Grabbing a sign eight-year-old Aidan joined the other striking cotton mill workers He was a doffer For twelve hours six days a week he and other boys removed full bobbins from the clacking spinning frames Aidan’s friend Gussie was a spinner at the mill When a thread broke she quickly repaired it by tying the two ends together Knowing Aidan couldn’t read Gussie read his sign to him It says We Want to Go to School Aidan did want to go to school but his family needed the money he earned This was the way things were for many children in 1903
There was excitement on the picket line that day Someone named Mother Jones was coming She helped workers fight for better wages and safer working conditions When Aidan met her though he wondered how She looks like someone’s granny he whispered to Gussie Later Aidan was even more surprised when Mother Jones talked his mam and Gussie’s too into letting them join a march from Kensington Pennsylvania to Oyster Bay New York over one hundred miles away
