To Make My Bread (31 page)

Emma wanted to give John and Bonnie advice about school, but she knew so little about it herself. How could she tell them what to do, or what not to do? They must learn for themselves. Only she saw that their faces were clean and that John had not got his jeans too dirty again.

“When cold weather comes ye'll both have t' have stockings and shoes, and maybe new clothes, if we can manage,” she told Bonnie. She knew that they would need coats, and had already planned to cut her own down to fit Bonnie. She could wear her shawl to work around her head and over her shoulders.

Ora's young would need more clothes. Esther and Samson were starting in like John and Bonnie. Though they were younger all would be in the same grade at school. John had shot up during the summer. He was very tall for his age, and skinny; not as strong as he would be later on. His tallness was emphasized as he walked off with the other three.

“He looks like a pine tree,' Emma thought, “in the middle of some scrub oaks.”

John's tallness singled him out in the line at school. In the morning when the bell rang all the classes lined up in the school yard, two by two to march into their rooms. Many of the young ones in the first grade were no more than six or seven. There were some older ones, but John was the tallest, and even the first morning the boys in the higher grades called out to him before the teachers came to march in the lines.

Most of these larger boys and girls lived on Strutt Street. This was the short paved street that went by the mill. On this street in the best houses with plastered walls inside, bathrooms, gas to cook with, pianos and fine furniture, lived the superintendent, the overseers and other higher-ups. The other people in the village, those who lived on the muddy streets in the small houses, had named the paved part Strutt Street. The children at school who came from this street were dressed nicely. Even in warm weather they wore shoes and stockings. Their mothers had silk dresses, and sent their washing to the laundry.

The first three grades in school were always full. Most of the children after the third grade, or the fifth at most, went into the mills to do their part in keeping the family. The village was called a “good” one, which meant that not many moved on as they did in other villages. Yet even in this one the lower grades were always changing, and sometimes the teachers had to make up new rolls to call on Monday morning. Bonnie found it a very interesting thing to watch for new faces and look for those who had gone away. From the first she was delighted with school. She couldn't have enough of it, and even in the afternoons she lined up the young ones of Ora's family and the two Mulkey girls and played teacher. She went over her own lessons and learned them better by repetition.

Beyond the third grade the classes thinned out until there were only a few pupils in the upper grades. These upper grades had one teacher for all. The pupils were made up mostly of children from Strutt Street. Naturally the boys of these families, who were expecting to go to high school, were more confident than the others. One of them, Albert Burnett, had called out to John that first morning. John was learning in the schoolroom. But there were things he had to learn outside that Bonnie was spared.

The first grade had recess by itself, or John would have had a worse time during that period, and perhaps, it would have been a good thing, so that the nagging of the bigger boys would have come to some kind of conclusion sooner. As it was the nagging went on from day to day. The boys hid behind fences and trees when school was over and called out at him. In the morning when the line was formed they satisfied themselves with such names as “Baby,” and mimicked a baby crying. But after school they thought up other and more hateful words. “Baby,” they called, “you're losing your diaper,” or: “Doctor, is it a boy or a girl.”

They said that the first day when he was walking back with Bonnie and Ora's young as Emma had made him promise to do. Bonnie cried when she heard the boys. John saw she was going to speak out at them. “Shet up,” he said to her. And after that he came and went by himself. This didn't help. The boys resented John's silence. They wanted to make him cry, or else force him to fight, so there would be a good sound licking.

At last it came to the place where John wanted to stop school. It was not that he was afraid. He was ashamed in the class room of being so big among the others, and of knowing so little. He thought of going to the hills, running away and meeting Granpap. There he would be free and at home. There he could fight on his own ground. He was confused. In the hills families stuck together, but it was man against man. He could not quite make out how to manage with several against him, for the boys who nagged were always together.

And Emma was expecting so much. She had put responsibility on him again. He had to see how hard she worked, and that she stinted to give him and Bonnie what they needed. He would have liked not to see. She had done without herself to buy a coat from the Jew, Sam Reskowitz, who kept a second hand clothing store in the town. His coat was thinned out here and there from use, the wind could come through the worn part; but on quiet sunny days the coat kept him warm and comfortable.

He wished to be a man so that he could get away sometimes as Frank did at night. Frank gave as his reason for going into town that he wanted to get news of Granpap. It was a reasonable and true excuse. But he liked going to the Blind Tiger, the restaurant where the McEacherns took their liquor. There he could have a few drinks and talk with other men, or rather listen, for he talked little himself. One night he found out that Granpap was back at his old job of bringing the liquor down. This was no news to give Emma, so he kept it to himself, only saying that someone had seen Granpap in the hills, and the old man was looking well.

Emma listened to Frank. She was glad to hear of Granpap. Yet during these days she was rather worn out, too tired to think much about his absence. The night shift was a twelve hour shift, from six to six. She took a lunch, and as there was no lunch hour she ate the bread while walking up and down before the frames, watching the spools and bobbins.

The night section boss was not a kind man. Perhaps the night work made him more irritable, yet he wanted the privilege of being as mean as possible, while expecting those working under him to be quiet and even-tempered. He sat near the toilets and frowned when anyone went inside. And he was shameless, for if he thought they were staying too long he called out to them to hurry up in there. He sold a drink that was five cents a bottle and must have made money from the sales, for the drink kept them awake as nothing else could, and many spent all the nickels they could spare or couldn't spare on it.

Emma had heard people say, the last hour of work was the worst on the night shift. She had heard the words, and only learned their meaning when she was there. The eleven hours before were hard but they went by. When the little bit of light showed up in the windows, meaning that daylight was preparing to come, it seemed to make her stiff muscles let down, as if they were lying down like a spoiled baby that won't be picked up until it gets what it wants. Her muscles wanted rest, and they lay down, refusing to work for her. In that last hour or two she had to go on from minute to minute. Her mind had to whip her muscles to make them keep up, as a person would whip a bad child, and the muscles ached under the punishment. Sometimes the person who worked her frames during the day came early, and Emma got off fifteen minutes sooner than she had expected. When that happened she told Ora it seemed the heavens were opened and angels sang around her.

There was not much satisfaction at home. She could not see the young ones as often as she liked. At first she had tried to stay awake in the mornings to talk with Bonnie and John. This meant the loss of two good hours of sleep. Now, on coming home she went to the bed, still warm from Bonnie's sleeping there with Ora's Esther, and fell into it until Bonnie woke her. During the day she must keep herself awake to look after Ora's youngest. When Bonnie got home about two she could sleep again. Then at five she must have supper, get her lunch, and start out for the long night.

Sometimes Emma and Ora talked of going back to the hills. At these times they always remembered the terrible winters, sometimes without food; and the loneliness of living off in a little cabin. They always came back to thinking it was best to stay where they were.

T
HE
insults from the big boys rankled in John. If possible he would have liked to take Granpap's gun after the whole lot. Why they kept at him, he did not know. Sometimes they did let up but were at it again, as bad as ever in a few days.

One day he was kept in by the teacher to learn spelling. He was hungry and on the way home hurried along the old road that was a short cut to the edge of the village. He saw the boys behind him and hurried along expecting them to call out. When he understood that they were trying to overtake him he turned. Now he was going to meet them. His fists were bony and small, and the muscles in his arms had not grown as big as they should. But he could not bring himself to run away. Big Albert was in front. In one way or another Albert had made the other boys in the school respect him. If they didn't respect him as son of the Superintendent, then there were ways to make them fear him. He did not enjoy hurting just for the sake of hurting. In that sense he was not a bully. Just as soon as a boy acknowledged his superiority he was very kind and just.

On this day there were five other boys behind him. They came up to John at the grove of trees that grew in a dip between the road and a field on the other side. Albert took John under the armpits, holding his arms above his head, and the other boys caught his legs up from the ground. The bushes on the slope whipped against John and the briars made long scratches on his face. The blood trickled down and was like sweat in his mouth. He kicked out and saw with pleasure that the boys had to let go. He had plenty of strength in his legs. The boys helped Albert with his head and arms, and let his feet drag.

Behind some bushes at the foot of the slope they laid him flat on the ground, face downward. Boys sat on his legs and two on his body above the waist. Then, carefully, they stripped his jeans, so that he was naked from the waist down. He turned his head in the dirt, and saw a bottle in Albert's hand. Some of it spilled as Albert took out the stopper, and he smelled turpentine. He understood, vaguely, what they had planned to do. He tried to fight again, but the five boys had him flat to the ground. They giggled like girls, high, excited giggles, while Albert leaned over his back.

The burning there was like nothing John had ever felt before. The boys stood up and watched him. He thrashed out with his legs, and fought with his arms, not at the boys, but because the pain was so intense. His eyes were glazed and at first he could not see, but he could hear acutely, and he heard some of them laughing. When their faces became clear, he saw Albert standing at his feet looking down solemnly. The pain gave him strength. He sprang right from the ground on Albert. They came down together. He had expected a fight, but Albert lay still, with blood running from his head.

“Now you've done it,” one of the boys said. “You've killed him.”

The boy ran up the slope and the others followed. John knew they would bring some of the higher-ups. He must get away. He looked for his jeans and saw them sticking out from under Albert's body. As he pulled them out hurriedly he could see that Albert's eyelids moved as if the eyes were going to open.

On the road he remembered the pain from the scalding and how Granpap had found some clay. If he could find some it might cool the pain. It was like a spur in his back. He did not stop running until he was on the road to the mountains. It was only then, when he stopped at a stream that ran over the road, that he remembered he had passed the house where Emma was, and Bonnie and the others. It did not matter that he remembered. He was going on to the hills.

He slept on the side of the narrow road to the mountains two nights. The burn had cooled down, but he was very weak from hunger. On the morning of the third day when he was sitting down to rest as he had to do every few feet, he thought his eyes were not right when he saw Granpap come around a curve sitting high up in the wagon behind a horse. It was just after daybreak and Granpap would have missed him altogether if he had not stood up in the way.

The old man got down from the wagon. John looked as if he was about to fall over. He was pale and haggard. Granpap reached down in his jeans and brought out his bottle. The drink went to the boy's empty stomach and then to his head, so that Granpap had a very drunk boy on his hands, and had to lift him into the wagon seat. All the way down the mountain he held the boy, and wondered what had brought him up there looking like a scarecrow.

When they reached the restaurant, Granpap took John into the kitchen, and left him for a few minutes with Jake, the black cook. Jake was very kind and gave him some hominy and a cup of coffee. Almost immediately John had to go outside and give it all back, as a present to the ground.

That was the way Jake put it. He said John was very kind and generous making a present to the ground. When Granpap came in John tried eating again and this time the hominy stayed down. Granpap was fidgety. He wanted to get back up the mountain. First, he must hear what had brought the boy up to find him. When John told he understood at once. It was bad, of course, that the mill superintendent was also superintendent of schools, but there might be ways to fix that.

“Hit don't do to run away,” Granpap said. Then he noticed that John looked at him, and then looked away, as if he felt something was wrong.

“Hit's best for ye t' stay here,” he repeated. “Ye've got something t' do. I didn't have work, and I had to go where I could find hit. Maybe I'll make something, so we can buy a little place somewheres. You've got school, and after that the mill to work in, or maybe something better.”