Counting on Grace Read Online Free PDF Page B

doors.
    I didn't feel so good myself, but I didn't say a word.
    “You look kind of green,” Pierre Gagnon said to me when we filed out.
    “Green Grace, green Grace,” Felix shouted, and everybody called me that for a while. When nobody was looking, I smacked Felix hard on the top of his head. By the time he turned around I was gone. I've got fast feet, fast hands and fast fingers.
    Now I'm really going to need them.

    French Johnny is the first Franco second hand we ever had in the mill. Mr. Wilson, the overseer, is an English man from England and he wrinkles up his nose whenever French Johnny is near like he might catch something bad from him. Mamère says Mr. Wilson wanted another one of his sons to get the job as second hand, but the boy hated the mill so much, he run off and joined the army. Nobody else around who could do the job so the superintendent told Mr. Wilson he had to hire the Frenchman.
    French Johnny don't have an office, but he has a cornerof the spinning room and even though it's got no walls, we all know not to go near there unless we're invited.
    When he sees Mamère waiting with me, he finishes fastening on his white apron and straightens that bow tie. It looks kind of puny flopping around next to French Johnny's big thick neck, but he's proud to wear it ‘cause then everybody knows he's second hand, even strangers coming into the mill. When he's done making us wait, he nods for us to take two steps into his area.
    “My girl is here to doff,” Mamère says.
    “Got her papers?”
    “Of course,” says my mother, and hands him a piece of paper with some kind of seal on it. I stand on my tiptoes to look. It must have been hidden at the very bottom of the trunk.
    French Johnny takes a long time. He reads pretty slow. “Says her name is Claire.”
    “Grace is her middle name. Claire after her grandmother.”
    Claire, I'm wondering. “Mamère, I never—”
    My mother steps on my foot and goes on smiling up at French Johnny. He grins.
    “Your girl is a talker. Just ask Arthur,” he says with a nod over his shoulder at Mrs. Trottier's frame.
    “Don't I know,” says my mother. She lifts her boot to test if I'm going to keep quiet now. My bare toes are throbbing.
    “I didn't tell you where Arthur was hiding,” I blurt out, and down comes the boot. I yelp.
    “Hope she's as quick with her fingers as she is with her mouth,” says French Johnny. He's looking right at my mother.
    “Look how Delia's done,” says Mamère. “Forcier women are born to spin.”
    “And sing?” he asks.
    Mamère shrugs, but her eyes sparkle.
    In the space between them, I can see Arthur piecing up ends as fast as he can. But he's too late. A scavenger roll's already clattered to the floor, which means his threads are breaking all up and down the frame. They're going to have to shut down the machine to clean up the mess.
    Even before he turns around, French Johnny knows what's happened. His ears are always cocked to the frames. When one of them goes down, it might as well be one of his children crying out for something.
    “Two weeks’ learner's pay starting today,” he calls back over his shoulder as he goes to check Mrs. Trottier's frame.
    I'm going to work. Right now.
    “Arthur's got slow fingers,” says Mamère. “Must run in the family. No wonder they only cover the two frames.”
    She is walking me toward her own six. Delia's already starting them up.
    “Mamère, who's Claire?” I shout.
    Mamère knows how to tilt her head and pitch her voice so I can hear her above the hum and buzz of the spindles. “The baby girl that died.”
    I feel a jolt in my stomach.
    “When?”
    “Fourteen years ago.”
    “You never told me.”
    She shrugs. “You don't count on keeping your children till they turn ten. No point. My mother lost four.”
    “What did the baby die from?”
    “Fever. Never knew the cause. Little poorly thing right from the beginning. No use crying about that.”
    She says all this while marching