“Ernest thinks Thomas Lowry is a good businessman and makes decisions that are good for his company. And Ernest thinks Mr. Lowry has a right to do that. If the street railway company can’t make enough money, all the drivers will lose their jobs.”
“So maybe it’s better if the drivers don’t get a raise,” Rachel said. “That’s better than no job at all.”
“But doesn’t Uncle Ernest think the streetcar company should be fair to the drivers?” Sam asked.
“What if he can’t be fair to the drivers and stay in business at the same time?” Papa countered.
“There must be another way to save money.”
“Electric streetcars will be cheaper—once Mr. Lowry can afford to buy them and put in the electrical lines.”
“Uncle Stanley and Uncle Ernest don’t work for the streetcar company,” Rachel said. “Why would they quarrel over this?”
“I asked myself the same thing,” Papa said. “But Stanley is part of the railroad union, so he has a lot of sympathy for the streetcar drivers and their union.”
“And Ernest is a banker,” Mama said, “so he has sympathy for the businesspeople.”
Rachel nervously took the biscuits out of the oven. Then she sighed in relief. They were a perfect golden brown and had fluffed up nicely.
“Those look absolutely beautiful, Rachel!” Mama said. “I should have let you make biscuits a long time ago.”
“I’ll put them in a basket,” Rachel said, her pride showing in her blue eyes.
Mama put a ladle in the pot of stew on the table, and the family took their seats. Bowing her head, Rachel listened as her father thanked God for the food. Silently, she added her own prayer: Please, God, help Uncle Stanley and Uncle Ernest befriends again.
CHAPTER 2
Who’s Right?
Are you playing baseball today?” Rachel asked Sam the next morning.
“Yep. As soon as I’m done here.” Sam pulled the broom across the linoleum kitchen floor as rapidly as he could.
“What else does Mama want you to do?” Rachel was folding laundry on the kitchen table. She had just brought it in from the clothesline in the backyard.
“Nothing. This is my last chore for the day.”
“Is it a practice or a game?” Rachel asked, smoothing out one of her cotton skirts.
“Practice. We’re getting ready for a game against the Seventh Street team next week.” Sam parked the broom in the corner of the kitchen.
“I hope you hit a home run.”
“Thanks. I’ll be glad just to get a hit.” A few minutes later, Sam was off to the baseball field with his bat propped on his shoulder.
After her brother left and Rachel finished the laundry, she got ready for her friends Janie Lawrence and Colleen Ryan. Janie and Colleen liked to cook as much as Rachel did, and the girls were going to look through recipes.
Rachel, Colleen, and Janie had been friends since they were five years old. They had played with dolls together, and now they were learning to cook together. Colleen was happy-go-lucky and always seemed to have a smile on her face. She liked to eat almost as much as she liked to cook. Janie was more serious. Her mother had been ill, so she had learned to cook in order to help out at home. Rachel liked learning to cook with both her friends.
Rachel pulled a plate from the cabinet and took out the jar of cookies that her mother had helped her make the day before. She put a pretty napkin on the plate and carefully arranged the cookies on the plate. She took three glasses from the cabinet so they could have milk with their cookies.
Just as she was going to go pick some flowers from her mother’s garden, Rachel heard a knock at the door. When she opened it, her friends were standing there, but they did not sound very much like friends.
“Who says I don’t know what I’m talking about?” Colleen said strongly. Rachel had never heard her jolly friend sound so intense.
“If you knew what you were talking about, you wouldn’t say the things you are saying,” Janie retorted.
“Haven’t you heard of free speech? I can say whatever I want to.” Colleen nodded to Rachel and pushed past Janie into the house. Janie followed, barely acknowledging Rachel’s presence.
Rachel closed the door and looked at her friends. This was so unlike them, and she really did not know what to do. “Uh, what’s wrong? Did something happen?” Colleen and Janie just looked at each other.
After what seemed to Rachel like hours, Janie walked over and handed her some papers she had brought. Rachel could see they were recipes that Janie had written out so carefully. Janie headed for the door.
“Janie!” Rachel called. “Aren’t you going to stay? Aren’t we going through recipes?”
Janie sighed. “I want to, but I don’t know if I can.” She looked over at Colleen, who was just standing in the middle of the room, arms folded across her chest. Colleen looked away.
Finally, Rachel could stand it no longer.
“What’s the matter?” Rachel asked.
“Aw, nothing,” Colleen snarled. “Just go look through your recipes.”
“It’s not nothing,” Janie insisted.
“Then what is it?” Rachel asked again. “You’re not acting like it’s nothing.”
“Janie’s father works for the streetcar company,” Colleen answered.
“I know,” Rachel replied. “I’ve ridden in his car lots of times.”
“The union is going to ask for a raise,” Janie said. “My father deserves a better wage. He works hard.”
“I know he works hard,” Rachel said. “Sometimes it’s cold and wet in those cars. And the drivers spend all day out in the weather, no matter how bad it is.”
“And he works long hours. He’s never home for supper. We hardly see him before we go to bed at night.”
“I still don’t understand what you two are arguing about,” Rachel said.
Janie spoke up quickly. “Colleen doesn’t want to admit that people like my father deserve to be paid for their work.”
“He gets paid,” Colleen muttered. “If he doesn’t like his wage, he can find a new job. My father says that the streetcar drivers formed a union so they could bully the owners of the company.”
“That’s not true!” Janie replied. She moved closer to Rachel. “Unions protect the workers. When people stand together, they can do more than when they are alone.”
“That’s a good point,” Rachel said. “It’s like Sam’s team. They all need each other, or they will never be able to beat that Seventh Street team. Let’s go. I have cookies in the kitchen.”
Rachel moved toward the kitchen. Neither Colleen nor Janie showed any sign of moving.
Rachel took a mental inventory of her friends. Colleen’s father worked at the bank where Uncle Ernest worked. They lived in a nice house, and Colleen always had time to play once her chores were done. Janie’s father was a streetcar driver who had to work longer hours to help cover his wife’s medical expenses. Free time for Janie, like this morning, was rare. She had to spend a lot of time working around the house and helping to care for her family.
The girls hardly ever talked about what their parents did for a living. Somehow it had never mattered before. They had been together ever since they started school. They all lived within a few blocks of each other. Why should they worry about how their parents made a living? They had all ridden in the streetcar that Janie Lawrence’s father drove. When they did, they enjoyed calling the driver by name. They were riding with a friend. Why should that change, Rachel wondered, just because of a union?
Rachel always looked forward to any time that she could be with her friends—but not because she wanted to listen to a dispute about unions. She wanted to have cookies with her friends and look through recipes. She remembered what her father had said the night before about her uncle Stanley and uncle Ernest.
“Let’s do what we came here to do,” Rachel said. She hurried past Janie and Colleen and went into the kitchen.
But Jan
ie was not ready. “Unions are not a game,” Janie said. “And Thomas Lowry, the owner of the streetcar company, is not interested in families. He just wants to make money.”
“He has to run a good business,” Colleen said, “or the whole company will go broke. Then no one has a job.”
“He doesn’t have to make himself filthy rich at the expense of all the drivers.”
“Is that what your father says?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s just jealous of Thomas Lowry.” “That’s the nuttiest idea I’ve ever heard.”
Rachel stepped back into the living room. At first Janie and Colleen were both making good points. But now they were sniping at each other. And why did they have to discuss this now, when they were supposed to be having fun doing something they all liked?
“Come on,” Rachel pleaded. “Let’s go. We’re wasting the whole morning.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Colleen walked into the kitchen and stopped in front of Janie. “I see those cookies. Let’s go.”
“Oh, okay. Mother was feeling better this morning, so I could come, but I don’t want to stay too late. Let’s not waste any more time.” Janie looked reluctant, but she joined the other girls in the kitchen.
“Let’s get started.” Rachel put her arms around the shoulders of her friends. She put Janie’s recipes on the table, and Colleen added hers to the collection.
“There’s milk to go with the cookies. Janie, can you get it? I’ve got to go get my recipes.” Rachel left the girls in the kitchen as she went to her room to get the recipes she had collected from her mother and grandmother.
Rachel was surprised that she did not hear a sound as she came back toward the kitchen. One of the things she had always been able to count on was having a good time with her friends. Yet today no familiar laughter came from the kitchen. No talking, either. With dread, she entered the kitchen. Colleen and Janie were sitting at the table just staring at each other. The milk was still in the pitcher, and the cookies hadn’t been touched.
Janie slid her chair back and stood up. “I’d really better leave. I—um—don’t like leaving my mother for very long.” She picked up her papers and started to leave.
Quickly, Colleen picked up her recipes. “Oh, I forgot. I have plans with my family. How could I have forgotten? We’ll have to get together some other time.”
Colleen followed Janie to the front door. Slowly, Rachel joined them. “I wish you didn’t have to leave,” she said as she opened the door. “Please, can’t you stay longer?” Both her friends shook their heads no and started down the sidewalk, Janie a few paces ahead of Colleen.
Rachel closed the door and returned to the kitchen. She sat at the table and looked at the plate of cookies she had so carefully prepared. She poured herself a glass of milk and took a cookie. Rachel leaned her chin on her hand. This was supposed to be a wonderful day—just three friends spending time together doing something they loved. What had gone so wrong? Would their friendship survive?
CHAPTER 3
A Friendship Ends
Monday morning came too soon. All day Sunday, Rachel wondered about Janie and Colleen. How long could they stay mad at each other? Neither of them could change what was happening in the streetcar company. But they could play together, just as they had since they were five years old. Rachel had dreaded Monday morning, when she would have to go to school and see Colleen and Janie.
Mama believed in observing the Sabbath. After church on Sunday, she liked the family to spend the afternoon together in quiet activities. Rachel usually read a book. She was in the middle of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, a Jules Verne novel. Her cousin Miranda had recommended the book to her. But even the fantastic imagination of a science fiction writer like Jules Verne could not distract Rachel. All day she wondered how Janie and Colleen could go from being best friends to enemies. Had they ever really liked each other—the way Rachel liked both of them?
Now Monday morning had come. Rachel and Sam entered the school yard. Rachel was further behind Sam than usual. She had a very small build and short legs, and she nearly always had trouble keeping up with Sam’s long stride. Today she was having even more difficulty keeping up with him. With his book bag over one shoulder, he turned to look at his sister.
“Don’t you feel well, Rachel?” he asked.
“I feel fine,” she muttered.
“You look fine, too,” Sam observed. “But you’re not acting fine. What’s the matter?” “Nothing.”
“I don’t believe that for a minute. You’ve been acting strangely ever since Saturday.” “What do you mean?”
“For one thing, you sat still all the way through church yesterday, even when we sang that hymn that you think has such a funny tune.” Rachel shrugged. “So what?”
“So, I think something’s wrong. Something happened with your friends. That’s when it started.”
Rachel gave in. She knew Sam would keep after her until she told him what was wrong.
“Janie and Colleen had a fight,” Rachel said. “It’s about the unions. They were so mad at each other that they didn’t want to go through recipes.”
Sam glanced across the school yard. “Here comes Janie now. Colleen is right behind her, but they’re not talking to each other.”
“See what I mean? They’ve been best friends since they were little, and now they don’t want to talk to each other.”
“It doesn’t make sense.” Sam sighed.
Rachel shifted her attention to another corner of the school yard. “Who is that new girl over there?”
Sam followed her gaze to a girl Rachel’s age who sat timidly on a bench alone. “Oh, that’s Annalina Borg. Her family just came from Sweden.”
“How do you know them?” Rachel asked.
“Uncle Stanley told me about them. Mr. Borg was looking for a job. Uncle Stanley wanted to hire him, but he doesn’t have any openings right now.”
“So did Mr. Borg find another job?”
Sam shook his head. “I don’t think so. But Uncle Stanley says that Mr. Borg wants Annalina to start right out getting an education. He made sure she would start school right away.”
“I’ll have to be sure to talk to her.”
“Good luck.” Sam chuckled. “She doesn’t speak English.”
“Not any?”
“No. They just arrived from Sweden last week.”
“She’s probably lonely, then. There aren’t any other Swedish children in our school.”
“Most of them don’t live around here. But the Borgs are renting a house in the neighborhood until they find someplace to settle down.”
A door on the front of the school opened, and a teacher came out. She pulled vigorously on the rope that moved the brass bell atop the building. The bell clanked, instantly commanding the attention of every student in the school yard.
Sam laughed. “There’s your teacher. Miss Whittlesey means business today.”
Rachel groaned. “She’ll probably give us a math quiz.”
“I’m glad I’m not in your class.”
Inside the school door, Sam and Rachel separated. There were four different classes in the small building, covering eight grades. Rachel walked down the hall to her classroom. Standing at the back of the classroom, she wished she could choose a new seat. Miss Whittlesey had assigned her a seat behind Janie and across the aisle from Colleen. When the assignments were made, all three girls had been ecstatic. Now, Rachel knew, Colleen and Janie would feel differently. Reluctantly, Rachel took her seat. Janie came in and sat in front of her.
“Hi, Rachel.”
“Hi, Janie.”
Colleen was already sitting across the aisle. Janie did not say a word to her. But Rachel could not ignore Colleen. “Good morning, Colleen,” she said.
“Morning,” Colleen muttered without looking up from her desk.
Miss Whittlesey had threatened to give a math quiz, but she didn’t. Rachel was relieved. She was not sure she would be abl
e to concentrate well enough to take a test, and she dreaded the thought of what might happen between Colleen and Janie during lunch.
Rachel spotted the new girl at the other side of her classroom, but there was no way to talk with her. Finally lunchtime came. The students burst out the doors of the school with their lunch buckets and scattered around the school yard to enjoy the April spring day.
Rachel was one of the last ones out of the building. She looked around, hoping to talk to Annalina—or at least try to. At last she spotted the fair-headed girl sitting on a bench on the far side of the school yard, unpacking her meager lunch.
Rachel approached her. “Hello,” she said brightly.
Annalina looked up, confused. Finally, she forced a smile.
“I know you don’t speak English,” Rachel said, “but I want to be your friend.”
Annalina wrinkled her forehead in concentration. Rachel knew she had not understood anything.
“You have to learn English,” Rachel said, “or you won’t be able to learn anything else at school.”
“English?” Annalina said, finally recognizing a word.
“Yes, English. You must learn.” Rachel sat down on the bench next to Annalina. “When my little sister was learning to talk, my mother said that the most important thing was that we all talk to her a lot. So that’s what I’m going to do with you. I’m just going to talk until you understand.”
Rachel smiled at Annalina, who smiled back blankly.
“I can’t imagine what it must be like not to understand anything around you,” Rachel said, as she unwrapped her sandwich. “But it can’t be very pleasant. You’re going to have to learn very quickly, because you don’t want to be miserable forever.”
Rachel peeled her sandwich apart and held up a slice of Mama’s fresh bread. “Bread,” she said slowly and distinctly. “Bread.”
Annalina looked at the lunch in her lap. She had fruit and a sausage.
“No, you don’t have any bread,” Rachel said. “But you know what bread is. Just say the word.” And she dangled the bread in front of Annalina once more.
“Brud?” Annalina said timidly.
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