Bread and Roses, Too (2 page)

Jake shook his head. He had yet to see a regular American or an Irishman in the crowd.

"You wanna join us Italians tonight? Be a good meeting, I promise you."

"Yeah, sure," Jake said. Anything to postpone the strapping he was sure to get when he went home.

"Meantime," said Angelo. "I got money in my pocket. How about some grub? My treat."

The tavern was full of Italians spraying tomato sauce as they jabbered excitedly at each other. Angelo told Jake to sit down, and then he disappeared across the crowded, smoky room. Soon he returned, bringing two huge platters of spaghetti to the table. He set one of them in front of Jake. It was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. The tomato sauce even sported a few bits of greasy sausage. Jake forgot the crowd around him, forgot the strike, forgot the menace that waited for him in the shack, and fell to, his nose almost in the steaming plate. He hadn't had a full platter of food to himself in his entire thirteen years of life.

"Hey, hey, take a breath, boy. Enjoy!" Angelo said, plunking down a glass of red wine in front of Jake. He sat down on the bench next to him, but before long he was jawing with his pals—eating and drinking at the same time—just like everyone around them.

The talk was all in Italian. Jake knew only a few words; most of them he suspected were cusses, because he often heard them muttered behind Paddy Parker's back. Then, seemingly without warning, the men around him jumped to their feet.

"We're going down to picket, Jake boy," Angelo said. "Try to keep the blasted scabs from coming back in after the noon hour. You wanna come?"

Jake shrugged. It was the end of free food and drink, so he might as well join them. It was better than the leather strap waiting for him at the shack. He grabbed his glass and drained the last few warming drops.

They marched down Union Street in a body, chanting, "Short pay! All out!" and blocking the street entirely so that no one, much less a wagon or buggy or auto, could get past. When the mills lining Canal Street came in view, the roar grew louder. It wasn't just men and boys—there were women and girls as well, maybe more of them than men. The women were smiling and laughing, as though heading out on a gigantic picnic. Some of the crowd stopped to surround the gate at the Everett, others broke off at Canal to cut off entry into the Washington, the Atlantic, and the Pacific mills. Jake followed Angelo toward the bridge across the Merrimack, back to the Wood Mill, which they'd left less than an hour earlier.

"Scab! Scab!" they yelled at anyone trying to muscle his or her way through their midst. "Make a line! Make a line!" someone shouted. Angelo grabbed Jake's arm, and then, grasping hands, the crowd of marchers spread out in a line that kept anyone from crossing the bridge and entering the gates of the Wood.

Jake was watching Angelo, so when the icy water came gushing down on his head, he looked up to see if it could be pouring rain in the middle of January.

"Fire hoses!" Angelo yelled. "They're setting the blasted fire hoses on us!"

Some of the women and girls screamed. They were all soaked through before they could get out of range of the hoses. A few hardy souls, including Angelo, started for the bridge. Jake ran to catch up with him, but then a stream of water hit him in the chest and knocked him flat on his back.

"It's no good!" Angelo yelled over the racket of water and human cries, grabbing Jake's hand and pulling him to his feet. "They break our bones and freeze us to death if we stay. Go home," he said to the departing backs of the workers, and almost to himself. "Yes, go home, it's all right." Then he shouted, though no one on the other side of the bridge could have heard him over the sound made by the torrents of water, "We be back! You see, Mr. Billy Wood. We don't give up!"

It seemed to Jake, shivering in the freezing gray afternoon, that they
had
given up. They'd all run as soon as the water hit them. Not that he had stayed. He wasn't a fool.

"You got more clothes, Jake boy?"

Jake shook his head. "It don't matter."

"You got fire at home?"

"Naw, it don't matter."

"You come to Angelo's and get warm. Can't have you sick. We got too much to do now."

Rosa was sitting quietly at her desk, her eyes on her history book, when the riot bells began to ring. All the children were suddenly roused out of sleep or stupor. The bells did not sound like any they had ever heard; it was as though madmen had been let loose in the city hall tower.

Rosa looked at her teacher, Miss Finch, who was sitting perfectly erect at her desk, her eyes wide like those of an animal who has been startled and is too frightened to flee. Rosa watched as the teacher slowly rose to her feet and walked over to the window. It was grimy and the sill sooty, so she was careful not to touch anything. Then she left the window and came back to the space behind her desk. The shrill blasts of factory whistles pierced through the clang of the city hall bells. Some of the children covered their ears against the racket, but Miss Finch gave a little shake of her head, as though to dismiss both the bells and the whistles.

"Yes. Where were we?" She glanced down at her book. "All right. Who knows who Thomas Jefferson was?"

Only Rosa raised her hand. She raised it up barely halfway, glancing around at her classmates as she did so. Most of their heads were still cocked, as they listened to the strange shrieking and clanging that went on and on. She was instantly ashamed for them—their faces gray with the grime that never seemed to scrub off. Marco Bartolini's nose was running, as usual. When he caught her looking, he dropped his eyes and rubbed his nose across his ragged sleeve. She looked away hastily.

"Hasn't anyone besides Rosa read the assignment?" Miss Finch sighed to indicate how her pupils constantly disappointed her. "All right, Rosa. Tell the others what you know about Thomas Jefferson."

How much should Rosa say? Besides the pages in the textbook, she had read a whole library book about the third president. In the silence, the insistent bells seemed to crash even more threateningly.

"We're waiting, Rosa."

"He—he was the third president of the United States."

"Yes. But before that. What did he author that was important to history?"

The children turned from staring at the window to look at Rosa. She hated to be the only one to answer Miss Finch's questions. But she had to hurry. The bells demanded it.

"The—the—the—"

"No need to stutter, Rosa." The teacher was actually tapping her foot in time with the bells.

"The—the—the Declaration of Independence."

"Very good, Rosa." The teacher turned to the rest of the class. "All the information you need to know about Thomas Jefferson is in the textbook that each of you
should
have read last night."

No! No! No!
The bells accused them.
Help! Help! Help!
The whistles screamed.

"Marco, did you read your assignment?"

He hung his head. With the single exception of Joe O'Brien, everyone, including Rosa, did the same. They knew what was coming next.

"Do you even
own
a textbook, Marco? Brigid? Tony? Pierre? Luigi? Marta?" Each child in turn gave a shake of his or her head, never meeting the teacher's stern gaze.

"Is Rosa Serutti the only person in this class whose parents have realized the importance of buying a history textbook? How many times do I have to repeat myself? It is useless to come to school if your parents do not provide you with textbooks. You need to speak to them about the importance of education. How many of your parents are enrolled in the evening classes?"

No one raised a hand. How could their parents work long hours in the mill and then go to school at night? They were tired all the time as it was. The children—all but Joe o'Brien—sagged into their rigid seats, their heads so low that their chins nearly scraped the splintery desktops. It didn't matter that they'd heard this, or similar lectures, from Miss Finch since September. It still stung as bitterly as the January wind rattling the window of the schoolroom while the tower bell clanged,
Dunce! Dunce! Dunce!

The Khoury brothers had fallen asleep as usual, despite the bells, which eventually stopped, only to be replaced by a shrillness in Miss Finch's usually quiet voice.

"You must go home today and urge your parents not to strike." The lace jabot at her throat bobbed up and down. Rosa watched her, fascinated.

"Do you understand, boys and girls?" The teacher's voice went up several more notes. "I know Mr. Wood personally. A kinder, more compassionate employer you couldn't hope to find. He wants what is best for his workers, believe me. Tell your parents that he was a mill operative himself long ago. Did you know that?"

All the children snapped to attention. The big boss of the American Woolen Company once worked in the mills?

"Yes, not everyone knows this. He started in the mills as a boy, but through hard work and
education
he rose to be the owner of many mills. Do you see what education means, children? Without an education, you'll lose any chance of a life better than the one your parents know."

"I thought, ma'am," said Joe O'Brien, who was both saucy and Irish, "I thought Billy Wood got to be the owner because he married his boss's daughter."

Miss Finch's pale face colored slightly. "Yes, Joseph, that's true. But if Mr. Wood hadn't bettered himself through hard work and education, that never could have happened."

Everyone knew that Mr. Billy Wood had a huge estate in Andover and more cars than he himself could count. Rosa thought a small, clean house with room for a garden would be enough. She didn't want a car. She was afraid of cars. They were fast and reckless and made of cold, unfeeling metal. Mrs. Marino's husband had been killed by one. Mrs. Marino was Mamma's friend and lived just across the alley, and she told the story of her husband's death over and over again, adding more terrifying details each time. A horse and buggy would be nice. But Miss Finch was right. She must get her education or she'd end up in the mills like her big sister, Anna.

Anna didn't care about education the way Rosa did. Rosa was sure of that. When Papa died after the mill fire, the first thing Anna had said to Mamma was: "I'll quit school and go to work." Mamma had tried to protest, saying that Anna wouldn't be fourteen for almost two more years, but what could she do? Without Papa's eight dollars and seventy-five cents a week, there was no way they could live on Mamma's six dollars and twenty-five cents—especially with the new baby coming. So Mamma had paid the man who fixed papers to change Anna's age, and Anna had gone to work. But they still couldn't live on what she and Mamma made together, so Mamma had taken in the Lithuanian family. That wouldn't have been so bad if Granny Jarusalis hadn't snored. Rosa liked Granny, but she hated sleeping with an old Lithuanian woman who snored.

"Some of you children are not listening," Miss Finch was saying. "Don't you understand that the bell you heard earlier was the city riot bell? I'm sure your parents don't want a city under mob rule, but if they listen to the rabble-rousers and go out on strike, that may well happen. And I'm terribly afraid that you children will be the ones who suffer."

Rosa forced herself to keep her head up and listen to the teacher. It was hard to pay attention, especially since breakfast had been only dry bread with a smear of molasses. Granny Jarusalis might give her cabbage soup for dinner, if the old woman could borrow a cabbage leaf or two from one of her friends. Oh, how Rosa longed for Mamma's rigatoni with tomato sauce seasoned with a bit of meat or even the cheese ravioli that Mrs. Marino used to swap on Sundays for some of the rigatoni. Their balconies were so close that Mamma would just lean over and hand her dish to Mrs. Marino, and Mrs. Marino would hand hers back. Sometimes people walking in the alley three floors down would smell the food and look up. "Don'ta worry!" Mrs. Marino would yell. "We don'ta drop on your stupid head. Too precious!"

But there hadn't been any precious rigatoni or ravioli to share for many Sundays now. They'd hardly been able to afford even plain, boiled macaroni since Papa died. If Mamma and Anna went out on strike, there wouldn't be money for bread and molasses. Rosa felt better when she realized that. Mamma wouldn't be so foolish. She loved Anna and Rosa and little Ricci too much to go out on strike.

Rosa came to with a start. She had been daydreaming, blocking out the teacher's words. "I'm sure that you boys and girls, who have studied arithmetic, realize that no one could afford to pay the same wages for less work. You'd lose money—"

"Hear that?" yelled Joe O'Brien right in the middle of Miss Finch's lecture. He ran to the window. Most of the class followed him over, leaving only the Khoury brothers and Rosa at their desks.

"Sit down!" Miss Finch commanded, but no one except Rosa was listening. Joe threw up the window, and a cold blast of wind carried the sounds of shouts and chanting into the schoolroom. At first it was a blur, but then Rosa could make out the words: "Short pay! All out! Short pay! All out!!" over and over again. She now got up and made her way across the room, leaving only the still sleeping Khoury boys at their desks.

She pushed her way to the window and looked down. The crowd marching below seemed immense. She could almost feel the heat of their anger as they shouted in unison. "Short pay! All out!"

Behind the children, Miss Finch fluttered and begged and commanded, but none of them left the window. The bell had warned, but now they knew that in that crowd their world was turning upside-down. "There's my mamma!" Celina Cosa cried. She leaned over the sill and waved. "Mamma! Mamma!
Guarda qui!
Up here!" as though someone from below could have heard a child's voice over the chants of thousands, as the stream of marchers coming up from the mills on the river seemed unending.

"Sit down!" Miss Finch's face was red and blotched, her eyes wide, like a frightened horse.

No one sat down for the length of time it took the line of marchers to pass under the window and around the corner of the street, leaving behind the sound of their defiance. "Short pay! All out!"