Free Counting on Grace by Elizabeth Winthrop

doing?” shouts French Johnny's voice in my ear and I jump and sure enough, a lap hits an end soon as I take my eye off it and the broken end wraps around the bottom roll. By the time I work it out at least eight ends are down.
    Mamère pushes me off the box and out of the way with one rough hand, throws the shipper handle with the other just as the next scavenger roll down the way spits itself out onto the floor. I stumble backward and my feet slip.
    It's French Johnny who sets me right, one of his big hands curled around each of my shoulders, but I twist away from him soon as I get my balance.
    The whole time my mother is screaming, “Bete,
bete, bete, stupide fille,”
and the way her voice is pitched everybody can hear and they look up as French Johnny walks away with a grin on his face.
    Now we have at least twelve ends flying around on Albert, and my mother has to shut down two other frames so they don't spill over. I piece up, twisting the thread together fast as I can, but she's faster of course and soon as she catches up with me she just shoves me out of the way with her hip. I wipe down the scavenger roll and shove the wad of lint into the pocket of my smock, but she snatches the roll from me and clears it again, which is her way of saying nothing I do helps none. She can't count on me.
    The pain in my chest comes from not breathing ‘cause if I breathe I will cry and I don't never let myself do that.

    At the dinner break, I sit by myself, hunched over my knees. Delia tries to get me to eat, but I shake my head. The pain in my chest has spread to my stomach. Whatever I swallow will come back up, I'm sure of it. Better to stay hungry.
    I see Arthur heading over to my corner, but I give him a stare that makes him veer away.
    I don't look at Mamère, but I can hear Mrs. Trottier talking to her.
    “Don't be so hard on Grace. It's only her third week,” she says, and I want to kill Arthur's mother, grind her upbetween my teeth and spit what's left of her little bony bones out the window. Last thing I need is that woman standing up for me.
    I cringe waiting for Mamère's answer.
    “You pay attention to your own business, madame,” says my mother in a sharp voice. “I train my girls whatever way I please. They learn their jobs right. If Delia hadn't taken so much time piecing up your ends, she would have gotten her own frames months ago.”
    I peek through my fingers to see them glaring at each other, trembling like two dogs ready to fight. Mrs. Trottier backs away first and my mother smiles in a way that says, I won. She always wins her spats with people.
    Only thing bigger and bossier than my mother in the spinning room is the frames.
    When we walk out of the mill that evening, Arthur stays away from me. The soldier story usually takes my mind off my troubles, but I pretend I don't care to hear it tonight.

    It is raining. I tip my head up so the water can run down my throat. Then I take the handkerchief out of my smock and press it to my mouth. Wrong pocket. I put that wad of scavenger roll lint in the wrong pocket and now it's stuck up against my nose. I want to throw the garbage ball of cotton over the border into Massachusetts, as far away from me as ever it can get, but I don't have the strength. I toss it into a nearby bush and for some strange reason that's when thecrying starts. I've been holding those tears down all day long, but it's no use trying to stop them now.
    I lean over to hawk and spit in the bushes. People pass me by, barely noticing, thinking it's only the cotton coming back up the way it does for all of us.

12
NO SAUSAGE
    When Delia sees me coming in the door, she has the sense to keep quiet. Just takes a rag and wipes my face down as if I'm a baby.
    Pépé is humming tonight and that's not good. Whenever he starts singing, it means he's even more out of his head than usual.
    “He was trying to drag the trunk out the kitchen door when I come home from school today,” Henry reports as we