where the other kids were.  She knew where
Sister Mary was.  And now she heard muted voices - sometimes one, sometimes
many speaking all at once - they were from the crowds of mommies and
daddies and families that had gathered at the station to claim a new son or
daughter or brother or sister or ...  to turn away.  As she knew they would
turn away, before claiming her.

   All the 5 years of her life in the orphanage, they had turned away from
her.  First because she understood and spoke only Russian, and later, after
she worked so hard to correct that fault, because she was too small - 'she
must be sickly ' - too delicate - 'we couldn't get any work out of her'
-'skin's too fair, she'll just burn right up in our summer sun and heat.'

   And now she had indeed burned right up.  Acid burns, Sister Mary told
her.  From that wild chase she had made through the baggage car, playing
hide and seek with the other girls.  She had knocked a canister off a
shelf. It had split open and splashed all over the top of her head.  The
scars would heal, Sister said.  The hair would grow back.  But she might
never regain her sight.

   Lera forced back welling tears.  She WOULD NOT CRY!  She started to
bring her hands up to her face, but made them freeze in mid-motion - that
would only make the pain worse, not better, if she touched the blisters. 
She desperately needed to shift the bandage that Sister had tied around her
head to shield out the sunlight.  'Let your eyes heal, Lerusya Bryakova. 
Lay flat, be calm, time and the good Lord will heal all your wounds.'

   Lera tried to follow Sister Mary's instructions, but she didn't believe
any of it.  She wasn't sure about the existence of any good Lord.  But she
was certain that time would not heal all her wounds.

   The murmur of voices out on the station platform rose and fell in waves.
Sometimes it would be one voice she heard, calling out a child's name. 
Telling the crowd what an exceptional boy Johnny Welch was, what a good
cook Jane Landry would be.  Then a another voice would call out - ''we're
interested in Johnny!' or 'Has Jane learned to sew?!' or 'has Eliza
completed her grades?!'

   Lera had heard it all before.  She could picture the scene.  So many
eyes staring.  Each child, including herself, standing on display, hoping,
fearing, begging, praying, to be claimed.  Or for Lera, waiting to be
removed from the center of attention, while another hopeful child took her
place.  For Lera, a silent, shuffling step back, behind the others, and
back onto the train.

   She suddenly realized that her shift was cold and wet.  She had peed on
herself again.  Sister Mary would scold her for that, saying 'why didn't
you call out for me, girl?' But Sister Mary didn't know this pain.  To move
to the potty closet was an exercise in excruciating agony amidst the jumble
and uproar of kids that packed the car.  Perhaps her brain had let her
sleep, rather than force her awake just to go pee.

   The fabric of her shift was clammy against her legs, and where it had
crept down between them.  Lera started to peel it up and away from her
skin, but then heard voices coming nearer.  Someone was walking up the
aisle towards her.  She placed her hands back by her side, feigning sleep,
wanting to hear what they would say.  Hearing was all she had left now.

   It was the conductor, Mr.  Jones.  "This is the last stop, as you know,
Sister.  Now you're either going to have to find a family for the little
girl, or she's headed back to New York."

   "I know," Sister Mary said.  Lera heard doubt in Sister's voice.  Like
there was nothing she could do.  Like she was about to give up.  That was
new.  Something she had never heard from Sister.  She was always so in
charge, so sure of herself.  "We'll try, but I fear no one will take her.
She's going to end up in an invalid institution."

   Lera felt a tap on her leg.  Sister Mary had knelt at the foot of her
pallet.  "Lera girl, it's time to get up now ...  oh look, she's wet
herself.  I can't take her out ...."

   "Just wrap this blanket around her waist, Sister," Mr.  Jones said
impatiently.  Now we really have to get going.  The 3:45 from Omaha is due
in here in 30 minutes and we have to get clear of the main.  It's now or
never, make your choice."

   "Alright.  Lera girl ...."

   "I'm awake, Sister Mary," Lera spoke up, pushing herself up onto her
elbows, ignoring the pain.  She reached out with one hand, and the woman
pulled the little girl up onto her feet.

   "Alright, just hold onto me now.  I'm going to wrap a little blanket
around you - you've peed on yourself again, Lera, but there's nothing for
it now.  The people out on the platform are waiting.  They know we have one
more child left to show them.  And they know you're ...  not well ... 
now...  hold on tight."

   Lera felt her body being pushed around roughly.  She weighed hardly
anything at all, and Sister Mary was a big woman.  Lera winced, as her
forehead brushed against the Sister's long, flowing skirt.  The pain
flashed into her, feeling like she were being burned yet again, but she
didn't cry out.  She would not cry now!  Could not.  Not if she ever had
any hope at all of someone shouting out her name and taking her.

   "There.  That covers all the wet spot.  Now take hold of my skirt now,
we have to get down the aisle.  Careful now."

   Sister Mary knew to take small steps as they shuffled down the aisle and
they made it to the car platform.  Lera felt a breeze hit her face.  It was
dry, and warmer than the air had been near her pallet, and the rawness of
her blisters flared.  She knew she grimaced, but she still did not utter a
cry.

   "Stand here, Lera.  I'll lift you down."

   Lera felt the car sway slightly as the Sister stepped off onto the
platform, then felt the woman's firm hands grasp her around her waist.  She
felt dizzy, and the pain surged.  She thought she might be on the verge of
throwing up as she flew through the air, but then she felt her feet placed
firmly on the planks of the platform.  She heard lots of voices now, some
near, some far away in the crowd.  'Poor thing.' 'Oh let's go, we can't
take her.' 'What on earth happened to her!'

   "Ladies and Gentlemen," a man's voice barked out, very near.  "Says here
that we have now a little girl named Lerusya Brika ...  Bri a ko va. 
Parents killed in an accident at pier-side, getting off the boat from
Russia when she was just three.  Lera is a sweet little girl, she can read
and write, and ..."

   "What's wrong with her!" a voice called out from the crowd.

   "Uh ...  Sister?" the spokesman stopped, obviously turning to Sister
Mary for an explanation."

   "Lera had an accident on ..."

   "Louder!  We can't hear ya!"

   "I said, Lera had an accident on the train.  A caustic acid burn, that
has scalded her, burned a good deal of her hair off - so we cut the rest to
even it up a bit - and uh ...  she's uh ...  well, the doctor back in
Missouri said that Lera has temporarily lost her vision."

   'A little blind girl.' 'Totally unfit.' 'Oh, that's just awful.' Lera
heard the chorus of disembodied voices again, each and every one like an
accusation.  She could not hear even one tone that even hinted she would be
accepted.  The familiar sense of hopelessness was returning, just like it
did after every station stop.  She wanted to scream or bite her tongue
or... anything to punish herself for even daring to hope that this time, of
all times, would be any different.

   She felt a wetness crawling down her left leg now.  Her pee, seeping
down out of the fabric of her shift.  She felt it dripping now onto her
ankle, where it would start to pool inside her shoe.  She couldn't help but
move her foot, tap it against the platform planking, make the droplets fall
away from her own foot.

   "She's peeing on herself!' a boy's voice called out in derision, spying
her effort.  There were embarrassed giggles from some, and outright
laughter from the boy who had taunted her.  She heard a woman declaring 'we
can't take a child in like that.  She's obviously in no condition ...' And
another drowning out that voice, 'Let's go, we're just wasting our time
now.'

   "Call it off!" a loud voice yelled out from the crowd.  "Mr.  Mayor,
it's time you put an end to this meeting!" another voice seconded, and Lera
could hear other people agreeing, and shoes scraping on the platform as
some moved away.  Their voices rose and mixed in that kind of mish-mash
that she would hear at the end of the Sunday service, when people were no
longer focused on the altar, and were filing out of the church.  The boy
was still laughing and taunting.  A horse was neighing as his wagon
creaked, as it was being loaded.

   Lera saw as clearly as could be, even in her blindness, what her future
was going to be.  These people had already forgotten about her.  She was
going to be packed back on that train and shipped off to some ...  she had
heard stories about the places, where they took children who got too old
for the orphanage, or those who were sick.

   An unbidden, mewling whimper started to escape from between her lips,
and she felt the tears now, and there was no way she was going to stop the
flood, and why should she try?  Her very body was starting to tremble, and
she wanted to reach out, to grab hold of somebody or something, and
plead... No!  I'm a good girl.  I can do things.  I can ...  help you ...
all I want is ...  but the words wouldn't come out.  All she heard was a
cry that rose up from somewhere deep inside her little body - she never
knew she could feel this kind of pain - so much worse than any burn or
blister, this was a pain that twisted her up inside and wrenched at her
heart.  She tried to take a step towards the crowd, but stumbled over her
own feet, and felt herself falling ....

   Another voice called out, an old, screechy, loud and commanding voice,
demanding to be heard, "Everybody stand still!  We ain't done here yet!"

   And big hands caught her!  Grasping her just above her waist, hands so
big that they seemed to wrap around her, and they wouldn't let her fall,
and they picked her up and lifted her, and pulled her forward till she felt
herself clasped firmly against a mighty wall of cushioning warmth.  Arms
wrapped around her, one beneath her bottom, the other carefully cradling
her against a body so big that it seemed to dwarf her, so strong that she
knew she would never fall, but so gentle that she didn't fear that he would
scrape her scars and blisters.

   For it was a he.  She knew that instantly.  A man held her, a savior
held her.  She smelled him.  There was no perfume, but an earthy but clean
smell of leather and - like the smell of the horses pulling the carriage
that had taken all the children from the orphanage to the train station. 
The fabric of her savior's shirt where she clutched him was not soft like a
woman's dress.  It was rough like a workman's clothes.  The arms that held
her and the hands that braced her were strong, and wrapped her to him like
he never would let her go.

   She could hear more voices now, louder voices, some angry, but her
rescuer didn't speak.  He stood steadfast like a rock, protecting her from
all those others, no matter what they were yelling about.  She didn't
listen to those others.  She refused to listen to those others.  She turned
her head to the right, away from the worst of her blisters, and leaned in,
pressing here ear hard against the man's chest, and he hands twisted into
the fabric of his shirt.

   She felt it before she heard it, but then the pounding of the man's
heart drowned out every other sound.  Bump, bump, bump ...  be calm, little
girl.  Bump, bump, bump ...  let me hold you, little girl.  Bump, bump,
bump...  nothing any of the others can say or do will ever hurt you again,
little girl.

   Bump, bump, bump ...  I claim you.  My little girl.

   Lera knew.  She had found HER home.

   -----------------------------

   Aunt Carrie May was no busy-body.  She was the oldest woman in town, and
one of the founders.  People came to her for help and advice.  Not the
other way around.

   But this Orphan Train business - well she had to see it.  She approved
of it, but some of these folk were really riling her.  These were children
after all, needing homes, and she had about heard quite enough of such
comments as 'Can he do chores?' or 'I need a girl who can take care of the
young-uns.' And now there was this last child they had mentioned.  Still on
the train.  Sick or hurt.  Didn't matter which.  She needed a home too, and
by the looks of this lot standing out here on the platform, not a one of
these families would take her in.

   Aunt Carrie would do it, but at age 80 or thereabouts, she wasn't going
to be around long enough to take care of child.  She had been eyeing Big
Ben Colter, however, ever since he showed up at the back of the crowd.  Now
she knew somewhat about Ben.  His mother had been a friend back in the old
days.  Carrie had often visited their place, and seen Ben in his natural
habitat, so to speak.  Not at school or in town, where like as not he was
being teased or taunted or derided as a dimwit, but in his own home, doing
things like reading - the kid had been a voracious reader - and working
around the homestead, repairing things, building things, talking with his
momma in that little sign language they made up together.

   She knew other stuff too.  It was all so obvious.  Ben was one unhappy,
lonely man, if ever there was one.  Smart as a whipper-snapper, skilled,
knowledgable, but noone to share all that goodness with.  Not likely to
ever change that either.  That was why she was just a little bit surprised
to see him here at the Orphan Train.  But then, the more she thought on it,
and the more she watched Ben standing there, the more she understood
things.

   She doubted she had ever seen any human being look so intent as Ben,
when those kids were brought out one by one onto the platform and paraded
about.  He never made a move forward though - of course he didn't shout out
that he would take that one, or the other one, but Aunt Carrie saw it in
his eyes.

   Put two and two together.  Or rather, one and one, she thought wryly,
quite pleased with herself.  One thing she knew for damned sure.  There was
sick little girl on that train who was NOT going back east.

   Aunt Carrie grabbed up her cane and pushed herself up off the seat of
her buggy.  "Get me down from here," she called gruffly out to old Gus, her
driver.  He was practically as old as she was, but still strong enough to
help her down, and when her feet hit the ground she stabbed her cane into
the dirt and started off towards Big Ben, skirting the edge of the crowd.

   He saw her approach, and lifted his hat to her.  She knew he used to
read his mother's lips, but she had seen him more often communicating with
the town folk with a pencil and paper, so she wasted no time in placing her
hand out in front of him.

   He questioned her with the rise of his brow.

   "Pencil.  Paper." she said peremptorily, looking up at him, while making
the motions of writing on her palm.

   He retrieved them from his shirt pocket and she took them and quickly
wrote what she had to say.

   Three short words.  "Do it, boy!" She handed the pencil and paper back
to him.

   He read it, and the look of consternation on his face was just about to
make her scream, in her impatience.  But she figured he knew exactly what
she meant.  He stood there though, for what seemed like long minutes, just
staring back her, not a tick in his expression.  Completely still, solemn,
and looking like he was struggling to deal with something in his own
thoughts.

   He finally started writing.  Something short, and quick.

   She took everything back and read,"They'll never let me."

   "Bosh!" she grunted, looking straight up into his eyes.  He understood
that too.  If not the word, for damn sure what she meant.  She didn't
bother to write it, but just handed the paper back to him.

   He wrote longer this time.  And crossed out something in mid-sentence,
before continuing.  "I came for a boy.  That's the only thing they would
ever let me do, but I don't think ...  it just wasn't meant to be."

   Ben's head shot up, and she turned around.  There she was, a little slip
of a girl.  Tiny, thin, looking so frail.  And bandaged around her eyes,
with red blotches still uncovered above and below her eyes, and farther up
on her head.  Someone had botched a hair cut for her - where the hair
hadn't been burned away, it had been cut in ragged clumps.

   She heard the Mayor start to drone on about the girl, but didn't bother
to listen.  Didn't matter where she was from or what had happened to her.
Carrie turned back to Ben and punched him with a stiff finger in his
stomach to get his attention.  He was staring at the little girl so
desperately,with such a look of longing in his eyes, that she almost lost
it right then and there.  She punched him again.  "Well?!" she said, making
sure he dragged his eyes away from the scene beyond her.

   He started writing again, and she watched the words start to take shape,
"They just wouldn't le ..."

   She snatched the paper out of his hand, and forcibly took the pencil
from his loosened grasp.  She wrote feverishly.  Over her shoulder, she
could hear that the meeting was disintegrating.  People calling out about
the girl being damaged goods - oh and that made her even angrier - that's
just exactly what they used to say about this very man standing in front of
her!  Damaged goods, be damned.  She was a girl who needed a home.  He was
a man with a home, who needed this girl.

   She stuffed the paper back into his hands angrily.  "She's NOT a boy. 
And that doesn't matter one hill of beans.  You came here not because you
wanted a boy, you came here because of THAT little girl right there
standing before you RIGHT NOW.  You came here because she needs you, and
Ben Colter, you need her."

   His mouth was closed tightly as he read her words.  But his lips started
trembling, as he looked across the sea of people at that little girl
standing all alone.  Aunt Carrie could tell he was trying oh so very hard
to hold his jaw tight, and to fight back the emotion and the admission that
she was forcing out of him.

   She heard laughter.  Some brat calling out that the girl had peed on
herself.  She turned back to the girl as fast as she could maneuver her 80
year old frame, and saw that the little wisp of a girl was standing there
all by herself, no one to help her, no one who seemed to care, and her
little body was starting to tremble.

   "Enough of this," Aunt Carrie muttered.  She half-turned and grasped Ben
Colter's hand and started dragging him forward.  She couldn't have moved
him an inch, if it hadn't been what was right, and what he wanted too.

   "Out of our way!" she demanded, using her cane to punch and push the
milling crowd apart.

   Even as they got close, she heard the saddest, most heart-rending cry
start to rise from the little girl's throat, and the girl started to sob.
She was standing there, her eyes totally covered, bewildered, hearing the
foulest, most heartless things being said about herself, and it would have
been too much for any child.

   " Everybody stand still!  We ain't done here yet!" she yelled at the top
of her lungs, as she and Ben got close enough, planting her feet in such a
way that everyone would know she meant business.  But at that very moment,
the girl started to fall, losing her balance in a blind grope forward.

   It was at that instant that Aunt Carrie May knew she had done the only
thing, the right thing, perhaps the culminating act of her long life, when
she witnessed Ben Colter reach out like a man to grasp the falling girl and
lift her straight up into his arms, where he held her secure against the
world.  Carrie looked up at Ben.  He was staring down at the top of the
girl's head, and tears were trickling from the corners of his eyes.

   She sidled one step closer to him and wriggled one arthritic hand in
under the man's arm.  These folks didn't know it yet, but she was going to
make darned sure that this little girl was going home with this man.

   -----------------------------

   When I first saw HER, she had just stepped out from inside the train
car, onto the platform atop the steps.  She was holding onto the black
habit of the nun.

   My first thought?

   She was the little girl who had spoken to me from the postcard, through
all the long years of waiting.

   No, she didn't have the flowing curls - this girl's hair had been shorn
like some sheep, and there were raw red patches on her scalp, like
something had eaten away at her skin.  She wasn't reclining gracefully,
arms and legs extended in contented knowledge of her beauty - this girl was
clutching at the Sister's dress, holding on for all she was worth, and
looking frightened and jittery like a little bunny rabbit.  She wasn't
looking out at me so confidently - this little blinded girl was straining
to hear, and learn her fate from this crowd.

   I couldn't call out to her.  I wanted to, more than I had ever wanted
anything else in my life.

   But perhaps now I knew why I had been muted so long ago, so I could
never tell THIS girl an untruth.  No matter that Aunt Carrie was still
standing before me, urging me to do the impossible.  I knew the realities
-I had been living them for all my years.

   I watched as the nun unceremoniously lifted the wisp of a girl off the
car onto the station platform, then stepped back from her, leaving the girl
all alone amidst a crowd of strangers.  Mayor Walters started speaking,
whatever he was saying completely lost to me, and I was too far away to
make out any of his words from his lips, so I watched the girl.  THE girl.
She, who would know the song ....

   She stood no taller than the mayor's waist, and her little arms looked
so thin and pale.  Her hands were so small, her fingers so tiny that they
would have been engulfed in mine.  She dangled them at her sides, sometimes
clutching at the folds of her grey dress.  It fell formlessly from her
collar and shoulders all the way to her calves, and she wore black lace-up
shoes that rose to her ankles.  White socks rose above that just to the hem
of her dress.

   She was beautiful!

   How can I say that, when I couldn't even see her eyes?  When her blonde
locks were shorn, leaving a raggedy mess?  When her face was so thin and
drawn, her colorless lips compressed so tightly in fear?  When her
complexion was so pale that it looked like she might collapse from lack of
sustenance?  Of course, my judgment was drawn from within.  For this little
girl to have lived as she had, through years and years without her parents,
through years and years of rejection or indifference, and to endure this
orphan train ordeal - to have suffered such grievous injury - and still to
be able to stand bravely in front of this crowd - oh my god, what greater
beauty of spirit could there be than that?  This girl was more than
beautiful.  She was an ideal, what Greek philosophers had called the
perfect form, the iconic embodiment of GIRL.

   The old woman punched me in the stomach.  I barely felt it, so caught
was I in images before me.  My heart went out to the girl.  I could see in
the faces and impatient movements in the crowd that there was no welcome
being offered her.  No one was tendering her the slightest bit of hope that
all her travails had not been suffered in vain.

   Aunt Carrie punched yet again, this time more emphatically.  I tore my
gaze from the little girl, hating that I had to do so even for an instant.
This chance to see her might never come again - would never come again -and
any second of her presence was too precious for me to lose.

   "Well!?" I saw Aunt Carrie form the demand.

   I started to write on the paper, that nothing mattered, they would never
let me claim this girl, that it was unimaginable, that it was absurd to
even consider it for a moment.  Aunt Carrie seemed to know what I was going
to write even before I had put down more than a few of my words.

   She grabbed the paper and pencil from me and started scrawling a hurried
response.  I kept glancing over her to the girl.  She looked to be holding
herself upright by sheer strength of will now, fighting back tears. 
Whatever this crowd's response to the Mayor's and the Nun's words, it
couldn't have been what this girl deserved from them.

   Aunt Carrie forced the paper back into my hands, and I looked down at
it. "She's NOT a boy.  And that doesn't matter one hill of beans.  You came
here not because you wanted a boy, you came here because of THAT little
girl right there standing before you RIGHT NOW.  You came here because she
needs you, and Ben Colter, you need her."

   And every word of it was true.  But saying it, writing it, did not
change anything!  That she knew what I was feeling, that someone besides me
had put into words what this moment really meant to both me and that little
girl - I struggled to contain the emotions that were fighting to break out
from me.  The lump of hurt and doubt and fear that arose in my throat
threatened to choke me, but the anguish was too much.  I clenched my jaws,
and tried to breathe, in something other than short, ragged breaths, and
yet I felt the wetness in the corners of my eyes.  Big man I was, and yet I
was too afraid to do what was right?

   The old woman suddenly grabbed my hand and started to drag me forward. I
followed willingly, the decision made for me.  I might have been a coward,
or it might have been the years and years and years of denunciation and
denial that had held me back, but no more.  Aunt Carrie was like a
battering ram, forcing a path for us through the crowd.  I couldn't hear a
thing, but figured she was probably coughing up a storm of expletives to
get her way.

   Through the jostle, I caught glimpses of my girl, and at one moment a
path parted and I saw that a pool of something liquid was forming at her
feet, and a boy was pointing and laughing his head off.  The girl was
trembling now, against an onslaught of derision that I could only imagine,
and she too looked like she would not be able to hold back her tears any
longer.

   At the very instant we got near enough, I was about to hold my hands up
high and demand attention in the only way I knew how, using my height and
bulk to overawe everyone else, but she opened her mouth and I could only
imagine that she was crying out, because her whole body was wracked with
sobs and her mouth was just wrenched in her anguish.  She started to reach
out - to someone, to anyone, like she was just begging for even one
scintilla of kindness from all the strangers before her.  Then she stumbled
forward, her arms flailing wildly in an attempt to regain her balance.

   I swooped down and grasped her about her waist, and through every split
second that followed, as I lifted her to my chest and wrapped my arms about
her, I felt the magic of her touch.  The delicate ridges of her ribs, the
infinite softness her little bottom, the form of her shoulder blades - they
were but nothing to the heat of her flesh, the life that I felt inside her,
and the song that I could hear when she turned her head, and leaned into me
tightly, burying her head against my heart.

   This little girl had accepted what I was offering her, and I knew as
certainly as I had ever known anything, that my house would now and forever
be her ...  OUR home.