"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 b
e 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!"
Not long after the children had reluctantly returned to their seats, the bell rang. They looked now to their teacher for the words of dismissal that would send them out to an hour of freedom, since dinner hour promised very little dinner in any of the tenements these days.
Miss Finch, still red-faced, acted almost as though she had not heard the bell. The children shifted restlessly in their seats. At last, she sighed, looking at them with such disappointment in her eyes that all except Joe O'Brien hung their heads again. "I am not sure it is safe to let you out on the streets." She shuddered. "There is no telling what an angry mob will do. Why, you might be trampled to death—the mood that mob is in!"
They sat there, staring at their desktops, some of them, no doubt, more willing to risk trampling by their loving parents in the streets than to remain imprisoned with their teacher indefinitely. They sat tense and silent, eyes on desks, ears straining in vain to hear the chanting of the strikers. Finally, Miss Finch shook her head. "Dismissed," she said, in the tone of one resigning another to certain ruin.
The children jumped to their feet and jostled each other to get out the door, all but the still sleeping brothers and Rosa. Rosa got her history book—the only one Mamma had been able to afford—out of her desk and started slowly for the door.
"Rosa."
She turned at the sound of her name. Miss Finch was sitting at her desk, straightening books and papers.
"Yes, Miss Finch."
"I have hopes for you, Rosa. You're not like the others. You're bright and ambitious. Don't let anyone lead you astray."
"No, ma'am."
"No matter what your father says. You must stay in school. You understand?"
"He's dead, ma'am," Rosa whispered.
"Sorry?"
"Papa's dead."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I should have known that." She fumbled a bit with some pencils. "But it doesn't change what I'm saying. You mustn't let your mother—"