Hard Times

The field was immaculate. flat, and bounded by right angles. The grass had been mowed down in that way that makes neat columns so that the whole field drew the eye up to the monument that stood in the place of the old mill. It was orderly, except for the tree.

The tree was old and gnarled. There was a square, knee high, fence around it that tried to keep it apart from the ordered grass, but the tree’s roots had begun to grow out under the fence so that the boundary wasn’t even. An old plaque inside the fence, with moss grown all over one side, read: “Like the roots of this tree we are an indivisible and eternal whole. - Brotherhood of Millworkers 1890”

I sit at a bench in that field. I can’t see the tree - none of the benches face the tree- but I know it’s there. I’ve read the plaque enough times to have it memorized. My laptop is asleep, but I leave the screen open out of optimism. I still have work to do. My legs are propped up on the bench’s other half, under the arm wrests. I wonder, not for the first time, how the brotherhood was able to plant that tree, and keep it. I get up to leave. 

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An hour before sunrise and the first bell, about a hundred brothers lined up on the field in front of the mill. They weren't most of the workers, but they were plenty. They lined up, and they waited to see who could come, and who would stop at the line. The signs that read “Strike” were symbolic. The atmosphere was unmistakable. 

When Cono and his cousins trudged up the road onto the edge of the field they got angry, but they stopped. Cono spoke better english than most of the brothers, but he said more with his hands. It hadn’t come to blows when the Pinkertons made their showing.

It hadn’t rained hard, but the dirt was soft, and the feet of men digging their heels in to hold and men digging their heels in to shove had churned it into a damp mess. The grass, tragic, could not hold on, and was swept up from where the line had started to where it was. The pickets had all either falen or, moreso, were held by the brothers to firm up the line, but the picket line hadn’t broken and hadn’t stepped back. There were more brothers than Pinkertons, and the brothers were moving up. 

Cono and his cousins were right in the center. They’d been mad at the brothers, but now they were mad at the Pinkertons. They went out of their way to take it from battens aimed at the brothers. Their swagger was a little less of a joke after it was over. They didn’t sing when Matt started the songs to lift everyone’s spirits, but after the Pinkertons made them mad, they fought. They were brothers after that. 

One boy died. No one counted the injuries because they didn’t matter, but one boy died. No one there could remember his name, but he was on the line with men twice his size, so the brothers buried him right then and there and put the word out. They found his sisters, and the brotherhood made sure they had some money for the rest of their lives. Later on they planted a tree over him, and the operators couldn’t stop them. The brotherhood won because that boy gave his life, so the brotherhood made sure the operators couldn’t touch the tree. 

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I takemy work, and a bundle of records to the library and stay there until after dark. Mostly, I have old journals today. I pause after scanning each page to skim the image that comes up on screen. I’m checking for legibility, but I’m also hoping to stumble on something useful. My thoughts are in the field with the old tree and the old mill and the brotherhood that had started there and then died under Carter. I barely make a dent in the archive when the library intercom tells me it’s time to leave. I gather up my quarters and the old books, and I takemy drive out of the scanner. 

I’m relieved to get to bed. It was a long day at the mill. 

Laying in bed I check my phone, scroll through Facebook and Twitter, like every night. I scroll through my contacts, like every night. The other workers, the men from AFL-CIO, the Harvard professor. I don’t call them. I don’t know who would answer, and I know too many who wouldn’t. 

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When the Brotherhood Hall closed down, young Matt gave a speech. Decertification is just paperwork, he told us. The union had been around longer than it had been a legal entity, and decertification wasn’t going to end it. He said it over the tree, and he told the story about the tree. I thought about the boy more than I used to on that day. 

Young Matt wanted to make a good showing for everyone, and he tried to make it about them. He made sure to spend a minute with each one of us. It wasn’t hard, not many came. I asked his permission to keep the Brotherhood’s records. He said it was fine, but that I should leave the list. Too much personal information. I kept it though. 

I kept all of it, and I hope it goes to someone who can use it. Keeping it feels silly unless I can give it away, but giving it up now feels like losing, whatever Matt says. 

Those of us who remember how it can be never stopped coming, but things are good now. Mostly people have their own worries and they don’t talk about them, or they do and they don’t stay in town. Not many of us remember hard times together, or how to get over them. I hope if anyone finds all this down the road, they can learn something from it for when things get hard again.