“He’s a’growin’ just fine. Heard about Miss Adams. Real sorry to hear she’s passed. She sewed the baby a fine layette before his birth. Sorry I couldn’t attend the funeral, but the Company bosses wouldn’t have let me off anyway.”
I picked at lint on my coat, feeling guilty no one had because I didn’t run into town and announce it.
Bonnie took off her helmet and tossed it onto the porch boards in back of her.
I drew in a sharp breath when I saw all her beautiful hair had been cut into a boy’s cut. But Bonnie kept pulling out books and reading material like she hadn’t noticed my surprise.
She lifted up another book, Hitty, Her First Hundred Years, by Rachel Field and illustrator Dorothy Lathrop, and pressed it to her chest, smiling. “I ’member Book Woman bringing this to the schoolhouse. Your mama read it to the class a lot of times. It was my favorite.”
“That little wooden doll sure got around,” I said, trying not to stare but fondly remembering Mama holding me in her lap and reading it to me many times.
“’Member Hitty meeting Charles Dickens?” Bonnie lit another cigarette. “Oh! And the time she snuck out to go to a concert with a boy? Reckon, Book Woman reading you all the stories is why you’re a smart book woman today.” She looked out into the brown bare yard stitched with cowslips and dandelions, twisting her small, gold wedding band around her finger.
I nodded weakly, thinking about Mama.
Bonnie rummaged through the bag, looking for other reads as she spoke quietly. “Some of the miners did it.” She grabbed a fistful of short hair from her head and let out a long sigh. “A few of ’em are mean like that. They sheared off my hair today after one of their roof jacks blew out last week. Said it was bad luck having a female down in the mine and next time they’d tar me.”
She pulled out a pamphlet from the health department, set it atop of Field’s book and another book called The English Teacher. “They dragged me back into the dark belly down there, wrestled me to the ground. Tried to fight ’em, but there were too many. See?” She pulled down the collar of her stained shirt revealing scratches and bruises on her neck and chest. “One of ’em stuffed the cut locks into my mouth to keep me from screaming, nearly choking me to death. Lucky it was only a haircut. They said next time I’d lose worse.”
Gasping, I shook my head in dismay, cursing under my breath. “I should go get the nurse.”
Bonnie shook her head and made tiny spitting noises as if the hair was still gagging her, then scraped her tongue with her teeth, picking at the tip with a fingernail.
“Real sorry, Bonnie. Let me get Nurse Ballard for you,” I offered again. “She’s on my route today. Not too far from here, right after the Gillis drop.”
“Don’t matter.” Bonnie shook her head and swallowed hard, digging back into the bag, looking for something else to read. “’Cause I can’t quit. There’s no other work ’round here and I need to feed me and my baby. So, I told one of the boss men ’bout it, and he grabbed me by the front of my overalls and whispered, ‘Some advice for ya, Bonnie: Try’n be more like Big Dessie, or them ol’ boys are gonna keep piling on the trouble. And I got me enough trouble down here without the female hysterics adding to it. It’s that or I’ll boot your scrawny ass onto the hoot-owl shift.’”
I curled my fist, my knuckles lit in hot blue anger.
“Now Big Dessie ain’t big anywhere but here.” Bonnie cupped two hands out in front of her breasts. She pressed down on her chopped hair, worrying it with a palm, then twisted the loose wedding band around her finger again. Dropping her voice low, Bonnie picked out another book, studying it. “Big Dessie used to wear the bib dungarees like me, but now she struts around in tight britches and a chambray shirt unbuttoned clean down to her navel. Keep the men perk and happy. It’ll keep you happy—and keep food on your table, she warned.”