Bread and Roses, Too

Rosa didn't answer. Her mouth was full, but she couldn't help wondering what happened when you ate the food of atheists and anarchists. Was it like taking the host when you were in a state of sin? Did you go to hell?

Rosa lay in bed, unable to sleep, the taste of the thick soup still in her mouth. She should never have gone to the hall. When you're hungry, you can so easily be led astray, and they had been led astray. Even the people who had no desire to strike, who only stayed out of work because their fear of the neighbors was greater than their fear of the mill owners—they had gone to the halls and eaten the food sent from the union members in Boston and Lowell, and they had been warmed and filled and they had forgotten to be wary. She flung herself over in bed. Granny J. grunted. She mustn't wake the old woman up. Mamma would be furious with her. If Granny complained, then Mamma and Anna and Ricci would have to give their bed in the back room to the old lady, and the three of them come and share Rosa's already too small bed. But at least they wouldn't snore, not the way Granny did. Jonas and Kestutis, who shared the narrow cot next to the opposite wall, were sleeping peacefully. It hadn't worried them to eat the food of atheists. Only Rosa. Everyone else had just laughed at her fears.

Granny J. turned over, snatching most of the quilt as she did so. Rosa wanted to pull it back, but she knew she mustn't. What would happen when the J.'s stopped paying rent? They would, of course, when they had no earnings. If Mamma stopped paying the rent, would Mr. Wood throw them out into the snow? No. Mr. Wood had once been a mill worker. He knew how it was. He wouldn't be so cruel.... Or would he?

The questions inside her head were so noisy that she almost didn't hear the sound. Then she did. It was the sound of someone knocking ever so gently on the door. She climbed out of bed and tiptoed to the door and put her ear on the keyhole.

"Hey, shoe girl," a voice whispered. "You awake?"

Rosa nodded.

"I say, girl, you there?"

"Oh. Yes. Is it you?"

"Yeah. Can I come in?"

She turned the key and opened the door a crack. "What are you doing here?"

"Ah, come on," he said. "It's freezing out there. I'll sleep in the kitchen, like before, all right?"

"No, it's not all right," Rosa whispered, looking nervously toward the lump in the bed that was Granny J. "Go home and sleep. I bet your parents don't even know where you are."

"Who you think I'm running from?"

She hadn't thought of that—someone who had to run away from home and not toward it.

He was already pushing past her into the room. "I'll be gone before they're awake," he said as he went through to the kitchen. She closed and locked the front door, not knowing what else to do or how to get rid of him.

She wanted to tell him not to take any bread this time, but how could she? She'd had a big bowl of soup and a huge slice of bread all to herself just a few hours before, and besides, the bread left in the kitchen was hard and moldy. Rosa watched him lie down, curling close to the cold stove, with his back to her. She could hear Anna's coughing from the other room. It sent knives through her own chest. She waited a minute before leaving the kitchen. She quietly shut the kitchen door, and then she leaned against it, her heart beating too fast. Why had she let the boy in? She didn't even know his name—all she knew was that he was a thief who had stolen bread from them the last time she'd felt sorry for him and let him sleep in the kitchen. And he'd do it again. She was sure of that. Well, it

was too late now. She crept back to bed.

Granny was sprawled all over the bed, so Rosa lay stiffly in the narrow space left to her and recited multiplication tables in her head to keep from thinking about all the things that were bombarding her mind.

Why was Mamma shaking her shoulder? It couldn't be morning yet.

"What is it, Mamma?" She spoke without opening her eyes.

"Shh. Hush. It's Anna, and I don't want to wake anyone up." Anna leaned over and whispered in her ear. "Who is that guy in the kitchen?"

Rosa was wide awake now. "What guy?"

"What do you mean, 'What guy?' I got up to get a drink of water and nearly tripped over him. Scared the life out of me. Come on, Rosa. You know who I mean—the boy that smells like a canal, who's lying right now on our kitchen floor."

"Oh, him."

"Yes, him. You let him in?"

She nodded, not daring to look Anna in the face, even in the dark.

"Did you? Then you must know who he is."

"He's—" Oh, dear, she still didn't know his name. "It's uh ... Fred—from school."

"Well get Fred or whatever his name is out of here fast."

"I can't. He's got no place to go. He'd freeze to death outside."