As they started for the door, Rosa heard one of the Barre men ask Mrs. Gurley Flynn where the children's coats and luggage were.
"They're wearing everything they own," she said.
"Oh," he said. "Poor children. They must be very cold." Rosa flushed with shame. She hated it, this pity from a stranger.
Mamma and Anna and little Ricci went with her all the way to the station, but none of them said much. Little Ricci walked a few steps before begging to be carried. Mamma sighed and picked him up. "It will be good, Rosa, you see. Nice Italian people, lotsa good food, warm house. You'll like, you see." Rosa nodded numbly. Only her sister seemed to sense how very miserable Rosa was. Anna took Rosa's hand and held it tightly, squeezing it a little whenever Mamma tried to say something encouraging.
Rosa almost wished the wretched boy would show up. At least then she'd have someone to travel with. None of the children she knew seemed to be headed for Barre, Vermont. Their parents had heard all about how wonderfully the first group of children were being treated in New York City and clamored for the chance to send their own children there.
At the station, she put her face up for Mamma's kiss, then turned quickly to hide her tears.
"Alla families in Vermont is Italian, Rosa. You feel right at home, right away."
She was so tired of hearing about the good Italians of Barre, Vermont, that it was almost a relief to get on the train. Someone counted heads as they boarded the car. Rosa was number twenty-nine—twenty-nine out of thirty-five headed for the wilds of Vermont. One hundred fifty children were going to New York today. Not that she wanted to go to New York—she didn't want to go anywhere—but when they counted the New York group, she had seen Celina Cosa, not a friend exactly, but at least someone she knew from school.
By the time she got aboard, there were no more places at the windows on the station side. Mamma and Anna would be waving and waving, she knew, but she'd never see them, never get to wave back. She was shuffling toward the rear of the car, her head down, trying to stop the tears, when she spied something. It was a person, somebody curled up under the seat. No one was paying attention. Everyone else was too busy trying to find family and friends on the platform to wave to, so she leaned down. "What are you doing there?" she whispered. She knew, even from the humped back, who it was.
He could hardly turn around in the narrow space. "I got to go to New York," he said hoarsely. "I got to get out of this town."
She slid over him into the seat. She didn't have the heart to tell him that he was on the wrong train. "Why didn't you come to the hall this morning?"
"I couldn't," he croaked. "Pa didn't sign."
"Then get out from under there and get off this train. Now. Before it starts."
"I can't," he said. "You gotta help me. I can't go back there."
She took "back there" to mean Lawrence, the mill, the trash heap.
"You don't have any father," she said accusingly.
"No," he said in a choked voice, "no."
"I thought so. Well, get up and get off the train."
"I can't—really I can't. You got to believe me."
She gave a snort. When had he ever been believable?
"Besides," he said in a wheedling voice, "didn't I promise your ma I'd look after you? Like a brother, I said, remember?"
"Well, thank heavens you're not my brother."
"C'mon, shoe girl, just for today." He was pleading, begging. She didn't know what to make of it. "C'mon. I won't never bother you again. Just don't tell on me till after we get there."
The train gave a whistle and then a tremendous jerk.
"Hurry," she said. "Get off—it's starting."
"I can't," he said.
The train began a slow puffing. It was moving. There was nothing to be done. The wretched boy was headed for Vermont, like it or not.
The children who had been jammed against the windows were beginning to look around for seats. "Quick—get out from under there. Sit up here by me. They already took the count. They may not notice you."
He gave a muffled refusal.
"Well, they'll soon catch on that you don't belong if they find you trying to hide. Get up here. Now. Before everyone settles down."
He slipped out from underneath and slumped into the seat beside her. He seemed to be trying to press his body into the corner. The train was well under way now, and the noise of the engine and the wheels made her lean close so he could hear her.
"Sit up like you belong." He straightened, but only a little. "If anyone asks, you're my brother. Your name is..." she thought a moment. She couldn't call him Ricci, surely. "Your name is Salvatore, okay? Salvatore Serutti."
"I can't hardly say it."
"Oh, don't be such a grump. We'll call you Sal, for short. You can say Sal, can't you?"
He answered with a grunt. Something was wrong, she could sense it. He wouldn't meet her eye, and all his smart-aleck behavior had disappeared.
"What's the matter?" He shook his head. "Come on, I know something's wrong. You can tell me. Nobody will hear over the train." He shook his head again, still not looking at her. They rode on in silence for a while, listening to the clack, clack, clack of the wheels against the rails. She'd never ridden a train before, and oddly enough, she liked it. They chugged past buildings and houses and then, gathering speed, seemed to whiz by the fields beyond the town. The snow out there in the open country was so different from the gray slush in the city, like a pure white wool blanket tucked cozily about the farms.
"Isn't it beautiful?"
He seemed to shake himself out of a stupor. "What you say?"
"The snow out here, the fields, the little houses and barns..."
He glanced out the window and then away. "I's'pose."
"Come on, Sal, what's the matter?"
"My name ain't Sal. That's a girl's name."
She smiled inwardly. She didn't dare let him know how relieved she was to see a bit of his old spirit. "Not in Italian. It's a very good boy's name. Besides, I don't even know your real name. You never told me."
"Don't matter now. I reckon I'm Sal—least till I get to New York."
She felt a pang for the disappointment she was about to deliver. "Sal ... we aren't—we aren't going to New York."
He sat straight up and looked right into her face. "Where the hell are we going?"
"To—to Vermont."
"Hell's bells!" He sagged so low, his spine went almost off the edge of the seat. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I told you to get off the train. Remember? And you wouldn't."
"I thought it was because I didn't have no stinking card."
That had been the reason, but, all the same..."You didn't ask me where the train was going. You were already here when I got on, remember?"
"I seed you, and I seed you was going to get on this train. I know there was two groups, but you said you was going to New York."
Of course, he hadn't been able to read the signs. "That was yesterday. Mamma changed the card last night. She thought a small place would be better for me. Not so scary."
"I don't have no luck, do I? Nothing but stinking bad luck all my stinking life."
"Maybe you'll like it in Vermont."
He gave her a withering look. "I'd sooner go to hell."
"You don't mean that!"
"You don't know me so good. Cor! What am I gonna do?" He was muttering to himself now, the gloom once again enveloping him like a thick fog.
The woman escort was coming down the aisle with slabs of bread and cheese that she was handing out to each child.
Oh, mercy, was she counting? Rosa began to prepare her speech about the brother who had been added at the last minute. But there was no need. The woman just smiled and gave her two slices of bread with cheese.
"For when he wakes up," she said, indicating the boy, who was now leaning against the corner with his eyes closed.
Rosa nodded, trying to smile back. "Thank you," she said in a small voice.
"I ain't hungry," he said, crossing his arms and hugging his chest, his eyes still shut.
"Of course you are. It's bread and cheese. The bread is fresh, too." She took a bite and began to chew elaborately. "Mmm, very good."
He opened an eye and stuck out his hand. She gave him his share of the bread and cheese and watched him take a small bite. Soon he was wolfing it down. He was hungry. Weren't they all?
"Isn't that better? Don't you feel better now you've had something to eat?"
"Don't ask me how I feel, all right?" he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Just leave me alone."
She leaned back against the seat. It had a white piece of cloth just above where she rested her head. It was clean, like the country snow. There was something comforting about someone washing those cloths where people put their heads. Maybe the strange place she was going to would be clean, too. She knew Mamma tried, but how could you ever win against the smoke from the city's chimneys? It was always dirty at home, and clean water was hard to come by.
She didn't try to talk to the boy again. She thought about home, about Mamma—Mamma singing in the street, her voice so pure and strong. Everyone wanted Mamma to lead the singing. She could have been an opera singer if she'd stayed in Italy, Rosa imagined. She said that once to Mamma, who had only laughed. "You need money to be singer, Rosa. You need lesson, you need piano for practice. We don't have no thing like that."
It wasn't fair for some people to have so much, and others not even enough to eat. That was why Mamma was striking. Rosa knew that. But there was no way they could win. They were too weak and the owners too strong. They would starve or freeze long before the owners gave in. And the card that Mamma had signed said: "as long as the strike will last." As long as the strike will last. Mamma and Anna and little Ricci were likely to be dead before it was all over. She could feel the tears gathering, and she squinched her eyes to hold them back. She didn't want that wretched boy to catch her crying, not when she was pretending to be the strong one.
Someone near the front of the car began to sing and was soon joined by many of the children on board:
"We shall not be, we shall not be moved.
We shall not be, we shall not be moved.
Like a tree planted by the water..."
She couldn't help it. All she could hear was Mamma's beautiful voice soaring over everyone else's. The tears she had dammed up behind her eyelids burst through. She buried her face in her hands and tried to stifle the sobs that were shaking her body.
"Hey, hey, shoe girl. Cut it out. Vermont ain't going to be that bad. You said so yourself."
She shook her head. "I'm not crying about Vermont."
"Well, what, then?"
"Nothing." Suddenly, she felt a bit of the lost bravado returning. "None of your business, and my name is Rosa."
"Okay. Have it your way." He slumped back into his corner, once again crossing his arms tightly across his chest and closing his eyes.
The singing went on, from one union song to the next. All the children seemed to know the words. Rosa knew them, too, but her throat was far too tight to join in even if she'd felt like singing.
The big man from Barre called Mr. Broggi stood up to announce that the train was running late. Rosa sighed. The ride had seemed endless once the novelty had worn off. Even the snow-covered mountains, which made Rosa sit up and stare out the window, had lost their enchantment after a while. She wanted to get off the train. If she couldn't go home, she wanted to know what was next—and the long train ride was like traveling through limbo. You weren't anywhere when you were on a train, she decided. You weren't where you had been, and you weren't yet where you were going. You were nowhere. It might be beautiful outside the window—and it was, she had sense enough to realize that—but it wasn't anywhere to her, just a scene passing by that was framed by the train window.
Mr. Broggi stood up again. "We be there soon," he said. "Thank you for your patience. The workers and their families who will be your hosts will all be at the station to meet you. I tell you for sure they're eager as you for this train to arrive. They've made a feast at the hall, so we don't bring more food for the train. There'll be plenty of supper after we get there, I promise, and very warm welcome to Vermont."
The boy muttered something under his breath, which Rosa couldn't hear and probably wouldn't have wanted to.
At last, the train gave an ear-piercing whistle and began to slow down. The children on the station side pressed their faces to the windows for their first glimpse of Barre, Vermont. Instead of endless stretches of giant factories, all Rosa could see from her window were strange horseshoe-shaped buildings with train tracks running right into them. It was almost dusk, but there was enough daylight to see how different this little town was from Lawrence. The snow was still white here and deeper on the rooftops.
"Look! Look!" the children on the station side were calling out. "Look at all the people. It's like a march."
Rosa's heart gave a thump. Not strikes here, too. Surely not. She'd been sent away to get free from strikes.
At the Labor Hall
Jake planned his next moves while still aboard the train. As soon as he got off, he'd disappear into the crowd. Somewhere, somehow, he'd be able to get enough money to buy a ticket to New York City, or Boston at least. He couldn't stay in this dump town, that was certain. Even if they didn't catch on, even if they thought he belonged, he couldn't stay. Someone was sure to find pa's body. Someone was sure to know about him. Even if the police didn't pick him up for murder—his heart almost stopped beating at the thought—even if the police didn't accuse him, they'd know, wouldn't they, that he was at fault. They'd send him to some orphanage—which, he knew, would be worse than prison.
With luck, the weather would stay cold a good while longer. But when spring came, as it always did, a passerby would be sure to smell the corpse. Jake had smelled plenty of rotting animals; he knew the stench. Or maybe some stray dogs would break into the shack.... He nearly vomited at the thought. Oh, God, what was he to do? But first things first. Shake the girl, slip through the mob at the station, and find someplace in this one-horse town to hide until he could make a plan for escape.
They were almost the last of the children off the train, but as soon as he stood on the steps, before he put his first foot on the station platform, he knew he wouldn't try to run that night. The freezing air that hit his face was like none he'd ever felt. Where in the hell was Vermont? At the North pole? Besides, the girl was holding on to his arm for dear life.
The crowd was not nearly the size of the crowd that had greeted Big Bill and beautiful Mrs. Gurley Flynn, but it looked as though it must be most of the town. There were signs, just as though the people were marchers, but the signs were held up and waved by smiling, warmly dressed people, many of whom sported bright red ribbons. Of course, he couldn't read the signs.
"That one says, BENVENUTI." The shoe girl was reading his mind. "Just like the one over there in English, see?" She had let go of his arm and was pointing out the signs in Italian, pretending it was only those that he couldn't read. "They all say, WELCOME or WELCOME, LAWRENCE CHILDREN. Just like the ones in English."
The crowd was being urged back so the children could pass through it directly and into the autos, trucks, and livery wagons that were backed up to the platform.
The girl stiffened and hesitated at the side of the auto they were being ushered toward, but Jake grabbed her arm and pulled her onto the running board and into the back seat. The engine was loud and the fumes smelly, but at least they'd be going in style—wherever they might be headed. It would only be for one night, he promised himself. As soon as he could beg or steal money for a train ticket, he'd b
e gone ... if they didn't catch him first.
The driver turned toward the back seat and smiled warmly. "Buona sera!" he said.
Cor! Was Italian going to be the language in this town? How in the world would he manage? Even to skip town you had to be able to speak to somebody.
"We welcome you to Barre. We are expecting you so many days."
Whew! The man could speak English, which gave Jake some hope for the rest of the town.
"By the door, there, is a blanket if you're cold."
"Grazie," the girl murmured.
Oh, hell. Was she going to go into Italian or was she just showing off? No, she was shivering too hard for that. He took the blanket from the corner of the seat and tucked it around them right up to their chins. The driver smiled and nodded.
"First we have a little welcome parade," he said. "Then we go to Labor Hall for a beeeg feast. You like that?"
"Si," the girl said.
He wished she'd shut up with the Italian. What was she trying to prove? He was thinking up what to say when the doors opposite them opened, and two other children were crowded in beside them on the back seat while another climbed in beside the driver up front.
"Andiamo! Let's go," the driver said, and did something that made the motor cough and the auto jerk forward. The girl gave a little muffled cry.
"It's a motorcar!" The child sitting on the other side of Rosa was exultant.
"Yeah?" Jake muttered. "You ain't never seen one?"
"I never rided in one!" the little boy said.
Neither had Jake, but, cor, the kid's wide-eyed wonder was worse than the shoe girl's terror. It made them all sound like they were just out of steerage. Like they were more backward than the dumb wops in this one-horse town. Oh, Christmas. It hit him. For the rest of the time that he was stuck here, he would be one of those wops just off the boat. Sal—Sal ... hell's bells, he couldn't even say his own stupid name.
The little kid who'd yelled about the motorcar now stood up, pushed his way past Rosa, and was leaning across Jake's knees to stick his head out the opening above the door. "It's a real parade," he said. "We're in a real parade!"
Bread and Roses, Too Page 11
