Bread and Roses, Too by Katherine Paterson Read Free Book Online

no matter what they do or threaten to do, no one can defeat us. Not even the governor of Massachusetts and his thousands of militia men and Harvard boys."
    He spoke more, in languages Rosa could not understand, but others could, for there were more roars of approval. "Division is the surest means to lose this strike. Never forget! Among workers there is only one nationality, one race, one creed. Remember always that you are workers with interests against those of the mill owners. There are but two races: the race of useful members of society and the race of useless ones. Never forget that in our cause solidarity is necessary."
    "Solidarity!" a voice cried out, and the word ricocheted about the great common. "Solidarity forever!" Another word besides "Short pay! All out!" and the words to the songs that everyone in the crowd knew either in English or in their native tongues.
    "Now let's join our brothers and sisters already at the picket lines!" Joe Ettor cried, and the crowd, roaring and singing another new song, began to move out from the common, heading down Jackson toward Canal Street.
"
We shall not be, we shall not be moved.

We shall not be, we shall not be moved.
"
    Mamma and Anna were in the first line of marchers, but they didn't notice Rosa standing at the edge of the common. Someone had given Anna a huge American flag, which she was holding high above her head. Rosa found herself melting into the crowd. There was something burning inside her that wanted to march, that wanted to sing. She wished she had a flag like Anna's to wave high above her head as she walked.
    What would Miss Finch think of her now? Her star pupil caught up in the excitement of the mob, seduced by the outside agitator, the anarchist Ettor? She would be alarmed and deeply disappointed, Rosa knew. But at that moment, the snow falling heavily and covering her hair—she'd forgotten her thin worsted cap—she felt no longer alone but a part of something huge and powerful and right. Yes, at that moment, no one could have persuaded her that what she and the thousands about her were doing was wicked. No. Like Mamma said, it was better to fight and starve than to work and starve.
    And then she saw them at the bottom of the hill: not a single frightened Harvard boy or even the familiar Lawrence policemen but a veritable army of militia, dressed in their heavy blue woolen uniforms and leather boots. No danger that
they
would feel the snow and the cold. Their guns, with the swordlike bayonets attached, were pointed directly at the line of marchers.
    There was a jostling in the crowd, and the singing trailed off, as if the cold steel of the bayonets pointed at their bodies had brought them back from the joy of the parade to the deadly seriousness of the threat they were facing.
    Cries and jeers rose up behind Rosa, and she saw that members of the crowd were breaking away, some heading east toward the Prospect and Everett mills and others west toward the Atlantic and Pacific mills. She could feel the stir about her, rather like the classroom when Miss Finch left the room, and it frightened her. She wanted to get out of the middle of these thousands of restless bodies and go home, but she couldn't move; she was trapped by marchers pressing this way and that about her. She couldn't see over the heads of the people around her, though she could see the top of the flag and knew it meant that Mamma and Anna must be standing right in front of the armed militia. If the crowd pushed too hard...? She wanted to cry out a warning to Mamma, to Anna, to everyone.
What are you doing here? They will kill you. You're nothing to them! Nothing!
But the screams were strangled in her tight throat.
    The singing had stopped entirely. The marchers in front of the Washington Mill were so quiet that Rosa could hear the shouts and screams from far down Canal Street. What was happening there? Then a whisper swept through the crowd.
They've stabbed a boy! They've stabbed a boy!
She