Among the thousands of children who climbed the Orphan Train, there is a story that continues to be told today.

We don't know if every detail really happened. But the message he brings with him speaks of one of the hardest pages in American history.

At the beginning of the 20th century, thousands of children left without a family were loaded on trains to the rural United States, where new families could welcome them.

For many it meant a second chance.

For others, he meant one thing.

Being separated from their brothers and sisters.

According to this story, in the summer of 1902 a girl of just sixteen years arrived at the station tightening what she had most precious: a little sister a few months.

They had already explained how it would go.

Newborns easily found a family.

Adolescents were mainly intended for work in farms.

Staying together seemed impossible.

But she was not willing to accept it.

They say he hid the baby under his coat and went on the train without saying a word.

For hours he tried not to attract attention.

When the convoy reached Kansas, the families began to observe the children one after the other, choosing who to carry with them.

It was a scene that, at the time, repeated thousands of times.

A suffocating heat.

And a girl who kept wearing a heavy coat.

When they asked her, she tried to invent an answer.

Then the child cried.

The secret was over.

According to history, just as separation seemed inevitable, a man stepped forward.

He was widowed years before and knew the pain of loss.

He looked at the two sisters and spoke a few words.

"I'll take them both. "

Not one.

Both.

It is said that he raised them as daughters, offering them a house, an education and that stability that until then had failed.

Years later he would even leave his farm to the girl who, that day, had risked everything not to separate from his sister.

Whether this story happened exactly like this or not, a truth remains.

The Orphan Train era has changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of children.

Many brothers were really divided.

Many never saw each other again.

And that's probably why you tell how this keeps getting excited.

Because they remind us how strong the bond between two people who have already lost everything.

And how much it can change the fate of someone when an adult chooses compassion instead of the easiest way.

Sometimes hope is just like this.

From someone who, in front of a choice, decides that no child should also lose the last person who remained next to him.