Chapter 28
Bart Hall had been working since his Pa dropped dead on the job when Bart was ten—just turned ghost white, according to the men he’d worked with, and keeled over. Ma made him leave school, not that he’d minded. He could cypher and do sums, and he reckoned that was all that mattered.
Pa had been a carpenter, and Bart had picked up some skills from him. After Pa died, Bart was lucky to get an apprenticeship with Mr. Wagner, the carpenter Pa had worked for.
It wasn’t easy for Ma to raise eight kids, and even with three of them working, times were rough. Mary Agnes, the oldest of the brothers and sisters, worked as a maid in one of the big houses on Park Avenue. She sent money home when she could, but she rarely came to visit; Bart had the feeling it was because she was ashamed o
