But it wasn't Mr. Giovannitti she was enthusing about now. Someone new was coming that night on the train. Someone more important than either Ettor or Giovannitti. Someone, it seemed, more important than the Holy Father, the pope. From the sound of it, more important that our Lord himself.
Rosa plunked down on the edge of her bed and took off her sodden shoes. Her feet were freezing. She rubbed her toes to try to get the circulation going. What she wouldn't give for a new pair of shoes! I'd sell my soul, she thought and was immediately seized with panic. No, no, she hadn't meant that!
"Rosa? Is that you?" At least Mamma noticed she was home. Sometimes during the past week, Rosa had wondered if Mamma even knew she was alive—or cared. "Rosa, come here. We need some good schoolgirl English." Reluctantly, Rosa stood up. The floor was cold under her bare, aching feet. "Come on, quick. We need you." Then to the others, "Rosa write good as schoolteacher, eh, Rosa?" Rosa blushed to hear Mamma bragging.
"Rosina, bambina! Coma here!" Mrs. Marino grabbed Rosa to her bosom and kissed her on both cheeks. "Growing up, you are. What grade you go to now?"
"Sixth," Rosa mumbled, embarrassed by the display.
"What she say?" Mrs. Marino asked. "I don'ta hear so good. Too much banging in the mill."
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"Six," said Mamma loudly. "First in her class, too."
"That'sa fine girl," Mrs. Marino said, beaming at Rosa and kissing her again soundly. "Now, now, come, come, you sit." She turned to the women occupying the two chairs. "Up, up. Give our schoolgirl a chair." Both women stood. "No, no, not you, Mrs. Petrovsky. You got the bad legs." Mrs. Petrovsky sat down again. "Here, Rosa, right here." She put her hands on Rosa's shoulders and pushed her down on the chair nearer the table.
In front of where Rosa sat was a large white rectangle of pasteboard. Beside the pasteboard was a bottle of ink—her ink, Rosa noted, feeling a twinge of resentment that someone had dared raid her precious school supplies—and a brush about an inch wide.
"Okay," said Mrs. Marino. "You see, we got to make a beeeeeeg sign for tonight to take to da train station. It got to be good message in vera nice writing. We need you, smart girl, to do it for us, okay?"
Should she tell Mrs. Marino and the others that she hated the strike? That she wanted no part of making a beeeeeeg sign for it? She should, but she knew she wouldn't. She was such a coward, and Mamma had bragged, so all she said was, "What do you want the sign to say?"
"We thinking. We thinking. Something vera good." All eyes were on Mrs. Marino. Everyone else was quiet. It was a solemn moment. "Okay. Now, you see they give one piece only. So only one sign. So gotta be really, really good. The best sign in parade, eh?"
All the women murmured agreement. Yes, yes, the best sign.
Mrs. Marino continued. "We want Mr. Big Bill Haywood see our sign soon he step off the train. We want alla newspaperman from big city New York, from Boston, see our sign." She leaned so close to Rosa that Rosa could smell the old sweat clinging to her dress. "Now, Rosa, you got to write vera big, vera nice letters, so Mr. Big Bill Haywood read them even from train window, right? So he know we is somebody even before he get off the train, okay?"
Rosa nodded. What else was she to do?
"Now, ladies, what we say on our sign?"
For a moment, they were startled. Wasn't it Mrs. Marino's job to come up with all the big ideas? "We say," said Mrs. Jarusalis, hesitantly, one eye on Mrs. Marino, "we say, 'We want bread.' Dat's number one, okay? We gotta have bread."
"Si, si," said Mrs. Marino, plainly disappointed. "But is not good enough. Everyone write that. Is nobody don'ta want bread."
"'We want bread' is goot sign, is true sign," Mrs. Petrovsky protested shyly. The others murmured in agreement, but Mrs. Marino pinned Rosa's right wrist to the table, lest she think the matter was settled and begin to write too soon.
Then Rosa felt a familiar hand rest lightly on her hair and begin to stroke it. She looked up into Mamma's face. The room was silent, watching. Mamma played with a curl on Rosa's shoulder.
"I think," she began quietly, "I think we want ... not just bread for our bellies. We want more than only bread. We want food for our hearts, our souls. We want—how to say it? We want, you know—Puccini music.... We want for our beautiful children some beauty." She leaned over and kissed the curl on her finger. "We want roses...."
There was a murmur while Mamma's words were interpreted for the non-English speakers. Then a ripple of sighs as each understood. Now all the women, even Mrs. Marino, were looking at Mamma with something like awe in their eyes.
Then Anna said, "That's beautiful, Mamma, but it's much too long for our little sign."
Mamma shook her head, as though her mind was coming back from a countryside beyond Naples, where she remembered beauty. "Si, si, too long, but Rosa fix it, eh, Rosa?"
Mrs. Marino loosened her grip on Rosa's wrist, and Rosa picked up the brush and reached toward the ink pot. All the women leaned toward the table. She could hear their noisy breathing and smell their fetid clothing.
"No, no," Mrs. Marino shouted, spreading her arms wide. "Back, back! Give her room. Don'ta touch the table! No one!" They obeyed. Even Mamma stepped back.
Rosa dipped the brush and carefully wiped the excess ink on the rim of the pot. She took a deep breath, which was echoed through the kitchen and held, as she put the brush down on the white pasteboard and began to form the first words, the lettering so clean that even Miss Finch would have been forced to admire it.
WE WANT BREAD, she wrote on the first line. Everyone who could read English nodded and murmured the words to the others. Yes, yes, of course they wanted bread.
AND ROSES TOO