A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

by Betty Smith

  Miss Garnder couldn't let it go at that. She had to be a teacher. "About your mark: You haven't turned in work this term. I should have failed you. But at the last moment, I decided to pass you so that you could graduate with your class." She waited. Francie said nothing. "Well? Aren't you going to thank me?"

  "Thank you, Miss Garnder."

  "You remember our little chat?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Why did you turn stubborn and stop handing in work, then?"

  Francie had nothing to say. It was something she couldn't explain to Miss Garnder. She held out her hand. "Good-bye, Miss Garnder."

  Miss Garnder was taken aback. "Well--good-bye, then," she said. They shook hands. "In time to come, you'll see I was right, Frances." Francie said nothing. "Won't you?" Miss Garnder asked sharply.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Francie went out of the room. She did not hate Miss Garnder anymore. She didn't like her, but she felt sorry for her. Miss Garnder had nothing in all the world excepting a sureness about how right she was.

  Mr. Jenson stood on the school steps. He took each child's hand in both of his and said, "Good-bye and God bless you." He added a personal message for Francie. "Be good, work hard, and reflect credit on our school." Francie promised that she would.

  On the way home, Sissy said, "Look! Let's not tell your mother who sent the flowers. It will start her to remembering and she's just about getting well after Laurie." They agreed to say that Sissy bought the flowers. Francie removed the card and put it in her pencil box.

  When they told Mama the lie about the flowers, she said, "Sissy, you shouldn't have spent your money." But Francie could tell that Mama was pleased.

  The two diplomas were admired and everyone agreed that Francie's was the prettiest on account of Mr. Jenson's fine handwriting.

  "The first diplomas in the Nolan family," said Katie.

  "But not the last, I hope," said Sissy.

  "I'm going to see to it that each of my children have three," said Evy, "grade school, high school and college."

  "In twenty-five years," said Sissy, "our family will have a stack of diplomas this high." She stood on tiptoe and measured six feet from the ground.

  Mama examined the report cards for the last time. Neeley had "B" in conduct, the same in physical education and "C" in all his other subjects. Mama said, "That's good, son." She looked past Francie's "A"s and concentrated on the "C minus."

  "Francie! I'm surprised. How did this happen?"

  "Mama, I don't want to talk about it."

  "And in English, too. Your best subject."

  Francie's voice notched up higher as she repeated, "Mama, I don't want to talk about it."

  "She always wrote the best compositions in school," explained Katie to her sisters.

  "Mama!" It was almost a scream.

  "Katie! Stop it!" ordered Sissy sharply.

  "All right, then," surrendered Katie, suddenly aware that she was nagging and ashamed of herself.

  Evy jumped in with a change of subject. "Do we have that party, or don't we?" she asked.

  "I'm putting my hat on," Katie said.

  Sissy stayed with Laurie while Evy, Mama, and the two graduates went to Scheefly's Ice-Cream Saloon for the party. Scheefly's was crowded with graduation parties. The kids had their diplomas with them and the girls brought their bouquets. There was a mother or a father--sometimes both, at each table. The Nolan party found a free table at the back of the room.

  The place was a medley of shouting kids, beaming parents and rushed waiters. Some kids were thirteen, a few fifteen, but most of them Francie's age--fourteen. Most of the boys were Neeley's classmates and he had a great time hollering greetings across the room. Francie hardly knew the girls, nevertheless she waved and called out to them as gaily as though they had been close friends for years.

  Francie was proud of Mama. The other mothers had graying hair and most of them were so fat that their backsides slopped over the edges of the chair. Mama was slender and didn't look at all like going on thirty-three. Her skin was as smoothly clear and her hair as black and curling as it had ever been. "Put her in a white dress," thought Francie, "with a bunch of roses in her arms, and she'd look like any fourteen-year-old graduate--except for the line between her eyes that cut deeper since Papa died."

  They ordered. Francie had a mental list of all the soda flavors. She was going down the list so that she could say she had tasted all the kinds of sodas in the world. Pineapple was next and she ordered that. Neeley ordered the old standby, chocolate soda, and Katie and Evy chose plain vanilla ice cream.

  Evy made up little stories about the people in the place and kept Francie and Neeley laughing. Francie studied her mother from time to time. Mama wasn't smiling at Evy's jokes. She ate her ice cream slowly and the line between her eyes deepened and Francie knew that she was figuring something out.

  "My children," thought Katie, "have more education at thirteen and fourteen than I have at thirty-two. And still it isn't enough. When I think of how ignorant I was at their age. Yes, and even when I was married and had a baby. Imagine. I believed in witch's charms, then--what the midwife told me about the woman in the fish market. They started in way ahead of me. They were never that ignorant.

  "I got them graduated from grade school. I can't do more for them. All my plans...Neeley, a doctor, Francie in college...can't work them out now. The baby.... Have they enough in them to get somewhere alone? I don't know. The Shakespeare...the Bible.... They know how to play piano but they've stopped practicing now. I taught them to be clean and truthful and not to take charity. Is that enough, though?

  "They'll have a boss to please, soon, and new people to get along with. They'll get into other ways. Good? Bad? They won't sit home with me nights if they work all day. Neeley will be off with his friends. And Francie? Reading.... Away to the library...a show...a free lecture or band concert. Of course, I'll have the baby. The baby. She'll get a better start. When she graduates, the other two might see her through high school. I must do better for Laurie than I did for them. They never had enough to eat, never had right clothes. The best I could do wasn't enough. And now they have to go out to work and they're still little children. Oh, if I could only get them into high school this fall! Please God! I'll give twenty years off my life. I'll work night and day. But I can't, of course. No one to stay with the baby."

  Her thoughts were broken into by a wave of singing that rolled over the room. Someone started a popular anti-war song and the rest took it up.

  I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier.*

  I brought him up to be my pride and joy...

  Katie resumed her thoughts. "There is no one to help us. No one." She thought briefly of Sergeant McShane. He had sent a big basket of fruit when Laurie was born. She knew he was retiring from the police force in September. He was going to run for Assemblyman from Queens, his home borough, next Election. Everyone said he'd be sure to get in. She had heard that his wife was very sick, might not live to see her husband elected.

  "He'll marry again," thought Katie. "Of course. Some woman who knows all about social life...help him...the way a politician's wife must." She stared at her workworn hands for a long time, then put them under the table as though she were ashamed of them.

  Francie noticed. "She's thinking of Sergeant McShane," she guessed, remembering how Mama had put on her cotton gloves that time long ago at the outing when McShane had looked at her. "He likes her," thought Francie. "I wonder does she know it? She must. She seems to know everything. I bet she could marry him if she wanted to. But he needn't think I'd ever call him father. My father is dead and no matter who Mama marries, he will only be Mr. So-and-So to me."

  They were finishing the song.

  There'd be no wars today,

  If mothers all would say,

  I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier.

  "...Neeley," thought Katie. "Thirteen. If war does come here, it will be over before he gets old enough to go, thank God." />
  Now Aunt Evy was singing softly to them, making up a parody on the song.

  Who dares to place a mustache on his shoulder.

  "Aunt Evy, you're terrible," said Francie as she and Neeley screamed with laughter. Katie jerked out of her thoughts and looked up and smiled. Then the waiter laid down the check and they all grew silent, watching Katie.

  "I hope she's not fool enough to tip him," thought Evy.

  "Does Mama know you're supposed to leave a nickel tip?" thought Neeley. "I hope so."

  "Whatever Mama does," thought Francie, "it will be the right thing."

  It wasn't the custom to tip in the ice-cream saloons except on special parties when you were supposed to leave a nickel. Katie saw that the check was for thirty cents. She had one coin in her old purse, it was a fifty-cent piece which she laid on the check. The waiter took it away and brought back four nickels which he laid in a row. He hovered nearby waiting for Katie to pick up three of them. She looked at the four nickels. "Four loaves of bread," she thought. Four pair of eyes watched Katie's hand. Katie never hesitated once she put her hand on the money. With a sure gesture, she pushed the four nickels toward the waiter.

  "Keep the change," she said grandly.

  Francie had all she could do not to stand up on her chair and cheer. "Mama is somebody," she kept saying to herself. The waiter scooped up the nickels happily and rushed away.

  "Two sodas shot," groaned Neeley.

  "Katie, Katie, how foolish," protested Evy. "I bet it's your last money, too."

  "It is. But it may be our last graduation, too."

  "McGarrity pays us four dollars tomorrow," said Francie, defending her mother.

  "And he fires us tomorrow too," added Neeley.

  "There'll be no money after that four dollars until they get jobs, then," concluded Evy.

  "I don't care," said Katie. "For once I wanted us to feel like millionaires. And if twenty cents can make us feel rich, it's a cheap price to pay."

  Evy recalled how Katie let Francie pour her coffee down the sink and said nothing more. There were many things she didn't understand about her sister.

  The parties were breaking up. Albie Seedmore, the leggy son of a prosperous grocer, came over to their table.

  "Go-to-the-movies-with-me-tomorrow-Francie?" he asked all on a breath. "I'll pay," he added hastily.

  (A movie house was letting the graduates attend the Saturday matinee two-for-a-nickel providing they brought their diplomas along as proof.)

  Francie looked at her mother. Mama nodded her consent.

  "Sure, Albie," accepted Francie.

  "See you. Two. Tomorrow." He loped off.

  "Your first date," said Evy. "Make a wish." She held out her little finger and crooked it. Francie hooked her little finger into Aunt Evy's.

  "I wish I could always wear a white dress and carry red roses and that we could always throw money around like we did tonight," wished Francie.

  Book Four

  43

  "YOU GOT THE IDEA NOW," SAID THE FORELADY TO FRANCIE. "YOU'LL make a good stemmer in time." She went away and Francie was on her own; the first hour of the first day of her first job.

  Following the forelady's instructions, her left hand picked up a foot length of shiny wire. Simultaneously her right hand picked up a narrow strip of dark green tissue paper. She touched the end of the strip to a damp sponge, then, using the thumb and first two fingers of each hand as a rolling machine, she wound the paper on the wire. She placed the covered wire aside. It was now a stem.

  At intervals, Mark, the pimply-faced utility boy, distributed the stems to the "pet'lers" who wired paper rose petals to them. Another girl strung a calyx up under the rose and turned it over to the "leafer" who pried a unit, three dark glossy leaves on a short stem, from a block of leaves, wired the unit to the stem and turned the rose over to the "finisher," who wound a strip of heavier-textured green paper around the calyx and down the stem. The stem, calyx, rose and leaves were now one and seemed to have grown so.

  Francie's back hurt and a shooting pain ran through her shoulder. She must have covered a thousand stems, she figured. Surely it was time for lunch. She turned around to look at the clock and found that she had been working just one hour!

  "Clock watcher," commented a girl derisively. Francie looked up, startled, but said nothing.

  She got a rhythm to her work and it seemed to come easier. One. She set aside the covered wire. And a half. She picked up a new wire and a strip of paper. Two. She moistened the paper. Three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten. The wire was covered. Soon the rhythm became instinctive, she didn't have to count and it wasn't necessary to concentrate. Her back relaxed and her shoulder stopped aching. Her mind was freed and she started to figure things out.

  "This could be a whole life," she thought. "You work eight hours a day covering wires to earn money to buy food and to pay for a place to sleep so that you can keep living to come back to cover more wires. Some people are born and kept living just to come to this. Of course, some of these girls will marry; marry men who have the same kind of life. What will they gain? They'll gain someone to hold conversations within the few hours at night between work and sleep." But she knew the gain wouldn't last. She had seen too many working couples who, after the children came and the bills piled up, rarely communicated with each other except in bitter snarls. "These people are caught," she thought. "And why? Because" (remembering her grandmother's repeated convictions), "they haven't got enough education." Fright grew in Francie. Maybe it would be so that she'd never get to high school; maybe she'd never have more education than she had at that moment. Maybe all her life she'd have to cover wires...cover wires .... One...and a half...two...three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten. The same unreasoning terror came on her that had come when, as an eleven-year-old child, she had seen the old man with the obscene feet in Losher's Bakery. In her panic, she speeded up her rhythm so that she'd have to concentrate on her work and not have room to think.

  "New broom," observed a finisher cynically.

  "Trying to make a hit with the boss," was the opinion of a pet'ler.

  Soon even the speeding up became automatic and again Francie's mind was free. Covertly, she studied the girls at the long table. There were a dozen of them, Poles and Italians. The youngest looked sixteen and the oldest, thirty, and all were swarthy. For some unaccountable reason, all wore black dresses, evidently not realizing how unbecoming black was to dark skins. Francie was the only one wearing a gingham wash dress and she felt like a silly baby. The sharp-eyed workers noticed her quick stares and retaliated with their own peculiar brand of hazing. The girl at the head of the table started it.

  "Somebody at this table is got a dirty face," she announced. "Not me," answered the others one by one. When Francie's turn came they stopped work and waited. Not knowing what to answer, Francie remained silent. "New girl says nothing," summarized the ringleader. "So she's got the dirty face." Francie's face got hot but she worked faster hoping they'd drop the whole thing.

  "Somebody is got a dirty neck." It started all over again. "Not me," answered the girls in order. When it came to Francie's turn, she too said, "Not me." But instead of appeasing them, it gave them more material to work on.

  "New girl says her neck ain't dirty."

  "She says!"

  "How does she know? Can she see her own neck?"

  "Would she admit it if it was dirty?"

  "They want me to do something," puzzled Francie. "But what? Do they want me to get mad and curse at them? Do they want me to give up this job? Or do they want to see me cry, the way that little girl did long ago when I watched her clean the blackboard erasers? Whatever they want, I won't do it!" She bent her head over the wires and made her fingers fly faster.

  The tiresome game went on all morning. The only respites were when Mark, the utility boy, came in. Then they let up on Francie a little in order to work on him.

  "New girl, watch out for Mark," they warned her. "He wa
s arrested twice for rape and once for white slavery."

  The accusations were crudely ironical considering the obvious effeminacy of Mark. Francie saw how the unfortunate boy flushed a brick red at each taunt and she felt sorry for him.

  The morning wore on. When it seemed that it would never end, a bell rang announcing lunchtime. The girls dropped their work, hauled out paper bags of lunch, ripped the bags open to form a tablecloth, spread out their onion-garnished sandwiches and started to eat. Francie's hands were hot and sticky. She wanted to wash them before she ate so she asked her neighbor where the washroom was.

  "No spik Eng-leash," answered the girl in exaggerated greenhorn dialect.

  "Nix verstandt," said another who had been taunting her in idiomatic English all morning.

  "What's a washroom?" asked a fat girl.

  "Where they make washers," replied a wit.

  Mark was collecting boxes. He stood in the doorway, his arms laden, made his Adam's apple go up and down twice, and Francie heard him speak for the first time.

  "Jesus Christ died on the cross for people like you," he announced passionately, "and now you won't show a new girl where the terlet is."

  Francie stared at him, astonished. Then she couldn't help it--it had sounded so funny--she burst out laughing. Mark gulped, turned and disappeared down the hall. Everything changed then. A murmur ran round the table.

  "She laughed!"

  "Hey! The new girl laughed!"

  "Laughed!"

  A young Italian girl linked her arm in Francie's and said, "Come on, new girl. I'll show you the terlet."

  In the washroom, she turned on the water for Francie, punched down on the glass bowl of liquid soap and hovered over Francie solicitously while she washed her hands. When Francie would have dried her hands on the snowy, obviously-unused roller towel, her guide snatched her away.

  "Don't use that towel, new girl."

  "Why? It looks clean."

  "It's dangerous. Some of the girls working here is clappy and you'll catch it if you use the towel."

  "What'll I do?" Francie waved her wet hands.

  "Use your petticoat like we do."

  Francie dried her hands on her petticoat eyeing the deadly towel with horror.

  Back in the workroom, she found that they had flattened her paper bag and set out the two bologna sandwiches mama had fixed for her. She saw that someone had placed a nice red tomato on her paper. The girls welcomed her back with smiles. The one who had led the taunts all morning, took a long swig out of a whiskey bottle and then passed it to Francie.