Orphan #8 Read Free Page A

skipped into the front room, yanked open a drawer in the dresser she and Sam shared, pulled stockings up her legs and a jumper over her head.
    Visha smiled at her plan, then hesitated. Harry had told her he didn’t want her coming to the factory. “A cutter is above the operators, Visha, you know that,” he’d explained. “I got to keep my respect. I can’t stop work just to show off my pretty wife.” But after last night, and this morning in the bedroom, wouldn’t he be happy to see her?
    “So, Rachel,” she said, buckling the girl’s shoes, “you’ll be good?”
    “Yes, Mama, I promise.”
    “All right, then, we’ll bring Papa his lunch, and we’ll do our shopping on the way home.” The factory was a good walk from their tenement—Harry took the streetcar in bad weather—but today was a fine morning that promised winter was over for good. Visha held tight to Rachel’s hand as they pushed their way through the people crowding up to the pushcarts. They turned the corner and waited for the streetcar to pass, its hook sparking and snapping along the wire above. Crossing Broad Street, Visha lifted Rachel over a pile of horse droppings, then pulled her close as a delivery truck rumbled by, its big rubber tires taller than her little girl. Eventually Visha pointed to a brick building much bigger than their tenement. “There it is.” They hurried across the street as the policeman at the intersection whistled for traffic along Broadway to stop.
    In the building’s lobby, Visha led Rachel to a wide door and stood still in front of it. “We have to take the elevator,” she explained. The door opened, sliding sideways, revealing a young man inside. Made to haul freight and workers by the dozen, the elevator car was bigger than Visha’s kitchen.
    “What floor?” he asked as they stepped in.
    “Goldman’s Shirtwaist.”
    “Factory or offices?”
    “Factory.”
    “They’re on seven.” The young man pulled the door closed and the elevator began to tremble and shake. Rachel let out a little cry.
    “First time in an elevator?” he asked. Rachel looked at Visha, who nodded for her. “Well, you did good!” The car gave a last shudder. “Goldman’s.”
    Visha led Rachel into the din of the factory. The open floor was punctuated by iron poles that reached up to the ceiling. Without walls to block the big windows, the space was bright, dust and threads floating through streaks of sunlight. Long tables stretched across the floor, one sewing machine yoked to the next, at each a woman hunched over her work. Runners were moving around the factory, delivering pieces of cloth to the operators and picking up the baskets of finished goods at their feet. In the corner, some little girls sat on the floor, the younger ones threading needles and the older ones, eleven or twelve, sewing buttons onto the gauzy blouses piled around them.
    The machines clattered and buzzed so loudly Visha had to shout in Rachel’s ear. “There’s Papa!” He was standing at the cutting table, his back to them. Above his head, pattern pieces edged in metal hung from the ceiling like peeled skin pressed flat. Rachel leaned forward, ready to dash at him, but Visha kept hold of her hand. “He’s cutting! The knives are sharp, we can’t surprise him.” Rachel shrank back; she’d already caused trouble once that morning. Together, they walked carefully past the sewing machines to the cutting table.
    Harry looked around and saw them coming. His eyes darted over Visha’s shoulder to one of the operators, a pretty girl with alace collar buttoned up her neck. She met his gaze, hands frozen at the machine, her cheeks gone white. Seeing he’d put the knife down, Visha let go of Rachel’s hand. She ran a few steps and jumped into her father’s arms. He picked her up absently, watching the girl stand up from her machine. Moving as fast as she could down the crowded row, the girl ran across the factory floor and disappeared behind a door,