Read Bread and Roses, Too for Free Online Page B

out among them until she got to Jackson Street herself. It was there she finally saw Mamma and Anna ... and yet, it was not Mamma she saw. The woman she saw was drawn up to a height much taller than her squat little mamma. Her face was red with cold and rage, and then she began to laugh
—laugh
—right in the face of one of the Harvard boys the governor had called into service. Even in his new wool militia uniform and with his shiny rifle he looked as frightened as a three-year-old caught in some mischief.
    Finally, he brought down his rifle so the tip of the barrel poked Mamma's shawl. Rosa's hand flew to her mouth. He wouldn't kill her! How could some silly college boy kill her mamma? Still, he was so scared, who could tell what he might do? And then Mamma did a strange thing. She began to sing.
    The boy, his face full of confusion, backed up and let her pass, let all the women pass, so that they began to march like a ragged army down Jackson Street. They gathered in strength as they went, for women were pouring out of every doorway to join them. They took up Mamma's song. Where had the song come from? Where had Mamma learned to sing about workers uniting? The only songs Rosa had ever heard her sing were Italian lullabies and arias from Verdi and Puccini. Those songs had died with Papa. But every woman on the street seemed to know this song. It was not just the Italian women but the Lithuanians and Poles and Syrians and Turks and Jews—all the polyglot female residents of the Plains, singing in many languages but together in one thunderous voice.
    It was not only Mamma's college boy who was scared. The newly arrived militia and weary local police stationed along the route fell back as the crowd of women swelled. There were girl workers like Anna, too, of course, but there were also children smaller than Rosa and babies in their mothers' arms. One of the babies, looking back over its mother's shoulder, stared at Rosa with big brown eyes, as if to say: "Why has my mamma gone mad? Where is she taking me?"
    They were heading toward the common. Rosa, careful not to make herself part of the actual parade, clung to the buildings, somehow compelled to shadow the line of marchers until they reached the common, where they merged with hundreds of people already milling about on the snowy ground.
    Rosa had just found a spot on the edge of the crowd when a band struck up and the mass of people began to sing—not Mamma's song but a different one, this one in English. A thrill went through Rosa's body. How did everyone know the words? How did they know the English? The tune was easy. It was one they sang at school, to Mrs. Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic," but these words were not "Glory! Glory! Hallelujah" but something about solidarity and the union.
    There was an improvised platform at the end of the common closest to Jackson Street. There in the center of a group of men, whom she knew by their worn clothes to be workers, was a stranger with a bright red bow tie sticking out of his overcoat. The crowd roared at the sight of him. "Ettor! Ettor!" they cried. So this was the dangerous Joe Ettor. He seemed hardly threatening to Rosa. He was not so tall as Papa had been, but he did have the same mass of curly dark hair, and he smiled at the marchers as he raised his hands for silence. Immediately, the crowd was still, and Rosa could hear his voice ringing in the cold air.
    "We will march down to the mills," he said. "And they will meet us in force. The governor is so afraid of us that he has called out the militia, including these beardless Harvard boys. But they cannot weave cloth with bayonets!" The crowd roared its approval. He held up his hands again for silence. "My fellow workers, by all means make this strike as peaceful as possible. In the last analysis, all the blood spilled will be your blood. And above all, remember they can defeat us only if they can separate us into nationalities or skills. If we hold together