by Betty Smith
outside on the sidewalk.
New, shallow, white-wood boxes held a dozen plants
each. The plants were in bright terra-cotta clay pots fresh
from the kiln. There were geraniums, passionately bright
and clear and perfectly formed; red, rose, pink, white and
even fuchsia. Blue hyacinths, with white veins, looked like
clubs. (For some reason, the people called them "lilies.")
Then there were pots of blue-purple ageratum; a name no
one could pronounce. Women asked the price of "them
purplish flour-iss."
There were baby pots of lusty and eternal-looking ivy,
and, for people with money, large pots of steel-blue
hydrangea or coral-bell azaleas.
The plants were sprinkled hourly and little rivers of
water ran down the sidewalk to the gutters. The awnings
made shade, and the damp sidewalks and the flowers
fresh-smelling from their sprinkling, and all the flower
colors, and the way everyone looked so excited and the
beautiful, sunny day all put together were like a gallant
gauntlet slapped across the cheek of death.
Each year, Mary bought a geranium to plant on her
father's grave. She let Maggie-Now choose the colon The
girl went into a state of ecstatic indecision. Mary waited
patiently, knowing that in the end the child would choose
the brightest red in the lot. ~ Of 1
Mary, looking at the awnings and flowers and the smiling,
eager vendors and the leisurely-moving people, said:
"It's just like Paris."
"Was you ever in Paris, 1lama-" aslred the girl.
``No."
"I'll take this red one, Ilama."
"That'll be thirty cents,' said the flower man, "and a
nickel back when you bring the flower pot back."
Maggie-Now walked proudly with the geranium in the
crook of her arm. She smiled at other little girls who
carried potted plants and they smiled back.
There was a tombstone place on one corner. Its yard
was crowded with stone angels and stone books opened in
the middle, large stone crosses and smooth stone
blocks all with smooth, blank spaces, waiting for a name.
One time they saw a m.m sitting in the sun on a camp
chair in back of the store's yard. He worked with hammer
and chisel, putting the finishing touches to a monument.
A child with stone curls rested with closed eyes, with her
cheek on her folded arms. Thick stone angel wings s.
emed to sprout from the child's neck. The sculptor, noting
Mag`,rie-Now's interest, said:
"It's for an only child.'
There was another tomhsto1e place a few blocks further
on. It had a sign:
When you think ot me, don't think of tombstones. But
when you thinly of tombstones, think of me.
,Nlary always stopped to read it as though it were
something new and she always smiled at the message.
A man, in business for himself, had a pushcart filled
with watering cans. You could rent one for a dime, but he
asked a quarter deposit on a can. Only the foolish threw
money away like that. People brought their own tin cans
from home for watering purposes Maggie-Now had
brought her sand bucket for hauling water and the toy
shovel and rake that went with it for gardening.
They went past the Hcbrew cemetery. The gates were
high, like, Maggie-Now thought, three men standing on
top of each other. There was a big it on star on top of the
iron arch of the gate.
~ '' 9 1
"Why don't they have a cross like we do?" asked
Maggie-Now. "Because it's a Jewish cemetery. That's their
star of David and they pray to the star the way we pray to
the cross. I told you that last year."
They got to the cemetery and Mary nodded to the care-
taker sitting at the little wirldov of the little stone house
inside the gates.
"A nice day," said Mary.
"Sure is," agreed the caretaker.
The cemetery looked like a lawn party that had gotten
out of hand. It was crowded with women, children and
even a few men. The young women wore light summer
dresses and hats with ribbons and flowers. The older
women wore whatever had been around the
house usually a black dress or a suit skirt whose jacket
had been given to the Salvation Army years ago, and a
shirtwaist. They wore hats that looked as though they had
been hanging in the cellar for five years. In short, the
older women "made do" and used new-clothes money for
more important things, like well, say food.
There were three times as many children as adults. They
ran, jumped, hollered, wrestled with each other and played
tag among the tombstones. They tumbled about as though
they'd been spilled out of a bag. They were deliriously
happy to be out of the dark, crowded tenement rooms and
off the narrow, crowded streets, and away from the
streetcars and trucks which made their street games
hazardous, and to have this great, big, green beautiful
cemetery to play in for an hour or so.
Mary saw a boy chinning himself on the outstretched
arm of a granite angel. "I wouldn't do that if I were you,
little boy," she said.
"Okay, teacher," said the kid cheerfully and ran away.
After all these years thought Mary ruefully, I still look aim
act like a schoolteacher. Imagine!
Everybody was sociable. One felt that even the dead
were sociable. They had to be, the way the plots were so
close together with only a footpath between the graves.
And the way some graves held three departed people, one
on top of the other, because few families could afford to
buy a separate grave for each r /70 |
of their dead. Also, land was getting very scarce in
Greater Next York.
Maggie-Now skipped ahead. She wanted to be the first
to find the grave. "Here it is, Mama!" she shouted. "Here!"
"Don't scream," said Mary. "It won't run away."
Mary took the sand bucket, spade and shovel from her
net shopping bag and stood them in a row. She added
some rooted ivy cuttings that she had brought with her.
Maggie-Now set the plant at the end of the row of things.
"Look at that trash on the grave," said Mary. "Perpetual
c are indeed! Why, they don't even cut the grass! " She
lifted her veil over her hat and pulled off her gloves.
"Well, let's get to work."
Maggie-Now threw herself on her knees and furiously
began raking the litter from the plot. A woman waved
frantically from two graves away. When she couldn't catch
Mary's attention, she called: "Yoo boo, Miz Moore. Yoo
hog!"
"Oh, Mrs. Schondle," Mary called back. "Hello! I missed
you last year."
"Yeah. I wasn't here," said Mrs. Schondlc, waddling over.
Mrs. Schondle, a stout vie omen to start with, wore a
black dress several sizes too large for her. The neckline
gaped loosely, exposing her chest and the upper part of
&
nbsp; her breasts, which were already burned a lobster red from
sudden exposure to the sun for a few hours, after a year
of living indoors.
She wore a lumpy black hat draped with thick black
mourning veils. The hat had slipped down over one ear
and the veils were hanging wild. This gave her beet-red,
smiling face a what-thehell-do-I-care look.
"Yeah, I wasn't here last year," she explained. "Because
my oldest daughter vitas down from Jamaica. You know.
The one by my first husband? She didn't want to come to
the cemetery with me, being's," she nodded toward her
grave, "Mr. Schondle was the stepfather. You know. Not
the real father? Anyways, I thought I'd stay home with her
being's I don't see her much because," her voice dropped
to a whisper, "I don't get along so good with him her
husband. He's . . . " she looked around carefully to make
sure no one ~ Ise v as listening. "he's a Prattisssent! F I
~ I I
One of them kind, you know. What thinks every time a
Catholic boy is born they bury a gun under the church for
him?"
"That's too bad," said Mary.
"Oh, I got my troubles," said Mrs. Schond]e cheerfully.
"But you look good, Miz Moore."
"You look fine, too, Mrs. Schondle."
"Oh, I'm the kind w hat never changes. I look the same
like I looked when I was first married. Everybody tells me
that," she said. "But your little girl, now! My, she got big!
Two years ago, she was a baby."
"They shoot up fast, ' said Mary.
"Too fast. You slave for them and sacrifice and the first
thing you know, they're young ladies and married."
A diversion was caused by a mother yelling at her sons
who were playing tag and running back and forth over the
family plot a few graves away.
"Now, Frankie," said the mother, "I told you before.
Stop running over your grandmother. Do you want to have
hard luck?" In answer, the boys ran over the grave again.
"All right, then," said the mother reasonably enough. Then
she hauled off and gave each kid a slap alongside the ear.
"The next time you'll listen," she said.
"Tech! Tsch!" commented Mrs. Schondle. "The way
children is brought up nowadays. No respect for
nothing nobody. Living or dead." She straightened her
hat. It fell over the other ear. "Well, I better leave you
plant your plant," she said. "Say! Your ive-ree's growing
good. Soon your father will have a whole ive-ree blanket.
I wish I had luck with ive-ree. But it won't grow for me."
Hat bouncing, veils quivering, she made her way back to
Mr. Schondle's grave.
Maggie-Now had the grave raked of debris. She had a
little mound of trash. "Where'll I put it, Mama?"
"Over there on that big pile where other people are
putting their trash."
They pulled up the dry stalk of last year's geranium and
planted the new one. Ilaggie-Now made a dozen trips
with her bucket to one of the nearby spigots. They planted
the new ivy shoots. They commented on how well the last
year's planting ~ 1121
had taken hold. The final thing was pinching off six sprigs
of the established ivy. Mary would root them in water,
plant them and nurture them through a summer, fall and
winter and plant them on the grave come next Decoration
Day.
All the things were stowed away, including the flower
pot, in the net shopping bag. Mary and Maggie-Now went
to sit on a nearby stone bench. They sat in silence for a
while. Mary thought of her father. She thought of the
passage of time.
It is ten years, she thought, since ='e laid him at rest. And
the combs he bought me more than thirty years ago are still
new. Things last longer than people.
"It's time now," said Mary.
Mother and daughter stolid by Michael Moriarity's grave.
Mary clasped her hands, bowed her head and said a prayer
for the dead. Maggie-Now joined her in the amen. Mary
took a long, last look at the engraved name, Michael
Moriarity, and they took their leave. They walked over to
say good-by to Mrs. Schondle.
"You going for pot cheese?" asked Mrs. Schondle.
Mary hesitated. "Yes."
"Then do you care if I go along?"
"Why, we'd love to have you. Wouldn't we, Maggie-Now?"
The girl scowled. She had looked forward to the trip all
year especially eating alone with her mother in the
restaurant. Now that Mrs. Schondle had to spoil it.
"Say yes," whispered her mother. "It's only a white lie."
"Yes," said Maggie-Now sullenly.
"And smile." Maggie-Now gave Mrs. Schondle a distorted
grimace.
"That's awfully nice of youse," said Mrs. Schondle. "It's
just that I don't like to eat alone. I always got to eat alone
when I'm home."
It took them a long time to get out of the cemetery
because Mrs. Schondle walked slowly and had to stop from
time to time to get her breath and, besides, she liked to
stop and look at things.
They paused by the new graves; a dozen or so the dead
of the week. The raw-soil mounds were still high. A couple
of men were working efficiently and briskly, stripping dead
foliage and withered flowers from the funeral pieces. They
piled up the
[ ~ ~3 1
wire forms, pillows, stars, crosses and hearts. They sold
these frames to the florists to make new floral pieces for
new dead people. The men paid for the privilege of
salvaging these wire frames.
A group of little girls stood by patiently waiting for the
ribbons from the pieces. They were of the neighborhood
and they got their hair bows that v. ay. The men gave the
big girls the black ribbons, the in-between girls the
lavender, and the little girls ot the white ribbons.
"Want a hair bow, girlie?" said one of the men,
proffering a lavender ribbon to Maggie-Now.
The girl shuddered and squeezed tip close to her
mother. "No," she said.
"No, what?" prodded her mother.
"No, thank you."
The restaurant was across the street from the cemetery.
It was nearly a block long v. ith open doors every twenty
feet or so. Inside it was dim and cool. White-aproned
waiters wove in and out among the tables and a joyous
babble of voices rose and fell. It was very festive even
though most of the women wore black dresses.
They had barely seated themselves at a little round table
when a waiter materialised and gave the table top a ritual
wipe with his napkin.
"What s yours, ladies " he asked.
"I'll have pot cheese and chives," said Mary. "And coffee.'
"Make mine the same," said llrs. Schondle. "Only beer,
instead-a coffee. And sour cream on the side."
"And the young lady?" asked the waiter.
Maggie-Now was about to open her mouth and order a
piece of pound cake
with chocolate ice cream on top and
a bottle of strawberry soda, when Mary said: "She'll have
just a cream soda. '
"But, Mama . . ." wailed Maggie-Now.
"Never mind." Mary pressed the girl's thigh under the
table. 'You can have the nickel deposit from the flower
pot and buy anything you like."
"All right," sighed Maggie-NoN`-.
Mary did some quick figuring. She had fifty cents for her
1 1141
lunch and Maggie-Now's, a nickel tip for the waiter, ten
cents carfare home and ten cents for emergencies. She
had enough money to be sure, but four years ago, the time
she had lunched with Mrs. Schondle, the poor woman had
been fifteen cents short and Mary had had to pay it.
Fearing another emergency like that, she held back on
Maggie-Now.
The waiter brought the food and, to nobody's surprise,
an extra plate and fork for Maggie-Now. He was used to
people ordering and saying the child didn't want anything
and, after the food was served, being requested to bring an
extra plate and fork. So he brought the extra plate and
fork along with the order to save time. Mary divided her
pot cheese and chives with Maggie-Now.
"She can have some of mine," said Mrs. Schondle,
reluctantly pushing her bowl toward YIaggie-Now.
"Oh, no," said Maggie-Now.
"She has enough, thank you," said Mary.
"All right, then." Eagerly:, Mrs. Schondle pulled her bowl
back.
While the women talked, Maggie-Now gulped down her
soda, dabbled with the pot cheese and let her eyes rove
around the restaurant. She fastened her attention on a
handsome boy at a nearby table. She stared at him and he
stared back. Mrs. Schondle noticed this and said
portentously to Mary:
"It won't be long now."
"Well, you can't hold back time," sighed Mary.
"Just so's she don't throw herself away and marry
somebody what's no good like mine did."
"Oh, she's got a lot of sense," said Mary.
Suddenly, Maggie-Now realized that they were talking
about her and the possibility of her marrying. It made her
feel important and mature. She threw back her head, half
closed her eyes, and smiled languidly at the boy. His eyes
popped for a second, then he put his thumb to his nose
and wiggled his four fingers at her. Her face got red and
she dropped her eyes to her plate.
"I'm never going to get married," she said. "Because I
hate boys."
"What brought that on?' asked Mary.
The waiter came and asked: one check or two? "Two
checks,"
~ ~ ~5 1
said Mrs. Schondle. She explained to Mary: "Some would
hang back and wait for the other party to pay. But I don't
sponge. I pay my way."
Mary put a quarter and a nickel on her check.
Twenty-five cents for her lunch and a nickel for the cream
soda. A little to one side, she put his nickel tip.
"Carfare!" he bawled over toward the bar. "Thank you,
lady,' he said to Mary.
Mrs. Schondle emptied her purse of all its coins. She
took a nickel back for carfare. The waiter noticed she set
nothing aside for a tip. He waited. She looted up at him
with a bleak, pleading look.
"That's all right, lady," he muttered.
Mary took a nickel from her purse and edged it over
toward Mrs. Schondle's check. The waiter scooped up the
coins. "It's just that a man has to make a living," he said,
as if in apology.
"That's the truth," agreed Mrs. Schondle. "Only I left all
my other money home."
Mary and Maggie-No~v were going one way and Mrs.
Schondle another. So they said their good-bye outside the
restaurant. Marv took the woman's hand in hers and
pressed it warmly.
"Good-by, Mrs. Schondle."
"You're so nice," said llrs. Scholldle. Fears came to her
eyes. So nice to me."
"We'll see you next year, God hilling," said Marv.