No, nothing passed as quickly as the Sundays of your childhood. And then she went to school, frightened at first of the sisters, who were stern and forbidding in their black habits. Her small round face was serious above her white middy blouse and navy-blue guimpe. But they taught you the catechism and you made your confirmation and lost your fear as bit by bit you accepted them as your teachers, leading you into a richer Christian life, and the happy Sundays of your childhood fled deeper and deeper into the dim recesses of your mind, until you hardly remembered them any more.
Jennie lay quietly on her sixteen-year-old bed, her ears sharpening to the sounds of the Sunday morning. For a moment, there was only silence, then she heard her mother's shrill voice. "Mr. Denton, for the last time, it's time to get up and go to Mass."
Her father's voice was husky, the words indistinguishable. She could see him in her mind's eyes, lying unshaven and bloated with Saturday-night beer in his long woolen underwear, on the soft, wide bed, burying his face in the big pillow. She heard her mother again. "But I promised Father Hadley ye'd come this Sunday for sure. If ye have no concern for your own soul, at least have some for your wife's and daughter's."
She heard no reply, then the door slammed as her mother retreated to the kitchen. Jennie swung her bare feet onto the floor, searching for her slippers. She found them and stood up, the long white cotton nightgown trailing down to her ankles as she crossed the room.
She came out into the kitchen on her way to the bathroom and her mother turned from the stove. "Ye can wear the new blue bonnet I made for ye to Mass, Jennie darlin'."
"Yes, Mother," she said.
She brushed her teeth carefully, remembering what Sister Philomena had told the class in Hygiene. Circular strokes with the brush, reaching up onto the gums, then down, would remove all the food particles that might cause decay. She examined her teeth carefully in the mirror. She had nice teeth. Clean and white and even.
She liked being clean. Not like many of the girls at Mercy High School, who came from the same poor neighborhood and bathed only once a week, on Saturdays. She took a bath every night – even if she had to heat the water in the kitchen of the old tenement in which they lived.
She looked at her face out of her clear gray eyes and tried to imagine herself in the white cap and uniform of a nurse. She'd have to make up her mind soon. Graduation was next month and it wasn't every student who could get a scholarship to St. Mary's College of Nursing.
The sisters liked her and she'd always received high marks throughout her attendance at Mercy. Besides, Father Hadley had written Mother M. Ernest, commending her for her devout attendance and service to the church, not like so many of the young ladies today, who spent more time in front of a mirror over their make-up than on their knees in church in front of their God. Father Hadley had expressed the hope that the Good Mother would find a way to reward this poor deserving child for her devotion.
The scholarship to St. Mary's was given each year to the one student whose record for religious and scholastic achievements was deemed the most worthy by a committee headed by the Archbishop. This year, it was to be hers, if she decided to become a nurse. This morning, after church, she'd have to present herself to Mother M. Ernest, at the Sister House, to give her answer.
"It is God's mercy you'll be dispensing," Sister Cyril had said, after informing her of the committee's choice. "But you will have to make the decision. It may be that attending the sick and helpless is not your true vocation."
Sister Cyril had looked up at the girl standing quietly in front of her desk. Already, Jennie was tall and slim, with the full body of a woman, and yet there was a quiet innocence in the calm gray eyes that looked back at her. Jennie did not speak. Sister Cyril smiled at her. "You have a week to make up your mind," she said gently. "Go to the Sister House next Sunday after Mass. Mother Mary Ernest will be there to receive your answer."
Her father had cursed angrily when he heard of the scholarship. "What kind of life is that for a child? Cleaning out the bedpans of dirty old men? The next thing you know, they'll talk her into becoming a nun."
He turned violently to her mother. "It's all your doing," he shouted. "You and those priests you listen to. What's so holy about taking a child with the juices of life just beginning to bubble inside of her and locking her away behind the walls of a convent?"
Her mother's face was white. "It's blasphemy you're speaking, Thomas Denton," she said coldly. "If only once you'd come and speak to the good Father Hadley, ye'd learn how wrong ye are. And if our daughter should become a religious, it's the proudest mother in Christendom I'd be. What is wrong in giving your only child as a bride to Christ?"
"Aye," her father said heavily. "But who'll be to blame when the child grows up and finds you've stolen from her the pleasures of being a woman?"
He turned to Jennie and looked down at her. "Jennie Bear," he said softly, "it's not that I object to your becoming a nurse if you want to. It's that I want you to do and be whatever you want to be. Your mother and I, we don't matter. Even what the church wants doesn't matter. It's what you want that does." He sighed. "Do you understand, child?"
Jennie nodded. "I understand, Papa."
"Ye'll not be satisfied till ye see your daughter a whore," her mother suddenly screamed at him.
He turned swiftly. "I'd rather see her a whore of her own free choice," he snapped, "than driven to sainthood."
He looked down at Jennie, his voice soft again. "Do you want to become a nurse, Jennie Bear?"
She looked up at him with her clear gray eyes. "I think so, Papa."
"If it's what you want, Jennie Bear," he said quietly, "then I’ll be content with it."
Her mother looked at him, a quiet triumph in her eyes. "When will ye learn ye cannot fight the Lord, Thomas Denton?"
He started to answer, then shut his lips tightly and strode from the apartment.
Sister Cyril knocked at the heavy oaken door of the study. "Come in," called a strong, clear voice. She opened the door and gestured to Jennie.
Jennie walked into the room hesitantly, Sister Cyril behind her. "This is Jennie Denton, Reverend Mother."
The middle-aged woman in the black garb of the Sisterhood looked up from her desk. There was a half-finished cup of tea by her hand. She studied the girl with curiously bright, questioning eyes. After a moment, she smiled, revealing white, even teeth. "So you're Jennie Denton," she said, holding out her hand.
Jennie curtsied quickly and kissed the ring on the finger of the Reverend Mother. "Yes, Reverend Mother." She straightened up and stood in front of the desk stiffly.
Mother M. Ernest smiled again, a hint of merriment coming into her eyes. "You can relax, child," she said. "I'm not going to eat you."
Jennie smiled awkwardly.
The Reverend Mother raised a questioning eyebrow. "Perhaps you'd like a cup of tea?" she asked. "A cup of tea always makes me feel better."
"That would be very nice," Jennie said stiffly.
The Reverend Mother looked up and nodded at Sister Cyril. "I’ll get it, Reverend Mother," the nun said quickly.
"And another cup for me, please?" Mother M. Ernest turned back to Jennie. "I do love a good cup of tea." She smiled. "And they do have that here. None of those weak tea balls they use in the hospitals; real tea, brewed in a pot the way tea should be. Won't you sit down, child?"
The last came so fast that Jennie wasn't quite sure she'd heard it. "What, ma'am?" she stammered.
"Won't you sit down, child? You don't have to be nervous with me. I want to be your friend."
"Yes, ma'am," Jennie said and sat down, even more nervous than before.
The Reverend Mother looked at her for a few moments. "So you've decided to become a nurse, have you?"
"Yes, Reverend Mother."
Now the Reverend Mother's curiously bright eyes were upon her. "Why?" she asked suddenly.
"Why?" Jennie was surprised at the question. Her eyes fell before the Reverend Mother's gaze.
"Why?" She looked up again, her eyes meeting the Reverend Mother's. "I don't know. I guess I never really thought about it."
"How old are you, child?" the Reverend Mother asked.
"I’ll be seventeen next month, the week before graduation."
"It was always your ambition to be a nurse and help the sick, ever since you were a little child, wasn't it?"
Jennie shook her head. "No," she answered candidly. "I never thought about it much until now."
"Becoming a nurse is very hard work. You'll have very little time to yourself at St. Mary's. You'll work and study all day; at night, you'll live at the school. You'll have only one day off each month to visit your family." The Reverend Mother turned the handle of her cup delicately so that it pointed away from her. "Your boy friend might not like that."
"But I haven't got a boy friend," Jennie said.
"But you came to the junior and senior proms with Michael Halloran," the Reverend Mother said. "And you play tennis with him every Saturday. Isn't he your boy friend?"
Jennie laughed. "No, Reverend Mother. He's not my boy friend, not that way." She laughed again, this time to herself, as she thought of the lanky, gangling youth whose only romantic thoughts were about his backhand. "He's just the best tennis player around, that's all." Then she added, "And someday I'm going to beat him."
"You were captain of the girl's tennis team last year?"
Jennie nodded.
"You won't have time to play tennis at St. Mary's," the Reverend Mother said.
Jennie didn't answer.
"Is there anything you'd rather be than a nurse?"
Jennie thought for a moment. Then she looked up at the Reverend Mother. "I’d like to beat Helen Wills for the U.S. tennis championship."
The Reverend Mother began to laugh. She was still laughing when Sister Cyril came in with the tea. She looked across the desk at the girl. "You'll do," she said. "And I have a feeling you’ll make a very good nurse, too."
3
Tom Denton knew there was something wrong the moment he came up to the window for his pay envelope. Usually, the paymaster was ready with a wisecrack, like did he want him to hold the envelope for his wife so that the Saturday-night beer parlors wouldn't get it? But there was no wisecrack this time, no friendly raillery, which had been a part of their weekly meeting for almost fifteen years. Instead, the paymaster pushed the envelope under the slotted steel bars quickly, his eyes averted and downcast.
Tom stared at him for a moment. He glanced quickly at some of the faces on the line behind him. They knew, too. He could see it from the way they were looking at him. An odd feeling of shame came over him. This couldn't be happening to him. Not after fifteen years. His eyes fell and he walked away from the window, the envelope in his hand.
Nobody had to tell him times were bad. This was 1931 and the evidence was all around him. The families on relief, the bread lines, the endless gray, tired faces of the men who boarded his car every morning.
He was almost out of the barn now. Suddenly, he couldn't wait any longer and he ducked into a dark corner to open the pay envelope. He tore at it with trembling fingers. The first thing that came to his hand was the dreaded green slip.
He stared at it unbelievingly. It must be a mistake. They couldn't mean him. He wasn't a one-year or two-year man, not even a five-year man. He had seniority. Fifteen years. They weren't laying off fifteen-year men. Not yet.
But they were. He squinted at the paper in the dim light. Laid off. What a bitter irony. That was the reason given for all the pay cuts – to prevent layoffs. Even the union had told them that.
He shoved the envelope into his pocket, trying to fight the sudden sick feeling of fear that crawled around in his stomach. What was he to do now? All he knew was the cars. He'd forgotten all about everything else he'd ever done. The only other thing he remembered was working as a hod-carrier when he was young.
He came out of the dark barn, blinking his eyes at the daylight. A group of men were standing there on the sidewalk, their worn blue uniforms purplish in the light. One of them called to him. "You got it, too, Denton?"
Tom looked at him. He nodded. "Yes."
"We did, too," another said. "They're letting out the senior men because we're getting a higher rate. All the new men are being kept on."
"Have you been to the union yet?" Tom asked.
"We've been there and back. The hall is closed. The watchman there says come back on Monday."
"Anybody call Riordan?"
"His phone home don't answer."
"Somebody must know where Riordan is," Tom said. "Let's go to the hall and make the watchman let us in. After all, what do we pay dues for if we can't meet there?"
"That's a good idea, Tom. We can't just let them replace us with fifty-five-centers, no matter what they say."
They began to walk to the union hall, about two blocks from the car barn. Tom strode along silently. In a way, he still couldn't believe it. Ten cents an hour couldn't mean that much to the company. Why, he'd have taken even another cut if they'd asked him. It wasn't right, the way they were doing it. They had to find Riordan. He'd know the answers. He was the union man.
The union hall was dark when they got there and they banged on the door until the old night watchman opened it. "I tol' you fellers Riordan ain't here," he said in an aged, irritated voice.
"Where is Riordan?"
"I don't know," the watchman answered, starting to close the door. "You fellers go home."
Tom put his foot in the door and pushed. The old man went flying backward, stumbling, almost falling. The men surged into the building behind Tom.
"You fellers stay outa here," the old man cried in his querulous voice.
They ignored him and pushed their way into the meeting hall, which was a large room at the end of the corridor. By now, the crowd had swelled to close to thirty men. Once they were in, they stood there uncertainly, not knowing what to do next. They milled around, looking at each other. "Let's go into Riordan's office," Tom suggested. "Maybe we can find out where he is in there."
Riordan's office was a glass-enclosed partition at the end of the meeting hall. They pushed down there but only a few of them were able to squeeze into the tiny cubbyhole. Tom looked down at the organizer's desk. There was a calendar, a green blotter and some pencils on it. He pulled open a drawer, then, one after another, all of them. The only thing he could find were more pencils, and dues blanks and receipts.
The watchman appeared at the back of the hall. "If you fellers don't get outa here," he shouted, "I'm gonna call the cops."
"Go take a shit, old man," a blue-coated conductor shouted back at him.
"Yeah," shouted another. "This is our union. We pay the dues and the rent. We can stay here if we want."
The watchman disappeared back into the corridor. Some of the men looked at Tom. "What do we do now?"
"Maybe we better come back Monday," one of them suggested. "We'll see what Riordan has to say then."
"No," Tom said sharply. "By Monday, nobody will be able to do nothing. We got to get this settled today."
"How?" the man asked.
Tom stood there for a moment, thinking. "The union's the only chance we got. We got to make the union do something for us."
"How can we if Riordan ain't here?"
"Riordan isn't the union," Tom said. "We are. If we can't find him, we got to do it without him." He turned to one of the men. "Patrick, you're on the executive board. What does Riordan usually do in a case like this?"
Patrick took off his cap and scratched at his gray hair. "I dunno," he said thoughtfully. "But I reckon the first thing he'd do would be to call a meetin'."
"O.K." Tom nodded. "You take a bunch of the men back to the barns and tell the day shift to come down here to a meeting right away."
The men moved around excitedly and after a few minutes, several of them left to go back to the car barns. The others stood around, waiting. "If we're to have a meetin'," someone said, "we
gotta have an agenda. They don't have no meetin's without they have an agenda."
"The agenda is, can the company lay us off like this," Tom said.
They nodded agreement. "We got rights."
"This meetin' business is givin' me a awful thirst," another man said. "All this talkin' has dried out me throat somethin' terrible."
"Let's send out for a barrel of beer," a voice yelled from the back.
There was real enthusiasm in the shout of agreement and a collection was quickly taken up. Two men were dispatched on the errand and when they returned, the keg was mounted on a table at the back of the room.
"Now," said one of them, waving his beer glass in front of him, "now we can get down to business!"
The meeting hall was a bedlam of noise and confusion as more than a hundred men milled around, talking and shouting. The first keg of beer had run out long ago. Two new ones rested on the table, pouring forth their refreshment.
Tom pounded on the table with the gavel he'd found in Riordan's desk. "The meeting will now come to order!" he shouted, for the fifth time in as many minutes. He kept pounding on the table until he caught the attention of a few men down at the front.
"Quiet!" one of them bellowed. "Le's hear what good ol' Tom has to say."
The noise subsided to a murmur, then all the men were watching him. Tom waited until it was as quiet as he thought it would get, then he cleared his throat nervously. "We called this meetin' because today the company laid off fifty men an' we couldn't find Riordan to tell us why." He fumbled with the gavel for a moment. "The union, which is supposed to give us protection on our jobs, has now got to act, even if we don't know where Riordan is. The men that were laid off today had seniority an' there's no reason why the company shouldn't take them back."
A roar burst from the crowd.
"While you fellers was drinkin' beer," Tom said, "I looked up the rules in the bylaws printed in my union book, an' it says that a meetin' is entitled to call for a strike vote if more than twenty-five members is present. There's more than twenty-five members here an' I say we should vote a strike by Monday, unless the company takes us back right away."
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