Read Online Uprising by Margaret Peterson Haddix - Free Book Online Page B

English class than Yetta, a more advanced one, because she’d been in America longer. That was something else that made Yetta feel like Rahel would always be far ahead, that Yetta could never catch up.
    Rahel sighed, as Mr. Cohen disappeared into the crowd.
    â€œHe’s so . . . don’t you think he’s handsome?” she asked.
    Handsome? Back home in the shtetl, it wasn’t much worth noticing who was handsome and who wasn’t. Girls didn’t have a choice. They just married the man their parents told them to marry, and hoped he wasn’t too hideous. But in America . . . what was Rahel thinking?
    â€œAbout the Italian girls,” Yetta said, her voice sounding rough and unnatural. “I think the bosses are trying to make us hate them. You know how they alternate us at the sewing machines so you have to lean past someone Italian if you want to speak Yiddish? And I think it’s the bosses who start all those rumors about how the Italians hate
us.
That girl didn’t seem to mind at all that we were Jewish. . . .”
    Yetta waited for Rahel to correct her, to say they weren’t Jewish anymore, they were socialists, unionists, revolutionaries.
    But Rahel wasn’t even listening.

Jane
    J ane eased the heavy front door shut and tiptoed across the marble foyer. It was late—all the servants had gone to bed hours ago. She could see a thin strip of light on the floor, the only thing that showed under the door of Father’s study. It would be nothing to tiptoe past that door. Jane inhaled deeply, just in case she’d have to hold her breath. But the inhalation brought with it a huge whiff of cigar smoke—also coming from Father’s study—and Jane began to choke and cough.
    The door sprang open, and Father stood there brandishing a fireplace poker over his head. He lowered it, a bit sheepishly, when he saw that it was only Jane.
    â€œYoung lady!” he said gruffly. “Where have you been? Why isn’t Miss Milhouse accompanying you?”
    Jane finished coughing. She backed away from the larger billow of cigar smoke that had appeared when Father opened the study door.
    â€œI was . . . I’m returning from an educational lecture,” Jane said. “I went with Eleanor Kensington, who’s a Vassar student and very mature, and so Miss Milhouse’s presence wasn’t required.”
    Very innocent,
Jane told herself, and it was. She was tellingthe truth. But she felt guilty, as if Father wouldn’t approve if he knew the whole truth. If he knew how Jane had finagled to avoid taking Miss Milhouse along. (None of the college girls had chaperons constantly babysitting them—why should Jane?) If he knew that Eleanor swore sometimes—she said “Dash it all” just like a boy—and maybe wasn’t as reputable as Jane implied. If he knew that the lecturer tonight had talked about women’s rights. (What did Father think of women’s rights?) Or if he knew that she and Eleanor and Eleanor’s friends had gone to an ice cream parlor afterward that maybe wasn’t perfectly clean and maybe wasn’t perfectly socially acceptable.
    Jane’s friend Pearl had introduced her to Eleanor Kensington three months ago, and it had become common for Eleanor to invite Jane along for lectures and symposiums, academic talks and social commentaries. At first, Pearl had gone too, but Pearl yawned and squirmed and elbowed Jane to whisper, “Would it be rude to leave early? This is
so
boring. . . .”
    Jane thought a lot of it was boring too. But a lot of it was fascinating, and had set Jane to wondering about everything. Was the speaker right, the one who claimed that there was enough wealth in America that
no one
should have to live in poverty? (Who would care to work as servants, then?) How about the speaker who said that alcohol was the root of all evil? (Jane had thought it was supposedly money—though Eleanor and her