by Betty Smith
than him and he goes and! says they made my birth
certificate out wrong in City Hall that I'm too young for
him! I got a beautiful home and I got Widdy from him.
Timrny will never let me want. No. I love this man. If he
goes away and never comes back, I'll still be lucky because
I already got a thousand times more then I would-a had if I
never got married to him.
"No, Timmy," she said. "You got to go. What kind a man
are you anyway, when your mother needs you and all, to
even think about not going?"
She knew he'd say he'd go only if she went along, so like
a kind and thoughtful person she made things easy for
him.
"I wish I could go with you, Timmy, but I can't. I can't
take Widdy out of school."
"He could stay with your mother."
"There's the money . . ."
"I could borrow on me insurance . . . maybe.''
"Why do you always argue all the time? Go and go
alone. And come back the same way. Hear?"
What have I ever done, he mused, to have all this luck? A
fine good wife like her! I don't deserve her a dope like me.
A tear ran down his face. He took the towel from her
and wiped it away. He looked ashamed.
~ '7 ]
"Gee! The wav you sweat!" she said tactfully-.
"Well, don't just stand there," he said. "Get the can and
I'll get the beer and v.7e'11 eat."
~ (.'HA P TER THREE ~
THE tavern was smoky, crowded and smelled of warm,
spilled beer. Rory-Boy's fiddle was squealing wildly and
Patsy Denn was jigging his heart OUt. It was a noisy
Saturday night. The door opened and a big, red-headed
stranger came in. He wasn't exactly red-headed, being
almost bald, but there was a rusty glow where his hair had
been. A clot of ale-drinking men at the bar opened up to
let the stranger in md then closed about him; absorbing
him, as it were.
Rory-Boy saw the stranger come in and his Irish
intuition told him that the stranger was Maggie Rose's big
brother come all the w ay from Brooklyn to beat the hell
out of Patrick Dennis. He was too scared to warn Patsy.
He forgot the notes of "The Irish Washerwoman" as his
fingers froze on his fiddle strings. His desperately sawing
bow brought out a continuous one-note, high wail. Patsy
thought the tune was ending and he went into the frenzied
leap into the air where he usually clicked his heels to-
gether in a finale.
"Never have I le'ppe.l so hitrh! he called to his friend as
he went up.
Indeed his leap was prodigious. He went up . . . up
without the volition of his legs and he stayed suspended in
the air. For a second, he felt like an ;mgel with wings,
then he wondered what made his pants so tight. He found
out.
Timothy (Big Red) Shawn had slipped out of the knot
of men, and at the moment of Patsy's leap he had, like a
trained acrobat, gotten a purchase on the seat of Patsy's
pants and on the scruff of his neck and had given Patsv's
leap a grand fillip. As Bertie, the Broomlllaker, who
happened to be there, later wrote 1: /lY :1
in a letter for a gossiping cl ent: All corlviviality ceased and
silence reigned.
Big Red held Patsy in the air and shook him as though
he w ere a rag puppet. Big Red had rehearsed a speech
coming over in the steerage. He had planned to give it as
a prelude to a thrashing, but he forgot it entirely and had
to ad-lib.
"You durtee, wee, little black'ard you!" he said loud for
all to hear. "I'll learn youse to break the only heart of me
only mother and . . ." (Shake! Shake!) ". . . scandalize the
name of me baby sister. You jiggin' monkey! You durtee
bog trotter, you!"
"What do you mean, bog trotter?" gasped Patsy, scared
but insulted. "I never cut peat in all of me life."
Finally Big Red set him down and gave him one of those
oldtime licking,. When he had finished, he threw Patsy in
the gen
eral direction of the exit and dusted off his hands.
"And don't forget, fancy man," he said, "there's more
where that come from."
Patrick Dennis backed out of the tavern. He wasn't
taking any chances of being kicked in the behind.
Patsy's mother clucked over his bruises. He told her his
bicycle had hit a rock and that he had been thrown into
the brambles.
As often happens, those most concerned in an incident
are the last to know of the motivating forces behind it. For
instance all the village knew that the Widow Shawn had
sent for her son, Big Red. Yes, all knew except Lizzie
Moore and Patsy. An hour after the beating, all knew of
Patsy's humiliation except his mother. Yes, Patsy was the
last to know of Big Red's arrival and his mother was next
to the last. Someone had told her just after Patsy had left
for the tavern. It was news to her and she assumed it
would be news to her son.
"Ah, the grand power of writing," she said, as she raved
homemade salve on her eye apple's bruises. "Only half a
shilling he charged to write the letter. Bertie, the
Broommaker. And the words on the letter spoke out so
clear that he was back in the shanty where he was born a
month to the day when the letter left here. Timmy Shawn,
I mean. Big Red they call him."
"Shawn? Shawn?" asked Patsy, beginning to understand.
1' I9 1
"The same. And a fine strapping man Brooklyn made of
him. 'Tis said he's the head constable and his wages is a
forchune."
"Tell me plain, Mother: Is it Maggie Rose's brother you
tell of 2"
"The same."
"And she sent for him to come-"
"May God strike me flown dead! She did. 'Twas Nora
O'Dell told me."
"I could nor see it ahead. I could not see it ahead,"
mourned Patsy
"What, son?"
"The big rock in the road that chucked me off me wheel
when I was coming home to you this night."
The next day, Sunday, a scared, chastened Patsy went to
Mass with his mother. He saw his girl wedged in between
her simpering mother and her burly brother. Patsy started
to feel sick as he stared at Big Red's broad back.
Father Rowley came down from the altar and stepped
to one side of it before the railing to make the routine
announcements of the week. Patsy hardly listened to the
rise and fall of the voice until, as in a nightmare from
which there is no awakening, he heard the sound of his
name.
". . . weekly meeting of the girls' Sodality." The priest
cleared his throat. "The banns of marriage are read for
the first time between Margaret Rose Shawn and Patrick
Dennis Moore. Your prayers are requested for the repose
of the soul of . . ."
Lizzie Moore gave a hoarse honk like
a wild goose
calling the flock in for a landing. There was a stir like a
great sigh as the congregation turned to stare at Patsy and
his mother. Big Red turned around and gave Patsy a grin
of victory. His lips silently formed the words: There's more
where that came from.
Patsy was caught and he knew it. Trapped, he moaned
to himself. And by what thrickery did he get me name up for
marrying and me the one should have the say of it? Caught!
Before two veeks is out I'll be married forever.
His mother wept foggily into the hem of her top
petticoat. He kept it front me, she mourned. Me Iyin' 5071.
He went to the priest with the girl and gave himself up. And
Big Timmy was sent for to give the girl away and she having
no father to do so.
1 ' 1
Oh, for me son to treat me so, and he me last baby and the
hardest to bring into God's world with his head the size of a
hard, green cabbage at the time.
She wept and Patsy was ashamed. He left during the
final prayer. Maggie Rose, kneeling, turned as he got up
and made an instinctive movement to follow him but Big
Red pulled her back down.
Outside, Patsy hid behind a tree to wait for his mother.
He saw Rory-Boy come out surrounded by most of the
young men of the village. He tried to catch Rory-Boy's eye
but his friend was too busy.
To Patsy's horror, he saw Rory-Boy entertain the boys
by pantomiming the thrashing of the night before. First,
he was Big Red, chest stuck out, fists clenched, entering
the tavern. Then he was Big Red holding up an invisible
Patsy and shaking him as a bulldog shakes a rat. Then the
rat or Patsy was set down and Rory-Boy gave his
impression of the thrashing.
He was Big Red slapping Patsy on either side of the
face. Then he was PatsNr with his head going back and
forth like a pendulum under the impact of the slaps and
blows and so on. The fellers around clapped their hands
noiselessly in rhythm and tapped their feet.
Although suffering, Patsy viewed the pantomime with a
professional eye. A little music along with it, a ballad made
up by Henny, the Hermit . . . Not bad, he thought with
professional detachment.
Rory-Bov was going into the ending of the act. He was
Patsy backing out of the door with his hands protecting his
buttocks. Here, Rory-Boy ad-libbed. He acted out Patsy
being kicked in the backside and, in reaction, leaping
awkwardly into the air with his face distorted in fright.
A lie! A black lie! Patsy wanted to call out. It was not
that way. And then he was crying tears in his heart. Ah, he
decided, RoryBoy no longer seems like a friend to me.
Maggie Rose came OUt with her mother and brother
and the girls surrolmded her an I smiled and gushed and
hugged her. Maggie Rose turned away and pulled her
shawl lower over her face. The Widow Shawn accepted
the congratulations of her friends complacently and the
men greeted Big Red heartily and
[21 1
pumped his hand. It was like a vedding reception.
Patsy saw his mother come out supported by two crones
who patted her arm and gave her spurious sympathy the
while they leered with delight at her comeuppance. When
Lizzie Moore saNv Maggie Rose, she braille loose from
her crones, made her hands into claws and went for the
girl. She was pulled off by the crones.
She went down the road supported by them and from
time to time her knees buckled and she slumped down
like a drunken woman and had to be pulled up again. The
young girls looked after her and her escorts; whispering,
giggling, laughing aloud and being silenced, laughingly, bv
each other.
Father C'rowley came out and stood on the steps of the
church. He frowned and clapped his hands sharply. The
talk and giggling and horseplay stopped at once. The
crovds broke up into little groups and the congregation
went home.
Patsy felt friendless and disgraced. He was sure that by
now all the village knew he had been licked by his girl's
brother. Before night the whole village would know
whatever trick Big Red had used to get the bawls read
and he, Patsy Denny, would be the laughingstock of the
county.
Sure, he fmust have promised leather a crate of Hennessy's
l: our Star to make hint read th. bimns, thol'`,ht Patsy.
Rory-Boy: That hurt! I hey were through. Rory-Boy no
longer had need of a part-per nor of his fiddle. NO He
could perform in the taverns as a single giving his
pantomime of "The Thrashing of Patrick I tennis Moore."
Oh, they'd laugh and throw coppers at him. A!ld after
he'd play ed out the village pubs. he could go on to the
next village; the next county to all of Ireland. And he
was sure Rory-Boy would do exactly that because that's
what he, Patsy, would do were he in Rory-Boy's shoes.
And Rory-Boy would never want for anything because
the Irish dearly loved an entertainer and they'd clothe him
and feed him and house him the \~ay they did witl1
idiots whom some believed to be God's pets.
It came too late to Patsy too late- the knowledge that
he loved .laggie Rose and would never love any other
woman. Why, oh, vlly hadn't he married her when their
love was fresh and new before it had been dirtied by
scandals and beatings and public disgrace?
1
We could' have gotten along smite way, he thought. '4/:,
but leer mother! And me own mother, too. The sin is theirs
Jor is there any law in the world that ways I must not marry
if me mother says so and I must marry if the girl's mother
says so? No.
Could eve not have lived with me another? No! he
answered himself. She'd never have the girl in the house.
But the Widder Shawn! She would. If she wouldn't we'd go
to live there anyhow counting on. her getting used to it in
time. And maybe I could have gone to work. Would not the
Clooney give me the job of drawing ale in his tavern, me
who could dance a jig or two between servings? Could ~
not go to the TVidder Sharon and Big Red with me hat in
one hand and me pride in the dust and say: I'm willing?
No, I could not. And I cannot stay here because Herlny,
tee Hermit, is starting to work on me the while l'n, standing
here. And when he's done with me there will be no place in
all of Irelan.l where I can hide me head.
Henny, the Hermit, was a one-eyed, dirty old man who
lived in a hovel in the hills with a she goat. He had a
zither and he made up ballads about everything that went
on in the village. On holidays and saints' days he sat in
the village commons with his goat tethered to his leg and
his zither in his lap. There he sang his interminable
ballads in a high, cracked
whine that he called his voice,
accompanying himself on the zither with one, monotonous
note because the zither had but one string. The dirty man
lived off the halfpennies they threw hi and the milk of his
goat.
"The Ballad of Patsy 1). I~loorc! " The dreary drivel of
untalented Helmy distorting facts and making Patsy the
butt and burden of the narrative! Children would sing it
along the road walking home from school. Drunkards
would bawl it out beating time on the bar with their
pewter mugs. Even as an old man, the ballad would haunt
Patsy and shame his children.
'Tis not to be endured, decided Patsy. OF, better to be
dead to go to America . . .
America!
He'd heard that the steamship company paid your as ay
and got you a job in America. And there as a little office
in a illage not
~ ~ 1
ten miles away where the steamship man from Liverpool
arranged everything. He almost whistled as he sneaked
home in a roundabout way.
His mother wouldn't spear. to him wlletl he got home.
She had her good, black dress and a pair of black
stockings she'd been hoarding for twenty years laid out on
the bed. She was polishing her black shoes from a tin of
caked blacking. He chattered, trying to get her to speak to
him. But she had nothing to say until he asked politely:
"Are you going a-visiting, ~~lother~"
"And who would I go see, the way I'm 'shamed to show
me face in the village? No, I'm getting me good black
clothes ready the clothes I'm wishin or to be laid GUt
in."
"Not for many a year vet, God willing."
"Soon. Soon. The day you marry is the day you'll see me
in me casket."
"Don't die on me," he bcggetl.
"You marry on me and I'll die on you." She buffed the
shoe which gloved her hand.
"I'll never marry the ~ bile you live."
"Ah, so. Never rnarry~ he says, after having the banns
read and all! "
It took him an hour to convince her that the banns were
said without his consent or knowledge. She refused to
believe him until he told her of the beatinr' he'd had from
Big Red.
"And so he licked you me poor boy, and you saying you
fell off your wheel."
"'Twas shame made me say it."
"And he'll lick you many a time till you say, 'I do.'"
"I'll die first!"
"You won't die first on last. You'll be made to marry the
girl."
"I can't be made if I go to America."
"And you'd be leavin,, me like me other chilthren did?"
"Only for a uThile. I'll send for vou before the year is
crone."
"You'll not be sanding for anyorle. You'll bide here with
me. Die if you have the uish. But you'll not marry and
you'll not leave me."
"'Tis hard to die'" lie said. and our Lord forgive me for
~ 7' 1
saying I would and me not meaning it a-tall. I will stay,
Mother dear, and marry Maggie Rose, and I will be
shamed in the county all the days of me living and I'll not
be caring, because I love Maggie Rose."
"You say so."
"I would do so."
She put the lid on the tin of blacking. "In a year you
say? You'll send for me?"
"I swear it."
" 'Tis for the best." She put the blacking away. "Go,
then, to America and make a place for me and I will
come to you."
The next morning, he cycled ten miles to the next
village. The Liverpool sport who represented a steamship
company made things easy for Patrick Dennis Moore.
Passage was arranged and everything was free free for
the time being.
Yes, Patsy would have tO pay for the ticket in time, but
that was easy, too. There was a job waiting for him in
America. One Michael Moriarity and, oh, he was Lord
Mayor of Brooklyn or something near as grand, was the
sport's opinion would pay Patsy all of five dollars a w
eek and give him room and board. And all for what? For
nothing. For taking care of two darling carriage horses.