by Betty Smith
usual and didn't wake up the next morning. Doctor
Scalani said: "Heart!" and charged a dollar. The ne;ghbors
gave what comfort they could to Annie.
"Such a good man," said one.
"Yeah, the best ones are the first to go, said another.
"Sure. The bums, they hang on."
"Well, if he had to go." was the general opinion, "it's
better he went in his sleep. That way-, he never knew a
thing about it."
~ CHAPTER 7'TI'~NI'Y-THREE ~
.NIA(;CIIE-NOV let a year go IJY without seeing Annie.
Denny came down with the measles and the Board of
Health put a quarantine sign on the door. While Denny
was convalescing, Pat, to his great shame, caught the
measles from Denny. Pat had never been sick before and
he carried on as though he were in the last stages of
leprosy. He called for the priest and demanded the last
rites of the church. Father Flynn said he didn't give
Extreme Unction for measles. But he heard his confession
and gave him communion and sat at Path bedside for an
hour lecturing him on his sins and his conduct.
"That's right," said Pat, aggrieved, 'take advantage of a
man sick and flat on his back."
"As an ordained priest,' said Father F lynn, "I have to
be patient with you. But as private citizen Joseph Flynn,
I'd enjoy punching you in the nose."
Pat looked at him with interest and felt a glow. Sure, he
is fez man after all thought Pat, and worthy of ale hate.
During that year, Annie had moved away; somewhere
on Dekalb Avenue, Van Clees said. He could go right up
to the house, he said, but he couldn't tell her the number.
The next time he'd L z s7 ~
write it down and Maggie-Now could go and visit poor
Annie. Something happened to lIaggie-Now about this
time and it drove all thoughts of Annie and of nearly
everything else out of Maggie-Now's mind.
She was sitting in the yard one afternoon witl1 Denny.
She had washed her hair and was drying it in the sun. It
hung loose almost to her waist. She sat in a camp chair
and watched Denny try to dig holes in the cementlike
ground with a tablespoon. She heard her kitchen door
open and close. To her consternation, the young man
from upstairs came into the yard! She'd forgotten to lock
the front door. He greeted her, said hello buster to
Denny, who stared at him, and pulled off his shirt. He
started hand batting the ball against the wooden fence,
running back and forth. He stopped as suddenly as he had
begun and threw himself on the ground next her chair. He
leaned his head against her knee, panting from his
exertions. She w as fascinated and revolted. His curly hair
was sweaty and she felt his hot face against her knee
through her thin summer dress. She pulled her knee away.
"We got a hard-to-get girlie here," he said.
"I got to go in now," she said inanely.
"Suits me," he said. "What are we going to do about the
kid?"
She started to get up He put his arms around her legs.
"Stop that!" she said sharply.
"Just as you say." He clasped his arms around his knees.
She stood there a moment, feeling foolish. "Come, Denny,
we're going in the house now," she said.
"Listen," said the fellow from upstairs, "a couple friends
of mine are throwing a party tonight. HONV about it?"
"How about what?"
"Would you like to go?"
"Thank you. But mv father wouldn't let me."
"Tell him you're spending the night with a girl friend.
I'll sneak you in the house before he wakes up."
"My father wouldn't let me go out with you. Not with
any feller."
"He must have let you out once," he said. He winked
toward Denny.
1 Ifs]
"You go in the house first," she said. "And go right
upstairs to your own house, so I can go in."
"Now listen, kid, I'm wise. I know my way around. Sure,
sure. You palm the kid off as your brother. Well, that's all
right by me. So you made a mistake once. Well, we all
make mistakes. That's why they put rubbers on lead
pencils."
"But he is so my brother. Aren't you, Denny?"
"Mama?" murmured Denny. He held the spoon out to
her.
"That's the ticket, buster," said the young man. "Spoon.
We'll do a little spooning first . . ." ilaggie-Now started to
tremble. He put his arms around her.
"Let me go!" she said, trying not to scream on account
of the neighbors. He kissed her.
"You . . . you . . ." she searched for a word. "You slob!"
She was frantic with anger and with fear that a neighbor
might be watching from a window. "I'll tell my father what
you said. And he'll kill you."
He surrendered suddenly. "Okay, then. Only you can't
blame a feller for trying. You know how it is. You been
there."
She pulled Denny up and ran into the house. She
slammed the door and locked it. She locked the
front-room door. The y oung man pounded on the kitchen
door.
"Hey! How am I gonna get in to go upstairs?"
"Go jump over the fence!" she shouted.
He did. It wasn't a very high fence. She heard him come
i21 through the street door. 2 le went up the stairs
whistling.
She didut leave the house for a week she was so
frightened and ashamed. She thought that any man she
might encounter on the street would think as the boy
upstairs thought: that she was no good and had had a
baby without being married. She sent a neighbor's little
girl to the store for her groceries and aired Denny in the
back yard. She sat close to the house so the boy upstairs
couldn't see her without leaning far out the window. And
always she worried about the boy upstairs. She didn't tell
her father as she had threatened. She knew he would say:
It's your fault. You must have encouraged him.
1:159 1
The time came when her father ran out of tobacco and
busted the last of his clay pipes. He told her to go to Van
Clees. She said she didn't want to go; she was no longer
a child and it didn't look right for a young lady to go into
a man's cigar store.
Pat went and came home in a rage. Van Clees had
inquired about Maggie-Now and told Pat of Gus and
Annie and hove much Annie had enjoyed her visit and
Van Clees said he hoped Maggie-Now would go to
Annie's new home to see her. He gave Pat the address on
a slip of paper and Pat tore it up and threw the scraps at
Van Clees and said he'd take his trade elsewhere. Van
Clees said bluntly that there was no profit in clay pipes.
He carried them only to accommodate people he liked.
"And you are one people I don't like," he said in
conclusion.
Pat took it all out on Maggie-Now. She listened at first
with astonishment and th
en with weariness. She saw her
father with new eyes. How wrong he vv es, she thought,
talking about the Vernachts as though they were white
slavers when she herself knew they were kind and gentle.
Before this time, the girl had always believed that her
father was right not fair, but essentially right. NOW she
doubted a lot of the things that her father had told her.
She was certain, now, that she couldn't tell him about
the boy upstairs. He'd never believe her story. He'd have
his own version of the incident and it would be lurid and
poor Maggie-Now would be made to be at fault.
She was too wholesome of temperament and too
resilient to brood too long. When she got tired of staying
in the house and being afraid of the boy upstairs, she
went out again and stopped being afraid.
Let people think what they want, she decided. They can't
be arrested for thinking. And I can't walk around with a sign
on my back which says: This is my baby brother and not my
son. And as for the feller upstairs . . . he just better stay out
of my way, that's all.
The young man was removed from her life. The people
upstairs defaulted in their rent and Pat went up to see
about it.
"Being's your daughter won't let my son go in the yard,
we're not going to pay the rent," said the tenant.
1 ~60]
"The roof is for the people upstairs and the yard for the
people downstairs," said pat.
"The roof is slanty," argued the tenant. "Nobody can sit on
it."
"Pay the rent or move out."
"We'll move out."
"You can't move out unless you pay up the rent."
"We can't stay; we can't move. Make up your mind,"
sneered the tenant.
The tenants Ctlt this Gordiall knot by moving and not
paying the rent. They got the iceman to move their
furniture in his pushcart. Maggie-Now sent a little boy to
where Pat was working. Pat came running, clutching his
broom in his hand.
Pat started to pull a marble-topped bureau off the cart.
He figured that was the same value as the rent owed. The
tenant called the cop on the bear. The cop judiciously
listened to both sides, holding his nightstick in his hands
behind his back and swinging it between his legs. When
Pat and the tenant had done, the cop gave his verdict.
"I got no use for landlords," was his opening statement.
He handed down his opinion at length. He thought it
was "funny" that a man working for the city could own his
own home. He cited his own experience. He'd been on the
force twenty years making good pay and he couldn't
afford to own his own home. There was something fishy....
In short, he found for the tenant.
The iceman moved off with bells jangling and furniture
swaying on the cart. Pat followed him with brandished
broom. He was going to follow the cart to the new
residence and badger his ex-tenants from there.
"Make him stop follying our furniture," ordered the
tenant.
"I got me rights," said Pat. "I'm not follying anything.
I'm walking back to me work and the pushcart is in front
of me."
Pat kept walking. The cop put his chin in his hand and
squeezed it--thinking. There was nothing in rules and
regulations about a man walking to u ork....
"Ain't you gonna do nothing? " inquired the tenant.
The pushcart and Pat rounded the corner. The cop
solved the problem. "There's nothing I can do. He's off
my beat now."
~ 16~ 1
The Italian iceman cropped. "Look wall-yo," he said to
Pat. "I know how is. Me, I on your side. I give you
address new place. You don't walk so far."
Pat thought that was a good idea. The Italian gave him
a fake address.
Thus the feller who gave Maggie-Now her first kiss was
gone forever. From now on, he'd he nothing hut a
lifetime memory.
She took Denny to sec Van Clees on his third birthday.
It took the good man a few minutes to recognize her. She
had grown tall in the year and now was quite buxom for
her nineteen years. Tle was pleased to see her and
delighted with Denny. He had three small blue candles
for hilll.
He told her about Arluie; she'd anon ed again, to
Flushing Avenue, the other side of Broadway; a very poor
neighborhood. The two younger children went to nursery
school or the day nursery as it was called and
Jamesie such a good boy, said Van Clees ran the
house while the mother worked.
"Yes, she w orks now," sighed Van Clees. "In the
five-ten store on Broadway. Now she gives the best years
of her life up for making open sandwiches." He sighed
again.
Maggie-Now went over to the dime store. It was the
lunch hour and the lunch counter was crowded. There
was a woman, sometimes two and three, standing behind
each lunch stool, breathing down the luncher's neck and
watching each bite and making snide remarks to fellow
standees about how long some people nursed a sandwich.
Maggie-Now saw Annie and stood behind a stool
waiting to catch her eye. Annie was making a hot
roast-beef sandwich. She took a slice of bread from a
drawer, a thin slice of cold meat from an agate tray,
placed the meat on the bread, a scoopful of gravy,
mashed potato next the bread and a dipperful of warmish,
tan gravy over all. She set the plate down before the
customer and looked up for a second. Maggie-Now
started to smile. Annie gave her a harried look.
"I'll get to you in a second, Miss," said Annie.
So she didn't recognizc me, thought Maggie-Now. That's
that. I did the best I could to be friends with her.
~ /62]
~-~9; CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR ~
MAGG7.E-Now brought Denny up the way she'd been
brought up. It was the only way she knew. She took him
to Coney Island once or twice in the summer instead of
Rockaway, because the fare was cheaper. He loved the
sea and the sand as much as she had as a child. Unlike
her, however, Denny always sought out a group of
children. He couldn't enjoy jiggling up and down in the
waves by himself. He had to show off to other kids.
He wouldn't eat the shoebox lunch she brought from
home. He wanted an apple-on-a-stick, a hot dog, or a
water-logged ear of sweet corn with melted butter painted
on. She wondered why he didn't like the tilings she'd liked
as a child. The only way she could explain it was that boys
were different.
"When I take him somewhere," she told her father, "he
costs." "That's because he's a boy," said Pat.
When they went to the cemetery on Decoration Day,
Denny, like his sister, wanted to sit on the front seat. Only
he wouldn't sit. He kept jumping up to stand next the
motorman. Th
e trip was made to the rhythm of the
motorman's monotonous chant: "Down, boy, sit down."
alloys are so much more active than girls," she explained
to a grumpy lady on the san.e seat.
"I'll let you pick out the flower to plant on the grave,"
she offered. Unlike his sister, he was not interested in
geraniums no matter what colors they were.
"I want to plant a flag on the grave," he said.
"Flags are for soldier's graves only."
"Grandpa was a soldier "
"No, he wasn't, Denny.'
"He told me so hisself."
"But you never saw your grandfather.''
"He told me all the same to plant a flag on his grave."
~ /6, 1
"Well, I'm not going to buy you a flag. And that's all."
But it wasn't all. He threw himself down on the
sidewalk, full length, and announced he wouldn't get up
until she bought him a flag. She was embarrassed.
"Denny! Get up! See all the people looking at v out"
"Yeah," he said with sleep satisfaction.
She bought him the flag. Boys want their 0~7~ may
Blare than girls do, she decided.
At the cemetery, Mr,. Schondle, wearing the same dress
and veils, or a painful reproduction of the same, hobbled
over to exchange greetings.
"Denny, say hello to Irs. Scll~yndle.'' suggested
A:laggie-Now.
"I want a penny," he countered.
"Say hello, now," persisted his sister.
"I want a penny."
Mrs. Schondle dived into her pocl;ethook and came up
witl a penny for him.
"What do you say, I)ennv?" nudged llaggie-No~v.
"Hello,', he said.
Boys aren't as polite as girls, she added to her list of
hov-isms.
"He's only four," she apologized to Mrs. Schondle.
"That's all right," said Mrs. Schondle graciously.
But she thought: If he's tint .;,ay at four, he'll be in
reform school when he's fo~/rte`7z.
They were leaving. Denilv pulled up the flag. "You're
supposed to leave it there, I)enny," said ,!Iaggie-Now.
"Grandpa said he don t want it."
She sighed but let it go. Denny lagged behind as his
sister and Mrs. Schondle made their slow way to the exit.
Near the gates, Denny caught up with them. I le had half
a dozen flags clutched in his fist.
"Denny! " she said hol rifled.
"A man give 'cm to m.," he said.
Just then a little boy ran up o it of breath. "He stole
'em. lady! He took 'em off-a graves."
Denny fixed the little boy with his eye. "The man," he
said slowly, "told me to give you one. Here!"
"Yeah," said the boy. ''A man give 'em to him." Me ran
off with the flag.
~ ~1
Maggie-Now could think of no boy-ism for that. Mrs.
Schondle supplied one.
"Well, that's a boy for you," she said.
Yet . . .
The next year, Mrs. Schondle did not walk over to greet
them. The Schondle grave looked raw and was mounded.
Maggie-Now walked over to the grave. Yes. Fresh carving
. . . a winter date . . . Elsie Schondle, beloved wife . . .
Maggie-Now sat on the ground next the grave and wept.
It wasn't that she had been so close to Mrs. Schondle. It
was because while Mrs. Schondle was alive, a little bit of
Maggie-Now's mother had still lived.
The boy, Denny, came to her, knelt down by her side
and put his arms around her neck.
"Don't cry, my mama,' he said. "Don't cry, my sister.
Don't cry, my Maggie-Now. I dove you."
Then Maggie-Now got the definitive boy-ism.
Tenderness is scarce in boys, she thought. But when a boy
is tender, he's more tender than a girl could ever be.
It was an evening after supper. Denny was on the floor
shooting marbles. Maggie-Nou was reading Laddie, a book
that had just come into the library. Patrick Dennis had
read the evening paper. Now he was digesting the news.
We'll never get in it, he thought. Wilson will keep us out of
war. If we did get in, though, I wouldn't have to go a man