by Betty Smith
Mark was on the floor quietly playing with some of
Denny's discarded blocks.
"I'll fix your breakfast," called Maggie-Now from the
babies' room, "as soon as I finish making up the cribs." He
didn't answer her.
Claude walked around the room restlessly. The baby's
eyes followed hirn. Claude walked diagonally, the eyes
followed him. He walked behind the high chair and,
awkwardly, the child turned its head and body to keep him
in sight. He came around to face the child. The child
looked up at him, still clutching the rattle. He didn't play
with the rattle or make it jingle, he just clutched it.
Claude looked down at the child and thought: Spaum.
As he thought the word, he had a curious feeling of
tenderness toward the baby.
He looked down at Mark. "What are you building?" The
child didn't look up. The child didn't answer. "A house?"
No response from the child. Claude clapped his hands
loudly. The baby dropped the rattle on the high-chair tray
but Mark neither looked up nor started. He picked up
another block. Claude had an instant of fear. He went in
to Maggie-Now.
"Is that boy dumb?" he asked. "Deaf and dumb?''
"Oh, he can talk when he wants to," she said. "You
heard him call me Mama last night.' Claude was disgusted
at the feeling of relief he felt.
She heard a clock strike ten. She dropped her work and went
L3s7]
into her bedroom. When he followed her in there, he saw
that she had put a quarter on the dressing table and was
pinning the gold piece back into his coat.
He crushed her in his arms. "No, no, no," he kept
saying. "No, I'm not going away. I just got home."
"But you said . . ."
"Why must you take everything so literally?" he asked
desperately. "I was shocked; angry. I said a lot of
things...."
"But you told me . . . '
"Hush, now. Hush! I always wanted a family. You know
that. You gave me a father and a brother. And now, my
sweet love, you throw in a couple of sons that I don't
deserve."
She broke down and cried.
"Listen! Listen now! Listen, Margaret! Listen,
Maggie-Now!" He got her quieted down finally. "Listen,
Margaret, what do you want more than anything else in
the world? Aside from me and children? "
"A furnace?" she said tentatively.
He had to laugh at that. She told him the nurse had
said a furnace was needed with the children in the house.
"Your husband will get you a furnace," he said gallantly.
"Where are my old clothes? I'm going to get a regular
job; a hard-working job with good pay."
True to his word, he got a job which paid seventy-five
dollars a week. This seemed like fabulous pay to
Maggie-Now. He didn't tell her what he worked at but
she noted his broken fingernails and, after he combed his
hair, she saw little grains in the teeth of the comb.
IiTarble dust? Grains of cement? Flakes of plaster?
She gave him a dollar a day expense money and used
some of his salary for food and household necessities. At
the end of a month, there vitas one hundred and eighty
dollars left of the three hundred he'd earned. Claude
decided that was enough to start the furnace on.
A man came and gave an estimate. A hot-air furnace
with registers would be cheaper than steam heat and
radiators. Three hundred was his price: half down now
and the balance after the heating had been installed. The
deal was made; the hundred and fifty dollars paid. Then
terribly cold weather set in and it was agreed that it was
a ball time to tear up the house to install the
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furnace. It was put off until the spring.
After the deal with the furnace man, Claude, no doubt
feeling that he had accomplished his mission, stopped
working. He took up his old place at the window and
waited. One day that wind came and she pinned the gold
piece in his pocket and gave him the quarter for cigarettes
and the paper. He didn't come back.
Well, she was used to Claude's leaving by now. And she
would have to get used to Mark's leaving. She counted the
months, the weeks, the days until he'd be taken from her.
I Rust expect it, she told herself. I know it mast come. She
did her best to prepare herself for the time.
They put the furnace in. She didn't have the money to
pay the balance. She pried twenty-five dollars out of her
father on the grounds that he had no: paid for Denny's
keep while he, Pat, was at the widow's. She paid off the
rest, five dollars a month. She was able to get five dollars
more per month rent for the upstairs. That paid for some
of the coal. Her taxes on the house were raised a little on
account of "improvements."
~ CHAPTI,R FIFTY-ONE ~
THE pattern of Maggie-Now's life seemed set now. She
took Mark back to the home when he was six and, in spite
of Mother
incent de Paul's orders, Maggie-Now wept and Mark
wept and clung to her. They gave her another baby. He
was six months old and his name was Anthony. She
counted up the years and months, days and weeks. She'd
have Johnny three years more, and Anthony five and a
half years. That was a long, long time, she thought. She
was content
Claude came home each winter with his gift and with
meat or fowl. Sometimes he brought a little money. Pat
went to the widow's each winter but one, and sent for the
priest each night before, save one. Father Flynn was in the
hospital having a kidney stone removed at the time.
Another priest served the parish temporarily. Pat didn't
want this other priest. He was afraid he'd give him
Extreme Unction.
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One winter he didn't go to l~lrs. O'Crav. fey's because
she closed up her boardinghouse lor a few months while
she took a vacation in Floricla. Pat worried. There were
men down there. They'd know she had means, else how
could she afford a Florida vacation? fIe was afraid
someone would marry her for her property.
When she came back after Christmas, unmarried, Pat
was so relieved that he bought her a five-dollar vanity
case as a present. She gave him a present in return a
knotty shillelagh, a treasure that had belonged to her first
husband. He was proud of it, Pat was, and carried it with
him whenever he went out, wishing he could get into an
argument and make use of it.
Annie's Jamesie, now grown up, got a fine job in a
well-known men's haberdashery store downtown on
Fulton Street. He earned thirty-five a week to start and he
gave his mother all of it save five dollars a week for his
expenses. Annie was able to give up her sandwich-making
job at last.
"They put him in front where peo
ple see him to sell ties."
"That's because he m: kes such a good appearance," said
llaggieNow.
"Such a good boy," said Annie. "But already he goes
with a girl. Shirley."
"Serious?" asked Maggie-Now.
Annie nodded. "In two years, they get married." She
sighed. "But that must be. The c hildren go away from you
when they get big. But for two years we will live without
worry."
Maggie-Now worried about Lottie. Gracie and Widdy
came to see her one Sunday afternoon. "Widdy's mother's
not'right,"' said Gracie. "And Widciy and I don't think she
should live alone. It would be better if she went to some
old ladies' home where she could be with her
contemporaries. She could turn over her pension to the
home and get spa cial privileges. Some of those homes are
real nice."
"But you see, Maggie, Mother won't go," said Widdy,
"and eve thought since she likes you so much and depends
on you, in a way, that you could talk her into it."
"I'll do no such thing, ' said Maggie-Now angrily. "And
shame on you, Widdy, and you too, Gracie, putting your
mother in an old ladies' home. Don't you tell me she'd be
better off with her con . . . con . . . with people her own
age. Let her have her
1 .,fsO 1
home where she was so happy with her Timmy where
everything reminds her of him so much that it's like he
was still there."
"But, Maggie," said Gracie gently, "we worry about her.
She might get sick and die there alone. And it's not fair,
Maggie, that we should worry. We have our own children
and . . ."
"Worry then," said Maggie-Nov bitterly. "It will do you
good to worry about somebody else for a change. When
I think of how your mother took the twins off your hands
when Widdy was in the war and you were gadding around
. . ."
She got them to promise that one or the other would
drop in on Lottie once each day. Maggie-Now, herself,
went to see Lottie twice a week if she could talk Pat into
staying with the babies for a few hours.
On one visit, Lottie seemed distraught. "Timmy was
looking all night for that china dog with the nursing
puppies and he couldn't find it. Somebodv must have
stolen it," she said.
On her next visit, Maggie-Now surreptitiously slipped
the china dog back on the mantelpiece.
Van Clees wasn't doing so well. After the war, the men
came back with a taste for cigarettes. Then the big
tobacco trusts had their chain stores and could undersell
the small tobacconists.
"And give coupons in the bargain for stuff," said Van
Clees. "Once I work all day every day so many people
smoke my Havanas, handmade. But now," he shrugged,
"two hours a week I can make all I can sell. I do not
worry. My property is all mine and I save my money many
years but is not good for me not to work every day."
He complained about the great changes in the
neighborhood. The poor Jewish families who lived in the
ghettos of Siegel. Moore and MacKibbon Streets were
moving out and even poorer Negro families were taking
their place.
"The colored people," said Van Clees, "is got right to
live same as us. Only is bad for real estate. The landlords
they don't make repairs for the colored people and the
houses fall down and my property ain't worth so much."
But on the bright side, Maggie-Now told him, look at
that beautiful housing development. And indeed it was
beautiful. People had sun and air and lived uncrowded
and the rents were low. Of course, she had felt bad when
the slum-clearance project
[56~ ]
razed the Moriarity house where her mother had been
born.
"Sonny's place is gone, too. But oh, he got good money
for it, Miss Maggie. You see how he has that new store,
in gold on the window: Ahead and Parker, Plumbing and
Heating, Day and Night? Is good."
Yes, the elder Pheid had died and Sonny got the
business and took in his sister's husband, Cholly, as
partner. Ilaggie-Now smiled, remembering Cholly. Gina'd
had another baby, a girl named Bertha after her mother.
Only Cholly called her Birdie. That Cholly! thought
Maggie-Now.
"And Denny?" asked Van Clees.
"He graduated from public school. You heard' Diploma
and all."
"Yes, also Annie's Jessie. Such a nice girl."
"Awfully nice," agreed liaggie-Nov. "You know, when
Denny graduated, he thought he was through with school
for life. Was he mad when 5 told him he'd have to go
until he was sixteen."
"Is the law," agreed Van Clees.
"He's working this summer."
"No!''
"Errand boy for the druggist. He wants to make money
to buy a long-pants suit for high school."
"Too big for the birthday candles, is he now," sighed
Van Clees. "My Tessie, too. Time goes, Miss Maggie."
"Yes," said Maggie-Now. She sighed too.
~ CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO ~
DENNY was nearly sixteen when he finished second year
high. He left Eastern District High without a backward
glance and with no tender memories. He was glad to be
done with school.
He went to work. He got a job with the druggist for
whom he had worked the last two summers. He washed
out citrate of magnesia bottles that had been returned for
the nickel deposit, filled them from the formula in the big
gallon jugs, and delivered
[ 362 1
prescriptions, stocked the shelves with patent medicines,
swept out and did various other odd jobs.
He came home the first Saturday night and his father
said: "Hand over your pay."
The boy gave him twelve one-dollar bills. Pat gave the
boy two dollars back and handed the ten dollars to
Maggie-Now.
"Is that all I get?" asked Denny. "After all, I worked like
a dog all week and . . ."
"That's all," said Pat. "And it's too much, if you ask me."
"What's the use of working, then?" asked Denny. Before
his father could answer, he w ent out, slamming the door
hard.
That job lasted three NN eeks. He came home and told
MaggieNow: "I threw up my job."
"Why, Denny? Oh, why?"
"I figured what was I working for? Peanuts? TNYO
dollars' spending money!" he said contemptuously.
"But, Denny, when you're eighteen, you'll get half your
salary back. And when you're twenty-one, you can keep it
all."
"I'll wait," he said.
"But, Denny, you hay' to Nvryrk."
"Give me one good reason."
"Everybody has to work: to buy food and clothes and
pay rent."
"Papa doesn't work."
"For thirty years, your
father worked steady. NONNT he
has a pension. He still provides money for us."
"Claude doesn't work. Not that I have anything against
Claude," he added quickly.
"When Claude isn't here, he pays his own way, wherever
he is. When he comes home, he brings money . . .
sometimes. And he always works a while when he first
comes home."
"But he doesn't plunk down a salary on the table every
Saturday night of the year, does he?"
"What Claude gives me," she said, "is worth much more
than a man's steady salary. He gives me a whole world . .
. oh, Denny, sometime when you're a man and are going
to be married, I'll tell you all about it."
"I want to say it again," said Denny. "I've got nothing
against Claude. I like Claude."
1 3h3
"Why, Denny?" she asked quietly.
"Because. Well, because he makes me feel like somebody
. . . like somebody important. Other people make me feel
like a worm."
Maggie-Now smiled tenderly. Back down the years she
heard herself saying . . . because you make me feel like a
princess.
After a while Denny got a job in ManhaKan: messenger
boy in a brokerage office. He earned twenty dollars a
week and Maggie-Now gave him five out of it. He seemed
satisfied. He loved working in the big city and wished he
could live there. He seemed to like his job.
He had been working there a couple of months when he
found out that the other messenger in the firm was getting
twenty-five a week. I le went to his boss and asked for a
raise.
"I'll see," said Mr. Barnsen.
Denny waited three days. Then he went back to the boss
and asked, a little flippantly, "Did you see yet, Mr.
Barnsen?"
Now Mr. Barnsen had just about decided to give Denny
a twodo]lar raise. But he changed his mind. He didn't like
the boy's attitude.
"Yes, I saw," said Mr. Barnsen. "And I saw that I don't
like your attitude."
"What else did you see?" sneered Denny.
"I saw that the firm could very well get along without you."
"You mean I'm fired?~'
"We like to say 'dismissed,'' said his ex-boss.
"Why? Why?" asked Maggie-Now when Denny told her.
"He said he didn't like my attitude whatever that is,"
replied Denny.
Pat got Denny his next job. Pat had seen a card in the
window of Pheid and Parker, Plumbing and Heating, Day
and Night. Pat took his son there. Sonny wasn't there, but
Cholly hired Denny. When Maggie-Now found out about
Denny's new job, she was a bit embarrassed. She didn't
want Sonny to think she was presuming on their brief
friendship of many years ago.
Denny answered the phone and sold washers and
plungers and uncrated new stock that came in and swept
out and made him
[~4 1
self generally useful. He got on fine with Cholly. Cholly
liked him and he liked Cholly.
"I like the way he kids around," Denny told Maggie-Now.
"Everyone likes Cholly." she said. "Everyone thinks he's
the life of the party."
But Sonny didn't like Denny. Was it because the boy
was a daily reminder of Maggic-Nov and how she had
turned him, Sonny, down when he wanted to marry her?
Did he think of his little time with her with tenderness?
Or anger? Or embarrassment? Denny knew Sonny didn t
like him and he reciprocated. When Sonny gave him an
order, Denny pretended he didn't understand. When he
obeyed the order, he did so laggardly.
Cholly came and told Maggie-Now. "We had to let him
go, Maggie. I got along fine ~ ith him. When I asked him
to do something, he was anxious to do it good. But when
Sonny asked him . . . well, Denny got everything all
bollixed up. On purpose, it seemed. I guess they just
rubbed each other the wrong way."
"I'm sorry, Cholly."
"Oh, the boy's all right. You just got to understand him.
No hard feelings, Maggie?"
"No hard feelings."