"Rosa don' march. She don' like to go out on the street. I gotta drag her to the hall to get soup so she don' starve. No, Rosa stay home. She stay home and study all day long. She got only one book, but she study one book all day long."
Rosa lowered her head. She was suddenly ashamed—too cowardly to march and too cowardly to go to school. What must the teacher think of her?
"Rosa?" The teacher's voice was kinder than Rosa had ever heard it. "How can I help you? I don't want you to fall so far behind. Olga Kronsky is still coming every day She lives near here. Could you walk to school together?"
That was when Mamma dropped her own dynamite. "No," she said. "Rosa no coming to school no more. She go away."
Away? What could Mamma mean?
"We send the children someplace safe." She saw Rosa's look of alarm and patted her arm reassuringly. "The union fix it. So many is sick and hungry. We can't help them here, so we send them away till we win—till we have money for food and coal and new shoes. Our children is very cold, Missa Finch. Very cold."
"Yes," the teacher murmured. "I know." She stood up and put her gloves on. "I'll look for you then, Rosa, when this is all over." She smiled. "I'll miss my best student, though." She went to the door. "Thank you, Mrs. Serutti. I'll see myself out."
They sat there on the cot, listening to the sound of Miss Finch's fine leather shoes on the stairs. They sat there until they heard the heavy front door close. Rosa waited for Mamma to explain, but Mamma just stood up, patted Rosa's head, and started for the kitchen. "I miss my meeting," she said by way of explanation and headed into the next room, leaving the door ajar to let a little heat come into the bedroom.
The Card
"Hey, there, shoe girl."
The girl turned to see who had spoken to her in the crowded hall. There was only one person in the world who would call her "shoe girl," but Jake could tell that she didn't think he was the one. This boy had a scrubbed face and was decently dressed. His hair was a yellowish red, and his eyes were a bright blue. It tickled him to realize that there was nothing familiar about him except the name he had called her.
"Yeah, it's me, from the trash pile, remember?"
She nodded, still uncertain.
"Oh, don't worry. I didn't steal no clothes. O'Reilly caught me in his church and turned me into his good works for the day."
"Father O'Reilly."
"Oh, yeah, I forget, you're one of them papists, too."
The girl drew herself up as tall as possible. "I belong to Holy Rosary parish."
"Sure. The Eye-talian one. That figures.... So, how are you?"
"Fine, thank you."
"No need to be a snip. I'm just here for soup and to warm my butt." He could tell that she was shocked by his language, but he let it pass.
"This is the Eye-talian hall, you know," she said, emphasizing the "I" just as he had.
"Didn't Joe Ettor say we was all one in this strike? What's it matter who feeds me—long as I eat?" He didn't explain that he was planning to follow Mrs. Gurley Flynn from hall to hall. Tonight she was scheduled to be at Chabis Hall. He hadn't seen her yet, just hundreds of Italians milling around, waiting for their soup. Hell's bells, they had a lot of kids, all of them looking half starved.
There was a stir around the doors. She must be here. "See ya," he said to the girl, and he pushed his way toward the entrance. No point in coming if he couldn't be up close. He wanted to be close enough to smell her. She smelled like ... how could he tell, having lived all his life in a shack and a mill? But that day at the train station when she brushed close, he imagined that it must be the way some pretty little flower smelled. It was more intoxicating than Angelo's wine.
But Mrs. Gurley Flynn was not looking at him tonight. There was another young woman with her, and they were busy talking to the people who seemed to be in charge of the hall.
Disappointed, he faded back to where the shoe girl still stood. She was watching Mrs. Gurley Flynn, too, but not happily.
"Where's your ma?" he asked, mostly to have something to say, but also because he was curious. The two times at her flat he'd only seen her and the sister awake. The old snoring woman wasn't her ma, he felt sure. Maybe because he didn't remember his own ma, he was curious to see other people's mas. Were they kind like Mrs. Gurley Flynn, or did they box your ears and scrub your face raw? His own face still stung from the yellow soap in the rectory bath.
The girl didn't answer. He thought she hadn't heard, but then he realized she had deliberately turned away from him. Hell's bells! She was wiping her face, brushing away tears.
"She ain't dead?"
"No—no, she's here. Over there." She pointed to a knot of women at the edge of the crowd surrounding Mrs. Gurley Flynn and her companion. They were all jabbering away.
"Which one is she?"