A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [159]
She got a rhythm to her work and it seemed to come easier. One. She set aside the covered wire. And a half. She picked up a new wire and a strip of paper. Two. She moistened the paper. Three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten. The wire was covered. Soon the rhythm became instinctive, she didn’t have to count and it wasn’t necessary to concentrate. Her back relaxed and her shoulder stopped aching. Her mind was freed and she started to figure things out.
“This could be a whole life,” she thought. “You work eight hours a day covering wires to earn money to buy food and to pay for a place to sleep so that you can keep living to come back to cover more wires. Some people are born and kept living just to come to this. Of course, some of these girls will marry; marry men who have the same kind of life. What will they gain? They’ll gain someone to hold conversations within the few hours at night between work and sleep.” But she knew the gain wouldn’t last. She had seen too many working couples who, after the children came and the bills piled up, rarely communicated with each other except in bitter snarls. “These people are caught,” she thought. “And why? Because” (remembering her grandmother’s repeated convictions), “they haven’t got enough education.” Fright grew in Francie. Maybe it would be so that she’d never get to high school; maybe she’d never have more education than she had at that moment. Maybe all her life she’d have to cover wires…cover wires …. One…and a half…two…three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten. The same unreasoning terror came on her that had come when, as an eleven-year-old child, she had seen the old man with the obscene feet in Losher’s Bakery. In her panic, she speeded up her rhythm so that she’d have to concentrate on her work and not have room to think.
“New broom,” observed a finisher cynically.
“Trying to make a hit with the boss,” was the opinion of a pet’ler.
Soon even the speeding up became automatic and again Francie’s mind was free. Covertly, she studied the girls at the long table. There were a dozen of them, Poles and Italians. The youngest looked sixteen and the oldest, thirty, and all were swarthy. For some unaccountable reason, all wore black dresses, evidently not realizing how unbecoming black was to dark skins. Francie was the only one wearing a gingham wash dress and she felt like a silly baby. The sharp-eyed workers noticed her quick stares and retaliated with their own peculiar brand of hazing. The girl at the head of the table started it.
“Somebody at this table is got a dirty face,” she announced. “Not me,” answered the others one by one. When Francie’s turn came they stopped work and waited. Not knowing what to answer, Francie remained silent. “New girl says nothing,” summarized the ringleader. “So she’s got the dirty face.” Francie’s face got hot but she worked faster hoping they’d drop the whole thing.
“Somebody is got a dirty neck.” It started all over again. “Not me,” answered the girls in order. When it came to Francie’s turn, she too said, “Not me.” But instead of appeasing them, it gave them more material to work on.
“New girl says her neck ain’t dirty.”
“She says!”
“How does she know? Can she see her own neck?”
“Would she admit it if it was dirty?”
“They want me to do something,” puzzled Francie. “But what? Do they want me to get mad and curse at them? Do they want me to give up this job? Or do they want to see me cry, the way that little girl did long ago when I watched her clean the blackboard erasers? Whatever they want, I won’t do it!” She bent her head over the wires and made her fingers fly faster.
The tiresome game went on all morning. The only respites were when Mark, the utility boy, came in. Then they let up on Francie a little in order to work on him.
“New girl, watch out for Mark,” they warned her. “He was arrested twice for rape and once for white slavery.”
The accusations were crudely ironical considering the obvious effeminacy of Mark. Francie saw how the unfortunate boy flushed a brick red at each taunt and she