Counting on Grace (7 page)

“Too bad about your book,” I whisper to Arthur.

“He won't give it back. French Johnny don't like me.”

“Bet I know where it is.”

“How come?”

“I just know where he keeps his things.” I know lots more about the mill than Arthur does. He never pays attention to nothing but his reading. “I can get your book back,” I say before I think.

“Will you do it?” he asks.

“If you stop calling me tattle. It wasn't me who told French Johnny where to find you. It was Madame Boucher.”

“But he followed you down the path. If it wasn't for you, I'd be gone by now. Across the border.”

I shrug and move up to the next roller. I don't want to get his book back anyway. I don't even bother telling him how stupid he is about borders between the states.

You can't keep trying to be friends with a stubborn person like Arthur.

Suddenly there is his face again right across from me.

“Wonder what would happen if you put your fingers in here when the frames are running.” He worms one chubby finger around the bottom of a spindle. Then he adds the second finger. There's no room to poke in a third.

“It would hurt you bad,” I say. “It would gobble up your whole arm.”

“Bet it would just hurt your fingers, maybe your hand a little.”

“Why do that?” I ask. “That would be stupid.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

Arthur is a strange one. I move again. My hands are full of grease now. The machines smell like a herd of old goats. I want to pinch my nose so I can get away from that smell, but then my fingers would carry the grease to my face. Wish there had been more to eat at dinnertime. My stomach is jumping over itself.

“All right,” Arthur says. “I'll stop.”

“You'll stop what?”

“I'll stop calling you names if you get my book back.”

Why'd I promise that? I don't want to put myself on the wrong side of French Johnny. But I never go back on my word.

“One more thing,” I say. “I want to know what's happening to the soldier. In the story.”

“Deal.”

“Deal.” I swallow hard. How am I going to do this?

Soon as the bell rings I scoot down to the far end of the frame out of sight of my mother. She's busy anyway, helping Delia get her frames set for Monday morning. The new spinners are given the oldest frames in the room, the ones that make the most trouble. And they don't have doffers working for them. Delia will be running her legs off to keep up.

I stand over by the wall out of sight while the women stream past, hurrying toward the door. Most of the doffers are long gone already. Nobody wants to hang around the mill on a Saturday afternoon.

Arthur sees me hiding, but he don't let on.

“Where's Grace?” my mother asks him.

“She went on out,” he says.

“Good girl,” Mamère says. “She's picking up supplies from the store.” My mother tucked a list in my pocket this morning. It is still there under my kerchief.

Once they pass out of sight, the spinning room goes quiet.

I didn't see French Johnny leave, but I don't hear him anywhere around. I skip along the back of the frames looking for him down each row but no sign. He must be talking to Mr. Wilson in his office on the floor below.

I sneak down to French Johnny's corner. His apron is hanging on a hook, which means he's probably left. If I don't hurry up and get out, they'll lock the gates on me. Last place I want to spend the night is the spinning room, where I'm going to be living every waking hour from this day forward. That's the way Père Alain talks when he prays.

There it is. Sitting right up on the windowsill. French Johnny is no reader so he's got no reason to take it home with him.

My hand closes around the book. I can see the place where Arthur folded the corner with an oily finger just before French Johnny took it away. He's almost halfway through. I skip back to the last line I ever read in school. The part about the great affairs of the earth.

I start reading again. My eyes jump right over the big words ‘cause stopping to puzzle on them makes you miss out on the story. The boy dreamed of battles. But he never really thought he'd be fighting himself. I dreamed of the mill too. I never thought it would come so quick.

Suddenly, I feel a step behind me and French Johnny's hand comes down heavy on my shoulder. Stupid me. I forgot how quickly and quietly he can move.

I try to twist away, but he holds me fast.

“What are you doing, girl?”

“Getting Arthur's book for him.”

“Looks like you was reading it.”

“I can read as good as him.” Well, almost.

“Who says I want to give that boy his book?”

“He won't read in the mill again, he told me.” It's only a little lie.

“I'm not sure of anything with him. Or you either. You don't come near my office without my permission, you hear?”

I nod. Some office, I think.

“You sing as good as your mother?”

Now what kind of question is that? “No.”

“No, sir.”

“No, sir.”

“But you know how to dance.”

“Everybody dances,” I say.

“Not in the mill, they don't. I seen Delia training you and those feet of yours don't ever stop.”

First Miss Lesley, then Delia, now French Johnny.

“Don't people got better things to do than watch my feet?” I ask.

He bursts out laughing. “You're a funny one.
Go
on, take the boy's book,” he says, and squeezes my shoulder one more time with those big fingers of his. He's strong enough to crunch my bones in two if he had a mind. But I think he's trying to be nice. He's just a big clumsy bear of a man.

Soon as he lets go, I hug the book against my chest and run as fast as I can.

“You tell that boy he better not bring that book in here
again,” he shouts, but I twist down the stairs and across the yard without answering him.

Arthur is waiting for me on the other side of the gates. “They'll be locking up soon,” he calls. “Did you get it?”

I hold it up to show him, but I keep running, my bare feet picking their way as best they can between the stones.

“Give it here,” he cries, starting up after me.

“Come ‘n’ get it,” I yell back over my shoulder. I don't know why I'm fooling him, but suddenly I want the feel of the wind blowing past me. I want to brush away the weight of French Johnny's hand on my shoulder and I want to get in all the running I can now I got the chance.

Arthur don't run as well as I do. He don't get much practice at it. I lead him down along the road to the railroad tracks, dodging a wagon delivering flour to the store and a crowd of younger kids. They turn right around and start chasing me too. My feet are getting tired, but I'm not letting them catch me now.

In one jump I'm across the southbound tracks, and then I stop ‘cause the shake and rattle is coming up through my feet first and then the hot metal breath of the engine is blowing on me and Arthur shouting behind to go, go and I jump over the second set of tracks. The sudden whistling screech of the train knocks me off my feet and down the gravelly slope on the other side.

Then just as quick it seems the train is rattling away again and they're all around me, Arthur and the kids.

“Is she hurt?” someone calls in a low voice from the back of the crowd.

“I think she's dead,” says someone else.

I could be, I guess.

“Just like Mr. Dupree's brother,” says Dougie. He leans in. His nasty mouth is so close his spit sprays my cheek. “You dead?”

I'm not. My heart is hammering inside. I pretend to be taking my time while they all stand in a huddle, looking for blood. Then with no warning, I roll away and take off again ‘cause I don't want them to see how scared I am and how close it was. I hear their cries right behind. They are spitting mad now. But somehow my legs keep on carrying me.

I duck down the side path by the school. The book is still high in the air above my head when somebody snatches it out of my hand. My feet shoot forward and I slide down on my backside. I get up slowly, rubbing the place on my leg where a sharp rock poked itself through my smock.

“Where do you think you're going with this?” asks Miss Lesley. She is standing on the front porch of the school, leafing through the book as if she just found it on the railing. I don't answer. I'm still catching my breath, waiting for my heart to stop making such a racket. “Can it be that Miss Grace has decided to be a reader instead of a mill rat?”

“It's mine,” Arthur cries. “Grace stole it from me.”

“I did not,” I yell. “I stole it back for you. Arthur got caught reading in the mill. Besides, it's not your book anyway. It belongs to the school.”

“In truth, it belongs to me,” says Miss Lesley, still flipping the pages.

“Grace almost got hit by the train,” Norma says. The others are gathered around now, half of them leaning over to catch their breath.

“Is that so, Grace?” Miss Lesley is staring at me now, the book slack in her hands.

I shrug. “I knew it was coming.”

Her eyes dig into me so I have to look down quicker than I want to.

The rest of the kids start slinking away. Nobody wants to tangle with the teacher more than they have to. That leaves me and Arthur, glaring at each other. Funny. I almost got killed by a train, but he's the one who's still panting.

“Those trains are dangerous, Grace. And I told you not to take chances reading in the mill,” she says to Arthur.

“I only do it during the breaks.”

“Having the book in there distracts you,” she says. “You have to pay attention to your work.”

He shrugs.

When have they done all this talking together, I wonder.

“And how are you, Grace?”

“I'm fine,” I say, but my voice sounds too loud for some reason.

“Delia's moved to her own frames?”

“Day after tomorrow.”

“You on learner's pay for a month?”

“Two weeks, maybe more, depending.”

Miss Lesley knows more about the mill than she lets on. “And I wonder what your mother used for papers. Bought them, I expect.”

“She did not,” I shout. “We had …” My voice runs out. I don't want to tell her about the sister who died fourteen years ago. Besides, Arthur is standing there listening.

“You had what?” she asks. Her voice is softer.

“I'm a fast learner,” I say, turning my head away. “Soon I'll be able to doff quick as Delia.”

“Using your left hand?”

When I wrote my letters for Miss Lesley, she made me switch hands. She said long as I wrote with my left hand, my words would lean the wrong way. With Miss Lesley there's always a right way and a wrong way to do things.

I told her she could tilt her head over to the side so my letters would look straight to her. I told her people and letters can't necessarily sit still or stand the way she wants them to.

“My right hand's in doffing school,” I say smartly. Looks like her mouth starts to turn up a little, but she stops it just in time.

“At least you don't have to sit still anymore. I'm sure those frames keep you hopping.” She snaps the book shut and hands it over my head to Arthur. “Tomorrow then?” she says. I turn around just in time to see him nod.

Then he's gone, ducked down the river path, and she's back inside the schoolroom with the door closed. I'm still standing there, but they've both slid away with no extra sound.

My legs start shaking something fierce. I sink down to the ground and sit there, my back against the wall of the
school. Suddenly, the train is breathing down my neck again and I shut my eyes to push the picture away.

When I get home, Mamère is angry that I've forgotten to go to the store, but I only half hear what she is saying.

What are Arthur and Miss Lesley doing tomorrow, I wonder later when I'm sewing up the rip in my smock.

Mass starts at nine a.m. sharp. Père Alain glares at you if you come in late. Mamère goes early to loosen up her singing voice. Delia makes sure that Henry and me are dressed proper.

My Sunday dress used to be Delia's. It's worn shiny in spots and I'm sick of its pattern and the bow at my neck, tighter now since I've been wearing it three years.

Henry puts on the Sunday shoes passed on by Madame Senay when Felix got too big for them. They've been worn by so many kids that the backs are broken down and no matter how much Pépé shines them, those old shoes make us look poor. Mamère hates that. One of the first things we're going to buy when we pay off the store bill is new shoes for Henry. That way he won't always be trying to hide behind me when we climb the stairs to the room above the store.

The mill owners charge us fifty dollars’ rent a year for
this room. They like big Catholic families ‘cause we give them lots of workers all in one package. There are so many of us now that anybody who comes late has to sit out on the landing and listen to Mass through the open door.

We are building our own church in this town, but so far, we've got nothing but one big hole that fills up with snow every winter. Nobody's making extra pennies to throw in the collection basket on Sundays. Even Père Alain has to chop wood for the farmers just to make enough money to feed himself.