by Betty Smith
Staunchly, Patsy promised to pay the passage money
back. That he would, the sport assured him. A man from
the steamship branch in Brooklyn would come once a
week and take two dollars from his wages until the ticket
was paid up. Patsy agreed with the sport that the
remaining three dollars was a "forchune" in America or
anywhere else.
Patsy put his name on a paper.
"You'll be wanting some loose change for the trip,"
suggested the sport.
"Glory be," said Patsy. "Does the company give out
spending money, too?"
"Well, hardly. But your wheel. You'll have no use for it
when you're gone. I'll take it olf your hands for two
pounds. You ride over on it Tuesday when the coach
leaves for Cobh Harbor and I'll take ownership then and
give you the pound notes."
[ AS]
Big Red wasn't happy. His mother and sister forever
found fault with him. Maggie Rose was not a bit grateful.
She told her brother she hated him because he had
thrashed her love and shamed him and herself in the
village.
"Now he'll go from me forever," she wept.
"Over me dead body," vowed Big Red.
"Why did you come a-tween us?" she sobbed. "I vitas
vialling to wait till his mother died. Why did you make
him the clown of the county?"
"Anyone," he said bitterly, "who would marry a
sharp-tongue girl like you his mother living or dead is
a clown born and not made." He was instantly sorry.
"forgive me wild talk, Maggie Rose, do," he said.
There was that pain coming, in his left temple; a sure
sign that he was thinking deep. God forgive me, he
thought, if I did a wrong to this boy what never knew me, by
giving him a licking and putting his name up to be read in
church q~i,.b me sister's.
His mother's reception of the wedding gift his Lottie
had sent by him wasn't appreciated by Big Red. It was a
pair of pillow shams with hand-crocheted edges. .7~1rs.
Shawn claimed the linen was coarse and that Lottie had
changed crochet patterns in the middle of an edging
"'Tis not so," shouted Bh, Rcd. 'L ver! thins, ~i! Lottie
does is beautiful."
"Ah, the sloppy hous. she must be keeping for rile only
son," sighed the Widow.
"So help me, God, Mother . . ." he shouted.
"Raise your voice to me again," she interrupted, and I'll
give it to you. Big as you art!"
Holy Mother, he praN+ed, let me not be losing me
temper Old brie here for only a bit of a while with the
mother caveat bore me arid me only baby sister.
Slie kept him working. She had him wl-litewash the
cottage and clean out the pig sty, mend the ruined stone
wall and chop up a dead tree for firewood. Now, Big Red
was an obliging man and he would have loved doing
things for his mother except that she acted as though it
were her due and his privilege to serve her. Why, when he
did some little thing for Lottie, like lifting the vv-ashboiler
up onto the stove or sawing off a broom handle, say!
1 ';:1
she kissed him and carried on as though he had given her
a dozen American Beauty roses.
Another thing irked hirn: a friend of his mother's. This
friend was a dirty, old, one-eyed man with a goat and a
zither, who kept showing up at the house nearly every day.
Invariably, his mother brought a plate of food out to the
man and Tim saw their heads together in low
conversation.
"What's he doing here all the time?" asked Tim.
"Nothing," replied the mother. "He's making up a grand
ballad and I'm helping him."
All of a sudden he missed his Lottie so much!
Back in Brooklyn, Lottic was putting the finishing
touches to the midday snack of lamb stew, crusty, fresh
Jewish rye bread, sweet butter, pound cake with ice cream
on top, and coffee, that she was preparing for herself and
son Widdy. As she worked, she sang her icernan song. She
sang it in a sad cadence because her Timmy was away.
And I found out once or twice, That all you can get
from the iceman Is ice! Ice! Ice!
Widdy, coming home from school for lunch, saw the
letter in the mailbox ill the vestibule. Ele brought it up to
his mother. It was from Timmy a short letter.
Dear Lottie:
Don't ou ever leave note.
Yours truly, Timothy Shawn.
She put the letter down her shirtwaist over her left
breast where she judged her heart to be. It was the first
letter he'd ever written her.
Big Red did not feel well. He was thinking too deep.
The conviction was growing in him that he had done
wrong in forcing the marriage. But he wavered What was
right, what was wrong? What was right for his sister might
be wrong for Patrick Dennis. He couldn't figure it out. He
hit on the idea of putting himself in Patsy's place.
or 27 ]
i1Iake believe, he started out, that I loved Lottie but ain't
thinking of marrying at the tinge. So her old chro~no of a
mother sends for Lottie's brother what lives far away maybe
up in the Catskills. So he comes down and he pucks me in
the nose, say, and tells me there's more where that comes
from in front of people, if I don't marry his sister. So what
would I do?
He clenched his hands and his face got red and the
cords stood out on his neck. Why . . . why I'd beat the
be-Jesus OZlt of the bastid and the old chromo too and
Lottie could go fish. That's just what I'd do.l
Then he was sorry for the way he had treated Patsy.
Why, he thought, I'm no better than that Catskill Mo?mtain
bastid! (He forgot that Lottie had no brother.)
He fell back in his chair and Wolfe out into a sweat. He
had thought the whole thing through. I shouldn't-a butted
in, he concluded. The wimmen folks could have handled it
theirselves. Like they're doing anyways.
He decided to see Lizzie Moore before he left. He
would try to get her to remove all obstacles to her son
marrying Maggie Rose. But Lizzie wouldn't let him in the
house, even. She barred the doorway with folded arms
and spread legs.
"Missus," he said, "let there be peace amongst us and
give up so's your son can marry me sister and we'll be
relations and friends."
"Friends?" she sneered. "The gall of the man!" she told
an imaginary companion. "And friends in the bargain!
Hah!"
"Do not stand in the way. It is decent and good that a
man marry a woman."
"Why?'' she asked.
"First off to sleep with." Although embarrassed, he
looked her straight in the eye because he thought that was
right that a man marry to sleep with his woman.
"You durtee little man!" She spat in the direction of his
shoe.
"Do not hol
d him, Missus. Let him go from you."
"He'll never go from me."
"He will. Like the others. Where are your children?
Where's Lenny and Shamus and Sean and Robbie and
Neely what I played with as a boy? All are gone. Gone
because you held them too hard. Hold your last one easy
and he won't go far away."
1 2s 1
She thought of Patsy going to America and her face
worked. He thought she grieved for her other children. He
said: "Let your tears fall out, Missus. 'Twill bring you some
peace."
"Bad cess to you and to all of youse," she muttered. She
went into the shanty and started to shut the door. He held
it open with his foot.
"Look, Missus," he said. He reached into his pocket and
drew out a packet of new dollar bills. "I brought a dowry
for me sister. One hundred new American dollars. A
forchune in Ireland or anywhere else in the world." He
fanned out the bills. He saw her eyes flicker with interest.
Her thoughts tumbled `,ver each other like acrobats. 'Tis
me boy's money if he marries her. If I let them live here, I
could have the money f or meself. I could buy me a broody
hen setting on a dozen eggs and a left-out weaner pig what
wouldn't cost dear what I could feed up to be a grand sow.
And a calf what would be a milking cow in time. And to
think on it! All the money brought into the house from the
eggs and crea,,mt and butter and from the selling of rashers
of bacon and hams from me pigs always holding some back
to breed the next year . . . But, she wavered, I'd have to have
that one, his sister, in me house.
Big Red knew her thoughts. "Think on it, Missus," he
said. "A hen, a suckling pig and a weaned calf. And
enough money over to build a room onto your shanty for
me sister and your boy. And when yourself is old and
helpless, Maggie Rose would wait on you and carry you in
her hand. Ah, 'tis a grand picture."
Lizzie Moore saw a different picture. She saw Maggie
Rose in her son's arms, right before her eyes always in
his arms, day and night. She heard the girl say: "Your
mother's in the way." There'd be friction. She could hear
her son say: "Me wife is right, Mother. 'Tis you at fault."
She was honest enough to know she'd die of jealousy and
wise enough to know she couldn't change her ways.
"And think of the grandchilthren," said Big Red, "follying
you around and swinging on your skirts."
The mention of grandchildren did it!
"I'll have none of your sister and her whelps in me house."
She slammed the door and he heard the bolt shoot home.
~ 29]
By agreement, Patsy and his mother pretended to be all
for the marriage the following Sunday. When the priest
read the banns for a second time and the congregation
turned around to gloat, Mrs. Moore smiled and bowed
graciously and Patsy smiled tenderly at the Shawn family.
This threw the villagers into confusion. After Mass, they
gathered in groups outside the church and held worried,
whispered consultations. Had something gone wrong, they
asked each other. Would he marry the girl after all? It
was a big letdown. Big Red relaxed and was happy. He
felt he had done the right thing after all.
Two days later, Patrick Dennis strapped a homemade
knapsack, made of coarse linen, on his back. It held all he
owned: six colored handkerchiefs, his other shirt and a
pair of woolen socks knitted by his loving mother.
"And you will send for me before the year is out?" she
asked for the tenth time.
"That I will, Mother dear."
"Swear! "
He swore on the little black leather prayer book she
had given him when he made his First Communion.
"May I drop dead," he swore, "if I don't send for ,N70U
V-ithin the year. As God is my witness."
"Amen,~' she said, as she nicked the book in his
knapsack.
He looked around once more before he mounted his
bicycle. The soft, green, rolling hills . . . the blue sky and
tender white clouds and the pink, wild roses tangled on
the tumble-down, grad, rock wall around the cottage.
And he didn't want to go he didn't want to go. But he
was caught up in the momentum of all the events and the
arrangements were made and it was easier to go than to
stay.
Way down the road, he saw a filthy figure coming along
and leading a goat and carrying a zither. A whine came
on the wind. Henny, the Hermit, was singing as he
walked.
Oh, I'll sing you the story Of Patsy Dee NIoore.
Patsy jigged with impatience while his mother sprinkled
the bicycle and himself with holy water and ceremoniously
pinned
~ 3 ]
a St. Christopher's medal to his undershirt. When that was
done, he got onto his bike in one frenzied leap. His
mother's parting words were:
"God grant, me son, that her basrid of a brother don't
ketch you sneaking out of Ireland."
He turned to wave and w heeled out of his mother's life,
and out of Ireland forever.
PAIRICK DENNIS MOORE stood on American soil
once removed by the slate pavement. His first impression
of America was that half the people in the new world were
riding bicycles.
Sure, he thought, here they Must give them away with a
pound of tea for where would all these people be getting the
naor~ey to buy them?
He stood on the curb, knapsack on back and card with
Moriarity's address clutched in his hand. "Ask a cop," a
man in the steerage had instructed him. "Be sure to call
him 'officer' and he'll tell you how to get the ferry to
Brooklyn." Patsy saw a cop across the street but the traffic
confused him so he didn't know how to cross.
Great beer trucks, some drawn by six Percherons,
pounded by; horse-drawn cars clanged along on iron
tracks. A funeral procession, composed of a hearse, an
open carriage full of floral pieces and ten coaches of
mourners, crawled along. The dead man, likely as not
ineffectual in life, was important enough in death to hold
up traffic for ten minutes.
Two-wheeled carts, some loaded with fruit, others with
junk, were pushed along by men with long, patriarchal
beards. The junk carts had cowbells on a leather strap
across the top. The bells made an unholy, discordant
jangle in the jungle of noises. A lot of cursing, most of it
directed at the bearded men, seemed necessary to keep all
the vehicles moving.
Bicycles skimmed in and out, confounding all traffic. The
[32 1
riders irritated everyone by their nervous tinkling of the
bicycle bells. The men rode lo
oking constantly over a
shoulder, which made the bicycles swerve from here to
there.
A bell-clanging fire engine thundered by and the horses!
hoofs drew sparks from the cobblestones. Patsy stared in
amazement at a spotted dog that ran along under the fire
truck, avoiding, by some miracle, being ground to death
by the fast-turning wheels.
There -were hansom cabs and lacquered traps and
varnished carriages drawn by nervous, shining horses and
with elegantly dressed dandies and ladies lolling back on
the cushions.
A two-horse ambulance whizzed by. The driver kept
kicking the gong, which gave out a noise like a great
alarm. A whitesuited intern swayed on the back step,
holding on to a strap and reading the morning paper
while the ambulance rushed him to some place of sudden
accident and probably death.
An uncovered wagon, loaded with fish and flies and
drawn by a starveling horse whose uncertain gait made the
weighing scales jangle, came along. The fishmonger blew
rusty toots on a tin horn and hoarsely called out Fish! at
intervals.
The cop across the street was moving away. Patsy was
afraid he'd lose him so he made an attempt at crossing
the street. Bedlam! Whistles blew, bells tinkled, gongs
clanged, drivers cursed, horses reared and a man fell off
a high-wheeled bicycle. People yelled at Patsy:
"Get out-a the gutter, yer Goddamned greenhorn!" This
was Patsy's first greeting in the new world.
"Wipe-a behin' ears, dotty mick," yelled an Italian fish
peddler. This was the first instruction Patsy received.
And, "Go back where you come from, why doncha,"
from one of Horatio Alger's newsboys, was the first piece
of disinterested advice Patsy received in America.
Patsy scuttled back to the sidewalk, thinking: I'll get to
know the language in time, for 'tis almost like English.
A hansom cab worked its way over to the curb where
Patsy was standing. The driver sat high up on the back of
the cab. Of course he had a red nose and a battered top
hat.
"Cab, sir?"
1~32:1
Eagerly, gratefully, Patsy held up the card which had
Moriarity's Brooklyn address. "Would you IIOW, old Da',
take me to this place?" he said.
"Not all the way, me boy, sir. Horse can't swim. But I'll
take you to the dock and you take the ferry from there."
"How do I get in your wagon, then?" asked Patsy. "Or
do you be having room up there with you where I can see
the sights of the town? "
"Let's see the color of your money first," said the driver.
Patsy showed him a pound note. "Counterfeit! " gasped
the cabbie. Then he said: "Oh, no, you don't, sport. Lucky
I don't turn you over to the cops." He flicked the horse
with his whip and worked his way back into the stream of
traffic.
A businesslike young man, with a sheaf of papers in his
hand, who had been watching Patsy for some time, now
approached him.
"Name, please!" he said briskly, giving Patsy a keen look.
"Patrick Dennis Moore," said Patsy obediently. The
young man riffled through his papers.
"And you are going . . . i" Patsy gave him the card. The
young man read the name and address. "Ah, yes," he said.
He pulled a paper out of the sheaf. "I-lere it is. Phew!" He
wiped his face with his hand. "I thought I lost you. I've
been looking all over for you since the ship docked."
"You know me, then?" Isked Patsy, astonished.
"I know who you are. I work for Mr. Moriarity, too." He
extended the hand of friendship. Deliriously happy, Patsy
wrung it. "Gee, Mr. Moore," said the young man
appealingly, "please don't tell Or. Moriarity that I Nsas
late meeting you. He'll sack me."
"Things have been said of me," said Patsy grandly, "but
never that I was an informer."
"When I first spotted lT by, said the young man, "I could
tell you vvas true bye. Now," lie said briskly, "where's your
luggage?"
"All I own in the world is strapped to me back."