MAGGIE-NOW
        BY
        BETTY SMITH



        MAGGIE-NOW
Copyright C) 1958 by Betty Smith
Printed in the United Stares of
Amercia
All rights in this book are reserved.
No part of the book may be used or
reproduced
in any manner whatsoever without
written per
mission except in the case of brief
quotations
embodied in critical articles and
reviews. For
information address Harper & Brothers
49 East 33rd Street, Ncw York 16, N. Y.
             
MAGGIE-NOW

              CHAPTER ONE

YOUNG Patrick Dennis Moore wore the tightest pants
in all of County Kilkenny. I le W;iS the only boy-o in the
village who cleaned his fingernails; and his thick, black,
shiny hair had the widest, cleanest part in all of
Ireland or so it was said.

 He lived with his mother. He was the last of a brood of
thirteen. Three had died, four had married. Three had
been put in an orphan home when the father died, and
had been adopted or bound out to farmers and never
been heard from again. One had gone to Australia;
another to Dublin. The Dublin one had married a
Protestant girl and changed his name to Morton. Patrick
Dennis was the only one left with his mother.

 And how she clung to her last baby Patsy Denny, she
called him. In her young days, sue had had her babies like
kittens. She nursed them at her huge breasts, wiped their
noses on her petticoat, cuffed them, hugged them and
fretted when they toddled away from her skirts. But when
they grew older and stopped being utterly dependent on
her for life itself, she lost interest in them.

 Patsy Denny vvas a charge-of-life baby. She was in her
middle forties when he came along. (His father died four
months before Patsy was born.) She had been awed and
surprised when she found herself "that way" with him,
having thought surely she was too old to have another
child. She held his birth to be a holy miracle. Believing he
was a special dispensation from heaven, and realizing he
was the last child she'd ever bear, she flowed over with
maternal love and gave him all she had denied her other
children.

She called him her "eye apple." She did not ask that he
worli

                   [ 1 1
                     
and support her. She worked for 13iin. All she asked v as
that he be. All she wanted was to have him with her for
always to look her fill at him and to cater to his creature
comforts.

 She was the one who convinced him (and he wasn't
hard to convince) that he was above common labor. Was
he not the talented one? Sure! Why, he could dance a jig,
keeping his body rigid as he jumped into r he air, no
matter what intricate figures his feet beat out.

 He had a friend known as Rory-Boy. T he friend had a
fiddle. Patsy and Rory-Boy entertained at the public
houses. Rory-Bov banged his bow on the fiddle strings
and wild, incoherent music came out to which Patsy
pranced, jogged and leaped. Sometimes someone threw a
copper. Patsy's share didn't come to much just enough
to keep him supplied with the lurid-colored handkerchiefs
which he liked to wear around his neck and knotted
under his left ear.

 What was there said about Patrick Dennis in the
village? Much that was bad and little that was
good except that he was sweet to his mother. And so he
was. He loved her and treated her as though she were a
girl he was forever courting.

 Sure, he had a sweetheart. She was seventeen. She was
a pretty thing with black hair and azure eyes with
charcoal-black lashes. She was walking proof of the
legend that sometimes God's fingers were smudgy when
He put in the eyes of an Irish girl baby. She lived with her
widowed mother and her name was Maggie Rose Shawn.
She was beautiful, she was poor. And mothers of mar-
riageable sons warned them against Maggie Rose.

 "And what would she be bringing to a marriage except
her beautiful self? And it's soon enough the bloom would
leave that rose when the man would have to take the
mother with the daughter for the Widow Shawn is not
one to live apart from her only daughter.

 "No. The Widow's only son won't take the old lady.
Sure now, he's a constable in Brooklyn, America, and it's
grand wages he makes. And it's the constable's wife,
herself, with her American ways, who looks down on her
man's mother and his sister. Or so 'tis said.

"No, my son, there is others to marry. C)ur l.ord put more
~ ~1

women than men in this world, especially in this village
where the young men leave almost as soon as they're
weaned, to get work and to lead the wild life in Dublin or
some other strange part of the world and leave the village
girls behind."

 The boys listened but looked on Maggie Rose with
desire, and many there were who thought the care and
support of her clinging mother was a cheap price to pay
for such a darling of a girl.

 But Maggie Rose would have none of their intentions.
Patrick Dennis was dear one. He was the one; the only
one.

 Lizzie Moore was not too concerned when her eye apple
of a son started walking out with Maggie Rose Shawn. She
knew she had a strong mother-hold on her son.

 "Why would he marry," she said, "and play second fiddle
to the girl and third to the Widow and him a king alone
in me cottage? "

 She was sure, too, that Patsy was too lazy and selfish
and too scared of hard work to marry a poor girl.

 "And what can the girl bring to marriage with a honest
boy-o? No bit of land, no sow, no cow, no bag of cloth
with a few pieces of gold in it. Nothing! Nothing but a
keening mother and a handful of picture postal cards from
her brother, the constable in Brooklyn."

 She gave out ugly rumors about the girl. "Marry, you
say? And why should me last son marry the likes of her?
A man marries for the one thing when he can't have it no
other way. But ah, me boy-o don't have to go to the
trouble of marrying for that  the way he is good looking
and all."

 Patrick Dennis and Maggie Rose were together day and
night except when he ate with his mother or performed in
the taverns with Rory-l'.oy. Soon, all of Maggie Rose's
other suitors gave way. There was talk.

"The shame of it . . ."

"'Tis against nature . . ."

  "A healthy boy-o and a beautiful girl together all the
time, it follows that . . ."

  So spoke the drink nursers in the taverns. The village
biddies, arms folded and lips stern, nodded knowingly as
they agreed that if the couple were not- married, sure and
they should be.

                    F31
                     
 None of these thinners were true. Maggie Rose was a
good, decent, churchgoing girl. But the talk came to her
mother in time and Mrs. Shawn invited Patrick over for
supper and had it out with him.

"Sonny lad," she saicl, "I will talk to vou ahoutmarrying.7,

"I'm a-willing," said Patrick.

"To marry?"

"To talk."

 "And aren't you the one for talking. And making talk,
too  the way they talk about me only daughter and all
the fault of you and your ways with her."

 "I'll thrash any mail what speaks against Maggie
Rose no matter how big he be's. '

 "You'll have to be thrashing most of the women of the
parish too, then." She gave him the question point-hlank.
"Now when will you be marrying me daughter?"

 Patrick felt trapped and frightened. He wanted to run
away and never see either of them again. Not that he
didn't care for Maggie Rose. He did. But he didn't want
to be gunned into marriage. His gift of gab came to his
aid.

 "Would I not be the proudest man in the world could I
marry .N,laggie Rose and she willing? Btlt I made a great
promise to me old mother: never to marry the while she
lived. For who else does she have in all the world? Only
meself poor thing that I am." He appealed directly to
Maggie Rose. "You would not be wanting a man what
W.15 cruel to his mother, would you now?"

Dumbly, and with eyes cast down, she shook her head
"No."

 "Is it not so that a son what is bad to his mother," he
said, "is had to his wife? Ah, nothing but bad cess would
come of it. Think on the poor children what would be
born to us and them blind and crippled our Lord's
punishment was I to destroy me promise to me poor old
lady." He wiped an eye with a corner of the magenta
hanc3kerchief knotted under his left ear.

 "And the while you're waiting for your poor old mother
to die on you," said the Widow Shawn, "and she the one
to make old hones and live to a hundred, me Maggie
Rose is losing her chances with the other boy-sis.'

"'Tis true, 'tis true,' moaned Patsv. "I don't he having the

                   F41
                    
right to stand in her way." He turned to the now weeping
girl. "Me poor heart breaks in two giving you up, me
Maggie Rose. But is not your good mother right? So I'll
not be standing between you and some other fine man. I'll
be bidding you goodby."

 To his astonishment, he burst into tears. Is it a good
player that I am, he thought, or is it that I love the girl?

 He rushed out of the cottage. Margie Rose ran down the
path after him, weeping and calling out his name. He
turned and waited for her. She put kisses on his face and
buried her tear-wet cheek in his neck.

 "Don't be leaving me, darling," she sobbed. "I'll wait ever
for you for I want no one else. I'll wait till your mother
dies. And may that be years to come," said the good girl,
"for I know how you love her and I w ould not have you
grieve. Only don't leave me. Do not leave me because I
love you so."

 Things went on as before. Patsy kept on courting Maggie
Rose and enjoying it more because he knew now that he
didn't have to give up his freedom. Sure, he intended to
marry her someday maybe. But for now . . .

 His mother was jubilant. She told her cronies: "Her and
her mother together: They tried to thrick me boy into
marrying the girl and for all I know saying there was the
reason for it. And maybe so. Maybe so," she said
insinuatingly. "But if so, 'twas not me Patsy Denny was the
feller. A girl like that, and sure, it could be anybody
a-tall."

 Rory-Boy told Patsy Denny he was lucky. "Is it not so
that the old cow's got no husband and the sweet girl no
living father to beat the hell out of you for not going to
the priest with her? I tell you nowhere in the world is
there such free love. Not even in America where all is
free."

 There was a tug at Pats>'s heart. Should I not be
sheltering her against the dirty talk, he thought, by standing
up in church with her? Ah, yes. But would I not be a poor
stick of a man if I married me illaggie Rose because the old
lady said: do you do so, now.

Mrs. Shawn took to waylaying the boy and inquiring after l s
Pi

his "dear' mother's health. "And how's your mother this
day'" she would ask.

 "Ah, she's as well as might be," he'd answer, "and me
thanks to you for asking. But," with a sigh, "she's getting
older . . . older."

"And so's me daughter," she'd answer bitterly.

 The harassed woman decided to put a stop to the affair.
She told the girl she'd have to stop seeing Patsy or go into
a convent.

"I will not do so," said the girl.

 "That you will. 'Tis meself has tile sav of vou and you
not eighteen yet."

 "Do you try to force me, Mother, 1'11 . . ." she searched
for a word she didn't know. ". . . I'll stay with him in the
way bad girls stay with men and they not married to each
other."

 "To talk to your mother so," wailed Mrs. Shawn. "To dig
me grave by breaking me heart. And you such a good
girl before you were spoiled by that black'ard! You who
went to church every morning to receive . . ."

 Mrs. Shawn went into a time of weeping and keening.
When that was out of the way' she sent for Bertie, the
Broommaker, who was also the village letter writer. Bertie
brought his book along: Epistles for All Occasiorzs. There
was no form letter that suited the Widow's exact occasion.
The nearest one vitas: Epistle to Be Written to a Relative
Across the Water An~zounci~zg the Demise of a Dear
One. Bertie said he'd copy it off and make it "fit" by
changing demise to my daughter's fix whenever demise
came up, and to substitute nZy esteemed so',' Timothy for
my esteemed great-u~zcle Thaddeus.

 After the letter was carefully addressed to: Constable
Timothy Shame, Police Department, Brook~ly~z, U.S.~.,
Bertie inked in his trademark on the back of the
envelope.

 A few waving lines represented ocean waves. A pigeon
flew over the water with a letter in his mouth. On the
pigeon's letter were tinier waves, a tinier pigeon with a
letter in his mouth. That tinier letter had a microscopic
pigeon with an almost invisihle letter in his mouth. That
microscopic pigeon was flying over almost invisible waves
and so on. When the whole thing waves, pigeon and
letters got down to one dot, that dot was supposed to

                  1 6 1
                    
represent a billion, trillion, so on letters of pigeons flying
over the waves with a lever. Bertie was tussling with
infinity and the neighbors said he wasn't all there.

 Eventually, all the pigeons got the letter to Timothy
Shawn, Maggie Rose's brother, who lived in East New
York, Brooklyn.

            ~ CHA PTER T 1l7O ~

OFFICER Timothy (Big Red) Shawn sat in the parlor of
his East New York flat. His beat was the Bowery in
Manhattan, but he lived in Brooklyn because he liked to
live in the country, he said, and because his wife wanted
to live near her mother. It took him more than two hours
to get home each night. He had to journey by ferry,
horsecar and foot.

 Now, his day's work done, he sat in his parlor in his
undershirt soaking his poor feet in a dishpan of warm
water in which Epsom salts were dissolved. The stiff red
hairs on his chest pushed through the cloth of his
undershirt like rusty grass seeking the sun.

 "Why don't you soak your feet in the kitchen and save
the parlor rug? " asked Lonie, his American-born wife of
Irish descent. She asked the same question each night.

 "Because me home is me castle." He made the same
answer each night.

 He surveyed the parlor of his castle. The narrow
windows that looked down on the street were hung with
lace curtains. They were sooty but starched. A taboret,
fake Chinese, stood between the windows. Its function was
to hold a rubber plant in a glazed green jardiniere. The
unfolded top leaf of the plant always had a drop of rubber
milk on its tip. A gaudy and fringed lambrequin draped
the fake marble mantelpiece over the fake onyx fireplace.
On the mantelpiece was a china pug dog lying on its side
and with four pug puppies lying in a row, frozen eternally
in the act of taking nourishment from their mother. In the
renter of the room there was a marble-top parlor table
covered with a

                    [71
                     
fringed Turkey-red tablecloth. A picture album lay in the
dead center of the table. When the album was opened, it
played "Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot." The tune
came from a Swiss music box concealed in the concave
cover of the green plush album.

 The rootll was stuffy. ugly, tasteless, even vulgar. But
Big Red loved it! He was happy in it; proud of it. He
thought it \N-as perfect or would be if it wasn't for the
portrait.

 A bamboo easel stood cater-cornered at one end of the
room. On it was a gilt-framed chrome. Next the easel was
a low, gilded taborer with a palette rat sting on it. There
were uneven blobs of colored enamel painted on the
palette to simulate squeezed-out oil paint. A camel's-hair
paint brush lay across the palette. You got the idea that
the artist had stepped out momentarily`: for a beer.

 The picture was a t rudely tinted photograph of Big
Red's mother-in-law. The head was three times life size.
It bothered Big Red because no matter where he was in
the parlor, the triple-sized eyes seemed to follow his every
movement.

 Tonight, he was on the point of asking his wife why she
had to have a picture of her old lady in the house when
the old lady herself lived only two blocks away. But he
restrained himself. He'd had enough trouble that day
what with a couple of the Hudson Duster gang over in
Manhattan showing up on his heat. He didn't want
trouble in his castle.

 ah' well, he thought, 'tis better to have the old Chro77'o's
picture in the house rather than the old Chromo herself in
person, sitting here and coming between husband and wife.

"We got bedbugs again," said his wife conversationally.

"Where'd the buggers come from?"

 "From the people upstairs. I hey always come from the
people upstairs. Where the cockroaches come from."

 "Ah, well, they got bedbugs at Buckingham Palace, too,"
he said. He sniffed the air. "What are we got for supper
tonight?"

 "We got boiled dinner for supper tonight, being's today
was vashday."

 "If there's anything what I like," he said, "it's a boiled
dinner like NyOU make it."

                 1 [Y 1
                    
"Want to eat now, them''

 "Let's see." He lifted a foot out of the dishpan and
watched it drip. "Not yet. Me feet lin't done yet."

 He was content. He looked fondly at IZjS wife. She was
teasing a lock of hair; making it frizzy by holding one hair
and pushing the others up on it in a tangled ball.

 He was proud of her. >Jo matter how hard she worked
in the house or taking care of their son, she always
dressed up for his homecoming. She got into her corsets
and tied on a bustle pad (not that she needed one) and
pinned the lace ruffles to her corset cover (not that she
needed them either). The bustle and ruffles filled her out
more and Big Red liked a well-filled-out woman.

 Her dusty blond hair was in dips and waves and the rat
made her pompadour stand up high. That was the way she
had worn it when he first met her and she hadn't changed
her hair style a bit in ten ~years.

 Come to think of it, few women changed their hair style
after they married. You could tell how long a woman had
been married by looking at her hair style. He recalled
when he was a rookie cop keeping company with Lottie.
He and three other rookies had been a quartet going
around to different precincts and singing:

And may there be no motlrning of the bar, When I put
our to sea.

Over the biers of dead pol cement

  By coincidence, all four of the rookies had married in
the same year and had been each other's groomsmen and
ushers. And all of their wives still wore their hair the same
way.

  Why is this? he pondered. Is it because they try out
differentt styles to attract a feller acid when they land him
they hold 07Z to the old hair style because i, worked in the
first place? Or is it that they don't care no more after they
got a feller hooked? He realized he was thinking too much
and he shuddered. I mustn't think so deep, he advised
himself. Nothing good comes 071t of deep thinking.
Il~he~` a man thinks deep, he ain't contented MO more.

And he was a contented man. He loved his wife and his
SOn

                   1 9 1
                     
and his job and his home and his fellow cops. He didn't
love his mother-in-law. A man wasn't supposed to love his
mother-in-law. That was the tradition. But he loved
everything else about his work and home. He even loved
washdays. Their weekly recurrence assured him that life
was a mighty sure and safe proposition.

 Washday was a weekly ritual. Before Big Red left for
duty on Monday mornings, Lottie had him lift the
water-filled, copperhottom washboiler up onto the stove
for her. Of course she could have put the empty boiler on
herself and filled it from the teakettle, but she loved little
attentions like that from her husband. As she wrote to an
older sister in Weehawken: It keeps HIS sweethearts.

 She shaved half a bar of I;irkman's yellow soap over the
soaking clothes, put the cover on, let it come to a boil,
throttled it down to simmer and then set up the boiled
dinner for supper.

 She filled her iron cook pot half full of water, threw in
a hunk of corned beef, a whole head of cabbage and six
unpared potatoes. When that came to a boil, she put on
a tight cover and got it down to simmering. It cooked all
day long.

 At noon, the boiled dinner smelled like boiling black
socks and the laundry smelled like overcooked cabbage.
At supper, Big Red's plate would be filled with shreds of
boiled beef that got between his teeth. (That's whv the
shot glass on the table always held toothpicks.) Next the
beef would be limp black cabbage and water-logged
potatoes.

That was exactly the way Big Red liked it!

 He wouldn't eat that particular dinner cooked any other
way. Once when Lottie's mother was sick and Lottie had
to be with her, Big Red had had to eat out. He had
ordered a corned-beefand-cabbage dinner. The beef came
in a smooth unshredded slice, the cabbage was in tender
and still-green leaves and the potatoes mealy. Big Red
told the waiter to take it all back; that it wasn't fit for a
clog to eat.

 At half-hour intervals, Lottie turned the cooking boiled
dinner upside down in the pot with a wooden spoon and
stirred the clothes around in the boiler with a sawed-off
broomstick.

Lottie was funny for broomsticks sawed off. She must
have

                   1 101
                     
had a dozen in the closet. Why, a broom was no more
than half used when she had Big Red saw it down for a
wasUstick. As she wrote to another sister who lived in
Flatbush: Jimmy likes to make wasksticks for 7;7le. Things
like that keep us sweethearts.

  She sang lustily as she stirred the simmering socks and
shirts and food.

              l lIe ice Illan

1 a nice man....

  At noon, Widdy, the son, came home from school for
lunch. They shared a pick-up lunch of ham bologna,
potato salad, coffee, hard poppyseed rolls and charlotte
7~u.sse from the baker's. It was hardly a pick-up lunch
but Lottie called it that because, like the boiled dinner, a
pic17~-up lunch was traditional for washdays.

  About Widdy: He was the pride of his father's heart.
Big Red was sure they broke the mold when Widdy fell
out of it.

  "My kid," he'd brag to his fellow cops, "is a plain,
ordinary, everyday kid. Nothing fancy. No A's on his
report card. No sir! He makes straight C's. Oh, maybe a
D once in a while in deportment," said Big Red modestly,
not liking to brag. "That's the way he is and I wouldn't
want him no different."

  If it were possible for Big Red to have a fly in his
ointment, his son's name would be it. The kid's full name
was De Witt Xavier Shawn. He had been named for a
ferryboat.

  It was the time Lottie and Tirn had been going steady
for a couple of years. One summer's day, he took her on
a policemen's picnic up the Hudson. They drifted away
from the other couples and stood alone on the bank. She
wore a floppy leghorn hat with a big pink rose on it and
black velvet streamers.

"Somebody looks mighty pretty today," he said.

"Oh, go on," she said. "I bet you say that to all the girls."

"That I do. So why shouldn't I say it to me best girl?"

  "Timmy," she said out of the blue, "the time is come
when we got to get married."

  His eyes rolled wildly It the suddenness of it. He was
crazy about her and had always s intended to marry her
but he felt trapped all the same.

                   ~ 711
                     
 "I been intending to ask you meself someday. Now you
spoiled the surprise."

"When was you going to ask me, Timmy?"

 "Oh, when I got to be a sergeant or a lieutenant on the
force." (He was a rookie at the time.)

"Well, I went and asked you. Now what do you say?"

"I accept you," he said in a deep voice.

 He felt relief. Now it was done. Now they would be
married and he wouldn't have to go through the Purgatory
of making up his mind.

"Oh, Timmy," she said, her eyes full of happy tears.

 He took her in his arms and gave her a kiss that
knocked the leghorn hat off her head. A steamboat came
by. The captain, seeing the couple in a locked embrace,
blew the whistle in salute. The passengers waved, and
hollered and whistled and yelled things like: "Does your
mother know you're out?" and, "Oh, you kid!" Big Red
released Lottie and turned away, embarrassed. Lottie
picked up her hat and waved it at the steamboat,
screaming:

"We're gonna get married!"

 "AI1 your troubles should be little ones," yelled the
captain through his megaphone.

 As the boat steamed out of sight, or before, Lottie
caught the name painted on the side: The De Witt Clinton.

 "If the first's a boy," she said, "we'll call him De Witt in
remembrance of the boat."

 So the kid was baptised De Witt Xavier; the Xavier
because it was a Catholic name and because Lottie said
that parents owed it to children to give them an interesting
middle initial.

 As a baby, they called him De Witt. When he started to
walk, they called him Witty because he wouldn't respond
to De Witt. When he started school, he told his teacher
his name was Widdy. (He couldn't articulate the t sound.)
Lottie thought it was cute, and from that time on he was
called Widdy.

 Often Big Red wished he had not been so beguiled at
the time and had insisted that the kid be named Mike or
Pete or even Tim.

He sat in his parlor, then, contented, soaking his feet and
trying
                   1 121
                     
not to think too deep. Lottie was folding towels and
singing her iceman song under her breath.

. . . of one thing 1 am sure. There's something about his
business That affects his temperature.

"Where's the kid?" he asked.

"Over to Mama's."

"Why? "

"He's eating supper over there."

"What for?"

 "Well, Mama took him to the butcher's with her and
they had these rabbits hanging outside a barrel with hair
on? You know. So Widdy wanted a rabbit- foot for luck
and the butcher wouldn't sell just a foot so Mama had to
buy the whole rabbit and she couldn't eat it all by herself
so he's eating over there."

 She got up, went to him and ran her fingers through the
few red curls left on his head.

"Why'n't you tell me before?" he said.

 He gave her a slap on the backside. He felt that, with
their child out of the house, he could take a liberty. He
lifted one foot out of the dishpan. It Dolled like a
mummy's foot.

 "Listen, Jimmy," she said. "Dry your feet and go down
to Mike's for a pint of beer and we'll eat."

 "Sure." But he looked ill at ease. "But first I got a
letter today. It came to the station house." He stiffened,
reached back, and pulled a letter out of iliS hind pocket.

"Who from?"

"Me mother."

"What does she want now?"

"Now' And 'tis five years since I heard from her last'"

"What does she say?"

"I don't know. I saved it to read in front of you."

 "Aw, Timmy, that's all right. You could've read your
letter in the station house."

"We share."

"I know. Tllat's what keeps us sweethearts."

                 ~ ~ ~ 1
                    
 "From Ireland." He turned the letter over and back.
"County Kilkenny." He dreamed:

 "Ah, I can see it plain, Lottie, the Fedders and all. And
me mother's sod shanty with the rushes always blowing off
the roof and the clay hearth and the black pot ever on
the bob and the skinny cow and the few bony chickens
and the praties \ve scratched out of the ground . . ."

 And, thought Lottie, not bitterly, his mother standing ill
the doo~r~voy arid holding vat her hand once a month for
the letter with the ten-dollar hill in it that he sends and his
mother afar,' sister never writing to say, yes, no, or kiss my
foot.

 "And," dreamed Timmy, "the village walk and the girls
with no corsets on and the skirts turned back to show the
red petticoat and their hair flying in the wind . . ." He
sighed. "Ah so. And I wouldn't go back there for a million
dollars."

 "Will you read the Ictter now," she said, a little piqued
about the girls not wearing corsets, "or will you frame it?"

He opened the letter and read.

Estee ned Son: I take my pen in hand to compose this
sorrowful epistle . . .

"Me mother can't read or write," he explained.

"Go on!" she said in disbelief.

 "Bertie, the Broommaker, wrote it for her. I bet vou he's
still living! Why, he must he seventy . . . no, eighty years
. . ."

"Will you read or will you frame?" she asked. He read:

. . . to convey to you, esteemed son, the sorrowful tidings
that one who once was with us and who had a loving place
in our hearts and who was esteemed 'oy all, has heeded
the call of a Higher Being, and is now in A Fix.

"Who died, rest his soul?" asked Lottie.

"Nobody yet. Let me read."

Oh, better, esteemed son, 'that we two lay sleeping in our
nest in the churchyard sod," than to endure the grief of
The Fix she is in.

 Big Red paused to \vipe a tear from his eye and to give
his vife a pleading look.

                  ~ id 1
                     
 "You read it to yourself, ]~hl~mNr, dear," she said,
'and tell me after."

 He mumbled through sollle more of the letter and
suddenly let out a snarling cry and stood upright in the
dishpan of water.

"What?" she cried out. "Oh, sweetheart, what?"

  "The blacktard!" he snarled. "The durrrtee black'ard!"
He stepped out of the dishpan and strode up and down
the parlor with Lottie following hint w ith a towel. "Oh,
me baby sister. Me baby sister," he moaned.

  She tried to comfort him. "NVe all got to go someday,
TinllllN darling."

"She's not dead. But 'twas better if she \vas."

"Oh, why-, my sweetheart?'

  "Because a black'ard by the nallle of . . ." he consulted
the letter, ". . . ]2. D. Moore, l squire, scandalized her
name and now he won't marry her." He sobbed in big
gulps.

  "Sit here," said Lottie gently, "and I'll dr!r NrOur poor
tired feet. "

  She knelt before him and patted his puckered feet dry.
He wept until his feet w ere wt ll dried. Then he made a
fist and shoals it at the ceiling.

  "I'm going to Ireland a ld beat the be-Jesus out of him,
God willing," he said.

"Sure, sure," she soothed. "But where will you find the
money?"

  "Let me think," he said. He sat there and thought deep
while she put his socks and shoes on his feet.

  "I could ask the boys to run a benefit dance for me like
the! did for Connie Clancy ~ he time his mother passed
away in Chicago and he needing money to go there for
the funeral. I could say me mother's at deatil's door, God
forgive me, and ask for a month's sick leave. . ."

  Her heart was in a panic. 11 he left me to co to Ireland,
she thought, would he eater cr,me hack?

"No, I can't go."

"Why? "

  "Me examination for sergcallt: It comes Up in two
weeks. If I take it, I'd have a hard rime trying to pass it.
If I don't take it, I won't pass a-tall."

1 I, 1

  "I wouldn't care," she said. "I got stuck on you when you
vitas just a plain rookie. Remember?"

  "I'd care. But not for meself. Did I not take the same
examination four limes already and not pass and not care
a damn except for you? That's why I keep on trying. If I
die a sergeant, sure, you'd get a bigger widder's pension."

  What have I done in my life to deserve this good man, she
thought.

  She remembered the night when he had been two hours
late coming home from worl;. One of the horses pulling
the car he was in had dropped dead and held up traffic.
Not knowing about the horse, Lottie was sure that Tim
had been beaten to death by the Hudson Dusters or
hatcheted by one of the Chinese tongs. She had spent the
two waiting hours on her knees in prayer.

  Please, Holy Mother, let him be alive. Let him be drunk or
with another woman just so he's alive. Oh, Holy Mother,
intercede for me!

Hail, Mary, full of grace . . .

  I'll give him everything . . . everything I've got to give. I'll
never nag him again. I'll give him everything he asks for....

  Now he was asking to go to his mother and sister. But
how could she bear to let him go? She couldn't. But
because she loved him so, she made it easy for him to go.

  "Take the examination next year. Skip this year. It's only
. . . well, it's only a year. And you'll only be gone a few
weeks and what's a few weeks in al] the rest of the life we
will have together?"

  He doesn't really want to go, she thought. I know it. He
wouldn't leave me.

  "I'll buy you a new dress for the benefit dance. You'll be
the belle of the ball."

  "I don't want a new dress. I want only you. Old, Timmy,
you won't stop loving me while you're gone?"

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder," he said.

  Out of sight, out of mind, she thought. Will he come
back? He always says he hates County Kilkenny. But an
Irishman loves the land he came from. All the songs they
love prove it. She ran over some of the songs in her mind.

"I'll take you home again, Kathleen." And, "Where my
heart is,

                   [ 161
                     
I am going," and, "Ireland must be heaven for my mother
came from there." And . . .

  "Lottie," he said, putting his hand on her head, and
flattening her pompadour down to the rat. "Lottie, tell me
not to go and I'll stay and not hold it against you."

  There were nine of us girls, she thought, and times was
hard. Annie died and Jeanie and Katie went in the convent.
Eileen and Martha went living out. Girly and Maudie and
Wily got married. I was the last one left and getting nearly
thirty. I never had a feller until I met Timmy. If it hadn't-a
been for him, I'd be a old maid; old Aunt Lottie living with
one of my married sisters; a servant girl without pay and
bringing up her kids instead of my own.

  And Timmy's good to ?Ifama the five dollars he gives her
every week. And I'm homely but he thinks I'm beautiful. He
loves my cooking and I can't cook worth a nickel. I'm older
than him and he goes and! says they made my birth
certificate out wrong in City Hall that I'm too young for
him! I got a beautiful home and I got Widdy from him.
Timrny will never let me want. No. I love this man. If he
goes away and never comes back, I'll still be lucky because
I already got a thousand times more then I would-a had if I
never got married to him.

  "No, Timmy," she said. "You got to go. What kind a man
are you anyway, when your mother needs you and all, to
even think about not going?"

  She knew he'd say he'd go only if she went along, so like
a kind and thoughtful person she made things easy for
him.

  "I wish I could go with you, Timmy, but I can't. I can't
take Widdy out of school."

"He could stay with your mother."

"There's the money . . ."

"I could borrow on me insurance . . . maybe.''

  "Why do you always argue all the time? Go and go
alone. And come back the same way. Hear?"

  What have I ever done, he mused, to have all this luck? A
fine good wife like her! I don't deserve her a dope like me.

  A tear ran down his face. He took the towel from her
and wiped it away. He looked ashamed.

                  ~ '7 ]
                     
"Gee! The wav you sweat!" she said tactfully-.

 "Well, don't just stand there," he said. "Get the can and
I'll get the beer and v.7e'11 eat."

          ~ (.'HA P TER THREE ~

THE tavern was smoky, crowded and smelled of warm,
spilled beer. Rory-Boy's fiddle was squealing wildly and
Patsy Denn was jigging his heart OUt. It was a noisy
Saturday night. The door opened and a big, red-headed
stranger came in. He wasn't exactly red-headed, being
almost bald, but there was a rusty glow where his hair had
been. A clot of ale-drinking men at the bar opened up to
let the stranger in md then closed about him; absorbing
him, as it were.

  Rory-Boy saw the stranger come in and his Irish
intuition told him that the stranger was Maggie Rose's big
brother come all the w ay from Brooklyn to beat the hell
out of Patrick Dennis. He was too scared to warn Patsy.
He forgot the notes of "The Irish Washerwoman" as his
fingers froze on his fiddle strings. His desperately sawing
bow brought out a continuous one-note, high wail. Patsy
thought the tune was ending and he went into the frenzied
leap into the air where he usually clicked his heels to-
gether in a finale.

  "Never have I le'ppe.l so hitrh! he called to his friend as
he went up.

  Indeed his leap was prodigious. He went up . . . up
without the volition of his legs and he stayed suspended in
the air. For a second, he felt like an ;mgel with wings,
then he wondered what made his pants so tight. He found
out.

  Timothy (Big Red) Shawn had slipped out of the knot
of men, and at the moment of Patsy's leap he had, like a
trained acrobat, gotten a purchase on the seat of Patsy's
pants and on the scruff of his neck and had given Patsv's
leap a grand fillip. As Bertie, the Broomlllaker, who
happened to be there, later wrote 1: /lY :1

in a letter for a gossiping cl ent: All corlviviality ceased and
silence reigned.

 Big Red held Patsy in the air and shook him as though
he w ere a rag puppet. Big Red had rehearsed a speech
coming over in the steerage. He had planned to give it as
a prelude to a thrashing, but he forgot it entirely and had
to ad-lib.

 "You durtee, wee, little black'ard you!" he said loud for
all to hear. "I'll learn youse to break the only heart of me
only mother and . . ." (Shake! Shake!) ". . . scandalize the
name of me baby sister. You jiggin' monkey! You durtee
bog trotter, you!"

 "What do you mean, bog trotter?" gasped Patsy, scared
but insulted. "I never cut peat in all of me life."

 Finally Big Red set him down and gave him one of those
oldtime licking,. When he had finished, he threw Patsy in
the gen

eral direction of the exit and dusted off his hands.

 "And don't forget, fancy man," he said, "there's more
where that come from."

 Patrick Dennis backed out of the tavern. He wasn't
taking any chances of being kicked in the behind.

 Patsy's mother clucked over his bruises. He told her his
bicycle had hit a rock and that he had been thrown into
the brambles.

 As often happens, those most concerned in an incident
are the last to know of the motivating forces behind it. For
instance all the village knew that the Widow Shawn had
sent for her son, Big Red. Yes, all knew except Lizzie
Moore and Patsy. An hour after the beating, all knew of
Patsy's humiliation except his mother. Yes, Patsy was the
last to know of Big Red's arrival and his mother was next
to the last. Someone had told her just after Patsy had left
for the tavern. It was news to her and she assumed it
would be news to her son.

 "Ah, the grand power of writing," she said, as she raved
homemade salve on her eye apple's bruises. "Only half a
shilling he charged to write the letter. Bertie, the
Broommaker. And the words on the letter spoke out so
clear that he was back in the shanty where he was born a
month to the day when the letter left here. Timmy Shawn,
I mean. Big Red they call him."

"Shawn? Shawn?" asked Patsy, beginning to understand.

                  1' I9 1
                     
 "The same. And a fine strapping man Brooklyn made of
him. 'Tis said he's the head constable and his wages is a
forchune."

"Tell me plain, Mother: Is it Maggie Rose's brother you
tell of 2"

"The same."

"And she sent for him to come-"

  "May God strike me flown dead! She did. 'Twas Nora
O'Dell told me."

  "I could nor see it ahead. I could not see it ahead,"
mourned Patsy

"What, son?"

  "The big rock in the road that chucked me off me wheel
when I was coming home to you this night."

  The next day, Sunday, a scared, chastened Patsy went to
Mass with his mother. He saw his girl wedged in between
her simpering mother and her burly brother. Patsy started
to feel sick as he stared at Big Red's broad back.

  Father Rowley came down from the altar and stepped
to one side of it before the railing to make the routine
announcements of the week. Patsy hardly listened to the
rise and fall of the voice until, as in a nightmare from
which there is no awakening, he heard the sound of his
name.

  ". . . weekly meeting of the girls' Sodality." The priest
cleared his throat. "The banns of marriage are read for
the first time between Margaret Rose Shawn and Patrick
Dennis Moore. Your prayers are requested for the repose
of the soul of . . ."

  Lizzie Moore gave a hoarse honk like a wild goose
calling the flock in for a landing. There was a stir like a
great sigh as the congregation turned to stare at Patsy and
his mother. Big Red turned around and gave Patsy a grin
of victory. His lips silently formed the words: There's more
where that came from.

  Patsy was caught and he knew it. Trapped, he moaned
to himself. And by what thrickery did he get me name up for
marrying and me the one should have the say of it? Caught!
Before two veeks is out I'll be married forever.

  His mother wept foggily into the hem of her top
petticoat. He kept it front me, she mourned. Me Iyin' 5071.
He went to the priest with the girl and gave himself up. And
Big Timmy was sent for to give the girl away and she having
no father to do so.

                 1 '  1
                    
Oh, for me son to treat me so, and he me last baby and the
hardest to bring into God's world with his head the size of a
hard, green cabbage at the time.

 She wept and Patsy was ashamed. He left during the
final prayer. Maggie Rose, kneeling, turned as he got up
and made an instinctive movement to follow him but Big
Red pulled her back down.

 Outside, Patsy hid behind a tree to wait for his mother.
He saw Rory-Boy come out surrounded by most of the
young men of the village. He tried to catch Rory-Boy's eye
but his friend was too busy.

 To Patsy's horror, he saw Rory-Boy entertain the boys
by pantomiming the thrashing of the night before. First,
he was Big Red, chest stuck out, fists clenched, entering
the tavern. Then he was Big Red holding up an invisible
Patsy and shaking him as a bulldog shakes a rat. Then the
rat or Patsy was set down and Rory-Boy gave his
impression of the thrashing.

 He was Big Red slapping Patsy on either side of the
face. Then he was PatsNr with his head going back and
forth like a pendulum under the impact of the slaps and
blows and so on. The fellers around clapped their hands
noiselessly in rhythm and tapped their feet.

 Although suffering, Patsy viewed the pantomime with a
professional eye. A little music along with it, a ballad made
up by Henny, the Hermit . . . Not bad, he thought with
professional detachment.

 Rory-Bov was going into the ending of the act. He was
Patsy backing out of the door with his hands protecting his
buttocks. Here, Rory-Boy ad-libbed. He acted out Patsy
being kicked in the backside and, in reaction, leaping
awkwardly into the air with his face distorted in fright.

 A lie! A black lie! Patsy wanted to call out. It was not
that way. And then he was crying tears in his heart. Ah, he
decided, RoryBoy no longer seems like a friend to me.

 Maggie Rose came OUt with her mother and brother
and the girls surrolmded her an I smiled and gushed and
hugged her. Maggie Rose turned away and pulled her
shawl lower over her face. The Widow Shawn accepted
the congratulations of her friends complacently and the
men greeted Big Red heartily and

                   [21 1
                     
pumped his hand. It was like a \vedding reception.

 Patsy saw his mother come out supported by two crones
who patted her arm and gave her spurious sympathy the
while they leered with delight at her comeuppance. When
Lizzie Moore saNv Maggie Rose, she braille loose from
her crones, made her hands into claws and went for the
girl. She was pulled off by the crones.

 She went down the road supported by them and from
time to time her knees buckled and she slumped down
like a drunken woman and had to be pulled up again. The
young girls looked after her and her escorts; whispering,
giggling, laughing aloud and being silenced, laughingly, bv
each other.

 Father C'rowley came out and stood on the steps of the
church. He frowned and clapped his hands sharply. The
talk and giggling and horseplay stopped at once. The
cro\vds broke up into little groups and the congregation
went home.

 Patsy felt friendless and disgraced. He was sure that by
now all the village knew he had been licked by his girl's
brother. Before night the whole village would know
whatever trick Big Red had used to get the bawls read
and he, Patsy Denny, would be the laughingstock of the
county.

 Sure, he fmust have promised leather a crate of Hennessy's
l: our Star to make hint read th. bimns, thol'`,ht Patsy.

 Rory-Boy: That hurt! I hey were through. Rory-Boy no
longer had need of a part-per nor of his fiddle. NO He
could perform in the taverns as a single giving his
pantomime of "The Thrashing of Patrick I tennis Moore."
Oh, they'd laugh and throw coppers at him. A!ld after
he'd play ed out the village pubs. he could go on to the
next village; the next county to all of Ireland. And he
was sure Rory-Boy would do exactly that because that's
what he, Patsy, would do were he in Rory-Boy's shoes.

 And Rory-Boy would never want for anything because
the Irish dearly loved an entertainer and they'd clothe him
and feed him and house him the \\~ay they did witl1
idiots whom some believed to be God's pets.

 It came too late to Patsy too late- the knowledge that
he loved .\laggie Rose and would never love any other
woman. Why, oh, \vlly hadn't he married her when their
love was fresh and new  before it had been dirtied by
scandals and beatings and public disgrace?

1

  We could' have gotten along smite way, he thought. '4/:,
but leer mother! And me own mother, too. The sin is theirs
Jor is there any law in the world that ways I must not marry
if me mother says so and I must marry if the girl's mother
says so? No.

  Could eve not have lived with me another? No! he
answered himself. She'd never have the girl in the house.
But the Widder Shawn! She would. If she wouldn't we'd go
to live there anyhow counting on. her getting used to it in
time. And maybe I could have gone to work. Would not the
Clooney give me the job of drawing ale in his tavern, me
who could dance a jig or two between servings? Could ~
not go to the TVidder Sharon and Big Red with me hat in
one hand and me pride in the dust and say: I'm willing?

  No, I could not. And I cannot stay here because Herlny,
tee Hermit, is starting to work on me the while l'n, standing
here. And when he's done with me there will be no place in
all of Irelan.l where I can hide me head.

  Henny, the Hermit, was a one-eyed, dirty old man who
lived in a hovel in the hills with a she goat. He had a
zither and he made up ballads about everything that went
on in the village. On holidays and saints' days he sat in
the village commons with his goat tethered to his leg and
his zither in his lap. There he sang his interminable
ballads in a high, cracked whine that he called his voice,
accompanying himself on the zither with one, monotonous
note because the zither had but one string. The dirty man
lived off the halfpennies they threw hi and the milk of his
goat.

  "The Ballad of Patsy 1). I\~loorc! " The dreary drivel of
untalented Helmy distorting facts and making Patsy the
butt and burden of the narrative! Children would sing it
along the road walking home from school. Drunkards
would bawl it out beating time on the bar with their
pewter mugs. Even as an old man, the ballad would haunt
Patsy and shame his children.

  'Tis not to be endured, decided Patsy. OF, better to be
dead to go to America . . .

America!

  He'd heard that the steamship company paid your as ay
and got you a job in America. And there as a little office
in a illage not

                   ~ ~ 1
                     
ten miles away where the steamship man from Liverpool
arranged everything. He almost whistled as he sneaked
home in a roundabout way.

 His mother wouldn't spear. to him wlletl he got home.
She had her good, black dress and a pair of black
stockings she'd been hoarding for twenty years laid out on
the bed. She was polishing her black shoes from a tin of
caked blacking. He chattered, trying to get her to speak to
him. But she had nothing to say until he asked politely:

"Are you going a-visiting, ~\~lother~"

 "And who would I go see, the way I'm 'shamed to show
me face in the village? No, I'm getting me good black
clothes ready  the clothes I'm wishin or to be laid GUt
in."

"Not for many a year vet, God willing."

 "Soon. Soon. The day you marry is the day you'll see me
in me casket."

"Don't die on me," he bcggetl.

 "You marry on me and I'll die on you." She buffed the
shoe which gloved her hand.

"I'll never marry the ~ bile you live."

  "Ah, so. Never rnarry~ he says, after having the banns
read and all! "

  It took him an hour to convince her that the banns were
said without his consent or knowledge. She refused to
believe him until he told her of the beatinr' he'd had from
Big Red.

  "And so he licked you me poor boy, and you saying you
fell off your wheel."

"'Twas shame made me say it."

"And he'll lick you many a time till you say, 'I do.'"

"I'll die first!"

"You won't die first on last. You'll be made to marry the
girl."

"I can't be made if I go to America."

"And you'd be leavin,, me like me other chilthren did?"

"Only for a uThile. I'll send for vou before the year is
crone."

  "You'll not be sanding for anyorle. You'll bide here with
me. Die if you have the uish. But you'll not marry and
you'll not leave me."

"'Tis hard to die'" lie said. and our Lord forgive me for

                 ~ 7' 1
                    
saying I would and me not meaning it a-tall. I will stay,
Mother dear, and marry Maggie Rose, and I will be
shamed in the county all the days of me living and I'll not
be caring, because I love Maggie Rose."

"You say so."

"I would do so."

 She put the lid on the tin of blacking. "In a year you
say? You'll send for me?"

"I swear it."

 " 'Tis for the best." She put the blacking away. "Go,
then, to America and make a place for me and I will
come to you."

 The next morning, he cycled ten miles to the next
village. The Liverpool sport who represented a steamship
company made things easy for Patrick Dennis Moore.
Passage was arranged and everything was free free for
the time being.

 Yes, Patsy would have tO pay for the ticket in time, but
that was easy, too. There was a job waiting for him in
America. One Michael Moriarity and, oh, he was Lord
Mayor of Brooklyn or something near as grand, was the
sport's opinion would pay Patsy all of five dollars a w
eek and give him room and board. And all for what? For
nothing. For taking care of two darling carriage horses.

 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 hold 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.

            <I CHAl'TER FOUR ~

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 looking 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."

"I'll relieve you of it."

"I'll keep it. 'Tis no burtllen a-tall."

The young man consulted the paper. "Mr. Moore," he
read

                  [ 33 1
                     
aloud, "is to be given every consideration. You are to
carry his luggage...." The young man shrugged. "Boss's
orders," he said cheerfully.

 Patsy gave him the knapsack. The young man rolled it
up and tucked it under his arm. "Let us be on our way,"
he said, "to your new home in America."

 Skillfully, he piloted Patsy across the street. "I'll put you
on a horsecar," he said, "and that will take you to the ferry
dock. You get on the boat and when it stops you get off
and Mr. Moriarity will be waiting for you there with his
carriage, to drive you to his home."

"I'm that obliged to you . . ." began Patsy.

 "Don't thank me, Or. Moore. This is all part of my job.
Now!" He gave a furtive look up and down the street. "Do
you have any money on you?" Patsy's eyes narrowed
suddenly. "I mean for carfare and the ferry?" added the
young man quickly.

"Well . . ." began Palsy cagily.

  "Here, then," said the young man. He gave Patsy four
nickels. "That will get you over to Brooklyn and buy you
a beer in the bargain."

  Patsy was ashamed `,f his suspicions. "I got two notes,"
he said, "but the cabby said they was counterfeet."

  "Let's see 'em." Patsy gave him the notes. The young
man examined them carefully. "Why these bills are just as
good as gold," he said indignantly. "Only you have to get
them changed into American money." He took another
furtive look up and down the street. "Wait' I'll run in here
and 'change them. Only take a minute. Be right back."

  He darted through the swinging doors of a saloon. He
did not come back in a minute. As Patsy waited, he
became heavy with premonition. I le waited a few minutes
longer. Then he went into the saloon.

  The plate was empty save for the man behind the bar.
He has a big man with big. mustaches and roached hair.
A smell of vvet sawdust, stale beer and dank graveyard air
seemed to rise from the barkeep like a vapor.

"Yah?" he asked.

''Wllere's the man what just came in here? " asked Patsv.

                 [ 34 ]
                    
"The man who canoe in to change me pound notes?"

"No Mann ist trier," said the barkeep.

"I saw him come in. He told me to wait."

"Oudt mit you," said the man, yawning. "Reuse!"

 "Not till ][ get me note, back," said Patsy. He heard a
small squeak; saw a door close stealthily in the rear. "I le's
in there!" shouted Patsy. Ele made a dash for the door.

 But the bartender was too quick for him. Burly as he
was. he took a nimble one-handed vault over the bar. He
had an uglylooking blackjack in his flee hand.

 "Oudt' Get oudt from mine place," he bellowed. "Du
Gottverdammten Irisher! " Patsy made it just in time. The
blackjack came down on the t`'p of one of the inswinging
doors and splintered it Patsy shuddc red and ducked
around the corner.

 He walked the unaccustomed streets for hours. His
heart wept for his familiar Irish village. He was lost and
terrified. He was friendless and didn't knob where to go.
It was worse than being lost in a vast Backless forest. One
could sit down and rest in a forest. There was no plac c
on the street where he could sit down and rest.

 In time, he came to a lonely side street and saw a man
in white pushing a cart in which a broom and shovel were
upended. He approached the white wing, cap in hand.

 "Officer, could you be telling me, and me a greenhorn
just landed," he ,aid humbly, "how to get to this village?"
He showed him the card.

 "Sure, Greerlie," said the obliging street cleaner. "Here's
what you do." He gave him careful directions.

 It took Patsy six hours, three horsecars, one ferry and
miles of walking to get to Bush~vick Avenue, Brooklyn.
He stood at the bottom of the long stoop and took in the,
to him, splendor of the three-story, parlor and 'casement,
brownstone house with red geraniums in urns on ~ he
stoop railing posts. Patsy climbed the stoop. There was a
white porcelain plate next the door. It had a black button
in the cent`.r. Underneath it said: Ring bell. patsy looked
around but could find no rope to pull to ring a bell. He
did the next best thing: He tapped on the etched-glass
windovv of the vestibule door. After a while, a buxom
wench opened

                  1 ask]
                     
the door, gave him one look and said:

"We don't want none."

 From within the darkness of the house, Patsy heard the
sweetest voice in the world say: "Who is it, Biddy?"

"A peddler, Miss Mary . . . some tinker's son," said Biddy.

"I'll attend to it."

 She came out of the darkness to Patsy and his heart fell
when he saw that the sweetest voice in the world belonged
to, according to Patrick's standards, the plainest face and
plainest figure in the world.

"I come from Countv Kilkenny," he began.

 "Oh!" She clasped her hands and her face brightened up
with the sweetest smile in the world. "You must be the
new boy. Come in."

 He followed her into the house, his heart sighing: Oh,
if God had only gone A little further after he made her voice
and her smile!

"Papa," she called, "the boy is here from Ireland."

 Patsy stood on the l urkey-red carpet and looked around
the dim room. The windows were hung with Brussels lace
curtains and maroon velvet draperies tied back with
golden cords, and green velvet portieres, hung from a
fretwork arch that led into an alcove, were tied back to
display a shiny upright piano with a velvet-covered stool.
There were silver-framed photographs on the piano and
a whatnot in a corner, its shelves filled with little
"friendship" cups, and Boston ferns on the window ledges.
And gilt chairs upholstered in pink and blue satin and a
love seat. A big statue of a blackamoor was on the newel
post of the stairs leading to the second floor. The
blackamoor held a bowl over his head in which a gas light
flickered. On the stair landing was a concave, oval, leaded,
stained-glass window.

 Patsy thought it was all beautiful . . . beautiful. He
promised himself that he would have a house like that
someday. Until I get ale own, he thought, I'll be content to
live here.

 Moriarity came into the room and greeted him
boomingly. Then he shouted for his wife. A timid little
woman scuttled into the room.

"Missus, this is the new stable boy," he said. "Boy, this is
your

                   [36]
                     
Missus." The Missus bobbed her head in a scared way and
scuttled back into the shadows of the room.

 "And me daughter, Mary." The plain girl gave Patsy her
sweet smile. "American loom," said Moriarity. It was
obvious that he was proud of his daughter. "And she
studied to be a teacher. This here is Biddy, the cook. She
comes from County Down." He addressed Biddy.

 "Biddy, me bird, Yathrick here is a fine-looking feller.
Nov. don't you go making eyes at him when the both of
youse should be working."

 Patsy looked at the big-busted Biddy with aversion and
she looked at him with distaste. There's nothing there what
I ~*'ant, thought Patsy.

 "And afther, I'll introduce you to me two best girls,
Jessie and Daisy," Mike said to Patsy. "And now: Where's
your satchel? "

 "A young man took it off me. He said he worked for
you and that you said he should." Patsy thought it best to
say nothing about the two pounds.

"He took your satchel? '

"Yes. Me 'sack."

 "Are you standing there and telling me you was taken in
by that old thrick?" He laughed. "Yah-ha-ha! Yah-ha-ha!"

 The booming laugh scared The Missus. She threw up
her hands in fright and scuttled from the room.

 "Yah-ha-ha!" laughed Mike. "Wait'll I tell the boys down
at headquarters."

 "Now, Papa, don't laugh," said Mary Moriarity.
"Remember the same thing happened to you when you
came over. Only the man said he was your uncle's cousin.
And he got your trunk. And all your money, too."

 Patsy gave her a grateful look. Ah, she's kind, he
thought. But then, 'tis the nature of plaits women to be kind.

 "Har-umph!" The Boss cleared his throat. "'Tis so. Was
so. But sure 'twas only an old thmnk filled with rags.
Mary, go below stairs with Biddy and see that she fixes a
dish of hot supper for the new boy." The women left.

"And now Pathrick, me boy, I'll show you to your room.'

                 [ 37 1
                    
Patsy turned and went toward the stairs. "Not up there."
The Boss laughed. "Across the yard. Folly me."

 They had to go through the downstairs hall to get to the
yard. Patsy heard Mary and Biddy talking in the kitchen.

 Biddy was saying: "Hot dish, me foot! Cold dish! I'm not
the one to cook after hours for inny greenhorn just
landed."

 "Now, Biddy," came Mary's gentle voice: "Don't call him
that. You know you didn't like people to call you
greenhorn when you came over five years ago."

 Ah, she's the sweet girl, thought Patsy. But plain. Ah, the
pity of ill

 Patsy was introduced to the two mares, and shown a
ladder which led to the loft above. "Your new home is up
there. 'Tis small but you'll be as snug as a bug in a rug,
ha-ha. Now get yourself a bite of supper and go to bed.
I'll let you ok work until tomorrow."

 Patsy had his supper, not the hot one that Mary had
ordered or the cold one Biddy had threatened: a slightly
warmed-over dish of leftovers. When she had finished,
Biddy told him that he'd use the water trough to wash in
and the water closet in the basement. She gave him a
towel and a cake of soap and a box of kitchen matches.
Patsy was disappointed to know he had a kerosene lamp.
He had expected gaslight.

 He climbed up the ladder and lit the lamp. He surveyed
his kingdom. It was a small room with one window. It had
a cot, a chair, a kitchen table with the lamp on it, and
three nails in the wall for his clothes and towel.

 'Tis barer than a convent cell, he thought. And in America
the horses do be living better than us honest immigrants. He
sat in his cubicle, dead tired, but too wrought up to sleep.
What am' I doing here, he mused, in this strange place
amongst strange people? Why did that sport give me that
card and none other? Some of the other boy-sis on the boat
got cards for jobs to build a railway that ran on tracks over
your head; the elevated, they called it. And they to get grand
wages for it, and meself here. Was I born, now, to be a
servant? No! Ah, he sighed, the good Lord must have had
it in for me, the way He sent me here.

 He fell asleep but woke up in the middle of the night.
He woke up in a panic because he didn't know where he
was. He walked

                   [3~]
                     
lopsided across the dark room to find the lamp. 'Tis
strange, he thought, the boat still rocl ing Old did I not get
or front it this morning? He found the table and lit the
lamp. He looked around the tiny roonn. 'Tis Lo dry am,
he told himself. I am here, alone amongst strangers. I am
without one mother and one girl and me f riend, Rory-Boy.

 Maybe, he mused, that ballad tlJat Henny, the Hermit,
made up afloat me was not bad a-tall. Had I but stayed to
hear the all of it, I might not be here this night.

 Too many things was dance to one this day. And from
now oil, I'll make everyone who pelts a finger to one life do
penance for .eh,7t has been done to me, to me? I'atrick
Dennis Moore.

           ~ (~HA l'TER Fl VE ~

.``II~l. iNloR'.\RIrY, called ions all file lloss, was a stout,
ruddy man with a big belly and big mustaclles. He wore
his pepperand-salt hair parted in the middle with a thick
lap on either side which looked like a pair of
gra,v-and-black pigeons nesting on top of his head. He
wore a black broadcloth suit with a white vest that looked
as though it never had been spotless even when new. A
watcl1 chain, the links big enough for a dog leash, bisected
his belly. I le was never without an uptilted cigar in the
corner of his mouth. Outdoors, he wore a square-crowned
derby tilted over one eye to almost touch the tip of his
up-tilted cigar. He looked like a caricature of a Tammany
ward heeler.

He was a Tammany ward heeler.

 Molly, his wife, known as The Missus, w as a person
soon overlooked. She was tiny, four feet ten, and weighed
eighty pounds. She was forever frightened and put in her
days scuttling back and forth, up and down the house.

 Mary Moriarity, but for her kind ways, would hate
walked through life unnoted. Her face was plain. She was
too tall for a woman and she lacked the curves that one
looks for in a w omen. One didn't notion e her plainness
at all w hen she spoke

                   1'91
                     
or smiled. But she was not given to talking much and she
smiled rarely.

 Bridget, that is, Biddy, the cook, could not possibly be
ignored. She w as all pervading. Patsy hated her at first
sight. She wore her coarse, black hair in two walloping
braids around her head. She had the biggest bust Patsy
had ever seen and he came from a land of big-breasted
women. Her bust was pushed up and out by tightly laced
and high-riding corsets.

 If she had turned up in the old days when he and
Rory-Boy had been friends, he would have told Rory-Boy
that it looked as though she were carrying a tray before
her on which were two loaves of unbaked bread. Rory-Boy
would have laughed and inspired Patsy to build up the
story.

 "And sure," he would have said, "the buttons on her
waist look alive the way they do be fighting all the time to
get out of the buttonholes. And the third one from the
top goes in and out like a eye that does wink at you all
the time."

 But there was no Rory-Boy as friend; no one to talk to
like that; no one to laugh with. So he saw no fun in Biddy.
She revolted him.

 The two matched mares revolted him, too. When he
washed or curried them and the skin rippled beneath his
hand, it gave him the creeps. He hated their coarse
eyelashes. He wondered why they needed such big yellow
teeth only for oats and hay. He was disgusted by their
ankles, which seemed too thin to support the heavy
bodies. And tears of indignity filled his eyes when the
horse's rump 'before his face blotted out the light of the
day as he stood there braiding red ribbon into a
coarse-haired tail.

 He hated the manure which he had to garner each day
to deploy around the base of the snowball bushes in the
yard because The Missus had told him, with fright in her
face, that it must be done because the Illmps were pure
gold to the bushes and would make the flowers icy blue in
colon

 He hated the tiger cat that lived in the stable with the
horses to keep the rats and mice away. He hated the way
the cat sneaked around the stable all night. Often, he
would have given it a good, swift kick but he was afraid its
yowls would bring The Boss's

                   1 4 ]
                     
wrath down on him. He squatted on his heels when he
saw the cat, tail upright, come weaving toward him hoping
for a stroking. Hands on knees, Patsy glared into the cat's
yellow eyes and the cat glared into Patsy's blue eyes. The
cat was the first to turn away. Patsy was expert in the
game of outglaring the cat.

 Each day, Patsy had to walk the horses four times
around the block for exercise. He had to wear a bibbed
apron, made of mattress ticking, while he walked the
horses. How he hated to wear that apron!

 The first day's walk was full of incident. Some kids
playing hookey from school followed him yelling: "Mick!"
and "Greenhorn!" and "Why don't vou button your dress
in the back?" They got sick of that soon enough and went
away.

 An ambulance bore down on him. He had to get himself
and the horses up on the sidewalk to avoid being run
down. An intern or doctor leaned on the strap in the
back. Patsy stared at the visored cap on top of a
pompadour. He'd never seen a woman doctor before.
Then a COp came along and gave him hell for standing
on the sidewalk with two horses.

 "Try that again," suggested the cop mildly, "and I'll run
you in. You and the horses."

 A street walker, off duty and returning from shopping,
invited him up to her flat to see her birdie. He blushed
raspberry red until he saw that she NV:IS actually
carrying a box of freshly purchased birdseed.

 She does lie having a birdie ii, a cage after all, thought
Patsy. And may all the saints forgive me for thinking the
other way.

 The third time around the block, he saw a brassy blonde
leaning out of a window. Her unconfined breasts bloomed
out of her kimono and lumped on her arms which were
folded on the window ledge. Patsy stared at this bounty
with stars in his eyes.

 'Tis as they say, he thought. America is a free country.
Everything is free.

 But she made shards of his pleasure by calling out:
"Hey, Mister! Your petticoat's hanging down. P.H.D."

 Then he had to stop while one of the mares obeyed a
call of nature. He was shamed to death. A street cleaner
appeared from nowhere with cart, broom and shovel.

                  to'']
                    
"Good day to you, officer," said Patsy ingratiatingly.

 "Son of a bitch!" said the street cleaner bitterly, as he
started to clean Up.

 As Patsy led the horses away, he thought: He 7nea~zt
the male for no man in the world could call me that and
live to tell it.

 He had other duties. He had to sweep the sidewalk and
stoop and rake the yard daily. He put the filled garbage
can at the curb at night and impaled the filled trash bag
on a spike of the railing around the house. He beat the
rugs and washed the windows and stretched the lace
curtains on the frames. In short he had to obey The
Missus' bidding anal Biddy's Shims.

 Three times a week he took a wooden bucket and
walked ten blocks to a slaughter house on North Street
where he got kidneys or a liver or a couple of hearts or
other variety meats which were given away free. Once a
week, on slaughtering days, he brought home a bucket of
fresh blood. Moriarity seasoned it with pepper and
flavored it with lemon juice and drank half of it as a tonic.
T he other half was mixed with various ingredients and
made into a fearful thing called blood pudding. Patsy
could hardly get it down. Biddy stood over him and made
hhn eat it, assuring him that it would give him stren'tll.

"I been eating it three years," she said' "and I can lick a
ox."

"I don't want to lick no ox," he said.

 Cohen he had an idle moment in the day, he sat on a
three-legged stool in the stable with a coffee grinder
between his knees and ground up some of the horses'
oats. Biddy treated it like oatmeal and made it into a
breakfast gruel. Patsy, as well as the other members of the
household, had to eat a bowlful of it each morning
because of Moriarity's theory. The Boss figured that if
horses grew strong on oats, human beings could attain the
strength of a horse by eating the same oats.

 "Is it a nation of giants," Yatsy asked Biddy, "he would
have walking the streets of I.rook1N7t1 and all with the
same braving horse laugh he does ONE'."

 The steamship man c ailed on Patsy each payday and
Patsv gave him two dollars, which the man marked in a
little black book.

 "Only fifty-eight dollars more," the collector had said
after the first payment. "you'll be paid up in a vear."

                  [421
                    
 "I don't want to stay here a year," Patsy had told him. "I
don't like it here. I want to go back to Ireland."

"No reason why you shouldn't after two years."

"Two . . . ? "

 "A year to pay off your passage here and a year to pay
off your passage back."

 Two years before he could go back or two years before
he could send his mother passage money. No. He couldn't
wait. He'd save every penny.... To that end, he got an
empty cigar box from Van Clees, a young Dutch cigar
Walter from whom Patsy bought a Seamy clay pipe once
in a while and a sack of tobacco. Patsy nailed the cover
shut and cut a slit in the cover. He dropped his savings in
the slit.

 The savings accumulated very slowly. Patsy was not
extravagant and his needs were few enough, but there was
always something to buy. Aside from fifteen cents a week
for clay pipes and tobacco, he had to pay ten cents twice
a week for a shave at the barber's. He couldn't afford to
buy a straight razor and honing strap. A haircut once a
month cost twenty cents. A nickel went into the collection
plate at Mass each Sunday. Then he needed socks and a
union suit and another shirt and a Sunday tie and pomade
for his hair. There was a beer or two of a Saturday
night not that he was a drinking man. But he liked the
conviviality of the saloon where voices were raised in song
and one could count on a grand fight starting up once in
a while. But he did manage to save a dollar a week.

 Mary asked him kindly- had he heard from his mother.
It was then he realized two months had gone by and he
hadn't written. No, he said, he hadn't heard because he
hadn't written. Yes, he could read and write but had never
written a letter because at home everyone he knew was
close by and letters weren't necessary. It was addressing
tile envelope that bothered him and the proper stamp.

 That night she made him a present of a box of
stationery and a penholder and a half-doztn penpoints and
a bottle of ink. She had a stamped envelope addressed for
him. He wrote that night.

 He wrote his mother that it might be two years before
he could send for her. He suggested she get in touch with
the Liverpool sport and get passage and a job. He wrote:
. . . I have a fine

                  [ 43 ]
                     
apartment here . . . He looked around his barren room.
God forgive me fur Iying, he prayed. (He often took a
short cut like that to get rid of minor venial sins. It saved
time at confession.)

 He wrote that he was sending her an American dollar
in the letter and . . . The young lady of the house is stuck
on me . . . She gave me a grand present . . .

 It was a fine present, the stationery. He didn't believe,
really, that Mary was stuck on him. He wrote it knowing
his mother's tongue was tied in the middle and wagged at
both ends and she'd be sure to tell Maggie Rose and the
girl would be jealous and would write to him. A half page
more of boasting, and the letter was finished.

 He waited every day for a letter. Two months passed
and he had given up hope of hearing from home, when
one night Mary came down to the kitchen where he was
eating supper with Biddy, and smilingly put a letter next
his plate. He finished his supper in a hurry and went up
to his room to read the letter. It was written by Bertie, the
Broommaker.

 Esteemed Son: Yours at hand and contents noted. Your
one dollar received. I trust more to follow. I informed
Miss Shawn of your new attachment. Miss Shawn requests
that I tender you her congratulations. Miss Shawn
requests me to inform you that she, also, has formed a
new attachment.

 I must decline with thanks your kind invitation to join
you in America under the conditions you set forth. I have
no wish to become a domestic for no gentlewoman of our
family has ever gone into service. It is my desire to remain
here in order to die where I was born and to sleep the
eternal sleep at the side of my dear, departed husband,
your father.

 Pray extend my cordial greetings to your guide and
mentor, M. Moriarity, Esquire. T remain your devoted
mother, Elizabeth A. Moore. (Mrs.)

 So she took it serious, thought Patsy, and she thinks I
have a girl and after I gave me promise . . . and now she
won't come to me a-tall. He put his head down on his
arms and cried a little. He knew that the last link
between him and Ireland had been broken. Ale mother
don't want me now, he wept, but she wouldn't let .llaggie
Rose have me. And now me girl went and got another f
eller....

                  [44~1
                    
 After a while, he wiped }liS eyes, busted open his bank
and took out a half dollar. He went down to the saloon,
had ten five-cent beers, two fights and ate most of the free
lunch left over from noon. He felt much better afterward.

 Mary, returning from the druggist's where she'd gone to
buy a cake of castile soap with which to wash her hair, saw
him go into the saloon. She surmised that the letter from
home had not been a happy one. ';he decided to have a
talk with him in the morning.

 "Patrick," she said the next morning after the exchange
of greetings, "you must be lonesome a strange country,
no relatives and you don't go out enough to make friends."
Then, a little breathlessly, she made her suggestion. "Did
you know there are places in Rockawav where Irish
people go to dance? And many of the counties have their
own dance hall. I know there's one for Galway and
Donega] and I(:erry. Perhaps there's one for Kilkenny.
Why don't you go this Saturdav, Patrick? You might meet
somebody from home."

"I would, Miss Mary, but . . ."

"And get yourself some nice clothes."

"I would. Only . . ."

 "Go to Batterman's or Gorman's. You can get clothes
on time. Most working people do. So much down, so
much a week. Give our name as reference."

"I will do so, Miss Marv, and I do be thanking you...."

 "Not at all, Patrick. You're too young to spend your
evenings sitting in that little room."

 He did as she suggested He bought a straw hat for a
dollar and bulldog-tip shoes that cost a cool two dollars,
a candy-striped shirt and two celluloid collars and a
made-up, snap-on polka-dot bow tie. His suit was dear:
eight dollars. He got it just in time. The pants he'd worn
steadily since leaving Ireland were almost transparent
from wear.

 "Them pants don't owe you nothing, Mister," said the
salesman feelingly.

 He dressed up the following Saturday evening and made
a little sensation in the household. The Boss said: "When
me stable boy dresses better than meself, one of us is got
to go." I\loriarity's idea of a joke.

Mary thought: How very yoYIng he is! How good looking!

                   1 4~]
                     
 The Missus said: "I wish 1 had a son.' 1 hen threw her
hands over her head and ran upstairs.

 Biddy said: "The likes of hhn putting on airs and him
looking like a monkey on a stick!"

 He found his way to Rocka\vay. Fhere were dance halls
with doors wide as barndoors standing open and banners
above them with names of the counties: Kerry, Sligo,
Donegal, Cork, Tipperary and others. Inside, the pipes
snarled and hefty, flushed servant girls danced with
barrel-cheated truck drivers and theN danced pounding
their feet as though they would make holes in the floor.
The noise drowned out the gentle swish of the ocean
nearby.

 Patsy could find no lLilkelloy banner 50 he went into
COuntN Sligo. A girl with a wild-rose flush in her cheeks
that reminded him a little bit of Maggie Rose was sitting
alone with a schooner of beer before her. He went to her
intending to ask for a dance, hut before he could form
the words a burly bruiser appeared out of nowhere and
sat dot\ n next the girl.

"Yes?" asked the bruiser. The word was a challenge.

"Nothing," answered Patsv. The \vord was a withdrawal.

  He went into County Derry and sa\v two girls dancing
together. Ele walked out on the floor, touched the
shoulder of one of them and said: "Breaks" The girls w
ere delighted one of them, anyway. When that dance
was done, he danced with the other girl. Between dances,
they sat down and Patsy treated them to beer. He
alternated dancing with the two all evening. From time to
tingle they sat down and had another schooner. As the
evening w ore on, the girls quarreled with each other as
to which one he'd e scort home. Pats settled it by
promisirla to take both home. Then he excuse,! hilllsclf to
go to the men's room. He sneaked out the side door and
took the train for horlle, letting the girls sit there.

  Going over the trestle, he counted the money in his
pocket. Only sixty cents left! And he had Connie out with
two dollars! Sweat broke out on his sorehead. I can't do
this again, he thought, spending me money like a
dr~`iZkc7` sailor. I'll never save me prst n~illio7z spending
it before I save it.

That was the end of ]'atsv's social life.

                 14ri 1
                    
             ~ CHIN PTER SIX ~

WHEN September came, Moriarity told Patsy he'd have
to go to night school.

 "But I know me reading Jnd writing," protested Patsv.
"And do I not speak English?"

 "You have to take lessons," said The Boss, "so's you can
learn to be a citizen and vote the Democratic ticket."

"'Tis of no interest to me."

"The party needs your vote."

"It can't get it till I'm lining five years in Broo'Klyn."

"Who said so?"

 "Mary. I mean, Miss Mary. Three years if you marry an
American woman, she said."

"Are you figuring on petting married?"

"I got no intentions."

 "Miss Mary," said The Boss carefully, "is kind to dogs
and old people and servants. 'Tis her nature. So don't get
idears."

 He saw Patsy's eyes flicker. Hit the bull's eye that time,
thought Moriarity. Got to watch him fron,' now on.

 Patsy refused to go to night school. He said: "Me days
belong to you but me nights belong to me." (He'd been in
America long enough now to know his rights.)

 Moriarity was in a fix. The boss over him had created a
job: a night class in civics and current events to give
employment to a spinster relative of a boss two bosses
higher than Moriarity. To make it legitimate with the
school board, the class had to have an enrollment of
thirty. Orders had gone out from the top to fill the class.

 "Tell you what, Pathrick," said Moriarity. "You go to
night school and I'll raise your pay fifty cents a week
more."

"And what is fifty cents?" shrugged Patsy.

 "Fifty cents!" Moriarity grew Iyrical. "Fifty cents is fifty
clay pipes. It's ten beers a week in a grand saloon with the
boys

                  1 4-'1
                     
ch~sterin' around and laughing and singing and yourself
amongst them. It's five Saturday nights at the Gat-tee
Bur-less show and yourself high in the gallery where you
can see all."

"No!" Patsy was adamant.

 Mary spoke to him the next morning. "It would be nice
if you v. ent to night school, Patrick. You could dress up
nights in your nice suit, get out among people, perhaps
make a friend or two...."

 He didn't want to go but he wanted to please her. She'd
been SO kind; treated him as a friend, not a servant. Only
last week, she'd given him a beautiful plate hand-painted
china, painted by herself to put his pipes on. Her gift of
stationery, ink and pen and the pretty plate standing on
his little table made his room seem more cheerful and
warm.

"I will go," he said. "1~ or you."

 A delicate pink color flowed into her cheeks. She said,
"Thank you, Patrick."

 Patsy sat in a seat built for a ten-year-old child. His legs
were jammed under the little desk. He looked around the
classroom trying to find someone to hate. He'd about
decided that there was no one in the room worth hating
when he saw a banty Irishman slip into the seat across the
aisle.

 He'll never make pa' feet standing up, thought Patsy
scornfully. And he's got no teeth, the way his Oath is folded
into his face.

 The little fellow wore a broken-visored cap pulled down
over one eye. There were a couple of pearl buttons sewed
on the visor and loose, dirty threads where other buttons
had been.

 So, deduced Patsv. '4 fishmonger, come from the slops of
Dublin where all the black Prattisstants come frown.

 The little man, feeling that Patsy was sizing him up,
turned to grin at him. Patsy scowled in return. Patsy was
about to start an argument by asking the man who did he
think he was looking at when the teacher came in.

 She was a buxom, micldle-aged woman. There was a
black button on her dress from which hung a pair of
pince-nez eyeglasses. She rapped the edge of her desk
with a brass-edged ruler. She pulled on lier glasses and an
attached chain came out of the button. She pinched the
glasses onto the bridge of her nose.

'This is a class in civics, current events and American
citizen

                 [ 4y 1
                    
ship," she announced. "The class meets five nights a week.
Mv name is McCarthy. Miss," she emphasized. "Now I will
take your names, gentlemen."

 The little banty Irishman tittered at the word
''Gentlemen.'' Miss McCarthy pointed her ruler at him.

 "You!" she said. "Stand up!" He did so. The little fellow
was under five feet tall. She removed her glasses from her
nose and held them daintily, shoulder high, between her
thumb and forefinger. "Remove your hat"' He obeyed.
"What's your name?"

"MacCart'y," he said. "A~lick."

 She thought he was mimicking her. She came from
behind her desk. "What did you say>" she said
menacingly, spacing each word.

 His eyes rolled in terror. He gasped "Mick Mack . . ."
He was so scared he couldn't get the "Carthy" out. "click
Mack," he repeated.

"Mick Mack?" she asked with a puzzled frown.

 The class howled with laughter. She gave her glasses a
jerk and they crawled up on her bosom, following the
chain which disappeared in the button. She opened her
desk drawer and took out an Indian chlb. She hefted it by
the neck.

 "Attention! " she said. She waited for silence. "I don't
like teaching you any more than you like being taught. I
do not want any trouble. But if anyone of you is looking
for trouble, I'll be glad to accommodate him. Any
questions?" She tightened her grip on the Indian club.
There were no questions.

 Patsy was filled with admiration of the woman. My God,
he thought, you can't love her but you sure as hell got to
respect her.'

 She went through the class and got the names. Some
were hard to get. A person could tell his name but he
couldn't spell it. A Pole, whose name sounded like
Powllowski, she announced would be set down as Powers.
When it came to a Schwarzkopf, she stated that, from that
time on, it would be Blackhead. The poor man begged to
be permitted to keep his name but Miss McCarthy was
adamant. All names, she stated, except the Irish ones, had
to be Americanized. That was the first step in
Americanization. ManN a poor fellow won a new name
that night.

 The name taking took lip most of the session but there
was time for a short lesson. "Now, gentlemen," said Miss
McCarthy, "we'll

                 ~ 49 1
                    
start with a topic of current importance. The protective
tariff." She explained the tariff as something the
Republicans in Congress were devising to ruin the
country. She used the proposed tariff on tin as an
example. "Tomorrow, you can go into a certain store and
buy a the cup for five cents. Next year, if Mr. McKinley
has his way, the same tin cup, in the same store, will cost
you twenty-five cents."

 "Pst, Mick Mack," whispered Patsy across the aisle.
"What store does she mean?"

"Why, the certain store what sells tin cups," said Mick
Mack.

 Patsy gave him a contemptuous look as he thought: Why
the durtee little showoff of a Unseen!

 He spoke to me! thought Mick Mack rapturously. Now I
have a friend!

 Patsy liked to go to night school. He liked to dress up
and have Mary wave to him from the parlor window as he
left. He liked the admiring glances the girls walking on the
street gave him. He liked his teacher and he liked to
despise Mick Mack. It made him glow all over

 It was coming on Christmas and Miss McCarthy made
an announcement. "Tomorrow will be our last class before
the Christmas vacation. No one of you is to bring me a
Christmas present of any sort whatever. Is that clear?"

 The next night, the last session, she came in lugging a
large suitcase. "What's that for?" Patsy whispered to Mick
Mack.

"Christmas presents."

"What Christmas presents?"

"What we all is going to give her."

  True, there was a Christmas-wrapped package on every
desk but his. He was the only one who had taken her
literally. He was embarrassed. He liked his teacher and
would have liked to give her a present.

  "But why did she say nobody was supposed to give her
a present? "

  " 'Tis the style in Amtrica," said Mick Mack, "to say you
don't want no presents, it being a hint that means don't
forget to give me a present."

"Someday," said Patsy, grinding his teeth, "you're going to
get

                  [ so 1
                     
Bucked right in the nose because YOU think YOU know so
much." "And you, me friend, will be at me side to lick hell
out of the man what tries it."

 It was June and school was over. Patsy escorted Miss
McCarthy home to avoid walking with Mick Mack. He
knew the little man would get sentimental, want to
exchange addresses, to plan other meetings, and Patsy
wanted none of that.

 Patsy missed the classes. He was sorry he hadn't
obtained Mick Mack's address. Not that he liked the man.
Oh, no! It was just that Patsy had a couple ol things to say
to him that he, Mick Mack, wouldn't like at all. He felt he
hadn't put Mick Mack in his place. He still had a thing or
two he'd like to tell him.

            :t CHAPTER SEVEN V

PATSY had been in Armerica a year. His steamship
passage was paid in full and he owed nothing more on his
clothes. He had about thirty dollars saved. He'd heard
from his mother twice in the year. Both letters told him
his had been received and hoped more would follow. She
wrote no news of Maggie Rose or of the people he knew;
of the village or of herself. Both letters were copied from
Bertie's book with no personal interpolations.

 Patsy felt he ought to leave Moriarity and get a better
job but he didn't know how to go about it. Then he
reasoned that a nev. job might be worse than the old.
Eventually, he decided it was better to put up with the
drawbacks he had become used to than to take on
unknown ones. Besides, in a Ray, he would have missed
Mary. He was not at all in love with her but he had come
to depend on her kindness and her understanding ways.

 Each time he thought of Biddy, however, he thought a
new job couldn't be worse than the one he had. She was
a nuisance. He suffered many indignities from her. She
made him run trivial errands and help with the dishes. She
made him listen to her tire

                  [,,/ 1
                     
some views on life, love, drinking, religion and w hat not. When he showed his
lack of interest, she had a way of getting close to him and nudging him with her
big, hard bust until she had him backed into a corner. There she held him with
her barrier bust and made him listen to her homilies. Jessie, one of the mares,
had the same trick of nudging him into a corner and leaning against him when
he tried to curry her.

 Biddy was also getting what he called forward. She was the kind that, had he
made advances to her, she'd have cracked his head open. But she was also the
type who would crack his head open if he intimated that she wasn't worth
making advances to.

 She had him nudged into a corner one afternoon, trying to get him to agree
with her that Teddy Roosevelt had false teeth. He thought otherwise but was on
the point of agreeing with her in order to get away, when she suddenly dropped
the argument and, in plain earthy words, made him a point-blank proposition.

 Now Patrick Dennis was not one to refuse any bounty that came his way, but
he liked his bounty young and fresh and softly yielding and not ~ron-bound like
Biddy.

"I could not do so," he blurted out, ''witll you."

"So you think you could do better, eh?" she said ominously.

  " 'Tis not that," he said placatingly, "but 'twould have to be with marrying."

  God forgive the lie, he thought, but what a grand, good way to get out of this
sitchee,~sh?~n.

  "I got to marry you for that?" she gasped. "Why you're the last man I'd think
of marrying."

"Who was asking you?" he said. "If I couldn't do better . . ."

"What'd you say?" she growled.

 "Nothing," he said hastily. "And take me apology for it if I did. Sure and
you'd make me a fine wife, the way you work hard and the way you're
healthy...."

"Oh, Paddy, dear!" She fluttered her eyes.

  "Only," he continued, "I would want a younger woman . . . not too young,"
he added hastily, afraid of insulting her again.

"Someone about Miss Mary's age?" she asked.

"I do not think about her that way--as me wife," he said.

"You think right," she said. "She'd never marry a stable boy."

                         [ S' ]
                            
"She could go farther and do worse," said Patsy, stung.

"Why, she wouldn't even spit on the likes of you!"

"She would so," cried Patsy indignantly.

The argument went on.

  Because of Biddy's forever saying that Mary wouldn't
spit Oil him and that he wasn't fit to clean her shoes and
because MoriaritNwas always warning him not to get
"idears" about his daughter, Patsy gave more and more
thought to Mary.

  I don't want her, he thought, and the Lord knows she don
t want me and not because I'm a stable boy either. This is
not the old country where the stable boy does not marry the
lord's daughter. This is America, where 'tis the style, like
Mick Mack would say, f or the poor working man to marry
the boss's daughter. Then, books she gives me to read: All
about poor boys what marries the rich boss's daughter and
the poor boy then owns the factory when the old man
croaks. A thought struck him. Did she ask me to read that
book thinking that I'd get the hint, marry her and . . . ah,
no, he decided; she ain't tricky the way women is.

  Is she far above me like Biddy says? Sure, she has the
grand education sitting in school till she was twenty studying
to be a teacher. and meself? Six years of schooling I had.
But did I not learn Latin good the way Father hit me on me
head with his shillelagh (at ter Mass, to give him his due)
when I didn't say it right when I was his altar boy?

  She plays the piano to be sure. But do l not have the ear
for music the way I can . . . the way I could, keep time to
any tune was played the while I Jigged?

  She's rich and I'm poor. And that's the God's truth. But
all her father's money couldn't buy for her what I do have
for nothing: me youth. I'm twenty-one and she's
twenty-seven. And that's old old for a woman not yet
married.

  When I go walking, I could walk with a girl on each arm
fat the asking. But poor Miss .lIary! Sure and she's never had
a man make up to her. Then there is looks. She is sweet?
but ah, she's plain in her face. So plain. And where is her
shape? And me? I'd be Iying to meself did I not tell meself
I'm good looking and I'll say an Act of Contrition for I've
pride in me looks before I sleep this night.

                   1, 1
                     
 SO, Patsy came to his conclusion. She wouldn't lie so
lead oJJ marrying me. But I will not think of it for do I not
love Maggie Rose and I could never love another. And does
she not wait for me with love? 'Tis a lie she has another
feller. She could love no one else after me. And when I get
ore thousand dollars saved up, I'll go flack. I'll tell her the
plaiting time is over and . . .

And so he dreamed.

 It was September of his second year in America. After
supper now, Patsy sat on the stone bench in the paved
areaway onto which the iron-grilled door of the basement
dining room opened. He'd sit there and smoke an
after-supper pipe, trying to put off the time when he'd
have to go back to his miserable little room.

 He watched the comings and goings of the people on
the street and stared at the folk who climbed the step to
ring Moriarity's bell. He wasn't at all interested. He was
curious.

 On Friday nights, many policemen, in and out of
uniform, came to the door. The procedure was always the
same. A cop rang the bell. Moriarity appeared and put
out his hand. Instead of shaking it, the cop put something
in it. The Boss put some of it back into the cop's hand
and the cop went down the stoop, saluting another cop
who was on the way up.

 Eventually, his curiosity made him ask Biddy what it was
all about. She was appalled at his ignorance.

 "And you living in the yard this year or more past and
you don't know? Why 'tis graft, yes, it is, what The Boss
is collecting. From the aitch houses. They can't run
without paying. The madams pay the cops so the cops
won't run them in. She cops pay our Boss so he won't
snitch on them to the Big Cheese."

"And who is the Big Cheese?"

 "The feller what takes half the graft The Boss collects
from the cops what collects from the madams."

"Can't The Boss be arrested for that?"

"And who would artist him?"

"A cop.,'

 "They can't because all the cops is in on the graft, too,
and who would arrest them?"

One October night, Patsy was sitting on the stone bench
smok

                 [ S4 ,
                    
ing his stub-stem clay pipe when he saw a big cop heft
himself up the stoop. He was used to the cops coming but
this was different. This was a cop coming on Wednesday
night. The other cops came on Friday night.

  The big cop pressed the button. Moriarity opened the
door and put out his hand. Instead of putting something
into it, the cop shook it warmly. The Boss, surprised,
pulled his hand away and wiped it on his coat.

  "Excuse me," said the Cop. "t live in East New York but
me beat is in Manhattan."

Patsy was alerted. There was something about that voice
. . .

  "What the hell are you doing here then, in my precinct?
Go see the commissioner if you want a transfer."

  "I came to see about . . ." Patsy lost the rest because the
big cop's voice dropped to a w Lisper. But he vitas sure
he heard his name mentioned. "And this is his address,"
concluded the cop in his normal voice. The Boss leaned
down over the stoop.

  "Boy?" Patsy looked up. The Boss waited. Patsy got to
his feet. Still The Boss waited. Patsy took the pipe from
his mouth. Then Moriarity spoke. "Patrick, the officer
wants to see you. Take him to your room."

  Patsy was up the ladder in a htlrry. He lit the kerosene
lamp while the big cop, with many a sigh and a wheeze,
hefted himself up the ladder. The cop removed his
helmet. There was that nimbus of red around his 'ribald
head.... The cop looked around for a place to sit. His feet
hurt so. But there was only one chair in the room and he
was too polite to take it without an invitation. Finally
Patsy sat on the cot and the'r,ig man took the chair. He
sighed in relief.

  He introduced himself: 'I'm the feller vv hat licked you
back in County Kilkenny nearly two years ago." yes, Patsy
had known it was Big Red. And what did he want of him
now, Patsy wondered.

  "I don't hold it against meself that I licked you. I
thought it was right at the time. And I'm hoping that
you'll let bygones be bygones being's everything turned
out fine in the end."

  Patsy's heart leaped up. Everything turned out fine, Big
Red said. Could that mean that Maggie Rose was in
America now with

                 [ ss 1
                    
her big brother and Big Red had come to ask Patsy to
marry his sister? Yes. That's what he must have come for.
And he'd marry Maggie Rose. Yes, he would!

 "Yes. It all turned out fine for you and for me sister.
You've got a good job and me baby sister . . ."

 Eagerly, Patsy leaned forward and put his hand on Big
Red's knee. He was so happy he could hardly speak.
"Maggie Rose! Where is she? How is she?"

"She's happy as a lark." He smiled tenderly. "She's
expecting."

"Expecting? Expecting what?"

  "Sure and you must have heard? She married a few
months after you left."

"Who . . . who married?" croaked Patsy.

"Me sister. 'Twas from her husband I got your address."

"What husband?"

  "Hers. You know him. The feller what sold you the
ticket to run away from me to America?" Big Red
laughed. "He was quite a ketch, :[ hear, the wav he came
ten miles on his bicycle twice a week to court her."

  "He married her on me own wheel?" said Patsy,
bewildered. "And the money given me for it stolen?"

"How's that?" asked Big Red, equally perplexed.

"The I,iverpool sport?"

"I can't tell you what make 'twas."

"So she is married," said Patsy drearily.

  "That she is. And happy, she writes me. Ah, I did you
wrong," said Big Red humbly, 'crossing the sea to come
between you. Many's the Novena I did for it. Ach, why
was we all against you? I was the worst. But me own
mother did her best to make the trouble and your mother,
God rest her sotll, wouldn't listen to me. ..."

"Me mother?,' interrupted Patsy. "You said, 'God rest . .
.'?"

  That's how Patsy found out his mother had died. It was
almost too much to bear. In a few minutes he knew he'd
lost his Maggie Rose and his mother forever. Big Red
kept talking, hoping to get him over the first shock.

  He assured the boy his mother had not died alone. Her
oldest boy, Neeley, who had gone to Australia before
Patsy was born,

                 ~ Sly 1
                    
had returned to her a few months before her death;
Neeley's wife having died and his children long since
scattered or married.

  Patsy held in his grief. He didn't want Big Red to see
him weep. Men wept only before women; not before other
men. When Patsy could hold back his grief no longer, he
excused himself to Big Red, saying he needed to w ash his
face. He went down and washed in the horse trough. His
tears mingled freely with the water from the tap. He
thought as he wept:

  Had I but stayed a while longer, he thought in anguish, l
could have held Maggie Rose to me and now with me mother
gone, the way would have been clear f or Maggie Rose and
me. Not that I'd have me mother die. But if she had to go .
. .

  He dried his face with the rough towel that had been
issued him at the house and knelt before the trough to say
his prayer for the dead. The horses shifted weight in the
dark stable and made the straw rustle and Patsy was glad
for the company of the sound. The big yellow cat weaved
toward him, arched its back and leaned against his thigh
for an instant, then sat close to him, lifted a paw and
started to wash itself. Patsy felt less alone for the closeness
of the cat.

  When he got back to his room, Big Red had Patsy's suit
and shirt, tie, socks and shoes laid out. He urged Patsy to
dress up.

  "'Tis not right you spend the evening alone," said Big
Red. "The last thing me Lottie said to me when I left the
house was: 'You bring him home with you, hear? Don't let
the poor boy stay alone with his sorrow the night long.'
Ah, you'll like me Lottie," said Big Red. "She'll take your
mother's place in a way."

  Patsy went because he didn't want to be alone. Big Red
held his arm. He thought the awareness of another human
being would help Patsy a little. He held him the only way
he knew how: the way he held a man he was arresting his
right hand clasped firmly about Patsy's upper left arm,
Patsy pulled close to him and propelled to walk a few
steps before Big Red. It looked like an arrest, Big Red
being in uniform. But that's the way he walked with his
Lottie too, whether he was in uniform or not. People on
the street reacted.

  Those whose pleasure came from the ill luck of others
thought: I don't know what he did hut I'm glad they caught
him. Kinder

                  [ s7 ]
                     
people thought: The poor thing! So young, to go wrong. I
hope they're easy on him.

 The Moriarity household watched him leave with the
policeman. Biddy watched from behind the bars of the
basement diningroom window. The Boss and The Missus
watched from behind the lace curtains of the parlor and
Mary watched alone from the music room. They sat` how
pale and drawn his face looked under the street light.

 Biddy was sure in her mind that Patsy Moore had raped
a servant girl and gotten her in the family way. The
Missus was sure he'd stolen a bag of phoney because it
would be Christmas soon and he wanted to buy presents
for everyone.

 Moriarity had it figured out. The big cop was a stool
pigeon sent by the reform candidate who hoped to be
elected in November. The cop was taking Patsy away so
that the higher-ups of the reform party could force him to
inform on the activities of him, Michael Moriaritv.

 Only Mary felt the truth. He has had news that grieved
hill', she thought.

            ~9 CH~IP7ER EIGHT A

Lo-rrl1 made up a little party for Patsy. She sent Big Red
out to the delicatessen for smoked whitefish, slabs of
creamy, smoked sturgeon and wedges of smoked eel. She
gave him instructions to get a dozen bottles of light
beer off the ice. (She didn't think it was refined to run
down for a pail of draft beer when company came.)

 Lottie thoughtfully plied Patsy with food. "Eat," she said.
"It will help you forget your sorrows and troubles."

 Big Red asked for permission to soak his feet. He
explained that he'd gone to Moriarity's directly from work
and hadn't had an opportunity . . . His request was
graciously granted by wife and guest

I )h, I

 The food was gone, the beer was nearly gone and they
had a hard time digging up things to talk about. Big Red
thought a little entertainment was in order. He asked
Lottie to sing. She demurred, as was proper, and modestly
confessed she had never had her voice cultivated. Big Red
told her she was too bashful for her own good. He told
Patsy that she had a grand voice. She broke down under
the coaxing and said she'd sing if Big Red would
accompany her on his bugle. He demurred too, because in
polite society one must not be too eager to show off one's
talent. After the coaxing had gone on too long and Patsy
and Lottie were about to take his word for it that he
couldn't blow a note, he gave in, rummaged in the clothes
closet, and came up with his bugle.

 He stood in the middle of the parlor in his bare feet
and, after a few false starts, he played a stirring reveille.
After he had gotten all of the neighbors' children out of
bed, he tapered off, stood at attention holding his bugle
over his heart, while Lottie sang:

           Oh, the-e-e-yice Neal

Is a nice man . . .

 When her SOIIg was done, he lifted his bugle and
played a long-drawn-out taps. Widdy, who had arisen from
his cot at reveille, now crawled back after taps. It had
been a short day for him. Lottie waited until the boy was
sound asleep again before she suggested! they ought to get
Widdy up to recite "Hiawatha." Big Red went in and
shook him awake.

 Widdv stood in the middle of the parlor. He took a
short CUt through the coaxing. He w as anxious to get
back to bed.

By the shores of Girchee Goomce, By the shining
Big-Sea-Water, Stood the u igwam of Nokomis.
Daughter of the moon, Nokomis.

 He droned on and on and on in a monotonous singsong.
When he had finished, Patsy clapped in delirious and
noisy delight not in praise but in deep gratitude that the
interminable droning was at an end. Widdy wanted to go
back to bed but Big Red ordered him to wait for the treat
of the evening.

                   1 i91
                     
 'This you must not miss, me son," he said. He turned to
Patsy. Would you now, Pathrick, dance one of your grand
old Irish jigs for us?"

 Lottie put her hands together and made a sound of
ecstasy. Patsy shook his head. Well, that was right to
refuse at first; not to seem eager. They understood. He
wanted his full share of coaxing.

"Pretty please? " begged Lottie. "With whipped cream on
top? "

"I couldn't," said Patsy.

"Don't be like that, boy," said Big Red heartily.

 Under the coaxing, Patsy's feet started to tingle. The
rotation of the steps raced through his mind. He was
about to make the speech of acceptance:
I-might-be-a-little-rusty, but-I'II-try, when Widdy had to
put in his two cents' worth.

 "Hey, Pop! Ain't this the feller you licked that time you
went to Ireland, when he was jigging?"

"Oh, Widdy!" moaned Lottie piteously.

"Shut up, son," said Big Red, low and ominously.

 "But, Pop!" Widdy made puzzled peaks out of his
eyebrows. 'You said! You told me and Mom how you
licked the . . ."

 The back of Big Red's hand, with tufts of red hair on
the knuckles, made an arc Ad landed on Widdy's cheek.
The blow sent the kid halfway across the parlor.

"That'll learn you," said Big Red. "You and your
Nokomis!"

"It's past his bedtime," said Lottie.

 "What s he doing up so late then?" He turned to yell at
Widdy. "Get back in bed," he shouted, "where you
belong!"

I could kill him, thought Patsy. Him and his ~help!

"I got to go," said Patsy.

"Now," said Big Red, "you know how kids is."

 "You can't go," wailed I,ottie. "I was just going to make
some strong hot coffee and send Timmy down to see if
the baker's is still open and get a crumb cake."

"I'll thank you for me cap and for nothing else," said
Patsy.

 Lottie, with tears in her eyes, begged him to stay. Big
Red assured him that he wouldn't have had it happen for
a million dollars but what can NTou do with kids? When
they saw that Patsy was not to be moved, Big Red went to
the door with him and said the correct fat ewell words:

1 6,, 1

  "Now that you knot` the way to our house, don't be a
stranger."

  "May God strike me dead," said Patsy passionately, "if I
ever set foot in this house again!"

  "I had enough out of you," said Big Red. "A mistake was
made. All right! I apologised. What do I get back? May
God strike you dead if you ever . . . You listen to me:
May I drop dead if I ever let you set foot in this house
again!"

"Yeah?" said Patsy.

  "Yeah! And another thing: Oncet I crossed the ocean to
give you a good licking. This time I just got to cross
Newtown Creek to give you more where that first licking
came from."

"Yeah? "

"Yeah! "

  "Yeah?" repeated Patsy. "Well, listen!" He opened the
door and put one foot out. "I'll bury youse all," shouted
Patsy. "And enjoy me bowl of pot cheese after the
funeral."

Then he ran like hell.

             `~ CHAPTER NINE ~

MARY, sitting at her window and waiting for Patsy, saw
him come home about one A.M. He had stopped in at the
saloon to have a few beers and to brood. He climbed up
to his loft and without lighting the lamp threw himself on
his cot.

 Mary slipped out of the house in her dressing gown and
bedroom slippers. She stood at the foot of the ladder
leading to the loft. One of the horses whinnied and for a
second she was afraid someone would awaken in the
house. She waited. No light went on. She called Patsy's
name. He didn't answer, pretending not to hear. She
climbed up to his room. He lit the lamp. She went to the
table and turned the lamp low. He was in a panic.

 "Miss Mary, please go," he said. "God help me if your
father finds you in me room this late."

"Never mind my father," she said. "Patrick, please tell me
all

                  ~ 6' ]
                     
about it." He shook his head. "You've had bad news from
Ireland." He said nothing. "Is it your mother?" He turned
away from her.

  "I am your friend, Patrick. Tell your friend your
troubles. Don't hold them to yourself. A trouble shared is
a trouble halved. Tell me, Patrick. It may help."

  He broke down a little and started telling her. He spoke
of his boyhood, his mother, Rory-Boy and Maggie Rose.
He told of being whipped by Big Red and how he had
sneaked out of Ireland and how his money had been
stolen his first day in America. And then he told of his
mother's death and Maggie Rose's marriage and the
humiliating evening at Big Red's home.

Her eyes were filled with tears all during his story.

  "And now," he concluded, "me old life is gone and the
new life I'm making . . . I mean the new life everyone is
making for me is no good. I don't like nobody no more
and I don't want nobody to like me."

  "You don't mean that, Patrick. You say that because
you've been so hurt; and so alone in a strange land."

  "I mean it. I'm never going to give nothing to nobody
and I'm going to take everything I can get from
everybody."

  She smiled at his boyish ultimatum. "Ah, no, Patrick,"
she said. "You could never live like that. Why, you're so
young so full of life. Everyone would like you so much
if only you'd let people...."

  Suddenly, he broke down and wept piteously. She held
out her arms in compassion.

"Come to me, Patrick dear," she said. "Come to me."

  She stood before him, her arms outstretched toward
him. Her loose robe concealed the way she was straight up
and down without curves. Her hair hung loose to her waist
and the golden lamplight made her pass for pretty.

  Because he was so lonesome and so starved for love, he
went to her. She held him tightly and kept saying: "There
now. There now." She was like a mother soothing a child.
"There now," she said. Ele put his arms about her waist
and she stroked his shoulder and said: "There now. Don't
cry any more."

  They held each other. But no matter how tightly they
held each other, there was no blending. Her body stayed
straight and

                  ~ 6' 1
                     


stiff. It did not know how to relax against his.

  He thought of the last time he had held Maggie
Rose how her little waist curved in and her thighs curved
out. He remembered the evening. He had stood with one
foot up on a stone wall and she had leaned against him.
He remembered how his upraised thigh had fitted the
curve of her waist and how the curve of his arm fitted all
around her.

  When a girl and a man fit together so grand, he thought,
sure God made them for each other. And why did I ever
leave me own Maggie Rose? He sighed. 

  And this good girl l'nz holding in me awns now, he
thought sadly, we will never fit together.

  He was quiet and she thought he was comforted. "I
NN7i~ leave you now," she said. She waited. He kissed
her cheek. He held the lamp so that she could find her
way down from his loft.

  After she had slipped back into the house, he came
down from his loft and stood in the yard. He leaned
against the stable and smoked his pipe and thought of
Mary how good she was; how kind and understanding.
He felt warm toward her. It was almost like love. Then his
mood was broken. Biddy came out from behind a snowball
bush.

  "Ah, so," she said. "So me pretty man changed his mind
about waiting for the marrying before he did you know
what."

"Go away, Biddy," he said wearily.

"That I won't till I've had me say."

  He looked at her with aversion. Her hair was in a thick
braid down her back and the end of it twitched and
writhed around her backside like a black snake. She wore
a crepe kimono and her flesh was unconfined beneath it.
There was a continuous movement under the kimono as
though something were boiling inside. Patsy winced.

  I avoider do then things hurt her, he thought, and them
not being hoisted up and resting on top of the corset.

  "I seen youse," she said. "There I was sleeping and I
heard this noise and what do I do but I wake up. First, I
thought it was only the horses pooling around in the straw.
Then I looked up at your window and saw youse spooning
against the lamplight."

  "Go back to bed," he said. He emptied his pipe by
tapping it against the heel of his shoe. He stamped out the
few live coals

                  ~ 63 1
                     
and turned to go back t-O his room. "Good night," he
said.

  "Listen!" she raised her voice. "I'm going to tell The
Boss on you. On the both of youse."

  "Do so," he whispered savagely, "and I'll tell The Boss
on you! How you put in your Thursday night off by
working in Madame Della's aitch house in Greenpoint."

  She sucked in her breath and her face looked purple in
the moonlight. "'Tis a black lie," she choked out.

  "I know it," he agreed. "But The Boss will take it for
true. For is he not the one who likes to think the worst of
everyone?"

"You'll see!" she threatened.

  At breakfast next morning, Mary told her parents of the
death of Patsy's mother.

"Is he an orphan then?" asked The Missus.

  "Why not?" said Mike. "And we all got to go someday."
He raved condensed milk over cooked ground horse's oats
in a soup plate.

  "Papa," said Mary, 'Patrick's too good for the stable. He
wasn't meant to be a serf ant. Couldn't you use your
influence . . . pull . . . to get him better work?"

  "Nothing doing," said her father. "I'll not give meself the
trouble of breaking in a new stable boy."

  "At least, then, let him have that empty room on the top
floor of the house. That stable room isn't fit for a man to
live in."

  "The next thing you know," he said jokingly, "you'll be
wanting to marry him."

"I do," she said quietly. "And I will if he asks me."

  "Yah-ha-ha! Yah-ha-ha!" laughed Mike. "You and the
stable boy! That's rich. Ya-ha . . ."

  Then something unprecedented happened. The Missus
spoke up to The Boss! "I don't see nothing to laugh at,"
she said.

  He put down his spoon with meticulous care. "What did
you say, Missus? " he asked ominously.

  "She's going on twenty-eight," said The Missus. "So far
no one asked her to get married." (Mary winced.) "So I
say if the boy wants to marry her, let him. She might not
get no other chance."

                   1 64]
                     
 "What did you say?" roared Mike, picking up his napkin
ring as though to throw it at her.

 The Missus jumped up so suddenly that her chair fell
over backward. "Nothing," she whispered. "I didn't say
nothing. Excuse me." She scuttled out of the room.

 "See what you done?" Mike asked his daughter. "You
and your loony talk at the table. Made your mother so
nervous she couldn't eat."

 "Excuse me, Papa," said Mary quietly. "I'm almost late
for my class." She left him alone with his now cold horse's
oats.

 Patsy was sweeping the sidewalk. The Boss peeped
through the lace curtains and watched Mary as she
stopped to talk to the stable boy. She seemed to be talking
eagerly. He saw Patsy nod his head from time to time and
he saw them smile at each other. She patted the boy's
shoulder in farewell. He waved to her when she turned for
a backward look.

 Mike waited until Mary- had turned the corner before
he went down to deal with Patsy. He came up silently
behind him and shouted: "You!" It pleased him when
Patsy almost dropped his broom.

 "Listen, y ou! You keel' your place. Hear? Let me see
you getting friendly with Miss Mary and you'll hear from
me. Get me? "

"She wants to be me friend. 'Tis kind of her."

 "I told you before: She's kind to everyone. Even the
mongrel dogs on the street. And I tell you again: Don't
get idears."

"What idears?"

"Like you think you're good enough to marry her."

  "I do not have such an idear. But if I wanted to marry
her and she wanted to marry me, whose business would it
be? Only ours, being's we're both of age. But rest your
mind. I'm not thinking of marrying."

  "I'm glad to hear it," said Mike sarcastically. "Because
me daughter ain't thinking of marrying either especially
marrying a stable boy."

  "I wasn't born a stable boy," said Patsy, quietly. "You
made me one. And Mary . . ."

"Miss Mary," corrected Mikc.

                  [ 65 1
                     
 "Mary," continued Patsy evenly, "don't look on me as
just a stable boy."

"Deary me, no," said Mike mincingly. "She loves you."

"Yes," said Patsy quietly.

"And you love her?"

 Patsy hesitated before he answered. He said: "I'm
attached to her."

 "Attached to her! Attached, you say, Mister Pathrick
Dennis Moore! And would it be that she's me only child
and she and her husband would fall in for all of me
property and money when me and The Missus dies have
anything to do with this here attachment?"

 "Yes," said Patsy. "If I have to put up with the likes of
you for a father-in-law, by God, I'd deserve the property
and the money."

 "Get off me property " bellowed Mike. "Get the hell out
of me house! "

"Stable," corrected Patsy.

 "You're sacked! No recommendation. Pack up your rags
and get!,,

 Patsy didn't pack up and he didn't "get," because the
next day he and Mary were married by a clerk in City
Hall.

           .~-.~; CHAPTER TEN ~

THEY came home directly from City Hall. The Missus
wept because there hadn't been a big church wedding with
a Nuptial Mass. But Mary seemed very happy. From time
to time, she looked at the wedding ring on her finger and
smiled at Patsy. Patrick Dennis swaggered with his hands
in his pockets and grinned at his father-in-law. Biddy
stood listening behind a half-closed door with her mouth
hanging open in amazement.

 Mike Moriarity was the only one who didn't act normal.
He acted as though he were thinking; as though he had
been stricken ~ 56 1

speechless. Ibis silence made his wife and daughter
nervous.

"Won't you wish me stick, Papa?" said Mary.

 "Let's see your papers," he said suddenly. Nervously but
happily, she got her marriage certificate out of her reticule
and gave it to him. He examined it. "Ha!" he said. "So you
wasn't married by a priest?"

"No."

"There wasn't time," began Patsy.

 "And you came right home from City Hall?" asked Mike,
ignoring Patsy.

"Of course, Papa."

 "Good!" He gave an order to his wife. "Missus, get me
hat and coat."

"Now, Michael," she started to say.

"Quiet! " he shouted.

 "I mean," said The Missus timidly, "couldn't we have a
glass of wine first? All of us? Kind of celebrate?"

 "There'll be a celebration all right, later on," he said
grimly. "But not what you think "

 "Where you going now?" asked The Missus. Then she
said: "Excuse me for asking."

 "I'm going straight to Judge Cronin and get this
marriage annulled."

"You can't!" wailed The Missus.

"Sure I can. Cronin owes me a favor."

"I mean they're married good."

 "Oh, no, they ain't. Didn't you hear her say they came
right back from (pity Hall without stopping anywheres?"

"But . . ."

 "That means the marriage wasn't con . . . consa . . . It
wasn't consumed!" he said triumphantly. He rushed out of
the house.

 The Missus ran after him. "You can't, Michael," she
panted as she caught up with him.

"Don't you tell me what to do.''

 "But what will she do with the baby?" wailed The
Missus. 'And she not married?"

 He stopped so suddenly that his Missus bumped into
him. He grabbed her arm. "A hat baby?" he asked.

"Mary's and his."

                   t6- 1
                     
"How do you know?"

"Biddy told me."

"How does she know?"

  "She saw Mary up in his room. In her nightgown, Biddy
said. And they was hugging and kissing . . ." The Missus
blushed. ". . . and all. Biddy saw the whole thing."

"Why'n't she tell me?"

  "Because she was afraid of Patrick. He said he'd kill her
if she told. That's what she said to me anyways."

  Slowly he walked back to the house with The Missus
jogging along beside him. Arriving home, he gave her his
hat and coat to hang up, and, without a word to anyone,
he went into his den and locked the door. Alone there, he
put his head down on his desk and wept.

  He wept because all the plans he'd had for his daughter
had come to nothing. When she was twenty, he had hoped
she'd marry a young lawyer he knew who he thought had
a wonderful future. But Mary had been too shy to
encourage the young man. Now the young lawyer was
Assistant District Attorney. Had a chance of being
Governor someday. Moriarity had dreamed of saying, "Me
son-in-law, the Governor . . ."

  As the years went by, he was convinced she'd never
marry. Well, there were compensations in that, too. He
could count on her to grow old devoted to him; to attend
to his well-being if his wife died before him. T hat dream
had gone now. And he wept for that.

  But fundamentally he wept because he knew his
daughter \vas sweet and good and honest. She was too
good much too good  for someone like Patrick Dennis
Moore. That almost broke his

heart.

 They ate supper together. It was a sad wedding feast. No
one knew what to say and everyone was apprehensive of
Biddy, who served them with poor grace, banging the
dishes down and muttering to herself.

 After supper, they went upstairs to the parlor and sat in
the chilly room. Mike sat in morose silence while Patsy
and the two women tried to make conversation. The
Missus asked Mary to play the piano. She requested "Over
the Waves." Mary said her fingers were too stiff from the
chill of the room. Then her father

                   1 6~1
                     
broke his silence and asked her to play "Molly Malone."
Because she wished to ingratiate herself with him, she
played a chorus of the ballad, then closed the piano.

  They sat there. The evening wore on. The Missus dozed
in her chair. Black shadows appeared under Mary's eyes.
Patsy began yawning and got The Boss to yawning, too.
No one wanted to be indelicate enough to suggest going
to bed. Finally Patsy took charge of the situation. He got
up, stretched his arms and yawned.

  "I'm going to bed," he said. "I'm that tired." He held out
his hand to his wife. "Come, I\lary." EJalld in hand they
went to the door.

"Where are you taking her?? asked Mike.

"To me room," said Patsy. "Over the stable."

  Mike stood up. "Me daughter wasn't raised to sleep in
a stable," he said.

"Neither was my husband," said l\larv.

  "Michael," said The Missus timidly, "surely in this big
house there is a room . . ."

  "We'll sleep in my room," said Mary. The two women
stood silent, waiting for Mike's outburst. He said nothing.

  Patsy went to The Missus. "Good night, me sweet
mother," he said. He kissed her cheek. The Missus
beamed and gave him a fierce, loving hug.

  "Good night," he said to Mike and held out his hand.
Mike ignored it.

  Mary kissed her mother, then went to her father, put
her arms around his neck and rested her head on his
chest.

  "Oh, Papa," she said, "I'm so happy. Please don't spoil
it for me."

  Tenderly, he stroked his daughter's hair with one hand
and held out his other hand to his son-in-law.

"Be good to this good girl," he said to Mary's husband.

  Later, they were married by a priest. The Missus didn't
want them to be married in the neighborhood parish. She
said they were too well known and people would think it
was "funny"  her daughter being married without a veil
or bridesmaid or Nuptial Mass.

They were married in the adjoining parish of Williamshurg
b

                  ~ 69 1
                     
Father Flynn, a priest newly come to the neighborhood.
He was very nice to them.

 The marriage disrupted the household. Biddy announced
it was beneath her to wait on an ex-servant even if he had
married The Boss's daughter. She turned in her notice and
they had to break in a new servant girl. And The Missus
and Mary decided it was not becoming for a member of
the family to be a stable boy. Patsy agreed with them.
Mike had to get a new stable boy and Patsy was released
from his menial and odorous chores.

 Mary lost her teaching job when she married. Married
women were not permitted to teach in the public schools.
Therefore, Mike had to support Patsy and Mary and pay
a new stable boy in the bargain.

 Patsy hung around the house all day smoking his pipe of
clay and picking out "Chopsticks" with two fingers on the
piano. He was very loving to Mary and courtly to his
mother-in-law. Both women worshiped him.

 The Missus bloomed under Patsy's attentions and she
stopped scuttling for a while. }le called her "Mother,"
which thrilled her. He stopped addressing Mike as "Sir."
He called him "Hey, Boss!" which irritated Mike. Patsy got
things out of Mike by using Mary's name. Mike referred
to this process as "bleeding me white."

"Hey, Boss, me wife s lys . . ."

"You mean, me daughter says . . ."

  "Me wife says I need a new suit. I\le wife says I'm a
disgrace to me fine father-in-law the way me backside is
showing through me pants they is that worn out. And the
way me bare feet is on the ground for want of soles on me
brogans. So . . ."

  So Mike bought him new clothes. If Mary knew her
husband was using her to get things from her father, she
never said a word about it.

"Me wife . . ."

"Me daughter. . ."

  "Me wife says I'm getting to be a reglar mully-cuddle the
way I sit in the house day :md night with only wimmen
folks. 'Be like me father,' says me wife. 'Have the grand
life like me dear father and he amongst the men all day.'
"

                   1~701
                     
"Me daughter don't talk that way."

  "Them was her words. '[Take a night off once a week,'
she says 'and stand up to the bar with the boy-sis and have
your schooner of cool beer. Or two."'

  So The Boss gave him a dollar once a week for a night
on the town.

  One night, six months later, The Boss and his Missus
were preparing for bed. She scuttled into the double brass
bed and lay tight against the wall to displace as little space
as possible. He sat down on the side of the bed to pull off
his congress gaiter shoes. His weight made her bounce up
and down once or twice. As usual he was complaining
about his son-in-law.

  (During the day, about the house and also in public, she
seemed frightened of him and he never spoke to her
without shouting or without sarcasm. But at night, in the
privacy of the room and bed they had shared for thirty
years, they turned into congenial companions.)

  "Me patience is used up, I\IOIINT'', he said. "Out he
goes as soon as she has the baby.'

"What baby, Micky? "

"Mary's. And," he added grudgingly, "his'n."

"Oh, they're not going to have a baby," she said brightly.

  "But you said. You told me that Biddy told you. She told
you that she saw them two nights before they was married.
And they was intimate."

"Oh, Miclty, you know what a liar Biddy always was."

  He sat there aghast, holding a shoe in his hand. "So I've
been thricked into this marriage! And that's how the
durtee cuckoo got into me clean nest!"

"Say your rosary and ~ ome to 'bed, Micky."

  "I got to find some way of getting him out of me house.
But how? "

   'You could get him a job and give them a house to live
in. That's how."

  "Hm. That's not a bad idear, Molly. I'll start thinking on
it tomorrow." He got into bed. "Now where's me beads?"

"Under your pillow lil;e always."

                   A! 1
                     
 Moriarity pulled wires and cut red tape and bribed and
blackmailed and got his son-in-law a job with the
Department of Sanitation. He was asked whether he
wanted his son-in-law on garbage collecting. He was
tempted to say yes, but he knew he couldn't push Patsy
that far. So he got him a job as street cleaner.

 Then he gave his daughter and her husband a house of
their very own to live in.

 Among Mike's holdings was a two-family frame house
in Williamsburg on what was then known as Ewen Street.
Fifteen years before, Mike had bought it for five hundred
down and a first mortgage of three hundred and a loan of
two hundred. This was in the years when property was still
cheap.

 In those old days, the plumbing was an outhouse in the
yard, people drew water from a community pump down
the street, the lighting was from kerosene lamps and
heating came from a cooking range in the kitchen and a
"parlor" stove in the front room.

 Recently gaslight and water had been installed in the
house. Mike had taken a small woodshed attached to the
house and made it into a bathroom of sorts: a small tin
tub boarded with wood and a toilet and wash bowl.
Upstairs, a toilet had been put into a bedroom closet and
a sink in the kitchen. Mike had paid off the
two-hundred-dollar loan and then turned around and
gotten a thousand-dollar mortgage on the "improved"
house. The upstairs flat rented for fifteen a month and the
downstairs for twenty. C)ne half or the other was usually
without tenants. Mike made no attempt to pay off the
thousand-dollar mortgage. He simply paid the interest and
kept "renewing" the mortgage. The taxes were still low.
Since he put no money into improvements, the rent was
a decent little profit on his original five-hundreddollar
investment.

 This visas the house he turned over to his daughter and
her husband. He made a little speech when he turned over
the deed ending up with: "'Tis your very own, now."

 The mortgage and the unrented upstairs apartment were
their very own, too.

 Mary got a woman in for a day to help her scrub and
clean up the house. She had two hundred dollars saved
from her teaching job and Patsy had nearly a hundred.
They had the rooms up

                  [ 72 ]
                     
stairs and downstairs cheerfully papered and the
woodwork painted. Mary was allowed to take the
bedroom furniture from her room at home and she and
Patsy bought what additional furniture was needed. She
made muslin curtains for the windows and set up her
hand-painted china plates on the shelf that ran the length
of the kitchen wall.

 She was able to rent the upstairs apartment soon after
they had taken over the house. She made it very plain to
Patsy that the rent was to be used entirely for taxes and
mortgage interest and payments on the mortgage itself.

 Mary liked her little home but Patsy didn't like it one
bit. To Mary, it was a great adventure creating a home
of their own. Patsy liked the brownstone house on
Bushwick Avenue much better. He liked that
neighborhood and he had liked not working while living
there with Mary. He hated his job. Nearly every evening,
he visited his father-in-law and complained about every-
thing. Now he referred to Mary as Moriarity's daughter
rather than as his, Patsy's, wife.

 " 'Tis a disgrace that your only daughter has to live in
that cellar with a winder in it that you name a home. 'Tis
a shame that a high-toned woman like your daughter has
a husband who has to shovel horse manure all day to
support her."

 "Stop your bellyaching, me boy," said Moriarity. "Times
is hard and men is out of work and banks is closing down.
But let me tell you: I figured it out. The country is
sound."

"I read that too," said Patsy. "In last night's World."

  "They say there's a panic on," said Mike. "But what's
that to a man fixed like you? You got a house to live in.
Nobody can take that away from you. You got a city job.
Can't be sacked. You get your pension when you retire.
And your wife gets a pension when you die."

  "God forbid!" said Patsy. He waited but Mike didn't
second the motion by an "amen" or by knocking on wood.

  "Say! Did me daughter take her money out of the bank
like I told her?"

"We took our money out. dies."

"That's good because your bank closed this morning."

  "We only had eight dollars in it. She, I mean, we, paid
the interest and some of the taxes just last week and eight
dollars

                  thy]
                    
was all was left. And you," asked Patsy shrewdly, "was you
lucky enough to get all yours out before your bank closed
up?"

"That I did. And in plenty of time, too."

"I bet it was more than eight dollars," suggested Patsy.

  Wouldn't you like to know, thought Mike. He said:
"Well. it wasn't a forchune, but enough, enough. It's safe
under me mattress now. If anything happens to me, God
forbid . . ."

  He waited. Thought Patsy: He didn't say "amen" for me
when 7 said, "die, God forbid." So I'm not going to say it for
him.

"Tell The Missus . . ." continued Mike.

"You mean me new mother?" interrupted Patsy.

  You bastard, breathed Mike under his breath. "Well, just
tell her that the money is in a old sock under the
mattress."

  Stubbornly, Patsy went back to his complaining. "I still
don't like to shovel manure panic or no panic; pension
or no pension."

  "It won't be forever. Someday you will be superintent'
and stand on the street in kid gloves making other men
shovel manure. And sure, your house ain't no marble
mansion...."

"That can be said again," agreed Patsy.

  "But 'tis only temporary against the time when you and
me daughter get everything I own; me big house and me
carriage and fine horses and all of me money. And it
might be sooner than you or me think. Me old ticker ain't
acting so good." He pressed his hand to his heart.

  Patsy shivered because The Boss had not knocked wood
when he spoke of his failing heart. Patsy had an impulse
to knock wood for Moriarity. But he squelched it. Let the
bastid knock his own wood, he decided.

                  1-4 i
                    
           ~ CHAPTER ELEVEN Hi'

THE way things turned out, Patsy and Mary were never to
come into Mike's fortune. The reform party won the next
election, and, true to its platform, the new administration
started the Big Cleanup. The bright, new District Attorney
polished up his armor, buckled himself into it and went
out after the grafters crying, "Corruption! Corruption! " all
the way. Little grafters ran for their holes. Medium-sized
grafters, like Moriarity, couldn't find holes tc, hide in.

 The Big Cheese saved his rind, that is, his skin, by
turning state's evidence. Officious men came to Mike
Moriarity's house and shook rattling papers in his face and
attached everything he had: his house and furniture and
stable and horses and carriage and even Mary's piano.
Too late, Mike wished he had let Mary take it with her.

 The men busted open the locked door of his desk and
attached deeds, notes, stocks and bonds. They even
attached a couple of bankbooks stamped Accost Canceled.
One reformer, a plainclothes man, found Mike's last
withdrawal in an old sock under Mike's mattress. The sock
held two thousand dollars in small bills. The reformer
pocketed the money and neglected to give Mike a receipt.
Probably he neglected to turn in the money, too.

 The only things they couldn't touch were the house that
Mike had deeded over to Mary and Patsy, and a paid-up
life-insurance policy in The Missus' name.

 Moriarity, along with a dozen others, was indicted. It
was in all the papers.

 Patsy, commenting on the indictment to Mary, said: "So
I was never good enough for your father. So he always
looked down on me. But I'm the one what's looking down
on him, now. The thief!"

 "Oh, Patrick," she said, tears coming to her eyes, "don't
call him that."

                  [ 7S ]
                     
 He felt ashamed. Wl~y do I say things like that to her,
he thought. I get no satisfactioiZ alit of it. It Flakes me feel
like Jack the Ripper, or somebody.

 "There now, Mary," he said. "Who am I to talk? Did not
one of me own relations steal a pig in Ireland? Yes."

 She smiled through her tears and looked up at him with
her hands clasped appealingly on her breast. "Did he,
Patrick? Did he? "

"Sure," he said. "But be was a relation by marriage only."

 So Mike was indicted for graft and corruption. But he
never stood trial. Just before the trial. he had a stroke and
his "ticker" gave out.

 It was nearly night when they got home from the
funeral. Mary sat in the dark kitchen. Her face was pale
and drawn. Patsy tried to find something ~ omforting to
say to her.

"After all, he was your father," he said.

"Yes."

"And he was good to you."

  "Not always, Patrick I remember 1 must have been
about ten years old when I thought I didn't like him. I
thought he wasn't nice to my mother and it seemed that
he was always punishing me or scolding me.

  "One night, I suppose he got free tickets somewhere, he
took me over to Manhattan to hear a singer. I remember
it was snowing and everything looked so beautiful. I had
a little white muff and tippet with ermine tails. There was
an old woman selling violets on the street. I remember the
cold, sweet smell. He bought a bunch and pinned them to
my muff. He gave the old woman a bill and he wouldn't
take his change.

  "He had a friend who had a high-class saloon. We sat in
the ladies' back parlor, of course. My father introduced
me to the man as though I were a grown-up lady. The
man bowed as he shook my hand. He served me a big
glass of lemonade on a silver tray. There was a tablespoon
of claret in the lemonade to make it pink and a cherry on
top. I thought it was wonderful. Papa and the man had a
brandy together and talked about old times in Ireland.

                   1-6 1
                     
  "The man had left the door leading into the saloon open
and I saw it all. The bar was beautiful! All the shining
cut-glass decanters on the shelves with silver stoppers and
glasses as thin as bubbles and that big mirror over the bar
with a filigreed brass frame and oh, the chandelier with
cut-glass crystals, or do they call them prisms? It was so
beautiful with the gas lights in ruby bowls here and
there....

  "Then we went to the concert. I don't remember now
what the lady sang, except her encore song, 'The Last
Rose of Summer.' I saw Papa take out his handkerchief
and wipe his eyes.

  "After the concert we were walking down to the cab
stand and there was this little store still open. They sold
trinkets and things. Papa took me in and told me to pick
out a little bracelet or a locket. But there was a pair of
side combs in the showcase. They were tortoiseshell and
all full of rhinestones. I couldn't stop looking at them.

  "Papa said, 'You know you're too little to wear them
and they'll be out of style by the time you grow up. Now
here's a nice little locket. It opens. . . ' But I couldn't take
my eyes off the combs.

  "Then Papa said: 'You krlow you can't wear them. What
do you want them fort' I said I didn't know. Then he said:
'You want them just to have them, don't you?' I said, yes,
and he told the lady to wrap them up

  "I loved my father that night. I loved him so much I
didn't know what to do.

  "That was the only time he ever took me out. Well,
there came times after that night when I felt I didn't like
him very much. When I got that feeling, I'd go and take
the combs out of the tissue paper and hold them and I'd
feel the same love I felt that night when he took me to the
concert."

  After the funeral, The Missus took her insurance money
and went to Boston to live cut her days there with
Henrietta, her widowed sister. Patsy W1S sorry to see her
go. This contrary man really loved his mother-in-law.

  "She's like me own mother was," Patsy told his wife.
"She sees no fault in me."

                  ~ 7~ ]
                     
 Well, after the reform administration cleaned out all the
Tammany grafters, they put in their own grafters. Once
more, tithes were collected from the brothels. Once again,
small storekeepers paid "insurance" against plate-glass
windows being broken. Again, the poor Jewish merchants
whose pushcarts lined both side of the curbs on Moore,
Siegal and McKibben Streets, paid protection "rent"
against their pushcarts being overturned and the
merchandise trampled in the dirty gutters. The rent was
fifty cents a week but often the grafters settled for a
quarter.

 The citizens didn't like the new administration. They
stood around on corners and in the saloons and sat on
where grass should have been in the public parks and
knocked the reformers.

 "It stands to reason Where there is politics, there's graft.
Right? "

"Right."

"So we expect graft Rio matter what party's in. Right?"

"Right. '

 "But when TammanN collected graft we got something
back `'ut of its'

"That's right."

"Yeah. Like they ran block parties for us and paid the
band."

 "And they ran free excursions up the Hudson and
everything on the house."

"Sure."

  'Take me: The time I was laid Up with my broken leg.
Why, they sent over a basket of groceries every week."

  "Take this guy: I forgot his name. They paid to bury
him when he died with no insurance and his wife divas
afraid she'd have to plant him in Potter's Field."

  "Why sure! Many's the ton of coal they gave me that
hard vinter when I couldn't get work."

  "Well, this here party what's in noNv takes graft but
what do we get out of it?"

"Nothing. Just plain nothing.'

  So when the time came, these complaining citizens went
to the polls and voted out the reform parts and got the
old ticket bac

in again. And some of them were so anxious to get
Tammany back in again that they voted two or three times
the way they had been taught to do by the Machine.

                  L~? 1
                    
 Well before this time, Patrick Dennis Moore put away
all his dreams and hopes. He hated his job but wouldn't
dare give it up with no other work to be had. He was
grudgingly grateful that he was working for the city and
couldn't be laid off because times were hard. He realized,
nova, that he would always be a street cleaner. That was
all he had to look forward to. He would always have to
live in the shabby house on Ewen Street.

 His last dream had died out when his mother-in-law
went to live with her sister in Boston- instead of with
him and Mary and took all her insurance motley with
her.

            ~ CHAPTER TWELVE >~

MARY kept the upstairs rented and banked the rent
money and used it throughout the years to keep the taxes
and the interest on the mortgage paid up and sometimes
she was able to pay a little on the principal. She was liked
and respected on Ewen Street (which, for some reason,
was now called Manhattan Avenue). The neighbors
referred to her as "that refined schoolteacher what's
married to that slob yore know. The street cleaner? "

  Mary became friends with Father Flynn, the priest who
had performed her marriage ceremony and never criticized
her and Patsy for having a civil ceremony first. One time
when his housekeeper took a week off to visit a married
daughter in Albany, Mary went to the parish house every
day and cooked the priest's food and laundered his collars
and mended the torn lace on his alb. Thereafter, she
visited him once in a while or he came to her home. They
exchanged opinions on the news of the day and analyzed
the rapid changes that were taking place that would
eventually change the once dreamy village of Williamsburg
into a city slum.

  They had something in common in that both were
strangers in the neighborhood, she having come from the
prosperous and fashionable Bushwick set tion, and he
from the Middle West.

                  ~ ~9 1
                     
 Father Flynn had been born and reared in a small town
in Minnesota. He had been educated in Midwestern
schools. At college he had excelled in sports: football,
baseball, basketball, hockey and especially skiing. He had
been popular with faculty and classmates.

 The time came, while he was still young, to put aside his
dearly loved sports and his no less dearly loved
contemporaries and, as an ordained priest, to take up his
life and his work in an alien place. His Bishop had said:
"You'll have your work cut out for you there." It was true.

 It was a swarming neighborhood. Fifty per cent of the
population were Irish and Gcrman with a few English and
Scottish families. l here was a neighborhood saying that
the Irish and the Germans "got along good together."
Evidently this was so as there was a great deal of
intermarriage between the Germans and the Irish.

 The Jews and Italian; were called foreigners by the Irish
and Germans, presumably because they were not Nordic.
There were some Dutch families left over from the time
when Brooklyn had been called Breuckelen. They were
classified with the Germans. Because there vrere some
similarities in the languages, Germans were called
Dutchmen. Then there were Poles, Hungarians, Swedes,
some Chinese who lived among bundles of laundry in
rooms back of one-windowed stores, sloe-eyed Armenians
and swarthy Greeks.

 There revere even some Indians. They were of the
Canarsie tribe and they made their homes in run-down,
abandoned, onewindowed stores. The ot'Tier nationalities
looked down on them. No one believed they were Indians
because they dressed like everyone else and did not wear
feathers in their hair. They were called gypsies.

 There divas a small colony that was hard to classify.
They had their own small neighborhood within the larger
neighborhood. All the men worked in a one-story factory,
where, stripped to the waist, they stood iTI lurid firelight
blowing their lives into long tubes with a glob of molten
glass on the end, to make green beer bottles. They wen
loosely classified as Bohemians and referred to as
Bobunks.

To add to the confusion, the nationalities were split up
among

                  ~ y  1
                     
themselves. The Jews, although of the same race and
religion, had the patina of diverse nationalities. There
were English Jews and German Jews; Russian Jews, Polish
Jews and Armenian Jews. There were dark-haired,
dark-eyed nervous Germans and placid, flaxen-haired,
blue-eyed Germans. Some were Catholic, some were
Lutherans. There were Protestant Irish and Catholic Irish
and they were continually breaking each other's heads over
Irish freedom and religion and opinions of Great Britain.
Also, there were the much-feared Sicilian Italians, who
were always making vendettas against other Italians the
aftermath of some internecine warfare back in Italy's
history. Many a kid in the neighborhood was kept in line
by his parents telling him that the Blackhand would get
him if he didn't watch out.

 There were many churches: Roman and Greek Catholic
and Russian Orthodox. There was a Polish Catholic
church where the priest spoke Polish. There was the high
church of England and the low church. There were
Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Unitarians
and many other sects. All scattered over Brooklyn.

 The steamship companies dumped all races, all creeds
onto Ellis Island. Many of the immigrants went out to the
Middle West and the West and a few went South. But
many of them settled in Brooklyn: first because they
wanted to be among Lands7na7777 who were already
there, and second because they didn't have the means to
go any farther.

 Whenever a few people of one sect got together, they
built a church forthwith. There was a place of worship on
nearly every block. There were temples or synagogues,
twin-spired stone churches, modest wooden churches, a
mosaic-domed church, a religious meeting place in a
vacant store with a whitewashed cross on the window, a
gathering in a hall over a beer saloon. For a while, a few
people gathered in a tent set up on a vacant lot to worship
in their own shouting way and to roll on the sawdusted
ground in their religious ecstasy. And there were wan-
dering evangelists who stood on street confers angrily
shouting out The Message.

Brooklyn was truly the city of churches.

 There were so many races; so many creeds and sects all
huddled together in an area not more than a mile square.
The people

                   [81 1
                     
called each other names: Mick, Heinie, Guinea, Hunky,
Polack, Wop, Sheeny, Squarehead, Bohunk, Chink and
Greaseball. They called the few Indians, who they believed
were really gypsies, riggers.

 Mary was of great help to Father Flynn. During her
years of teaching public school, she'd had pupils of many
nationalities and faiths. She had a general knowledge of
the habits, temperaments and customs of various races
and religions through her contact with her pupils. Father
Flynn drew on her knowledge. He was grateful to her for
it. It made his parish work somewhat simpler.

 Although Mary loved her home and loved her husband,
she wasn't happy in her marriage. She was unhappy
because Patrick did not love her. He was considerate
toward her as considerate as a person of his cynical
nature could be but he simply did not love her and she
knew he never would. Withdrawn and sad after her
father's disgrace and death, and lonesome after her
mother had moved to Boston, she turned more and more
to her church, where she always found comfort.

 She went to Mass each morning and lit a candle daily to
the Virgin Mary and prayed for a child.

           ~ CHAP7~ER THIRTEEN ~

MARY and Patrick had been married nearly three and a
half years when she gave birth to a daughter. She had a
very hard time. It was a dry birth and she was in agonising
labor for two days. Her doctor told her not to have any
more children. He told her that she wasn't built for
childbearing.

 His warning meant nothing to Mary at that time. She
was so quietly and intensely happy. Father Flynn came to
the nursing home to bless the baby and to pray for the
mother's speedy recovery. He gave her a small medal of
the Holy Child to pin to her baby's shirt. She said:

 "I have something all of my own, Father. A child to love
and to care for . . . a child who will grow to love me."

                  [ 82 ]
                     
Patsy suggested that Mary name the child after her
mother. "That's nice of you, Patrick, but I don't want to
call her Molly even if it is a nickname for Mary."

"Mary, then," he said. "There is no grander name."

"No."

 "Me mother's name was Lizzie," he said tentatively.
"Elizabeth's a good name."

 "Patrick, I'd like to name her after the one who sort of
brought us together."

"Biddy?" he asked horrified.

 "Oh, no!" She smiled. "After that girl you liked so . . .
you know, Margaret Rose? It's such a pretty name. And
I'm so happy that I have a baby now that I want to give
her the name as a present to you, sort of."

 She saw his eyes flicker when she mentioned the name.
She didn't know whether it was from surprise, pleasure,
anger or memories.

"You will please yourself," he said brusquely.

 "We'll have to get godparents," she said. "I don't know
anyone and my few relatives are all in Boston...."

 "I know the very ones," he said. "Like your old man used
to say, I know somebody what owes me a favor."

 He had decided to ask Big Red. Why? Who knows.
Perhaps he thought Big Red would write Maggie Rose and
tell her Patsy had named his first child after her and she'd
be pleased and sad and know that he still thought of her
even though she had married another after all her
promises. Maybe, as he had told Mary. Big Red owed him
something. And maybe it was because Patsy didn't have a
friend in all the world that he could ask.

 He prepared for his visit to Big Red's house by going to
C011fession. He had made a vow: Might he drop dead if
he ever set foot in that house again. He was sure God
hadn't taken that seriously but why take a chance on
dropping dead?

 Father Flynn wasn't too easy on him. First, he gave hint
penance for the sin itself; then more penance for waiting
over three years to confess it. More penance for never
coming to Mass except on Easter and Christmas. Added
on was penance for over three years of routine sinning.
Finally Father Flynn doubled the whole thing because he
didn't like Patsy's arrogant attitude when 1 ''i', 1

he, Father Flynn, told him that under no circumstance
must he miss Mass, weekly confession and communion
again. Patsy spent two hours on his knees doing the
penance.

  He took communion next morning and, feeling brave
and pure, he set out for East New York. Lottie and Tim
were very glad to see him and, to Patsy's relief, no
mention was made of their quarrel. Lottie wept with joy.

  "This is the first time anybody ever asked me to be
godmother. I can hardly wait."

  " 'Tis a great honor," said Big Red, "the asking me to be
godfather and the naming of the little one after me baby
sister."

  (Baby sister, as proved by a picture Big Red had lately
received from Ireland, had grown plump and matronly
looking. The three small children clustered about her
looked plump and matronly, too. But to Big Red she
would always be Baby Sister.)

  Father Flynn christened the child. Lottie gave the baby
the traditional christening gift: a little locket with a chip
diamond in the middle of a little gold heart.

"Diamonds is for April," said Lottie.

  "She looks just like me baby sister looked when she was
born," said Big Red. Then he blushed. "That was the
wrong thing to say," he apologised.

  "Oh, no," said Mary. "I'm pleased. I heard that your
sister is very beautiful."

"That she is."

"The baby don't fool; like nobody," said Patsy coldly.

"Just like her own sweet self," said Lottie tactfully.

  "That's right," said Big Red, ill at ease. "Well,
sweetheart," he said to his wife, "I guess we gotta make a
break."

"He always calls me sweetheart," said Lottie to Mary.

  "That's nice," said l\lary. "And won't you come again to
see us and the baby?"

"I'd love to," said Lottie.

"Sure," agreed Big Red.

"Come often," urged Mary.

  The three looked to Patsy to second the invitation. Patsy
stood mute.

"Well, like I said," said Big Red uncomfortably, "we got to
go."

                   t841
                     
After they'd left, Mary said: "You never thanked him,
Patrick."

 "Why should I? He owes me. I don't owe him. He owes
me  the way he can never make up to me for what he
did to me."

 "Remember that," she said a little bitterly, "the next time
you go to confession three years from now."

 He felt a pang because it was the first time she'd ever
spoken unkindly to him. He knew that she loved him. He
had never responded to her love, nor even acknowledged
it. But he liked to have it around in escrows, as it were.

 She has her baby, Rev, he thought. And now she will take
her love from me and give it all to the child.

 A few days after the baptism, a package for the baby
arrived from The M[issus. It was l\lary's christening robe,
slightly yellow with age. Attached to it was a five-dollar
bill and a note. The Missus hoped the dress would get
there in time for the christening, and she would have
come to see her first grandchild, only Aunt Henrietta
wasn't well and . . .

 "Some family," sneered Patsy. "Wouldn't take the trouble
to come and see the only child of the only daughter."

 "Now, Patrick," said Mary patiently. She knew Patsy was
terribly disappointed that her mother hadn't come for a
visit. She knew that he was very fond of The Missus.

 For the first year of its life, the baby \` as called and
referred to as "Baby." Mary waited for a nickname to
evolve. Would it he "Maggie Rose" or "Pegeen" or
"Maggie"?

 In that neighborhood, few children were called by their
baptismal names. The formal name appeared or was used
only for diplomas and registration and things like that.
Sometimes foreignborn parents had trouble pronouncing
a name; sometimes the child nicknamed itself. A
"Catherine" would be pronounced, "Cat-rip," shortened to
"Cat," then expanded to "Catty" and finally translated to
"Pussy." "Elizaberh" went into "Lizziebet," to "Lizzie," to
"Litty" (because the child couldn't pronounce the z's), and
ended up "Lit." Long na mes were shortened and short
names were lengtl-~ened. For instance, many an "Anna"
ended up "Anna-la."

It was Patsy who accidentally gave the baby the name she d
i b'5 1

always be known by. One night as he and Mary were
preparing for bed, he looked at the big one-year-old baby
who was sleeping sprawled sidewise across the bed.

 "I don't get me sleep nights, no more," he said. "This
bed ain't big enough for the three of us. This baby now .
. ." He paused, and then he gave her her name. ". . . This
here Maggie, now, is big enough to have a bed of her
own."

 They got a crib for her. She cried the first night she
slept away from her mother. Mary soothed her.

 "There, baby, there!" The child bawled harder. "Hush,"
said Mary. "Hush, Maggie. Hush, Maggie, now." The child
stopped crying, smiled blissfully put her thumb into her
mouth and went off to sleep.

 She grew up healthy, happy and loving. She was full of
mischief and cheerfully disobedient. The day long
throughout the house it was:

"Maggie, now give me those scissors before you stab
yourself."

"Maggie, now mind your father when he speaks to you."

"Maggie, now . . ."

And so she became known as Maggie-Now.

           ~ CHAPTER FOURTEEN ~

MARY, never having hall younger sisters or brothers, had
no experience in bringing up a child. Her natural maternal
feelings had been used in an organised way to handle
thirty-odd children a day as a schoolteacher. She had a
tendency, tempered by indulgent love, to regiment
Maggie-Now. Mentally, she reached for a bell each
morning to get the child started. She organized the child's
day and was apt to give instructions as a schoolteacher
would.

"We will take our little walk now."

"Eat your nice lunch, dear."

"What story shall we read tonight?" [861

"It's time for a certain good little girl to go to bed."

 When Maggie-Now was three, Mary tried to teach her
to read. Maggie-Now squirmed, itched, scratched, rolled
her eyes and made spit bubbles. Mary had to give it up.

 "She's intelligent," Mary told her husband, "but she won't
sit still long enough to learn."

 "She'll be on her behind long enough when she starts
regular school," said Patsy. "Besides, why does she have to
learn everything so quick? Why, she ain't housebroken yet
and you expect her to read!"

"Don't you believe in education, Patrick?"

 "No," he said. "I went as far as what amounts to the sixth
grade in America. And where did it get me? Cleaning
streets."

 But Maggie-Now was very precocious in practical
things like work. Even as a toddler, she dusted while her
mother swept, insisted on drying the dishes when her chin
was but an inch above the sink drainboard, tried to make
up a bed, and asked constantly when she could cook. Her
reward for being good was permission to grind up left-over
meat in the food chopper. Her punishment when naughty
was the withdrawal of the privilege of grinding the
morning coffee beans.

 One day each summer, as she was growing up, her
parents took her to the beach. Maggie-Now dearly loved
the ocean. The ride in the open trolley was grand and the
boarding of the Long Island train at Brooklyn Manor
Station was a thrill. The high point of the journey was
when the train went over water on a wooden trestle. Mary
held the girl's arm tightly, admonishing her not to fall out,
now.

 "Maybe the trestle will break this time," said
Maggie-Nou hopefully, "and we'll all fall in the water."

 "By God," said Patsy, "she wants it to break! She lDants
the train to fall in the water!'

"Sh!" said Mary.

 Maggie-Now had no bathing suit. She grew so fast from
year to year that it would have been a waste of money to
buy one each year for just one day at the beach. Trying to
follow her mother's admonition not to be ashamed
because nobody was looking I\laggie-Novv, undressed
behind a big towel that her mother held around her like
a limp barrel. She changed into a

                 1 'S'- ~
                     
pair of out-grown pants and a worn-out dress in lieu of a
bathing SUit.

 She ran whooping into the ocean and plunged into the
first wave with a scream of delight. She held onto the rope
and leaped and ducked and squatted to let the waves
break over her head and howled in pretended terror
(though flattered by the attention) when a big boy dived
and grabbed her ankles and tried to duck her.

 Mary and Patsy sat on the towel: she in her Sunday
dress and hat, sitting primly with her gloved hands in her
lap, and Patsy lolling on an elbow and, as was traditional
with men, eying the women in their bathing suits, their
legs in long, black lisle stockings and the ruffles of
bloomers showing beneath knee-length skirts.

 After an hour, Pats' went to the water's edge and
induced Maggie-Now to come out. She changed back to
her dry clothes inside the towel. Then they had their lunch
which Mary had brought from home in a shoebox: ham
bologna sandwiches, hardboiled eggs, sweet buns and
drinks, now warm, which Patsy had bought when they got
off the train. There was a bottle of beer for Patsy, a celery
tonic for Mary, and a bottle of cream soda for
Maggie-Now.

 After the lunch, Patsy announced that he would take a
half hour's nap and then they would make a break for
home to avoid the rush. Maggie-Now was given permission
to walk up the beach and given strict orders not to take
candy from anyone.

 She ran up the beach, leaping over outstretched and
sometimes intertwined legs. She stopped to stare frankly
at a couple lying on the sand on their sides and looking
into each other's eyes. Their faces were hardly an inch
apart. The young man, discomfited by her staring, lifted
his head.

"Get a gait on, kid," he said.

"What gate?" asked Maggie-No\v.

"She don't get your drift," said the young woman languidly.

"Twenty-three, skidoo," said the young man.

 "I gotcha," said Maggie-Now, pleased that she could
speak their lingo. "I'll beat it.'

 Going home on the I.ong Island, she sat between her
parents and raved her hands in a paper bag of Rockaway
sand.

~ ss 1

 "You know what?" she said. "I'm going to make a wish
on the first star tonight. I'm going to wish that when I get
big I'll have a house right by the water and listen to the
waves when I'm in bed nights. And in the daytime, I'll
jump in any time I feel like it."

 "I'll make a wish, too," said Mary. "I wish that all your
wishes come true." Maggie-Now hugged her mother's arm.

 Obscurely, Patsy felt left out. If he couldn't be in on
their emotional closeness, the next best thing was to
destroy it.

 "People what lives by the water," he said, "always get
rheumatism and their teeth fall out because they got to
eat fish all the time."

"Oh, you gloomy Gus,' said Maggie-Now.

"We do not use slang," said Mary.

 "And we do not," said Patsy with bitter mimicry, "talk to
our father that way, in the bargain."

 Mary knew how he felt. She reached across and took the
shoebox from his knees. It had l\Iaggie-Now's wet bathing
clothes in it.

 "I'll hold it," said Mary. "It's leaking through on your
good pants."

 Not long after this, Mary told Pat that she was going to
start Maggie-Now in parochial school in the fall.

 "She ain't going to no C atholic school and that's
settled," said Patsy.

"I've already enrolled hi r," said Marv.

"Unroll her, then."

"Now, Patrick . . ."

  "That's me last word on the subject. She goes to public
school.' He had nothing against the parochial school. He
just liked to argue. He sat down to read the evening
paper. Suddenly he jumped up with a great oath.

"I won't stand for it! By God! l won't stand for it!"

  Mary thought he was referring to the school. "It's
settled," she said firmly.

"What about Brooklyn?' he shouted.

  "The school's in Brooklyn," she said, bewildered. "You
know that."

                  1 \9~1
                     
 "What the hell's the school got to do with it? Brooklyn
ain't no longer a city. It says so in the paper. Now it's only
a borough of New York City."

 "Think how the people in New York feel. That used to
be New York City. Now it's only the Borough of
Manhattan. Anyhow, Patrick, you can't do a thing about
it."

"Oh, no? I can take the kid out of parochial school."

"What good would that do?"

  "It would let me have me own way for once." He got up,
grabbed his hat and threw himself out of the house.

  The saloon was so crowded Patsy could hardly get in. It
was full of Irishmen bitterly cursing the annexation of
Brooklyn by New York. They blamed it all on the British.

  "And is it not the fault of England," shouted a burly
man in a square-topped derby, "and she bragging how
London is the biggest city in the world and that making
New York jealous? And what does New York turn around
and do? She steals Brooklyn and hitches it- on to make
New York the biggest city in the world."

  "But there'll always he a Brooklyn!" rang out a voice in
the crowd. This sentiment was loudly applauded and wildly
cheered.

  "Let's all drink to that!" yelled another man. They
crowded up to the bar.

"What's yours?" the bartender asked Patsy.

"I ain't drinking to that darrm foolishness," said Patsy.

"On the house," said the bartender.

  "I'll have a double rye. With water on the side," added
Patsy. The bartender gave him a beer.

All held their glasses aloft. "To Brooklyn!" said the
bartender.

  Before they could drink, another voice rang out.
"Brooklyn go bragh!"

  "Brooklyn go bragh! ' shouted all the men in the saloon.
And a couple of men passing on the street stopped to
holler: "Brooklyn go bragh!"

  Maggie-Now attended parochial school. T o Mary's
distress, her daughter was not the brightest one in the
class. To Patsy's relief, she was not the dumbest one. She
vvas down near the bottom of the average kids But the
teaching nuns liked her.

                  ~ 9  1
                     
 She got to school early and stayed late. She washed the
blackboards and clapped the chalk dust out of the erasers
and filled the inkwells. On Mondays, when the children
had to bring pieces of broken glass to school to scrape ink
spots off the floor, MaggieNow showed up with a bagful of
glass to supply the kids who had forgotten to bring their
own. She spent her Saturdays collecting bottles and
smashing them for that purpose.

 Sometimes; her mother let her take her lunch to school.
Usually it was two bologna sandwiches. She always traded
them for the three slices of dry bread a wispy girl brought
for lunch, insisting that she hated meat and liked plain
bread better. It wasn't that she was sorry for the girl or
overly generous; she just liked to give things.

"She is a giver," sighed Sister Veronica to Sister Mary
Joseph.

 "She'll have a busy life, then," said Sister Mary Joseph
dryly. "There are ten takers for fine giver."

 Regularly, each morning at ten and each afternoon at
two, Maggie-Now's hand shot up in the air for permission
to leave the room. This regularity irritated Sister Veronica.
Once she frowned and said: "We had recess h If an hour
ago. Why didn't you attend to your needs then?"

 "I did," said Maggie-Now frankly. "Now I got to 'tend to
my horse." The class tittered.

"Watch your language, Margaret," said Sister Veronica
sharply.

  Out in the yard, Maggie--Now with many a "Whoa
there," and a "Hold still, boy," untied an imaginary horse
from an imaginary stake. Then she became the horse. She
ran about the yard, galloping and prancing and snorting.
Then she was a steeplechase horse taking imaginary
hurdles. And lastly, not to neglect the humbler species, she
was a junk-wagon horse in harness, straining to pull a load
that must have weighed a hundred pounds. She was not
above falling down in pretended exhaustion and death to
give reality to her game.

  She bounced back into the classroom, windblown, rosy
and glowing. Although Sister Veronica frowned when she
left, she always smiled when she re urned.

  She told Sister Mary Jos'ph: "She brings the smell of the
wind back into the room with her." She pronounced
~ui7~d to rhyme with kind.

                   19/1
                     
  "A pity you gave up writing poetry, Sister, when you
took holy orders," said Sister Mary Joseph.

  The rules of the order forbade any nun to walk abroad
alone. She had to go with another nun or a lay person.
The nuns liked children to go shopping with them.
Maggie-Now vitas much in demand as an escort. When
she turned up at the convent on a Saturday morning, the
sisters pretended to quarrel over w ho'd get Maggie-Now.
This thrilled the girl.

  Sister Veronica needed new shoes. Maggie-No\v went to
the shoe store with her. She knelt down and helped the
nun try on the shoes. She kneaded the leather over the
toes and asked anxiously: "Are you sure they fit? Have you
got room for all your toes? "

  "You'll wear them out, child, before I have a chance to
ovally in them."

  Sister Mary Joseph wore a wedding ring, as did the
other nuns, because she was the bride of Christ. Through
the years, the ring had become too tight. Maggie-Now
escorted her to the jeweler's to have it sawed off.

  Maggie-Now liked Sister Mary Joseph but was afraid of
her because she said unexpec ted things. When
Maggie-Now escorted Sister Veronica, she held the nun's
hand and skipped along and chattered. With Sister Mary
Joseph, she walked sedately no hand holding, no
skippin,, no chatter. Maggie-Now had to stretch her legs
to match the mln's long stride. They had been walking
three blocks in complete silence when Sister said in an
ordinary, conversational tone:

"What's your horse's name?"

  The girl quivered and wondered how Sister knew. She
gave her a quick look. The nun was staring straight ahead.

"What horse?" hedged Maggie-Now.

"The one you keep in the schoolyard."

"His name is Drummer." The nun nodded.

  Does that mean, thought Maggie-Now, that it's a nice
rzame? Or does it mean that she caught me?

  They walked another block in silence. Then Sister Mary
Joseph said with her usual bluntness: "I used to play
basketball when I was in high school."

                   1 Hi
                     
 "You never did!" said Maggie-Now in instinctive
disbelief. "I mean," she gulped, "did you?"

"Why not?" said the nun crossly.

"I mean, I thought Sisters prayed all the time."

 "Oh, we take a day off now and then to have a
toothache or something. Just like other people."

"Nobody ever told me," said Maggie-Now.

"Margaret, are you afraid of me?"

"Not so much as I used to be." Maggie-Now smiled up at
her.

 When Mr. Freedman, the jeweler, began to saw on the
ring, Maggie-Now threw her al ms around the nun and
buried her face in her habit.

"What's the matter, Margaret?"

"It goes all through me,' shuddered the child.

 "The finger, I wild nor take off," promised Mr.
Freedman. "Only the ring."

 "Take deep breaths, Margaret, and be brave," said Sister
Marv Joseph, "and it wails be out r before you know it."

          ~ CHAP PER t 1t TEEN ~

`LMA.\fA, why don t eve hat e relations like other
peoples"

"We do."

"Where? "

 "Oh, Ireland. .\nd y OL: have HI gralldlllOther in
BostOtl, yoLl know."

 "But why don't I have sisters and brothers and aunts and
uncles and lots and lots of cousin`. Iike other girls do?"

 "Maybe you will have a sister or brother someday. And
we might go to Boston and trv and find some cousins for
you."

"When are we going to Boston?"

 "Summer vacation, maybe. if you pass your catechism
and make your first communion, and if yOtl do your
homework and get promoted.''

                  I 9,, 1
                     
 "Chee! Other kids have relations without passing
everything first."

 "Don't say, 'Gee,' and I've told you that a kid is a baby
goat and not a child."

"Sometimes you talk like Sister Veronica, Mama."

 Mary sighed and smiled. "I suppose I do. Once a
schoolteacher, always a schoolteacher."

 "Well, it ain't every kid . . . girl . . . has a schoolteacher
for a mama."

 Maggie-Now waited patiently to be corrected on the
"ain't." To her surprise, her mother didn't correct her, but
hugged her instead.

 Mary took ten dollar; from the bank and to her surprise
Patsy gave her ten dollars more for the Boston trip.

 "Maybe you can talk your old lady into coming back to
live with us."

 "It's nice that you like my mother, Patrick," she said,
"but it seems odd. It's not your way."

"She's never been against me.''

"No one's against you, Patrick."

"Oh, no?" he said with a crooked smile.

"You are against yourself."

 He raised two fingers in the air. "May I leave the room,
teacher?" he said sarcastically.

 They rode the day coach to Boston. To Maggie-Now it
was like a trip to the moon. As they walked through the
Boston streets, she said, surprised: "Why, they speak
English!"

"What did you think they spoke?"

"Oh, Italian, Jewish, Latin."

"No. English is the language of America."

 "Brooklyn's America. But Anastasia's father and mother
speak Italian, there."

 "Many old people speak foreign languages because they
came from foreign countries and never did learn English."

"What does Grandma speak?"

"English, of course."

"But you said she came from Ireland."

"They speak English there."

"Why don't they speak Irish?"

                 [ Y4 ]
                    
 "Some do. They call it Gaelic. But most of them speak
English with an Irish accent."

"What's a . . . an . . . accent?"

 "The way people fix the words together when they speak
and the different way they make the words sound."

"Mama, I guess you're the smartest lady in the whole
world."

 The Missus was a great disappointment to Maggie-Now.
The girl's idea of a grandmother was a woman with a high
stomach and a gingham apron tied about her waist, grey
hair parted in the middle and steel-rimmed spectacles. She
had this idea from a colored lithograph illustrating the
poem "Over the river and through the woods, to
grandmother's house we go." But Grandmother Moriarity
wasn't like that at all. She was little and skinny and wore
a black sateen dress and her hair was coal black and she
wore it in curls on top of her head.

 Henrietta was Grandmother's sister and Mother's aunt.
MaggieNow was instructed to call her "Aunt Henrietta."
She didn't look like an aunt. A girl on Maggie-Now's
block in Brooklyn had an aunt who was young and blonde
and laughed a lot and smelled like sweet, sticky candy
Aunt Henrietta, now, was old and withered and smelled
like a plant that was dead but still standing in the dirt of
the flower pot.

 She heard talk of Cousin Robbie, who was coming over
that night. Robbie was Henrietta's son. Maggie-Now had
seen a cousin in Brooklyn; he'd had shiny blond hair and
wore a Norfolk suit with buckled knickerbockers, Buster
Brown collar, Windsor tie, long black ribbed stockings and
button shoes.

 She'd been disillusioned about her grandmother and her
aunt. She didn't expect Cousin Robbie to be wearing a
Buster Brown collar. But did he have to show up
baldheaded and fat and making jokes about his big
stomach which he called a bay window?

 He kissed Maggie-Now on the cheek. The kiss was like
an exploded soap bubble. He handed her a square of
blotting paper.

 "I always give out blotting paper with my wet kisses," he
said. He waited. No one laughed. "Oh, well," he sighed.
"I'd do my rabbit trick for you if I had a rabbit."
Maggie-Now giggled. He gave her a quarter and ignored
her for the rest of the evening.

 The three women and Robbie settled down to an
evening of genealogy. "Let me see no\r," said l\'lary. "Pete
married Liza . . .'

                   ~ ~ 1
                     
"No," said Robbie. "Pete when he was three years old."
"I'm sorry."

 "That's all right. That was thirty years ago. Adam
married Liza. Let's see, Aunt Molly," he said to The
Missus. "You married a Moriarity? Mikes" The Missus
nodded. "I understand he died."

 "Yes," agreed The Missus. "That was some time ago,
God rest his soul."

 "Whatever became of Roddy? Your wife's brother?"
asked Mary.

 "Oh, him," sniffed Robbie. "He married a girl, name of
Katie Fogarty. I remember the name well because it was
the same name he had. He was a Fogarty, too.
Understand, they were not relations. They just had the
same name. Well, sir, when they got the license, the clerk
didn't want to give it to them. He said it was insects or
something."

"What's that?" asked The Missus.

"Oh, the baby might be born funny," explained Robbie.

"How was the baby?" asked Aunt Henrietta.

"They never had one," said Robbie.

"What finally happened to Roddy?" asked Mary.

 "He moved to Brooklyn, where people is more
broadminded, and, for all I know, he might be dead or
still living."

 The saga of Roddy seemed dull to Maggie-Now. Lulled
by the rise and fall of Robbie's voice, comforted by the
warmth of the room and feeling safe surrounded by her
mother, grandmother and aunt, she went into a half sleep.
The conversation droned on. A word came up. A sharp
word. A name. It kept piercing her drowsiness.

"Sheila! "

  "No good," said Aunt Henrietta. Her voice was whippy
and sharp, like a fly swatter coming down on a fly.

"It was just that she had hard luck," said Robbie.

  "No good from the beginning, even if she was my grand-
daughter," swatted Aunt Henrietta. "Took after her
mother." (Swat!) "Aggie was no good."

"Let the dead rest in peace," said Mary.

  "She was pretty, so pretty," said Robbie. "The youngest,
the prettiest of all my daughters."

                 1~ sac ]
                     
 Maggie-Now was awake but she feigned sleep, knowing
that the growm~ps would talk in a way she couldn't
understand if they knew she was listening.

 "The way she was pretty was the ruin of her," said
Robbie. "The boys were after her like bees after a honey
flower by the time she was twelve." lie sounded the way
people sounded at funerals.

"She had a baby when she was fifteen," swatted Aunt
Henrietta.

"She was married at the time," said Robbie with dignity.

"Seven months married," swatted back Aunt Henrietta.

"It was a premature baby."

 "Like fun! Premature babies don't have fingernails. Rose
did. Don't tell me!"

 "In Brooklyn," said The Missus, "an awful lot of first
babies are premature. The trolled cars shakes the houses
and makes them nervous."

"Humpf!'' said Aunt I ienrietta.

 "I remember," said Mary, "when Aggie brought Sheila to
visit us in Brooklyn, once. I guess Sheila was six or seven.
And my, visas she pretty! Beautiful! I'd like to see her
again."

 "No, you wouldn't, Mary," said Robbie. "She looks bad
and lives poor. Where her man is no one knows. He shows
up from time to time, though. She dives in a slum. And
believe me, a Boston slum is something. She takes in
washing and Lord knows how many children she has."

"I'll go to see her before we leave Boston," said lYlary.

"Not while you're staying in my house," said Aunt
Henrietta.

 "It's half my house," said The Missus, "and don't tell
Mary what not to do or she'll do it, the way she got
married when her father told her not to."

 "Maybe it would be a good idea if she did go," said Aunt
Henrietta. "Yes, go, Mary, and take your daughter so she
sees what happens to a girl when she lets the fellers chase
her. Not that you got to worry about that, Mary, the way
she's so plain."

 "She is not plain," said 1\ lary. She put her arm around
the child. "She's not pretty the way Sheila was with blond
curls and dimples and pink cheeks. She's handsome! Look
at those wide cheekbones and the way her chin comes to
sort of a point. Why, she has a face like a heart."

                  ~ Y7 1
                     
 Maggie-Now opened her eyes wide and stared hard into
Aunt Henrietta's eyes, mutely daring her to contradict her
mother.

"She's got tan eyes," said Aunt Henrietta.

"She has not!" said Mary. "She has golden eyes."

"Tan!" insisted the old woman.

 "Now, Henrietta," said The Missus, "they're the same
color y ours were when you w ere young."

"She has golden eyes," conceded the old woman.

 "I promised I'd find cousins for you, Maggie-Now, and
I will,' said Mary. "So be patient. Let me see." She
consulted Robbie's directions on a slip of paper. "Turn
right, go one block, no, three . . ." She lifted her veil
because the chenille dots before her eyes made threes out
of twos. "That's better. Two more blocks . . ."

 They climbed up four flights of stairs. I\larv knocked
quietly on the door. It was flung open with a bang.

"Come in! Come in!" said a big woman.

 Her strong arms were bare to the shoulders. The front
of her apron was wet. Her tousled hair was half blond,
half brown. Her face shone with sweat.

 The room seemed to be boiling with life. A whole mob
of children ran for cover when the visitors entered. They
hid behind bundles of dirty wash standing on the floor
and the smallest one burrowed into a loose pile of soiled
clothes, half sorted, on the floor.

 The window shades ~ ere up and the sun, full of dusty
motes which seemed to quiver with life, poured in through
the open windows. A network of filled clotheslines
obscured the sky outside the windows. A breeze was
blowing and the drying clothes billowed and collapsed and
writhed and gyrated. The clothes seemed alive. There
were bundles of dirty wash on the floor. The chairs were
filled with clothes waiting to be ironed. A clothesline
strung across the kitchen had freshly ironed shirts on it,
and a bubbling boiler stood on the gas stove with the
dirtiest of the wash boiling in it.

 "Mary! " cried the big woman. She threw her arms
around Mary and lifted her off the floor and swung her
around. "Oh, Mary, I recognized you right away. You
didn't change. You still

                  ! 9~1
                    
look so sweet and so refined with your veil and gloves and
all." Then she noticed Maggie-Now. "This yours?" she
asked.

"Mine," said Mary. "We call her Maggie-Now."

 "She's beautiful!" The big woman knelt down and put
her arms around the child.

"This is your cousin Sheila," said Mary.

Sheila!

 Maggie-Now quivered in the woman's arms. Words she
had heard when half asleep cane back to her. "No good!"
"No good from the beginning!" "No good like her mother
before her!" Maggie-Now was confused. How could
someone who was "no good" be Sf, nice? Maybe this was
another Sheila. But no. She heard her mother say:

 "This is Cousin Robbie's girl. Aunt Henrietta is her
grandmother. The mother of Aunt Henrietta and of my
mother is her great grandmother and yours, too. That
makes you cousins. There! "

"Do I have little cousins, too?" asked Maggie-Now.

 "You certainly do," said Sheila. She called gently: "Come
out, come out, wherever you are!" No response. Then she
hollered: "Come out or I'll give it to you! Good!"

 They came out of the dirty wash. There were four of
them  all girls. The youngest was two, the next four, the
third six and the oldest ten. Sheila lined them up, pulling
a dirty sock out of the four-year-old's hair.

 "Kids, this is your cousin Maggie-Now what came all the
way from Brooklyn to see yoga."

 The four girls and Maggie-Now stared solemnly at each
other. The four-year-old was wearing a thumb guard. She
pulled it off, took two good sucks on her thumb and
replaced the guard.

 All of the girls had tangled golden curls, heavenly blue
eyes, dirty pink cheeks and dimples that went in and out
like the first stars of night. They wore odds and ends of
clothing which made them look like the illustrations of the
children who had followed the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

 "Oh, Sheila," said Mary, "they're pretty. So pretty the
way you were.... I mean, there you stand, Sheila, four
times over."

 "Oh, go on, Mary, I v. as never as pretty as my kids.
Anyhow. this is Rose, the oldest, this one is Violet, the
thumb sucker is

                  1 99 1
                     
Daisy and Lily's the baby. She's two."

"What pretty names."

"I call them my bow-key," said Sheila.

"Why, they've all got fingernails," said Maggie-Now clearly.

"Oh, Maggie-Now," noaned Mary.

 "Oh, my sainted grandmother," laughed Sheila. "Will she
ever let up on me? She told my father . . ."

 To change the subject, Mary asked: "what are you going
to call the next one?"

 Sheila patted her rounding stomach. "Fern! To trim up
my bow-key." She nodded at ~\~l~ggie-Nov.7. "This the
only one you ot? "

b

"The only one."

 "What's the matter? Did you marry a night watchman or
something?" She prodded Mary with her elbow and
laughed. Mary looked a little apprehensively at
Maggie-Now. Sheila understood the look. "Listen, kids,"
she said, "why don't you go play with your cousin from
Brooklyn so Cousin Mary and I can talk?"

 The kids stood rigid except for Daisy, who removed her
thumb guard and took three big sucks.

 "Go on and play when I tell you'" veiled Sheila' "or I'll
give it to you. Good!"

 Whooping like Comanches, the four kids dragged
l\/laggie-Nov. away into the dirty wash. They bounced on
the bundles and scattered the sorted clothes. They delved
into the basket of wet clothes waiting to be hung on the
line and belted each other with wet towels, screaming and
laughing all the time while Mary and Sheila talked.
Finally, they knocked over the ironing board with a
sadiron upended on it. The iron missed Daisy by about an
inch.

"Just for that," shouted Sheila, "you'll all get it!"

 They lined up somberly. Then Sheila did a strange thing.
She put her arm around Rose, gave her a walloping slap
on the backside, and a kiss on the cheek at the same time.
She did the same to the other three. They sobbed. And
grinned slyly at each other at the same time, making the
dimples come and go.

"My turn! My turn!" demanded Maggie-Now.

 Sheila gave her the same, explaining to Mary: "I give
'em a slap and a kiss at the same time so they know
they're getting punished with no hard feelings."

                ~ limo I
                    
 Home again in Brooklyn, Maggie-Now remembered her
"cousins." She spent her pennies on picture postcards to
send to Boston. Her salutation was: "My dear Boston
cousins." Her ending: "From your loving Brooklyn cousin."
Sometimes she got a card back, always written by Sheila.
"From cousin Sheila and all her flowers to the one rose,
Maggie-Now."

 A few months after their return, Mary had a letter from
her mother saying that Sheila had given birth to her fifth
child; a son. She had named him Joe.

 "Why, oh why," wailed Maggie-Now, "didn't she ask me?
I would have told her to call him Chris."

"Why Chris?" asked her mother.

 "Chris is short for chris-san-thee . . . yak know what
flower I mean, Mama. Then he would have fitted in the
bouquet."

 Her next card had the salutation: "My dear Boston
cousins and Joe."

           A' CHAPTER SIXTEEN ~

THE growing years of Maggie-Now were not unhappy
ones. She always had enough to eat, although the food was
plain. She had warm clothes in winter even if they were
not beautiful. She liked her school days although she
didn't like to study. She loved the Sisters who taught her
although they were very strict in their discipline.

 She was well adjusted because she knew where she
belonged in the social SftUp of her small world. She had
a friend who had a hair ribbon for every day in the week.
Maggie-Now had but two one for Sunday, one for
weekdays. On the other hand, another friend was too poor
to have any hair ribbon. Her hair was tied back with a
dirty shoestring. Maggie-Now was sorry she didn't have
seven hair ribbons but she was glad she didn't have to use
a shoestring to tie back her hair.

 As she grew older1 she gave some thought to poverty
and riches. Her mother had asked her to read Little
Wome7', explaining that ~ cot 1

it was a book about four girls who were very poor but
happy just the same. Maggie-Now read the book and took
issue with her mother.

 "How can they be poor," she asked, "when they can
waste hot potatoes to put in their muff. And I ain't . . .
haven't a muff even. And then they have a servant and
their father has money to go away on."

 "To some people who are, say, used to three servants, to
have only one servant is being poor. Poverty is relative."

 The word "relative" puzzled Maggie-Now. How could
"poor" be a relation, she wondered. She didn't probe
further into the meaning of the word because she was
anxious to go out to play. The word came up later, in
another conversation.

 One night, Father Flynn was paying a parish call and he,
Mary, Pat and lYlaggie-Now sat in the kitchen having
coffee. Mary, as always, was talking eagerly with the priest.
He was one of the few people who made her articulate.
Patsy was listening with outward respect becau e he had
been brought up to respect priests, but he didn't b. lieve
a word Father Flynn was saying.

 "I came from a small town," Father Flynn was saying.
"Everyone seemed the same. No one was rich and no one
starved. I had an idea, then, that poor people wore
colorful rags and had rosy cheeks and danced all night to
the music of a concertina. Those were my Fran,cois Villon
days. Later, I thought poor people lived in cellars and had
lice and lived on hard crusts of bread which they stole
from each other. I was reading the Russian novelists in
those days. Why, I was quite mature before I knew that
poverty, like so many other things, was relative."

That word again, thought Maggie-No\v.

 The next day she asked her mother: "Why are some
people rich and other people poor?"

 "Yesterday, you wanted to know how big was the sky.
And last week you wanted to know where the wind went
when it stopped blowing down Ainslie Street."

"I mean like: Florry says we're poor. Bea thinks we're
rich."

 "Florry9, father makes much more money than your
father. Naturally, she thinks you're poorer than she is. But
Beatrice's mother has to go out scrubbing for a dollar a
day. Of course, she

                  1 1021
                     
thinks that you, with a father who has a steady job, are
richer than she is."

"It's all relations, then."

"Relations:" asked Mary, puzzled.

"Relations. But different than my Boston cousins are
relations." "Oh, you mean, relative. Yes, like everything
else, I suppose it is relative."

"What's relative?"

"Oh, Maggie-Now! How high is the sky?"

"I asked first."

  "Well, say a man has only one dollar in all the world.
Somebody gives him a hundred dollars. Another man has
a hundred dollars. He's always had a hundred dollars.
Someone gives him a dollar. He's just as poor as he was
before. Now both men have one hundred and one dollars.
But one is rich and one isn't. That's relative, I suppose."

"You're just talking, Mama. You're not telling me."

"To tell you the truth, I don't know how to tell you."

"Did you live in a rich house when you were a girl?"

  "Oh, dear!" sighed Marv. "Well, people who lived in
crowded tenements thought we had a rich house. But the
Mayor's wife thought our house was poor compared to
hers."

"What did you think, Mama?"

  "I didn't think one wan or the other," said Mary, trying
not to get irritated by the incessant questioning. "I lived
there."

"Why? "

  "Don't be silly. I lived there because I was born
there because my parents lived there."

"Did you like it?"

"Of course. I didn't know about any other home, you see."

"Did that make it relative?"

"Oh, Maggie-Now, please stop. I'm getting such a
headache.' "So'm I," admitted Maggie-Now.

 Maggie-Now asked Sister Veronica what a rich home
was and what was a poor home.

 "A cell," said the nun, "with a cot in it and a chair and
a nail on the wall on which to hang a shawl, is a rich home
if our Holy Mother and our Blessed Lord are there. A
grand home, with thick

                  ~ hod]
                     
carpets and velvet curtains and a golden harp in the
parlor, is a poor home if our Blessed Lord and our Holy
Mother are denied there."

  Maggic-Now asked her father: "Papa, did you have a
rich home or a poor home when you were a boy back in
Ireland?"

  "'Tis time you knew," he said, "how your poor father
lived. It was a poor house. Poor. Poor. The poorest of the
poor. A oneroom sod shanty with a leanto where me bed
was and me bed a bag of straw. And the neighbor's
starving pig sneaking in on cold nights and wanting to lcep
with me for the warmth of it." The child laughed.

  " 'Tis not to laugh at the v. ay the slanty roof came
down to the ground where me head lay and me bumping
me head on it every time I moved ill me sled p.

  "And the black hole in the wall where the poor fire
didn't keep us warm in winter but roasted us in summer
when we cooked our food in it. And oh, the poor food!
The small potatoes from the starving ground and the
rough, black bread burned on the bottom, and an egg
maybe once every two weeks, and our Christmas dinner,
a hen, itself, tough, and she being too old to lay.

  "And water from the well, and the well a cruel walk
from the shanty on a cold winter s morning and the
bucket too heavy for a skinny boy. And no toil . . . no
plumbing in the house a-tall and we using the woods in
back of our shanty."

"I betcha you were happy there, Papa."

"Happy, she says!" h' commented bitterly. "I hated it and
left

ithout looking back once when the time came."

  But he thought of how green the fields were in summer
and the meadow flowers hit den in knee-deep grass and
the lake that took its color from the sky or did the sky
take its color from the lake? And the way the thrown,
dusty road to the village looked so lazy in the sun. He
remembered the good nights in the tavern with the men
liking the way he danced. His mind went to Rory-Boy in
the great days when they had been true friends. He
thought of his fiercely protective and possessive mother.
And oh, the dear sweetness of his Maggie Rose! He
thought of the idle, golden days of his youth and he wept
in his heart.

God forgive the lie size saying I hated it so, he prayed.

Remembering, he spoke with bitterness to his daughter;
his

                  ~ i 4 1
                     
darling's namesake. "Your mother was the one raised in
a rich house. Tell her to take you over to Bushwick
Avenue and show you the house. Tell her to show you the
stable where your father laid his head nights. Look good
at that rich house what should have been mine . . . ours .
. . if that crook . . ."

 Ah, he thought, let the dead rest in peace even if he was
a black'ard in life.

 Walking over to the old house, Mary answered
Maggie-Now's question: "Why didn't I take you there
before? Because the house is so changed and it makes me
sad."

 Yes, it was changed. The rooms on either side of the
stoop had been made into shops. The bay windows were
now store windows. One was a hairdressing parlor with
intricately coifed wax dummy heads in the window. The
other window showed only a swan, pure, white and
immobile and with each feather in place. The swan sat
proudly on a bed of swansdown. A card, dangling by a
brass chain suspended from the swan's beak, read:
Genuine Swansdown Filled Pillows.

"Is it real>" breathed l\laggie-Now.

"It was. Once. Now it's stuffed."

"Maybe it's still alive and they give it medicine to sit still."

"Now you know better."

 The upstairs windows had a blank look. A card in one
of them said: Rooms. The basement rooms had been
converted. A swinging sign with a red seal informed
people that a notary public was available there. A
rooms-for-rent sign was attached to the notary's shingle.

 Mary figured it out that the man who'd bought the
house was the notary in the basement. He was squeezing
every penny of revenue out of his investment. She
wondered how many transients had slept in her white
room since she had left. She sighed as she thought of her
piano once standing in the room that now held sewing
machines, bolts of ticking and bags of down.

 The stable was now a separate property, divided from
the big house by an iron picket fence. An unevenly
painted sign over the barn door read: Pheid ~ Son.
Plumbers. Day e; Night. A broken toilet lay on its side in
the yard. A man, Pheid himself, was uncrating a pair of
double, soapstone washtubs. A boy, a few year older than
Maggie-Now, was helping the man. The man

                  ~ ` s ]
                     
looked up as Mary and Maggie-Now approached.

"Yes?" he asked.

"I used to live here when I was a girl," explained Mary.

 "That so? Well, a E'etalian owns the house now. But I
own the shop."

"Is that so?"

 "That sign: Pheid & Son? Well, this here is son. Son
Pheid." He put his arm about the boy's shoulder. His
pride was evident. "I'm breaking him in young. I believe
in that," he said.

"I see," said Mary.

"Well, help yourself. Look around." He went back to his
work. "Where did Papa sleep?" asked Maggie-Now.

 "Up there. That little window. Where the pipes are
sticking out.

"Chee! "

  "After we were married, we lived in the big house, of
course. For a little while, anyhow."

  "Where is . . . are, all the snowball trees you said was
always in the yard?"

"Someone cut them down, I suppose."

"I'm glad I never lived here."

  "Why, Maggie-Now, don't say that. It was very nice
before it was all cut up into rental property. It was good
to live here long ago. It was cool and dark in the summer
and bright and warm in the winter."

"Why did you all move away then, if it was so nice?"

"Well, your grandfather died."

"Why? "

"Oh, Maggie-Now! 1r was his time tO die."

"Papa said he died from being scared."

"Your father didn't mean that."

  Mary knew this was a logical time to tell her of her
grandfather. But how could she tell the child that her
grandfather had been a thief? But was he? The others
who had stood trial had been exonerated. And politicians
still kept on doing the same things.

  No' I will not complicate her growing years by telling her.
Patrick won't tell her since he hasn't so far. She may find
out when she's grown up. 7Ry that time, his crimes if
crimes they were will be softened; faded and far away.

~ ~o61

"What did he die of then?" asked Maggie-Now.

"What we all die of in the end. His heart stopped beating."

 "I'm glad . . . not that he died," amended Maggie-Now
quickly. "I mean I'm glad I don't have to live here. I like
our own house  where we live now. And 1 don't care if
it's rich or poor."

 l'n~ glad she's got that settled, thought Mary. A~Iaybe
no~v she'll stop tcsirlg that Ivory "relative."

"Of course," said Maggie-Now airily, "it's all relative."

          ~ (2HAPTkR SEVENTEEN ~

MORE wonderful to Maggie-Now, almost, than Christmas,
the first day of summer vacation or the trip to Coney
Island, was Memorial Day, called Decoration Day in
Brooklyn, when her mother took her on the yearly trip to
the cemetery.

  "When will it come? When will it come?" she began
asking her mother soon after Easter.

  "You'll know by the lilac bush in Father Flynn's yard.
Lilacs always bloom for Decoration Day." And it was so.

  It was always a warm, sunny day with a sweet-smelling
wind around the next corner. When Maggie-Now went to
the baker's for the morning buns, thtre was usually a
customer there who confided to the bakery woman: "I'm
going to the cemetery in my shape today." That meant it
was warm enough to go without a coat.

  Maggie-Now and her mother went to the cemetery in
their shapes. The girl wore her Easter dress and Sunday
hat and Mary dressed in her brushed and mended best.
They let the cars go by, waiting for an "open" trolley to
come along. They sat in the front seat so they could see
far ahead. The car picked up people along the way until it
was filled with people in fresh summer clothes. Most of
the men wore new straw hats because Decoration Day was
the official day to start wearing them.

  In no time at all, the car was out of the city and in the
country heading for Cypress Hills in Queens County. Grass
now grew

                  ~ ion ~
                     
between the car tracks. Daisies, buttercups and sweet,
purple clover grew in empty lots. Bouncing Bet grew along
the car tracks and seemed to be running ahead of the
trolley.

 "It has another name," explained Mary. "Soapwort. And
it loves the tracks: car tracks, train tracks and wagon
tracks. No matter w here you go, you see it along the
tracks even growing out of cinders."

 "Oh, smell that country air!" said a woman in the seat
behind them. "Just smell it!"

 "Yeah, it smells healthy," said her companion. "I feel
years voungerd'

 Maggie-Now always remembered that warm,
new-summer smell. It was like smelling buckwheat honey
through warm dust.

 They got off the trolley and had to walk several long
blocks to the cemetery. It was a beautiful walk. The stores
had the summer awnings down; red, or.mge, green-striped
and scalloped. All the stores save a tombstone-cutting
store or two were flower stores with the flowering plants
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, 1\lama-" aslred the girl.

``No."

"I'll take this red one, I\lama."

 "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 wirldo\v 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
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. I\laggie-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 l\lrs. 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 l\lrs. Scholldle. Fears came to her
eyes. So nice to me."

"We'll see you next year, God hilling," said Marv.

  "Likewise," said Mrs. Schondle. "So long, I\liz Moore.
And girlie." She leaned over to pat Maggie-Now's cheek.
She said a strange thing. "We're just ships that pass in the
night."

  They watched her as she walked away from them down
the street. She did look a licit like a ship with her hitching
w all: and the veils floating out behind like black smoke.

"Who is she anyhow, Mama?"

  "You know. Someone I met at the cemetery years ago?
We're l)ecoration Day friends.'

"Where does she live?

"I don't know."

"I)oes she have a little girl, home' '

"If she has, she's never mentioned her."

'Did she get a new husband after.Nlr. Schondle died' ~ //61

"I never asked."

 "How can you be friends with somebody and you don't
know where they live or anything?"

 "It's possible to be acquaintances without knowing much
about the other person. We're passing friends."

"Ha! Ships that pass in the night, hey, Mama?"

           A CHAPTER EIGHTEEN ~

IN THE fifteen-odd years since Patrick Delmis Moore had
landed in America, many changes had come about. The
horsecars had given way to trolley cars. The completion of
the subway, which changed into the elevated as soon as it
crawled out onto the Williamsburg Bridge, did away with
most of the East River ferries. Automobiles were no
longer a curiosity, although some retarded kids still yelled,
"Get a horse!" when one appeared, and all pedestrians
were delighted when a car broke down. Most of the better
stores had soldered off the gas pipes and put in electric
lights. Some of the candy stores had phones in and you got
your number by appealing to "Central." And some insane
person went around the neighborhood saying he'd sat in
a dark room somewhere and saw pictures that moved on
a bed sheet. The ballad writers of the day started a new
folk lore by acknowledging the inventions in their creative
work.

Come, .1 osephine,
In my flying machine . . .
And,

. . . Lucille, In my merry Oldsmobile.

Also,

Call me up some rainy afternoon, And we'll arrange for
a quiet, little spoon.

                  1 ii7]
                     
 Yes, there were changes. But Patsy never changed,
except the he was getting too old to be called Patsy and
the few people who had to speak to him called him Pat.
He got to be sort of a character the way he smoked his
stub-stemmed pipe upside down as he cleaned the streets.
He smoked it that way so sparks wouldn't fly in his eyes
on a windy day and to keep the tobacco dry on rainy days.

 He bet ame known as "reef Pat" because he wouldn't get
out of the way for anybody or anything. Motormen would
stamp down on the gong, motorists would squeeze the
rubber bulb of the horn or grind the klaxon, bicycle bells
would tinkle hysterically; teamsters cursed him and
pedestrians threatened to sue the city because he swept
dust on them when they crossed the street. But he ignored
them all, pretending not to hear, and he wouldn't move
out of the way until he had finished the place he was
cleaning.

People would say to each other: "He'll get run over yet."

The answer: "Let's hope so."

 Out of boredom, Pat worked up a feud with a certain
motorman. The motorman was a skinny, nervous little
fellow and Pat was the one who could bring him to the
brink of hysterics. When Pat saw the trolley coming, he'd
go and stand on the tracks pushing his broom back and
forth The car bore down with gong clattering. Pat paid no
attention. Each time the motorman kept coming, thinking
Pat w ould get off the tracks this time, and he wouldn't
slow down. He was forced to put the brakes on at the last
moment to bring the car to a screeching stop. Some
passengers were knocked out of their seats, old ladies
whimpered and the trolley pole slipped off the power line.
The motorman would scream, scold, wave his arms and
throw his cap on the ground and stamp on it but Pat
wouldn't budge until he'd finished his leisurely sweeping.

 One day, Pat held up a brewery truck. It was loaded
with beer kegs and pulled by two ]'ercherons, whose thick
tails were braided and looped up to look like thick clubs.
Pat stepped in front of the approaching truck, forcing the
teamster to pull up and wait while he swept away
non-existent dirt. Then he wanted the teamster to back up
so he could sweep where the horses were standing. The
teamster gave him an argument and Pat ~ 1181

walked back to the truck. In talking and waving his broom
for emphasis, he happened to hit one of the horses on the
rump with the broom handle. The horse shifted his great
weight from one hind foot to the other like a woman
shifting her hips, and swung his clubbed tail in Pat's face.

 Pat's clay pipe was knocked out of his mouth and broke
into bits on the cobblestones. The teamster laughed so
hard he nearly fell off his seat. Pedestrians laughed as Pat
ran down the street after his rolling helmet. All agreed
that it served Deef Pat right. The vindicated teamster went
on his way.

 Soon after, the trolley with the nervous motorman came
into view. Pat had to take out his humiliation on the
motorman. Other times, Pat had pretended there was
debris on the tracks. This time he put it there. He emptied
the entire contents of his trash can on the tracks. The
motorman plowed into the trash before he could get the
car stopped.

 A woman screamed, a child fell off the seat and, of
course, the pole came off the line. The motorman did not
act true to form. He was calm and collectecl. He soothed
his passengers, swung oir the car, put the pole back on the
line, walked slowly up to where Pat was standing and
punched him right in the nose. The passengers cheered
and bystanders applauded the brave motorman. Pat threw
himself upon the man and grappled with him. They rolled
in the horse manure and other debris of the can. They
rolled almost under the car. Their faces were inches apart.
Pat took a good look at the motorman.

"Well, I'll be damned," he said. Click Mack!"

 "And 'tis you, me old night-school friend," said Mick
Mack sadly. "And ain't you the one to torment an old
friend so."

 "I didn't know it was you. 'Tis the teeth make you look
different. You didn't have teeth in night school."

 "I bought them. Upper and lower and I'm still paying on
them. Tell me this, Pathrick: Did you ever take out your
first papers? "

"I been a citizen these many years."

 In the meantime, a passing citizen, not having seen the
beginning of the fight, ran and told a policeman that two
men had been run over by a trolley car. The panting
policeman, who had run all the way, stooped and peered
under the car to see how

                  ~ /~91
                     
much they were mangled. He saw them Iying side by side
in the muck talking amiably ho each other. He prodded
Pat with his nightstick.

 "Come out of there, now, the both of yez," he ordered.
They stood shamefaced before him. 'iI've a mind to run
you in. Drunk on the job, the both of yea, and layin' in the
gutter together. And you," he said to Pat, "working for the
city, too!" He took their names and numbers.

 It ended up that Mick Mack was transferred to another
run and Pat was suspended for two weeks without pay.
During those two weeks, he roamed the streets of
Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Maspeth, trying to find
Mick Mack. He angered many a motorman by standing on
a corner and holding up a finger as a signal that he
wanted to board the car. When the car stopped, instead of
getting on, he leered into the motorman's face and said,
"Wrong car."

 I'll look till I find him, Pat vowed. Therl I'll give him the
licking of his life for daring to punch me ire the nose.

 In truth, though, he wanted to find him because he was
lonely for a friend and he remembered how the little
fellow had looked up to him in the old night-school days
when they were both so young.

 He must have looked into a hundred cars, but he never
found Mick Mack.

 In spite of being warned by his superintendent that he'd
be fired if he caused any more trouble, Pat did not change
his ways. He continued to smoke his pipe upside down
and to pretend to be deaf. He continued to hold up
vehicles at whim. Teamsters and motorists took to going
down other streets to avoid him and his nonsense. This
lessened Pat's work but it made him very lonely. There
were fewer to hare and to torment, now, on the streets he
cleaned.

 Sometimes on a still summer afternoon, when the
German band played on one of his streets, he'd lean on
his broom handle and listen a while. The band played a
German song, a popular song of the day and, invariably,
an Irish song. When the tune had a lilt, Pat's feet twitched
inside his heavy work shoes and his mind made a dance
pattern and he thought again of County Kilkenny.

                  ~ 120]
                     
 One day, Maggie-Now happened to be with the group
of chil-dren who followed the band from block to block.
He watched his daughter waltz with another girl.

She's got them all beat, he thought with a flare of pride.

  After the usual lugubrious "Blue Danube," the kids
clustered around the musicians begging for "Rosie
O'&rady." When the band complied, the kids made a
circle and pushed .N1aggie-No\v into the middle of it. As
soon as she got the beat of the song, she went into a solo,
soft-shoe clog. The pipe nearly fell out of Pat's mouth. He
was that astonished.

  Where does she get it 1rorr.~? he asked himself. From
meself, he decided. that Echo learned' her? ale watched her
a while. No, I couldn't do I,~et~er meself.

  She lifted her skirts and the ruffles on her drawers
showed. A couple of passing boys slopped, stared,
whispered to each other and snickered. Pat threw his
broom down and stalked over to the dancers. When
Mag.,ie-Novv saw him, she gave him a big smile.

"Go on hon1e,'' he said tersely.

  She tossed her head, making her hangs bounce, put her
hands on her hips and clogged away from him. He
followed her around the circle, caught her and spanked
her. He spanked her publicly before all her friencis.

  "That'll lear n you," he said, "to show everything on the
street."

  She looked up at him, stricken. fie had never hit her
before. "Papa! You didn't kiss n1e when you hit me! You
didn't kiss me like cousin SneiTa! You meant it!"

  "You betcha life I meant it and there's more where that
come from."

  He thou:,l1t of Big Red" ho\\ be had said that and he
wondered if Maggie-Now felt the same shame he had felt.
He svas sorry he had spanked her. He had never hit her
before. Neither had her mother. She was not a bad girl.
The spanking didn't hurt her, he assured himself. It vvas
the public humiliation that hurt her. She ran home,
weeping all the was,-.

  The cornet player shook the spit out ot his horn. "I)IT'
Hei'iZzel Mannchen!" he sneered at Pat.

"Is that so? Well, Heinie, you go to your church and I'll
go to

                 1~ 1211
                    
niine." That was one `>f Pat's favorite retorts.

 Maggie-Now changed toward her father. The sunny
child had always chattered to him endlessly, never noticing
that he made no answer. She had liked to tease him and
had been quick to hug him warmly. She had never noticed
that he took all her loving Days with indifference. She had
so much emotional steam that she could go a long svav on
her own poNver without the encouragement of response.

 She changed after the whipping. Now she was quiet and
restrained in his presence. She spoke to him only to
answer him. She gave him respect and obedience and
nothing more. SecretlN-. Pat grieved. He felt that he had
lost his child.

"Are you turning the girl against me?" he asked his wife.

 "I would not do that, Patrick. You are her father and
she needs v ou and loves you."

 "She's still mulling over that spanking I gave her. I only
gave her a tap or t\VO but you'd think I licked her black
and blue."

"But why in front of her friends?"

"She's got to learn," he mtlmbled.

 "Did you learn anything by Tim~ytlls Shaun thrashing
your TN7o. You'll hold that agtinst him all the days of
your life. MaggielNTow has some of your ways."

\Vlly don t you S`IN' IT]N,~ /7~1~1 \N'a\'S?

 She took his hand ill both of hers. "I loved you for N
our ways. I never thought severe they good \vays or bad
ways."

"Ah, 1\/lary," he said, touched, and a moment tried to get
born.

 I co?vid say I loved her, he thought. And it "would mean
the . orl.l to her my saying it. And I do love her in a kind
of way. But I never saicl it before. Linda late to start saying
it norm. 1~1 feel foolisI.' ... we'd both {eel foolish....

The moment died stillborn.

 He wanted the girl'. affection back. l o that end, he
made plans to take her out on her birthday.

 "I will give her a good time like your father gave you
when he bought the combs. I'll give her the same good
time according to me means and hope she'll ~ emember
it in the same wav you did," said Pat to his wife.

 No one sold violets on the Brooklyn streets. He bought
her a pinwheel instead. When she ran ahead to mate a w
ind to make it

                  ~ ~ 1
                    
turn, he realised was too big to play with a pinwheel.

 Of course he didn't take her to a bar for a claret
lemonade. There were no glarr orous bars in the
neighborhood and he'd be sure to be arrested if he
brought a little girl into a saloon. There was no fine
restaurant. I hey ate hot pastrami sandwiches and honey
cake and drank ten from glasses in a Kosher Delicatessen
& Lunchroom. The men are with their hats on. Pat
explained that was their religion. He took his hat oflf with
the remark that they could go to their church and he'd go
to his. The diners balled up their napkins and threw them
on the floor when they were done. When Maggie-Now
asked why, her father said they did that because they were
very clean people. Maggie-Now thought that didn't seem
clean. Oh, yes, her father told her. That was so the
proprietor wouldn't serve the napkins again to later
diners.

 They went to the "heater. They heard no prima donna
raise a luscious voice in song. They went to The Folly and
saw Marion Bent and Pat Rooney. And Rooney's waltz
clog thrilled them more than the best soprano's aria.

 Afterward, he took her to a novelty store and invited
her to choose a present. She u anted a wood-burning set.
There was a tie rack with an Indian chief's head in a war
bonnet just waiting to be burned and an envelope of
"jewels" to paste on the bonnet's headband. Pat wanted
her to have a rhinestone brooch. Both things cost a dollar
each. She didn't want a brooch. She wanted to burn wood.
Fat said she would take the rhinestone brooch or nothing.
She said she wanted nothing. He bought her the brooch
anyway.

 Yet it had been a happy evening and she held her
father's hand all the way home and squeezed it happily
from time to time, and once he squeezed back.

                1 ~ >. 1
                    
      '4< (.'HA 1' TER NI NE TEEN ~

()NE night as they were eating supper (Maggie-Now was
about twelve a': the time), a handsome young man
knocked on the door and was admitted to the kitchen. I
le was about twenty-three years old.

 "Do you remember Nile, Fir. .`vk~cJre? ' Ihe young
man smiled engagingly, then his face sadrlened.

Pat frowned, trying to rermetnber.

"Nokomis. Daughter of the Noon, Nokor~is. Remember?"

 Pat remembered. "Big Red's boy, Widdy," he explained
to his wife. lee thought: An,l what does the spawn want
from brie?

 "1~7Iother sent tee," said Middy, turtling his hat
around in his hands. Thet, he seemed to lose the
continuity of what he wanted to say. "]: mean, you know
Oad." E-Ze swallowed hard before he said: "God rest his
soul . . ."

"No!" said lent, put ing his talk do\vtl. "No!"

  "Mother said, l mean, Dad had no relations in America,
except ~\Iother and me and Gr ~ndmotller. There's
Gracie, too. We were going to get married in June, but
now we'll have to wait a vear out of respect."

  Big Red had diccl in fled and lead not been killed on
the streets by hoodh~ms as Lottie Ad always feared. A
blizzard had tied up the city. :Big Red, like bland another
cop, had worked two days and two nights without rest. He
had had a cold, and just when Lottie hard thought he was
getting well it turned into pneumonia.

  Yes, Widdy's mothe! was bearing up well. There was
pride mixed with her grief. Her Timmy had died an
honored man, Widdy told them. E-lis l euten.Znt w ould
he one of the pallbearers, and Widely supposed they
hadn't heard, but Big Red had been promoted to serge At
a Feel; before he took sick. I.ottie had been so proud.

  "So l\lother said " concluded Widdy, "if you folks would
come ro the funeral . . . the .Nk~ores and thie
ShaNN7ns had been so close

                 I loll
                    
back in County Kilkenny . . . had almost become relations .
. ." Pat grieved. He didn't grieve for a friend; he grieved
for a dear enemy. Although never a heavy drinker, he felt
the need of going down to the saloon for a couple of
beers.

"I lost the best enemy a man ever had," he told the
bartender.

 "That's the way it goes," said the bartender. He never
flicked an eyelash. Lee was well used to hearing strange
things from his customers.

 After the third beer, Pat found that he was lonesome for
his other enemy, Mick Mack. He actually missed the little
fellow. He had a feeling that perhaps Mick Mack was
looking all over Brooklyn for him. Maybe he'd been in
that very saloon....

 "Listen," Pat said to the bartender, "did a feller ever
come in here with false teeth top and bottom?"

 "Listen, Deef Pat," said the bartender. "I don't look
down my customers' mout's to see what Linda china they
got. I just serve them drinks."

 Pat refused to go to the funeral, but he asked Mary to
sew a black armband on his coat sleeve.

"But that7s only for relatives, Patrick.'7

 "And was he not a relative to me in a way, like the boy
said? I'll wear it for a year."

 Mary and Maggie-Nov went to the funeral and went
home afterward to Lottie's house. Mary fixed supper for
them; Lottie, her aged mother, who was now living with
her and Widdy, and Gracie, the pretty girl who was
Widdy's fiancee. Maggie-Now helped briskly. Lottie, who
hadn't seen her godchild since the christening, was much
taken with her. She begged Mary to come again and bring
the child.

 The friendship grew. Mary looked forward to her visits
with Lottie. Mary had not realized how still her life was.
She was well liked in her neighborhood, but made no
close friends because she was not gregarious. Her life was
sort of somber: partly because she had a serious
temperament and partly because her husband wasn't
outgoing he was not one to spread cheer and good will.
If it wasn't for Maggie-Now . . .

 Mary liked Lottie because Lottie made her laugh. She
laughed at the things Lottie said and did. She relaxed in
the great warmheartedness of Lottie. She listened sweetly
and raptly to Lottie's

                  [ i'S]
                     
reminiscences of Tim ny, which always ended up: 'And so
we stayed sweethearts rip kit up to the end."

 To Maggie-Now, a visit to Lottie's was like a Christmas
present. The flat was a treasure house to the child. She
loved her godmother the way she loved everyone. She
fetched and carried for Lottie's old mother. She beamed
on Lottie and ran her errands. She romped with Widdy
and admired Gracie extravagantly Once Widdy took her
to an ice-cream parlor and treated her to a soda. He told
her he had done so in order to have the first date with
her. Maggic-No\Tv began to think about growing up.

 After Widdy married and went to live with his Gracie h1
Bav Ridge, Lottie didn't haste too long a time to be
lonesome. MaggieNow slipped into her on's place. She
started spending weekends with Lottie. Lottie fed her
eclairs and cream puffs and neapolitans. She and Lottie
did things together. They made Ma`;,gie-Now ~
peach-basket hat. They shopped in the dime store for the
wire frame and cards of strips of braided straw and
buckram. Thev trimmed it with buncht s of tiny pink roses.
Maggie-Nov.T thought it was beautiful. Mary thought it
was too mature for a child but she let her wear it to
church just the same.

 Lottie told her bit by bit about her father: his dancing
days in County Kilkenny, his mother, his romance with
l\laggie Rose and how Timmy had gone to Ireland and
licked him.

 "Papa licked me once," said Maggrie-Now. "Right on the
street in front of everybody."

 Lottie gave her a qt ick look but she was too good and
too kind to question the gill. Then she told how the
immigrant bov had been robbed. (All these things were
new to Maggie-No`~. Her father and mother had never
told her these things.)

 "There he stood," said Lottie dramatically, "a young boy
in a strange country, full of dreams of the grand new life
where al] men is free and any poor man has the chancet
of being a millionaire or president whichever he likes
best. And he thought this man was his friend, see? And he
trusted him and the man robbed him and all the time he
thought he vitas his friend."

"That was awful," sari Magt,ie-Now. "Poor Papa!"

 She told Maggie-Nov what a wonderful heritage she had.
She was not above exaggerating. To Lottie, the story was
the thing  not the facts.

                   1/ 41
                     
 "\'our grandmother was a great lady and she raised your
mother to play the piano. And she played in concert halls
and oh, my! How the people clapped!,J

"Mama never told me . . ."

 "She's not one to brag- your mother. And she painted
things. Not like you paint a house, but pictures and on
dishes. Yo?` know. And your grandfather: My, he was a
man high up! He was the mayor of Bushwick Avenue or
something like that. I forget. But he lost all his money and
died."

"How did Mama meet Papa?" asked the girl, all agog.

 "Now that's a story! NVell, it was this way." She settled
herself more comfortably in her chair, preparing for a
long story. "Bring your chair closer, Mama," she shouted
across the room. "You can't hear good over there.

 "In the first place, your father was a very handsome
man. He lived in the stable in your grandfather's yard. He
didn't have to be a stable boy, mind you, but in America,
everyone must start at the bottom. So, Mr. Moriarity, your
grandfather, put him in with the horses to test him out. So
. . ."

 So Maggie-Now got to know a lot about her father. As
she grew up, she came into a realization of how things
that had happened to him in his young days had made
him the man he was now. It cannot be said that her
growing knowledge made her love her father more, but it
made her understand him better.

 And sometimes understanding, is nearly as good as love
because understanding makes forgiveness a more or less
routine matter. Love makes forgiveness a great, tearing
emotional thing.

 Mary missed the child when she was away at Lottie's.
The girl was the sum and total of her life. She loved her
so much that she sacrificed her precious time with her
because MaggieNow was so happy with I,ottie.

 Pat didn't like it at all. He thought Maggie-Now was
spending too much time at the home that Big Red had set
up. This Timothy Sharon, he thought. This Big Red:
wherever he is, he's still reaching out to manhandle me life.

 He came home one Friday night from work to a quiet
house. "Where's the girl>" he asked.

"Over to l_ottie's."

                  [ 127 1
                     
 "Again? I don't like the idear. Here I use meself up
working to provide a home for her and she's never in it."

 "It's hard for a man to understand, but a growing girl
needs a woman friend. Maggie-Now's lucky to have
Lottie."

"I don't see it. Why can't she be satisfied with her girl
friends?"

 "Maggie-Now has to know things," she said fumblingly.
"I suppose she talks to the other girls but they don't know
what Maggie-Now wants to know needs to know. Now,
Lottie is like a girl friend; she and Maggie-Now do things
together like young girls. Yet, she c an talk to Lottie like
one woman to another. Shell, I guess I'm not explaining
it right."

 "If you mean," he said bluntly, "that she's got to know
where babies come from, you tell her. You're her
mother."

 She searched for words of explanation. Her thought was
something about destruction of innocence. But she knew
it would sound schoolteacherish She said: "Maybe I could.
Should. But the way 1 am . . . the way I was brought up,
the way I carried her for nine months before she was born
. . . the way when she was a baby she'd grab my thumb
and look up at me so seriously . . . well, I guess I
wouldn't know how to tell her...."

 "Well, does she have to live at Lottie's to find out what
she would-a found out anyway in time?"

 "That's not the only reason I like her to be friends with
Lottie. Ike all have to die someday and . . ."

"That's news to me," he said.

 "I mean, I don't think of dying. But like all mothers, I
suppose, I worry, or did, about what would become of
Maggie-Now if I died before she was grown up. Then I
think that she'd have Lottie and I don't worry any more."

 He had a flash of tenderness . . . or was it jealousy?
"Think of me a little," he said. "What would become of
me if you died?"

 "Oh, Patrick!" she said. She clasped her hands and her
eyes filled with happy, loving tears. "Would you miss me?"

 He didn't want to say yes. That would be too
embarrassing for him. It would be ridiculous to say,
no churlish to say, I've grown used to you. He was sorry
he had brought up the matter.

                 1 id ]
                    
           ~ CHAPTER TWENTY ~

AFTER sixteen years, Mary was pregnant again. She had
a feeling of awe about it. She was in her middle forties
and had believed that the menopause had set in. She was
quietly happy about it and a little frightened. She
remembered the hard time she'd had when Maggie-Now
was born; how the doctor had warned her afterward not
to have another child. It would be dangerous, he had said.
Mary, however, reasoned that a lot of advances had been
made in obstetrics in the sixteen years since she had had
her first child. Also she'd heard countless stories of
women who'd had a hard time with the first child and very
easy times with the second and third birth. All in all, she
was pleased about it.

 The neighbors watched the progress of the pregnancy
witl1 more concern than curiosity. They discussed it. It
was a changeof-life baby, they admitted, and, yes, them
kind what comes late in life is always the smartest ones.
Yeah, he might grow up to be a great man but she'd be
too old to care. Anyhow, was the consensus of thought,
please God nothing should happen to her.

 Maggie-Now talked over the baby with 1 ottie. "I
thought Mama was you know. Too old?"

 "Good heavens, no! Lizzie Moore, ',-our grandmother,
was forty-five when she had your father. It runs in the
family  to have a baby in middle age." Maggie-Now
couldn't follow the reasoning. Lizzie Moore was not
related by blood to Mary How could Mary inherit the
tendency to conceive in middle age from her? "And you,
Maggie-Now: When you get married and if a baby don't
come along right away, don't give up until you're fifty.,'

 "I want lots of children." said l\iaggie-Now. il.ots and lots
of them."

 Lottie looked at Maggie-Now's ripe figure. I he girl
looked older than her sixteen years. She could pass for
twenty and no one v.~ou]d challenge her age.

                 ~ /29 ~
                    
 "Yes," said Lottie. "You'll have 'em. Only make sure
you're married first."

 Mary was four months pregnant. She went for her first
examination to Doctor Sicalani. When it was over, she
asked "Is everything all right?"

He waited a little too long before he said: "Yes."

 "But at my age . . .'? she fumbled with the buttons at
the back of her dress.

"Turn around," he said. He buttoned up her dress.

"Tell me the truth, Doctor. Will I die?"

 He unbuttoned a few buttons and buttoned them up
again to gain time before he answered. "I he first thing
you must do," he said, "is to stop worrying. Doctor's
orders. There! It's done." She turned around with a
worried look on her face. He smiled at her. After a
second, she smiled back.

"Come back in two weeks."

"I will. Good-by, Doctor. And thank y out"

"Good-by, Mrs. Moore."

 She left. He looked around his office. It was a
one-window store Nvith living quarters in the back. There
were half curtains hung in the store window and a row of
potted plants that always seemed to need waterin,. His
sign hung on a brass chain from the middle of the curtain
rod: Domizzick Scalarzi. AI.D. A card in the window told
his olEce hours. If one broke down the hours, it should be
found that he was always in his office save when he slept
or ate.

 The office was furnished with a davenport, on which he
slept nights, a couple of chairs and a mission oak table.
He couldn't afford to buy magazines for the table so he
put odd copies of the medical journal on it. Nobody read
these of course. His framed diploma hung over his rolltop
desk. Next to it hung a picture of his graduating class. He
was so obscure in the picture that he had penciled an
arrow in the margin, the tip leading to his head. His
patients liked to know exactly where he was in the group.

 He hadn't scanted to be a doctor. He had had a choice
between medicine and the priesthood. He had chosen the
former because he thought he might like tr' marry
someday. But as the years passed, ~ /,o1

he found that he didn't \vant to marry. He \vas sorry that
he hadn't chosen the church

  Doctor Scalani had bet n one of three children of an
Italian fruit peddler. The old man scrimped and saved
because he wanted his children to have a good education
and dignified, safe careers. He didn't want them to w orry
about daily bread. He died happy. feeling that his children
revere well provided for. Dominick was a doctor,
Bernardo a priest, and Anastasia a nun.

  The old man's scrimping had amounted to this much:
The kids didn't have to go out to work when they were
fourteen. I Ie v, as able to support them through high
school and able to release his two sons from the obligation
of supporting him so that they could work their wry
through college.

  It was tough on Dome ick working his way through
college and medical school. He hall no white fire burning
in him at the thought of being a Great Healer. He
graduated near the bottom of his class. He didn't mi Id
that. He figured somebody had to graduate at the bottom.
ill here wasn't always room at the top. He interned at a
small, obscure hospital.

  When he was done with learning, he weIlt back to his
old neighborhood to practice. Ale didn t know where else
to go. He had no money to buy a go ng practice or to set
up one in a better neighborhood. And no kindly old
doctor with a prosperous practice that: was too mum h to
handle took him in. So he had rented this cmptv store and
gotten together some second-hand equipment.

  He didn't make IllUCh Mooney. I\Iost of the people
diagnosed and treated their own ailments. They drank
home-breNved pennyroyal or camomile tea. They rubbed
goose grease or camphorated oil on their chests and
poured sweet oil in their ears. They dumped carbolic acid
on rusty nai tears and rubbed bhle ointment into sores.

  Mid\vives delivered the babies. lA'hcn a cough lasted
more than a couple of years or a rutming sore didn't "go
away," they went to the free clinics. Wilen an epidemic
came along they wore a bag on a string around their neck.
The bag had a cut of garlic or onion in it:. Maybe it didn't
keep the germs away but the smell of it l;ept the people
who had the germs to give, aNvaN. For the ~ 1,1 1

rest, they lit candles in church and prayed.

 Doctor Scalani was called in to sign death certificates,
examine people for insurance co npanies,do an emergency
delivery when the midwife couldn't handle a breech
presentation and set broken bones. (Every once in a
while, a kid fell off a roof.) Weekends, he was fairly busy
suturing gashes after Saturday-night knife fights.
Sometimes he got paid; more often he didn't. A patient
like Mary Moore who put herself in his hands prior to
confinement and paid after each visit was rare indeed.

 He wasn't married but he had a girl. She was known on
her block as the doctor's lady friend. She was a
dressmaker. He called her Dodie because her name was
Dolores. He had started going with her ten years ago. At
first, the objective was marriage. But he didn't seem too
anxious to marry and she didn't want to appear too
willing. As the years encore on, he stopped talking of
marriage. She had thoughts of giving him up because his
intentions were no longer serious. But she thought she
might as well wait until some other man came along. No
other man came along so she continued going along with
Dominick. He went to see her once a week, when she'd
cook an enormous Italian dinner for him.

 He'd walk into her kitchen each Sunday at five. It was
always warm and steamy, and smelled of garlic, onions,
cheese and tomatoes. He always said the same thing:
"Something smells good." She always said the same thing:
"I hope it is good."

 After he'd eaten to repletion, he'd lie on the black
leather lounge in her living room and go to sleep. After
Dodie had washed the dishes, she'd come in and put a
shawl over his legs. Then she'd sit in her little rocker next
to the head of the couch and hand-whip a hem or fagot a
neckline or make buttonholes. She'd sew in rhythm to his
slow, relaxed breathing. She Noms utterly content.

 At ten o'clock, he'd w eke up, wash his hands, run a wet
comb through his hair and talkie his leave. He'd always
say the same thing: "That Noms a good supper, Dodie."
She'd always say the same thing: "I'm glad you liked it."
Then he'd kiss her cheek and she'd pat his arm twice and
he'd leave.

 That's all there was to it. But 'troth, in some curious
way, were completely satisfy d.

It was the doctor's stow, after a patient lead left, to sit in

                 1 /371
                    
his revolving chair before his rolltop deals, tilt the chair
back, put his finger tips together and confer with his
pictured classmates. It sort of cleared his
mind straightened things out for him. He silently
addressed his class after Mary had left.

 Gentlemen, diagnosis clearly indicates that a therapeutic
abortion is indicated in the case of the patient, Mary Moore.
The procedure is as follows, gentlemen: Two or more
physicians most be in agreement after exa,nination that the
pregnancy should be terminated. Under prope' conditions an
abo/tion is as safe as a to7?silectomy.

'4 question, Ml. Levine'

  (He often used this device to examine heath sides of a
situation. He listened intently to the man in the last
roNN, second front the right. Levine had been the class
heckler.)

  A question, Doctor. Hits anyone ever called you in for
Co71sultation? Do you know anyofZc YOZ/ Pallid call in?
No. YOU are not that kind of a doctor.

I could do it on my own, Mr. I.evil/e.

That would be illegal, I )octor.

  True. Besides the patien would i70t c oasent. Her religion,
you |,Z?07W.

  For the sake of argzcmef7t, Doctor: Szcppose she did
consent and you aborted her and something we7 t wrong,
went then? Mawslazcghter, Doctor. Manslaughter.

  Hard to prove, Mr. LevJne. Loopholes in t/.'e law. I acted
in the best interests . . . post mortem indicated death was
inevitable if pregnancy was allowed to come to childbirth....

  You might get ok. Surf. But you'd nevei- he able to
practice again.

  Gentlemen, you have heard Alr. Levine. .~llr. T.evine is
correct 071 all points. Another question', Mr. T.rvi7?e?

Yes. What are you going to do?

  Doctor Scalani had to think for a n~ornent. Back in
Coo B.C'., gentlemen, a doctor named Hippocrates said:
"Natural forces within us are the true healers of disease."
Roughly translated, that means let nature tale its course. I
shall count 0?7 natural f orces.

What else did Hippocrates say, Doctor?

Doctor Scalani sighed. I ou know it as .:ell as I do.

                  F/,, I
                     
 "I will not give to a woman any instrument to produce
abortion."

He stood up. That was right ii, boo B.C., and it's just as
right in

 9/0 A.D. We are agreed, I believe, that abortion is against
ethics and religion. It is a sin against life against having the
chance for a life to be born. That is all, gentlemen.

 He put his hands in his pockets and stood looking out
of his store window. He wished it were Sunday so that he
could go to Dodie's house.

I wonder whatever l~eem~te of I evine, he thought idly.

 Lottie gave Maggie-Now instructions: "When your
mother gets ready to go to the hospital, I want you to ring
me up right away. Hear? llight away. I got a surprise for
her I'm saving till the minute her labor starts. Did you
ever telephone before?"

"No."

 "Here's what you do You go to a store where there's a
phone. You ask Central to give you this number I wrote
down. Then you put a nickel in the hole. Keep a nickel
handy. When the candy-store man down by the corner
says, hello, you say, Will you call Mrs. Timothy Shaven to
the phone? Any hour of the day or night he'll come and
get me because I'm going to give him a dollar when you
call up."

 A few weeks later, diary was awakened by the rupturing
of the bag of waters. She was alone in the bed; Pat had
taken to sleeping on the lounge in the front room during
the past week because Mary was so big and twisted and
turned all night trying to get into a comfortable position
and she worried about keeping Pat awake.

 Mary lay still awhile, knowing her time had come. It will
be hard, I know, she thought. It was hard when
Maggie-Now . . . but when it was over and they put her in
my arms, I f argot. I was so happy. It will be the same again.
I'll forget the pain. I hope I have a son. Patrick would be
pleased. He said he doesn't care but all men want a son.
And won't Maggie-Now be happy. It's foolish of me to be
afraid....

 But she found she was trembling. She got up and
changed the linen on the bed, then she went to wake her
daughter. She looked

                   t'341
                     
down on her. In sleep, the girl's face still had the
lineaments of childhood. She grasped the girl's bare
forearm gently, because, even though Maggie-NoNv didn't
have red hair, she had the skin that went with red hair
and she bruised easily.

"Wake up, dear. I have to go to the hospital."

 Maggie-Now was awake instantly. She threw- her clothes
on. 'I'll go wake up Papa."

 "No, let him sleep a while longer. It's going to be hard
Otl him anyhow and I want to put it off as long as
possible. No use both of us suffering." She thought of the
girl. "I know vou don't n~itld helping me. Rut your
father's different."

 Maggie-Now put her arms around her mother. "Don't go
to the hospital, Mama. H as e the bahN home w here I
can take care of

you. "

 "It's hefter that I go to the hospital. Doctor Scala;li had
told her it was necessary in case of surgery. "Now you get
the buns and a morning paper for your father to take his
mind off things and stop at Doctor Scalani's first and tell
him."

 Maggie-Now tapped at ~ he doctor's door. The shade
was down. It shot up a second after her knock. He was in
his pajamas and the couch where he had been sleeping
was rumpled with sheets and blanket. He assured
Maggie-Now that he'd be at the hospital waiting for her
mother. 1 le shut the door and pulled the shade down
again.

 He took a brand-rev shirt front a drawer. Dodie had
made it for him as a Christmas present. He buttoned it
up. The sleeves were a little long. He put sleeve garters on
to pull up the sleeves. Dodie had made the garters for him
as a birthday gift. He fastened on a stiff collar with a gold
collar button that Dodie had given him when they first
started going together. He knotted on a black knit tie also
made by Dodie for some anniversary or other. He put on
the best of his two suits. It was the first time he had ever
treated one of his patients at the hospital and he wanted
to look nice and make a good impression on the nurses
and doctors.

 It was very early in tl,e morning and the bakery was still
closed but Mrs. Luthlen has carrying buns from the back
and putting them in the showcase. But she opened the
door for Nlaggie-NoNv. The girl told her about her
mother and asked foi

                  1 I'; 1
                     
ten cents' worth of sugar butts. The woman filled a bag to
overflowing with buns hot from the oven. She pushed
MaggieNow's dime back.

  "On a day like this, I can treat a good customer. Tell
your mama I'll be thinking of her. And let me know,
Maggie-Now."

  She put a penny on the newsstand and picked up a
Journal and went into the candy store and asked to use
the telephone. She got the number and shouted through
the mouthpiece that she had to speak to lairs. Timothy
Shavv n. It took hours, it seemed, before Lottie ;mswered.

"Aunt I,ottie! Aunt Lottie! Can you hear me?"

  "Don't holler, girlie, l ain't deer yet." Maggie-Now told
her the news. She wanted details but Maggie-Now didn't
have any to tell. "Well, listen good, Maggie-Now.
Gracie y on know, Widdy's wife? Well she gave birth to
twins three weeks and two days ago. I've been saving it as
a surprise for your mother. I know she's nervous so I
thought if she finds out just before how little and skinny
Gracie is and how she was in labor only two hours, it
might make her feel better. You tell her vv hat I said,
hear? About how skinny Grat ie is and only two hours .
. . and she was up the third day."

"What's their names, Aunt Lottie? "

"Well, I'll tell you," said Lottie.

  Maggie-Now groaned. She knew Lottie. She knew Lottie
would string out the story. Maggie-Now was nervous. She
was afraid her mother would have the baby while she was
phoning. "They're here with me right now," said Lottie.
"Widdy and Gracie went over to Manhattan last night and
didn't . . ."

"Please, Aunt Lottie, what's their names? Mama will ask
me."

  "Well, I wanted to name them Timmy and Jimmy. I
think that's cunning, don't you?"

"Is that their names?"

  "Wait. Widdy wanted to call them Ike and Mike. You
know. Because they look alike?"

"I haven't got much time, Aunt Lottie."

  "Well, Father Shaley got insulted about Mike and Ike.
He said he wouldn't christen them that. Oh, my! He gave
Widdy Hail Columbia."

"I'll call you up later, Aunt Lottie." ~ 1,6]

"Wait! Do you know what they finally named them?"

"Put another coin in the slot, please," droned the operator.

"I got to go, Aunt Lottie."

 "Wait! They finally named one De Witt and the other
Clinton."

"Put another coin . . .''

"Good-by, Aunt Lottie."

 "Listen! Tell your mother not to be brave. Tell her to
give in and holler. You don't holler, they think it don't
hurt. They don't do nothing. Tell her to holler...."

 The phone went dead. Maggie-Now was sweating and
the warm buns were crushed out of shape because she had
held the bag so tight against her. \\rhen she got home, her
father was up and dressed. Her mother was very nervous
and Pat had been trying to calm her down.

 "If you'd only stop telling me it's going to be all right .
. . If you'd only stop talking," she said. Maggie-Now was
astonished. She had always known her mother as kind and
considerate. She'd never heard her speak that way.
"Where have you been so long?" she asked Maggie-Now
fretfully.

 "I promised to call up Aunt Lottie because she had a
surprise for you. Gracie and Widdy had twins."

 Mary's face smoothed out. She smiled and sat down.
"Oh, isn't that nice!"

 "She said to tell you that you know how skinny and
nervous Gracie is and Gracie had an easy time. In labor
only two hours, Aunt Lottie said."

"Did she S.ly that?"

"Yes, and she was out of bed in three days."

"My, that makes me feel better. What did they name
them?"

"De Witt and Clinton," said Maggie-Now. Mary smiled
again.

 "That Big Red," burst out Pat. "That Timothy Shawn.
Still butting in. Here," he said to Maggie-Now, "I been
trying to quiet down your mother since you went to the
store. She won't listen to me. But let her hear about Big
Red's grandchildren . . ."

 "That's all right, Patrick," said Mary absently. She patted
his arm and then began giving nervous instructions as she
put her hat on.

"Keep the house up, Maggie-Now, so that it's nice and
clean

                  [ ~37 ]
                     
when I come back with the baby. And see that your father
has a hot supper when he comes home.... Oh, Maggie,
how could I get along without you! And make your
father's coffee strong in the morning. And Sunday, go
over and see Lottie. And keep off the streets while loll
away."

i'Oh, Mama, now . . "

 "And Patrick," continued Mary in an offhand way, "I
want VOU to deed over this Louse to Maggie-Now when
she marries."

"We'll talk about that when the time comes," he said.

She held his arm in a tight clutch. "Promise me. Patrick!"

"I will do so, Mary,' he said.

"You heard your father, Maggrie-.N'oN~ '

"Yes, Mama."

"Remember. He promised.'

  She gave the girl a little black bankbook. "When the
tenants pay the rent, put the m`~neN: iT1 the hank. It
must he saved for taxes and interest."

"I know, Mama."

  Mary started to put her gloves on and a pain caught
her. She dropped her gloves and held on to the hack of a
chair. Thev watched for an agonizing moment.

  "There!" said Mary. "That was the first one." Maggie-No
put her gloves on for her. l\Tary looked around vaguely.
"I didn't get all the ironing done," she fretted.

  "Now, Mama, I'll finish it," said Maggie-Now. "Don't
worrNabout a thing. I'll take good care of Papa and the
house will be shining clean for you when N'OU come
back."

  Mary started trembling violently when she walked into
the hospital. 1~- was gloomy and smelled of sickness.
The downstairs windows were barred. People stood in line
before a nurse's desk waiting to be admitted or treated.
Mary was told to sit on a bench along the wall until her
turn came. She sat between her husband and her
daughter. Pat sat- with his head down, his hands holding
his hat between his knees. Maggie-Now pulled her
mother's arm through hers and held it tightly.

  The nurse finished filling out an old man's card. She
tapped on a hell and an orderly came to take him to a
ward. The old man was weeping.

~ ',y 1

 "I will never come out alive," he wept. "No one ever
comes out of here alive."

 This was almost true. The poor people were terrified of
the hospital and few entered unless they were at death's
door. So it was logical that few cam' out alive.

 They kept Mary waiting there because there were so
many emergency cases that had to be handled
immediately. Childbirth was considered routine not an
emergency. The old man's weeping had unnerved Mary.
She had a sharp pain and when it had passed she said:

 "Patrick. Do something. Please do something!" her voice
was hysterical.

 Pat jumped to his fee' and shouted: "Where's that
damned doctor; "

 An efficient, middle-aged nun, the steel bows of her
eyeglasses making ridges in her fleshy cheeks on account
of the tightness of her coif, was passing through the room.
She turned and scowled and was about to rebuke Pat
when Doctor Scalani came into the room.

 He looked neat and efficient and almost handsome.
Even Mary looked at him in surprise. He was so different
from the last time she had seen him. He spoke
authoritatively to the desk nurse. Mary was admitted imm'
diately. A nurse came with a wheelchair to take her away.
Doctor Scalani told Maggie-Now and her father to go
home. He said he'd let them know....

 At the start of Mary'. third day in labor, Doctor Scalani
realized his life's ambition as a doctor. He was given a
consultant  a very important consultant indeed the
chief of staff of the hospital, who examined I )octor
Scalani's patient and gave him every professional courtesy,
which made Doctor Scalani feel good. It was a brief
consultation and they were in agreement.

 If labor continued to teen, they agreed, the baby would
be born dead. But there was a slight chance that the
mother would live. If they intervened and took the baby
from her, the child would live but the mother, in her
weakened condition, would die.

 So, according to the dictates of the religion, they saved
the baby and let the mother die.

                 1 /,9 ]
                    
 She knew she was going to die. She didn't review her ~
hole life as it is said one does at such a time. She had no
last word of wisdom ,r conclusion drawn from living, no
great truth to articulate before she died. She h id no
thorl~,ht save for her new-born SOII. I here was a great
achint, place adhere the child had been torn from her
body. The milk was beginning to fill her breasts. Like a
primitive creature, she whimpered for her young and
wanted to crawl to it. She begged the nurse tic get the
child and put it to her breast. The nurse concealed her
horror v. ith professional briskness.

 "After a while," she said briglltly. "After we've rested a
bit. Then we'll bring our b By in." Tile mlrse ran out in
the corridor looking for Doctor Sc~lani. She found Dill.
S!lc s..id: 'She wants to nurse her baby. Isn't that
awf~l`'

"Let her," he said.

 "But to let a live, he:iltilV t!.3bN tlLUSi' front a dN in`."
mother! It gives me the creeps."

"Let her have her Lab\;. I hat s an order."

 "Is it?" She tossed h'r head. '~170u're just an outside
doctor. T don't have to take orde s from y on."

 He grabbed her am and held it tight enough to make
her \vince. He spoke, putting a space between each word.
"I am the doctor on the case. I an1 divine Noll an order.
Nurse, take the baby to the patient."

"N'es, Doctor," the St1 d.

  I~ilere wasn t nlucl1 t Nile. I he!- sent .\laggie-N'c'~\
to her first "Just act natural," said Doctor Scalani. "That's
always best."

  There Noms a screen around Mary's bed. Itlaggie
Now's eves widened in fear u hen she S.ZNV her motller's
waxy-looking face. 'Mama!" she said. "Oh Mama! ' She
started to babble to avoid sobbing. "I got all the boiling
done, Mama. And Papa ate evervthing I cooked. And I
put nets shelf paper . . ." I\Iary heard nothing ol what she
said.

  "The baby," whispered ,NlarN. She tried to pull the
blanket away from his face and couldn't. I\~IagDie-NoNv
pulled it hack.

"Oh, isn't he tiny," exclaimed the girl. "Isn't he cute!"

'Take him up," whispered .\larv.

"What? "

                 [ ~401
                    
"Pick him up."

  Maggie-Now put the baby in the crook of her left arm.
Instinctively, she held him correctly. His head, not much
bigger than an orange, rested against her breast and went
up and down a little with the beating of her heart. She put
her outspread right hand under his little backside.

  "Why he Its, Mama," said l~laggie-Now in surprise. "He
fits to me just right!"

  "l\Iarparet: Rose!" Mary tried to smile. "You're such a
good girl, Maggie-Now," she whispered. Then she was
quiet for so long that Maggie-Now thought she was
sleeping. Maggie-Now started to croon to the badly. Mary
opened her eyes then.

  "I.isten," she whispered. "Do what I say. His bottle . . .
the doctor will tell you. Wash eyes, boric acid. Warm
sweet oil on head till soft: place closes. I(eep band on till
cord drops off. Boil diapers so no rash . . . Thillgs you
don't know, ask . . . ask Lottie or neighbor with children.
Ask . . ."

  Maggie-Now started to cry. Mary drew on some last
strength. Her voice was almost normal. "Don't cry," she
said. "I might have to stay here a few weeks. Then I'll be
home. Until then . . ."

The lie was the last sin of her life.

  A nurse appeared with Patrick Dennis. "Only one visitor
at a time," she said cheerfully,

  "await for me downstairs, would you' Ma;.gie-Now," said
list. "I don't want to go home alone."

  The girl ptlt the baby back in her mother's arms. She
kissed her mother and went downstairs to wait for her
father.

  Pat looked strange. He'd had his hair cut, his suit
pressed, his shoes shined and he smelled of bay rum. He
too had been told to act natural. Pie tried to act natural
and succeeded in acting like a stranger. He sat next to her
bed.

  Dear God, he prayed, ~ ire me another chance. Don't let
her die. I'll do letter. I'll he good to her. ] swear it!

Her lips moved. She was trying to say "Patrick."

  'Well, Mary," he said heartily. "I see we got a boy. Now
I'll leave somebody to go hunting and fishing with." (He'd
never fished or hunted in his life but he thought men were
supposed to say that when they had a new son.)

                  ~ 74/ 1
                     
 She her face to him. He looked away because the deep
caverns ha her cheeks and the black 110ll0NVS under her
eves frightened him. He talked:

 "Me vacation's coming up all-out the time IN OU get
Otlt of here. And I tell you what! We never went
nowheres before on me vacation but this time v, e'll go to
the country. You Icnow. The Catskills? Good count y
air sure and 'twill put you on your feet again. And then1
fresh eggs off the chickens every day and them vegetables
. . ."

 She looked at him with a fixed stare and her eyes
flooded with rears which ran down either side of her face.
He put his hand on hers but withdrew it N\ itilout rile
jilill~' to when he felt hoNv hot and dry her hand was.

 "Oh, Patrick," she NS hispc] ('3 ht~arst'l!r. "In all Muir
N ears N t,U never told me . . ."

"No, I never told yo i, i\lary. But I do."

 No, he had never told her that he loved her and now he
knew he did love her. l to felt he should say the word
"love" now. It was a simple word, easily sail, but he
couldn't say it. In some obscure vay, he felt it would make
him a stranger to her.

 "But I djo' friary, and you know it. I don't have to say
it. Ale arid you . . . we yeas no ver ones to sat,,- things
like that to each other because we never started out that
Nvay. But I do. I do."

"It's too late," she Nv,lispered, weeping.

 "That's no way to t.t'k," he said witl1 false heartiness.
"Wl1N-, you'll burls us all."

 It wasn't- the right thinly to salt but that's the wav he
was used to talking,. If I talk difli.~7e!t, he tilOUgllt,
si.7e'11 knob. that I kno-.: she's going to die.

 Mother Ursula, the hi ad of all nurses, lay nurses and
nursing, sisters, came in. She put her h:lnil on Pat's
shoulder and pressed it. I-le stood up.

"Was the child christe led'" he aslcecl.

 "This rnorningr," said I\~lother Urs771a. "Right after
he Nom. horn. He Noms named Dennis Patricl;."

"My Nvife?" he asked.

'Father Flyrln will stay witl1 her."

 lest undc~rstood. He ~ ot his hat from under the
chair and leaned over Mary. ~ le pro ssed his cool chee];
to her drN- cheel;.

                  ~ ~ 1
                    
"I love you, Mary," he whispered.

 He bumped into the screen as he Event. Mother Ursula
straightened it.

 A very young nun came in with a basin of water and a
towel. She washed,YIary's face and hands and feet.
Another nun brought in a small table covered with a linen
napkin and set up two beeswax candles on it. She placed
a crucifix between the candles. She arranged a tumbler of
water and a saucer of fine salt on the table. She added a
cruet of oil and a piece of cotton. Mother Ursula lit the
candles.

 Father Flynn came inside the screen carrying the Host.
The three nuns genuflected and withdrew. Father Flynn
knelt down by the bed with his ear to i\,lary's lips and she
made her last confession. He absolved her from her sins
and gave her Extreme Unction. When all was over, she
made a harsh sound of fear. He understood. He took her
hand.

 "My child," he said, "my friend. Have no fear. I'll stay
with you. I'll stay with you all the time that's left."

 But the terror grew in her. She didn't want to die! She
didn't want to die! Her hand clutched the sheet and she
made little moans. A nurse looked in and flew down to
the office to get Doctor Scal.mi. He came .ifter a while
with a hypodermic needle poised in his hand.

Father Flynn shook his head. "No," he said.

"Obviously, she's suffering," said the doctor. "This \\7ill
help.'

 "As long as one can suffer, one is living. Let her live
and suffer until life is gone."

 The doctor could have said what he had said to the
nurse: "I am the doctor on the case." But he knew Father
Flynn would say: "I am the priest." The priest took
precedence at death. To show he was in accord with the
priest, the doctor pressed the plunger of his needle and
let the liquid squirt out on the floor.

 She vitas past talking now and her terror grew. Her face
seemed like a grotesque mask with a twisted mouth.
Father Flynn spoke quietly to her but he couldn't get to
her. He prayed.

 Then the baby cried. Concern mixed with her terror.
The baby was Iying in the crook of her arm and she tried
to tighten her arm to bring the baby nearer. Her other
hand plucked futilely at the drawstring of her nightdress.
She stared at the priest and her

                 1 14.,1
                    
face went into distortions as she tried to communicate with
him. He guessed what she wanted to say. "You want me
to turn my head away?" Her face straightened out and she
waited. "I'll help VOU, my child, and I'll keep my eyes
shut."

 He felt for her arm with his eyes shut, and folded it
around the baby. Gently, he pushed the baby toward its
mother's breast. He put her other arm across the child,
placing the palm of her hand at the back of the baby's
head. He pulled the sheet up over her exposed breast.

 When he opened his eyes, he saNv that the terror had
left her face and her distorted mouth had relaxed. The
peace was bcginning to come. He sat down to stay with
her to the end as he had assured her. He waited and he
prayed while he waited.

 And soon his waiting was ended. He undid her arms and
took the child from them.

 He walked down th' hospital corridor carrying the child.
A nurse with briskly tapping heels walked past him and
smiled back over her shoulder.

 "Nursery's down the corridor, Father,' she said. 'First
turn to the right."

"I know," he said.

         ~ CHAPTER 7'TI7ENTY-ONE ~

.~10LLY MOIIIARrrY had been unable to come to the
funeral. She had nursed Aunt Henrietta through her final
illness. Molly herself was frail and failing and the news of
her only child's death had prostrated her. Cousin Robbie
came down from Boston to represent hiary's kin.

 Mary had been insured for enough to provide a simple
burial and to bun a grave. Cousin Robbie had instructions
from The .Uissus; Mary could be buried with her father
provided the money Pat saved on the grave would be used
to pay off the balance of the loan on the house. Pat
agreed. So the little house was freed.

Before he left, Glusin Robbie said: "Aunt Molly said she'd

                  ~ ~44 1
                     
be glad to take the children but on account of her poor
health . . . and she's too old . . . But my girl, Sheila, said
she'd be tickled tO death to have them. With six of her
own, she said, two more won't make much difference.
Maggie-Now would be a help and you could send so much
a week for board...."

 "I'll keep me children w ith me," said Pat. "Maggie-Now
knows how to run the house and she'll look after the boy."

 "She's young. She shouldn't be tied down with a baby.
Maybe she wants to live her own life."

 "Me mother was tied down with two children when she
was Maggie-Now's age and it didn't harm her. The girl is
strong and healthy."

"The responsibility . . "

 "It will keep her out of trouble. She'll know the work of
a home and a baby. She won't be so anxious to marry the
first clown what comes along.'

"She's not going to have much fun."

"And is that any of your business?"

 "No, Patrick," said Cousin Robbie slowly. "It's none of
mv business."

Maggie-Now had to leave school, of course.

 She didn't mind at all. She was not the studious or
bookish type. She missed her school friends and the nuns
who were her teachers. Otherwise she was glad to be done
with school. When she dropped school her girl friends
tried to continue to include her in their activities but it
couldn't work out because MaggieNow was tied down with
a house and a baby.

 The few boys she knew, had taken walks with and joked
around with, drifted away. Maggie-Now seemed a woman
all of a sudden and it made a boy feel "funny" to see a girl
with whom he had romped in Cooper's Park just weeks
ago now trundling a baby carriage through that same park.

 Her friends now were more mature: Lottie, of course,
and a neighbor or two who had helped her out with the
baby at first.

 The shopkeepers, for the most part, liked her. They
admired her courage and wished her well. Mr. Van Clees,
the Dutch cigar maker, whom Maggie-Now saw twice a
week when she bought her father's clay pipes and tobacco,
became her friend. He took

                  [ ~4; 1
                     
almost a paternal interest in the baby boy. And later she
was friends with the Vernachts, a German couple whom
she met through Mr. Van Clees.

 She cared for the baby and ran the house for her father.
Her arrangements with him were simple. He gave her two
dollars to buy groceries. When the money was gone, she
asked for more. He always said: "What 'd you do with the
last two dollars I gave you>" She always answered: "I
spent it." Then he gave her another two dollars.

 She collected the rent and put the money in the bank.
Once a year she went down so Borough Hall to pay the
taxes. She had expected her father to handle that but he
had said: "Since you're going to be the owner someday,
you learn to handle property." Sometimes there was a
little surplus in the bank after taxes. Other times the
surplus melted away when the rooms were tenantless.

 Maggie-Now was a natural-born mother. She washed the
baby and fed him and changed his diapers and had him
out in the air for a couple of hours each day. When he
started to walk and was knowing enough to get into
mischief, she took a true mother's privilege and spanked
him but always with a kiss as Sheila had done with her
children

 Like a mother, she thought Denny was exceptionally
handsome and she enjoyed the admiring looks given him
when she took him out in his buggy. She wanted nice
clothes for him, but when she asked her father's
permission to use some of the surplus rent money to buy
them, he refused, saying the money must be saved for
hard times for his old age. "When you're married to a
man in business for himself you'll have everything you
need, while me, who slaved me life away for me children,
will be sitting and starving in a ballroom in me old age."

 Because she wanted pin money of her own and because
time sometimes hung heavy on her hands, she, as the
expression went in the neighborhood, "tool; in piecework."
She "turned" kid gloves. They were made in a factory in
Greenpoint and sewn wrong side Otlt on machines. She
took bundles of them home to turn right side out. She got
twenty cents a hundred pair and made two or three
dollars a week in her odd hours.

 When she got bored with the gloves, she went to a shoe
factory and got bundles of bronze leather slipper vamps
and

                 ~ i46 ]
                    
sewed cut bronze beads on a design stamped on the vamp.
She liked the work and got satisfaction out of her neat
stitches.

 Bronze slippers went out of style and she "made beads."
These were necklaces of tiny white beads with yellow or
blue daisies at intervals much like Indian bead\vork. She
worked with five threaded needles simultaneously and
enjoyed the emergence of the daisy design.

 She considered herself fortunate to be able to earn a few
dollars a week without 1` aving her home. She used the
money to buy nice things for the baby and, once in a
while, an item of clothing for herself.

 Each time she bought a ne\N boiltlet for L)enny or a
new pair of rompers, she brought him over to l\lr. N:an
Clees's store to show him off.

"Hello, liddle Rudder," \vas his :,reethlg. 'Ho~v goes it,
hem

"Fine."

 Then he'd ask questions about the baby how much did
he vveigh now, did he cry a lot and did he eat good. He
was astonished at each answer He weighs all that? My!
Never cries and eats everything? My! ~ wonder of a boy!
A wonder!

"And do you miss you! school, Miss l\la~gie?"

 "Yes. The sisters and the girls. But I sure don't miss all
that homework."

 He gave Denny a little blue candle on his first birthday.
("in case'n you have a birthday cake for him, Miss
Maggie.") He gave him two on his second birthday and
started a tradition.

 Once Maggie-No\v, thanking him, said: "oh, Mr. Van
Clees. you should be Denny's godfather."

"That I could not be, Bliss Maggie. 1 ain't a Catholic.'

"But I see you at Mass every Sunday. Used to, anyhow."

 "I go by the Catholic churcl1 because it's nearer as my
church. But I ain't a Catholic."

"I see ' said Maggic-Now. 13ut she didn't see at all.

 .\lr. Sian Glees, a bachelor, was a chubliy Jittle man
NNho hati come from Elolland when he svas quite Young.
He had a little money and he bought a little building with
a one-windoNv store and living quarters above it. He was
a cigar maker and he set up his work table in the store
`\;indow. He worked at a long table

                  1~14'1
                     
there with hands of tobacco and a pile of new cigar boxes.
He sat there all day, except when waiting on customers,
and rolled cigars by hand, moistening the edge of the last
wrapping with his tongue to make it stick. He worked in
the window because the light was better there and because
people stopped to watch him work. He loved an audience.
He prospered in a small way. Lots of men liked
hand-rolled cigars. He also carried a stock of fine smoking
tobacco. As a third-generation cigar maker, he hated
cigarettes and refused to stock them.

 He had a wooden Indian in front of his store with war
bonnet and a short skirt made of feathers and thongs
around his legs. The Indian, which he painted each spring,
had a get-on-your-mark stance and held up a hand of
wooden tobacco as though it were a torch. The Icids said
that Van Clees's great grandfather had bought the land for
the cigar store from a chief for two dollars. And he had
"skinned" the chief, who fought with him and was killed by
the great grandfather, and the chief's body was put inside
the wooden Indian. Anyhow, that's the story the kids told.

 Mr. Van Clees was a Lutheran but there was no
Lutheran church within walking distance of his home. So
he held his own Protestant service in Father Flynn's
church which was two blocks away.

 He brought his own prayer book and hymnal. He read
the Gospel of the day sonorously in his mind; he sang the
hymns rousingly in Dutch in a deep, mumbling bass also
in his mind. He sat quietly with folded hands listening to
an imaginary sermon. The sermons suited him fine. When
he didn't want to wait, the sermon was short. When he
had time and liked to sit a while, he let the sermon go on
as long as he wished. Most of the imaginary sermons were
long because he liked to sit in the church. It was dim and
cool in summer and warm and bright in winter and where
else did he have to go on a Sunday?

 He went to church at three in the afternoon to hold his
own services. He started out by going to morning Mass but
he got tired of the dirty looks the congregation gave him
when his ritual didn't coincide with the ritual of the Mass.

 For instance, when the little silver bell tinkled out of the
scented silence and people were on their knees, hand over
heart

                  ~ 145 ~
                     
and tapping the breast gtntly each time the bell sounded,
like as not Mr. Van Clees was on his feet, opened hymn
book in hand, head thrown back and silently mouthing a
galloping hymn of joy everlasting.

 He had a habit of leaving,, bt~mping past people's
knees, at the exact time the collection plates were being
passed. People thought he was a cheapskate. He wasn't. It
was that his own private services usually came to a logical
end at the time of the collection.

 He had tried going in i-he afternoon and liked it much
better. The church, tln]ess there was a wedding or a
christening, was almost empty then and l\lr. Van Clees
could sit, stand or kneel as he chose. He could even sleep
if he vdshed.

 Father Flyml knew Ma. Van Clees wasn't a Catholic but
he urged him to use the churl h as often as he \vished. Mr.
Van Clees accepted the offer with tile pr`Jviso that Father
Flynn make no attempt to convert him.

 "Oh, you'll be a Catholic sol of d as, by osmosis, if
nothing else," said Father 1~ lynx.

 They liked each other; they \vere friends, Father Flynn
and the Lutheran. Or. Van Clees kept the priest's
humidor full of good pipe tobacco. Father Flynil
appreciated this because it ~ as indeed a poor living in
that poor parislZ.

      ~ ('1~131'ER l 11~1N1 Y-TTI'O ~

I\IR. VA;S Gl.t.s \vas instri~r,~cntil in bIin:,irlg
.~laggie-lN'ow and the Vernachts together.

 August Ve r~nacht had heed a \` i~odcuttcr back in
Germanv. When he cone to' An1el,ca, there was no trade
in Brooklyn knOV~7O as \VC30dCtittL1g. (OHS,
h~we\cr, divas handy and had an aptitude for working
with Nvf,`>cl. Isle called himself a carpenter but really he
w is a free-iance repair marl. Whell he married Annie
(American born fif German in~inigrants), he got a steady
job in a furniture factor,, that spec ialized in making
rocking chairs.

                 1 Iffy 1
                     
 Gus supported Annie, his wife, and their children on his
small but steady salary. They didn't have everything they
wanted  or even that they needed for that matter. But
they were never in actual want. They were contented.

 Gus's hobby was woodcarving. For years, now, he'd
been working on a chess set. He kept his bits of wood,
ebony, ash, oak and any other No cod that came his way,
in Van Clees's store. When he had a spare hour, he'd
drop in the store and whittle away while he and Van
Clees engaged in endless, friendly debate on the ways of
the world.

 They were pals: Gus Vernacht and Jan Van Clees. They
talked, played checkers and tried to teach each other
chess. Sometimes on a holiday, they went to Glendale
Schutzen Park and shot at targets with rented rifles and
had a few seidels of beer afterward.

 Gus knew all about l\laggie-Now before he met her. He
knew about the baby. Van Clees made a moving story of
it when he told Gus about hi r. The sentimental German's
heart was touched. Gus happened to be in the store one
Saturday afternoon when Maggie-Now came in with
Dennis to get two clay pipes for her father. After the
introductions, Gus said:

 "You must come and be friends with my Ahn-nee. A
little girl like you needs a big woman for a friend. So you
come by my house and be friends."

"Annie's a good lady, Miss Maggie," said Van Clees.

 "Ahl-zo a good mutter," said Gus. "We got the boy,
Chamesee, and he has eight years. And the baby, T'ressa,
she is z~vei months younger as your brother, Denn-ty
here. And my Ahnnee, she will be good by you, and give
you to eat cake and coffee, and put you in the bed to rest
and cover you up. And you want to go down on the street
and walk with the other girls? She will mind Denn-ty for
you."

"You go see Annie, Miss Maggie," advised Van Clees.

"I'll ask my father."

 She asked him. Pat didn't like the idea. "HONV do I
know who these: people are?"

 "They're well known in the neighborhood. And after all,
Papa, I'm eighteen. I know what I'm doing."

"The I [Ouse of the Good Shepherd is full-a girls,
eighteen,

                ~ ISIS ~1
                    
what knew what they were doing,'' he said darkly.

"What house?"

"Where they put wayward girls."

"I'm not wayward."

"Things happen before you know it," he said mysteriously.

 He had a clutch of fear. She Divas growing up. She
looked mature for her age. Why, he had started courting
Maggie Rose when she had been a year younger than
Maggie-Now. It had been the girl's virtue and her
mother's nosiness and not his inclination that had kept
Maggie Rose virginal.

 But that was nearly twenty-five years ago, he consoled
himself. Things is differed' roods. Girls that y OUMg don't
keep steady company nowadays.

 Still there is things she Would boom. ,llary, why did you
have to die ~vLen the girl Penis a another so bad to tell her
things? I can't tell her.

 No, he couldn't. As levity many fathers, the thought of
sex in his daughter's life -was abhorrent to him. He
couldn't stand the thought of any male lusting after her.

 For the first time, he worried about his daughter. He
knew that in some ways the congested neighborhood was
a jungle where men preyed on girls: innocent girls,
susceptible girls and willing girls. He knew of the narrow,
trash~filled back alleys, the dark cellars, tenement
rooftops cluttered with chimney pots, vacant stores where
doors could be forced . . . he knew all of these places
where men took young girls for their purposes.

 He had thought his daughter was safe in the home and
where else did she go? To the store and sometimes to
Lottie's house. But was she safe? This m in who invited
her to his home to meet his wife: Maybe he didn't have a
wife; maybe that was a comeon. Something else came to
his mind.

 A month before, the upstairs had been rented to a
mother and father who worked and their son, about
twenty, who didn't have a job and loafed around the house
all day. After they had examined the empty rooms and
had announced when they'd move in, the woman Ad
commented Otl the fact that Pat's daughter was young to
be married and have a two-year-old baby.

"She ain't married,' said lilac.

                  1 151 1
                     
 The woman exchanged a surprised look with her
husband and their son grinned.

"That's why the baby has her maiden name for his last
name."

 "He has Sty name. He's my son. His mother died in
childbirth."

 "I see. Well, that's all right." She exchanged another
look with her husband.

 Pat wondered how many men, strangers to the
neighborhood  newcomers believed that Maggie-Now
had an illegitimate son. Did those kind of men think she
was available? He recalled the fellow upstairs how he
had been standing on the stoop one time when
Maggie-Now had gone out to the store and how the young
man had looked after her as she walked down the block.

 He was angry with his daughter because she made him
concerned about her and spoiled the even tenor of his
days. So he shouted at her, not realising that she couldn't
know what he had been thinking: "And I don't want you
making free with that loafer upstairs, either."

 "Papa! Where'd you ever get the idea . . ." She stopped
abruptly. She had had some contact with the boy upstairs.

 A week ago, he'd come to the door and asked politely
if the upstairs tenants had the privilege of the yard. She
said they did and she let him go through her rooms
because there vvas no other way to reach the yard. He
explained that he wanted to get a little tan. He pulled his
shirt off in the yard and bounced a ball against the
wooden fence. She watched him through the kitchen
window, admiring his manly torso and wishing she could
go out and play handball with him.

 She decided he must never walk through their rooms
again. Suppose her father came back during the day for
some reason or other and he found the young man in the
kitchen! He wouldn't accept any explanation she could
make. Thereafter, she kept her door locked when she was
in the house alone w ith Denny and didn't answer when
he knocked.

 One evening in the time between after supper and dark,
she was sitting on the stoop with Denny. She was restless.
She dreaded the evening ahead. She'd put Denny to bed
and then what? She'd ovals about the house looking for
something to do

                 ~ 1521
                    
to kill the long evening. She and her father seldom
conversed with each other at any length. She was not an
avid reader and what was there to do but go to bed?

 She didn't want to go to bed. She wanted to be out
walking these summer nights with some girls her own age.
She wanted to laugh and exchange confidences. She
wanted some boy to call for her and take her for a walk;
treat her to a soda. She wanted to ride on an open car to
Coney Island with a bunch of boys and girls and laugh
with the girls at the way the boys cut up. She wanted to
ride side saddle on a merry-go-round horse with a nice
young man standing at her side, his arm about her waist,
pretending he had to hold her so's she wouldn't fall off.
She closed her eyes and dreamed the scene: The blend of
merry-goround music and the voices of barkers and the
hum of talking voices and laughter and the sound of the
sea. The smells mixed of hot corn and cotton candy and
candied apples on a stick and over all the heavy salt smell
of the sea. And the breeze and the motion of the
merry-go-round making her hair blow back and the
delicious reaching out for a grasp at the gold ring and the
nice-looking young man looking up to smile at her and his
arm tightening automatically about her waist when the
horse went up . . .

 That was her sudden dream. She closed her eyes to see
the reality. She got up at seven each morning to get
breakfast for her father. She did the housework. The
rooms were few and the furnishings sparse. She had it
neat and shining in an hour. She drew out her shopping as
long as she could. The storekeepers were her only social
contacts. At ten, save for getting a simple lunch for herself
and the baby and preparing a simple supper for the three
of them, her work was done. The long day and evening
stretched out interminably.

 She washed her hair and filed her nails and washed
clothes that were already clean and pressed things that
needed no pressing and did piecework when she could get
it. On nice days she wheeled Denny to the park, first
walking down the block and asking the neighbor wo nen
if they would let her take a preschool child along as long
as she had Denny anyhow. She usuall

took three or four small children to the park with her.

But all this wasn't enough. She was strong and healthy and
vital

                 ~ `'y3 1
                     
and full of energy. She wanted to work hard. She wanted
to go to places. She wanted friends her own age. She
wanted to talk and laugh with young people. She wanted
to work in a factory; she Nvanted to work in a store
measuring cloth or wrapping up dishes. Most of all, she
wanted to "go out."

 She thought of Annie Vernacht. When Gus had told her
about his Annie, Maggie-Now had thought how wonderful
it \vould be to be friends with Annie; to have someone
pour her a cup of coffee, cut her a piece of cake. And
Gus had said Annie would mind Denny.... Maggie-Now
had planned that, for each hour Annie would mind Denny
while she, Maggie-Now, went out, Maggie-Now would
mind Annie's children three hours to pay back.

 But her father didn't v ant her to visit the Vernachts.
And that was that.

 The young man from upstairs clattered down the stoop.
He touched the brim of his hat and said it was a pleasant
evening. She agreed, turning her head away as she spoke
in case her father was watching from the window.

 As she put Denny to bed, she made up her mind. She
would go and visit Annie Vernacht and she wouldn't tell
her father.

 The following Sunday afternoon, she dressed Denny in
his nicest rompers, slicked down his hair, dressed herself
up and told her father she was going out and would be
home in time to cook his supper. I le grunted without
looking up from the paper he was reading.

 "Come in! Come in!!' boomed Gus. " I his is my
Ahn-nee. ' He grabbed his hat. "I go now by Jan's cigar
store and leave the ladies to talk lady talk." He left.

 Annie was hospitable but bewildered. Gus, like many
another man before him, had forgotten to tell his wife he
had invited Maggie-Now for a visit. In fact, he had
forgotten to tell her anything at all about the girl.

Annie smiled. Maggie-Now smiled. "Sit down," invited
Annie.

 The room was neat, warm and peaceful. The boy,
Jamesie, leaned against his mother's knee. The baby,
Theresa, slept in her nrother's arms. Another baby, soon
to come, lay quietly in the womb.

                  [ 151
                    
 Dennis struggled to get out of his sister's arms. "Can I
put him down?" asked Maggie-Now.

"Sure, sure."

 She put Denny on the floor. He staggered around
frantically for a few seconds, then crawled under the table
and composed himself for sleep. He slept during the entire
visit.

"What's her name?" asl~ed Jamesie.

  "Sh! " said Annie. Smiling at Maggie-Now, she said: "I
ant Annie."

The girl smiled back. '1 know."

"And you?" Gus had forgotten to tell his wife the girl's
name.

"I'm Margaret Moore. ~ ou know. Maggie-Now?"

  Again they exchanged smiles. The girl sat with her hands
in her lap waiting for the friendship to begin. Annie
wished there was some tactful way in which she could ask
the young girl what was the object of the visit. Annie
cleared her throat.

"You are young to be a mother."

"Oh, he's my brother. Iffy mother died when he was born."

  "I think maybe I saw her on the street. Some ladies was
telling me about her baby COlrling. Your father: He is the
street sweeper? "

"Yes. Street cleaner. He's home,'' she added.

  "He's got good work. Steady. My man, he makes tile
rocking chairs."

"I know. Mr. Van Clee. told me."

"Ah, that Jan!" Annie smiled mysteriously.

  Maggie-Now, half child, half woman, wondered: lilill she
ask me if I'd like her to mind DenrZy sometime, like Mr.
I~eriZacht said, so I car go out by myself sometime?

Annie thought: What must I say to her flow?

  Annie was good and kind but inarticulate and shy. If
Gus had only thought to tell her about Maggie-Now! She
would have been so happy to take the girl into her heart
and her warmth. Gus would have denied that he had
forgotten to tell his wife all about Maggie-Now. It was that
they had so much wordless and perfect understanding
together that he thought somehow Annie knew as much
about Maggie-Now as he did. Annie sat there trying to
draw on this unspoken understanding. The most she could
get was that something was expected of her; that Gus

                 ~ ~ i'; 1
                     
had prepared the girl for something and the girl now
expected it. But what?

"Did Gus say I should do something? 'she asllied gently.

 Maggie-Now's face flushed with embarrassment. So Gus
had said nothing to his Annie and she, Maggie-Now, had
come there so brash expecting . . .

"No," she said. "Nothing."

 There was a little more forced conversation and then
l\laggieNow prepared to leave. The good-by-s were
effusive because both were ill at ease and the good-bye
were something they could get their teeth into.

"You come again when you can stay longer,' said Amlie.

 "And you come to my house some afternoon," said
MaggieNow. "I'll make coffee."

 Annie did not return the visit. Some weeks later,
Maggie-Now saw Gus in the cigar store and told him she
hoped Annie would come for a cup of coffee sometime.

 "Ahn-nee, she don't go out now," he explained. "The
baby comes soon. But you come by our house."

 "I will," said Maggie-Now. I3ut she didn't. And Annie
never did come to see her.

 Van Clees told Maggie-No\v when Annie's baby, a boy,
was born. He had been named Albert August.
Maggie-Nov.~ gave Mr. Van Clees a pair of booties to
give to Gus to give Annie. She gave a verbal message: She
would come to see Annie and the baby as soon as Annie
got over the ordeal of birth. Annie sent a message by Gus,
who gave it to Van Clees, who gave it to l\laggie-Now:
Annie would collie and visit ~Iaggie-Now as soon as she
got on her feet.

 They never did get together. However, whenever Gus
saw the girl he said: "Ahn-nee sends best regards."
.Maggie-Nov always said: "Likewise."

 One day the cigar store was closed. There was a sign in
the window: ('losed on Account of Death in the Faultily.

 Gus Vernacht had not been a relative of Van Clees but
the cigar maker had borrowed the sign from the baker
who had bought it two years ago when his wife's father
died. Van Clees could not cross out In the Fancily and
print in Of Friend because

                  1 ii61
                     
the baker wanted it bacl. He thou,~,ht he might have to
use it again. He had a lot of relatives.

 About Gus: It was nothing you could put your finger on;
nothing you could anticipate. He went to bed one night as
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-NO\V 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 l\Iaggie-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 . . ." i\laggie-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 then 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. The 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 l\laggie-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
of fortysix with two children to support without a mother. I
say let them kill each other over ~here. They're all a bunch
of foreigners anyhow. Why should we butt in?

  He looked at his son. Bv the time he gets big, he decided,
war will be a thing of the past. Maggie-Now. If she was a
boy, she'd have to go if there was a war. But there won't be.
The worst thing that could happen to her is some no-good
man will come along . . .

  He looked at his daughter. She had put aside her book
and vitas on the floor helping Denny with his houses. She
was twentyone now and well formed.

  She's a woman, now, he thought, and it's just a question
of time when she'll marry and leave the home. The boy will
start school

                  ~ 'AS ]
                     
soon and he'll grow up .luick,, arid before you know it he'll
be out of the house, too, a.,.d I'll be left all alone in me old
days.

 He sat there and wondered what life would have been
like were he friends with his children. He had to admit he
had his lonely times. He would have liked to be one with
them instead of the outsider who, came home every night
and lived there, yet had no part in their secret lives. He
wished now that he had started to gain Maggie-Now's love
and friendship when she was a little girl. Encouraged her
to confide in him; brought her home little surprises and
made her laugh in delight in the way ,f children.

 In the warm, c'~,mforttble room with his children
nearby, he was cold and lonely. ~\Iaybe it w asn't too
late. Maybe he could y et make friends with them.

 I've ,,,never mistreated t,,.,e,,n, he thought. I've given them
a honze and they have plenty or food and I match that
nothing had 1.~appe7is to them,. But why then does the
boy stop laughing 07' talking or whatever he's doing where
I cone home nights?

"Denny," said Maggie--Now. "It's time for bed."

 "Maggie-Now," said Pat, "after the boy goes to Ted, sit
down with your father and we'll talk things over."

 A look of alarm came over her face. "What did I do?"
she asked "Was it the supper? I know the potatoes
weren't mashed good because Denny kept bothering
me...."

"No, no. I mean . . ."

 "Is it my dress? I didn't take money to buy a new- c,ne.
This is an old one. I dyed it and put a new collar on."

"No. I just want to talk to you."

"About what, Papa?"

"Nothing Anything. IUSt talk."

  'is something the matter? Something I can fix up? Just
tell me what and I'll try."

  "Never mind," he said. "Never mind. I just thought we
could say things. I could say something and then \70U
could say somerhing."

"Say what things, Papa?"

  "Well, like I'd say: 'l)enny's got red hair and nobody in
me family or your mothe,'s family had red hair. Only
Timmv ~ Z661

Shawn and he was no relation.' Then you could say . . ."

 "Denny can't help it that he's got red hair. And he's a
good boy just the same."

"I didn't say he wasn't,' shouted Pat, now exasperated.

  He sighed and got his hat and went down to the corner
saloon for a beer. He had more than one.

  "You know," he told the bartender, "I once had two of
the nicest children a man ever had and I lost them."

"That's the way it goes," said the bartender.

         ~ CHAPTER TWENTY-FT VE ~

"No," said Patrick Dennis Moore. "Denny goes to public
school."

"But I went to parochial school," said Maggie-Now.

  "Your mother wanted you to be with the Sisters. I let her
have her way."

"I liked it and I know Lenny would like it too."

  "I don't believe in mixing religion with education.
Weekdays for school and Sundays for church. He goes to
P.S. 49. When the doctor in the clinic shows up, take the
boy to be vaccinated."

  Maggie-Now brought Denny to see Mr. Van Clees on
the boy's birthday The cigar man had six blue candles for
him.

  "I have another friend," he said. "For her, pink candles;
six of them. Tessie came along two months after this young
man was born. You know Tessie? Annie's little girl?"

  "She was a baby when [ saw her. How time flies! And
how is Annie? "

  "She works still by the lunch counter in the five-ten. She
has now bad trouble with her feet standing up all the
time."

  "I thought she'd marry again a nice woman like that. It
seems she'd have chances."

  "No. Gus was the only man for her. Maybe some man
would like to marry her, alone. But three children?" He
turned up his palms and shrugged his shoulders.

                  ~ /67 1
                     
 I sz~ppo.se, thought Maggie-Now, nobody will ever
marry me because I have Denny. Maybe when Denny grows
lip . . . but by that time, I'U be too old.

"And how are Annie's other children?"

"Jamesie he is in long pants novv."

"No! "

 "He is twelve and he is big. He works Saturday bringing
the groceries to the houses for the man."

"That helps out a little."

 "Ah, yes. And that Tcssie! My, she's pretty. And so
good! But that Albie! You know him? No he wasn't born
~et, then. Almost four years old now. And bad? Oh, my!"

"That's a shame."

 "He is bad because there is no father to say, 'No!' Was
Gus still living . . ." He sighed, then brightened up again.
"And you, Miss Maggie? A fine young woman you are
now. Do you keep company with some nice young man?"
She shook her head. "A pity. You should marry and have
children. You are such a good mudder."

"I don't have much chance to meet young men."

 "Well, the boy goes to school soon. Then you have time
for yourself. You go out then with the young girls and
meet their brothers. Maybe you steal some man away
from another girl. That's the way to do it. Was I only a
young man," he said gallantly.

 Maggie-Now was flattered and embarrassed. "Now
where did that boy go to?" she sahl, frowning. "He knows
I'm taking him tO be vaccinated and he s trying to duck
out of it. Well, thank you, Mr. Van Clees, for the candles
and give my regards to Annie when you see her."

 Maggie-Now was twenty-two. She was restless and
lonely and needed young friends. Of course, she had old
friends. Father Flynn was a friend but she was too awed
by him ever to have the easy but respectful friendship her
mother had had with the priest. Then there was good Mr.
Van Clees and some of the storekeepers and neighbors
who were her good friends, but they were all older than
Maggie-Nos~o She longed for friends of her own age
and generation.

1 1681

 Of course, there was always but as Maggie-Now grew to
womanhood she saw less and less of Lottie. The twins
were living with Lottie now. Widdy, believing America's
entry into the war was imminent and being afraid he
wouldn't be drafted (because he had a wife and two
children), enlisted in the navy. Gracie turned the twins
over to Lottie and got a job and a room down near the
Brooklyn Navy Yard. She liked to see the ships come in.
Widdy might be on one of them.

 Lottie had her hands full. Her mother was old and
senile and needed constant care as did the twins. But she
loved the twins dearly and supported them and her
mother and herself on Timmy's pension. Lottie told
Maggie-Now it vitas hard, sometimes, to make the pension
"reach."

 Sometimes Gracie's mother love got the better of her
and she took the twins away from Lottie. Lottie would cry
because she missed the children. It always happened that,
when Lottie got adjusted to not having the twins, Gracie
brought them back again.

 Whenever Maggie-Now went to visit her, Lottie was in
a turmoil. If the kids were there, she'd complain about
being overworked, getting no rest and the money not
reaching. If the twins were away from her, she'd weep for
De Witt and Clinton, whom she referred to as "My little
steam-y boats," and she'd tell Maggie-Now it was "like a
big piece was ripped out of me when the little steam-y
boats were taken from me."

 Lottie still wore her hair in a pompadour, although that
was old-fashioned now. She wore the same kind of dresses
she'd worn when her Timmy was alive. She no longer wore
bustles and ruffles because, with adv.mcing age, she lost
the urge to be desirable.

 Maggie-Now did not enjoy poor Lottie's company as
much as she used to. Lottie's life was standing still, and
when MaggieNow was with her the girl felt that her life
too had been frozen, as far as Lottie was concerned, in the
year of Timmy's death.

 Lottie still told the same old stories about Big Red and
Patsy Dennis and Kilkenny and the thrashing and
Margaret Rose and the Moriaritys. Maggie-No\v was tired
of the old stories and she was irritated that Lottie's world
was fixed in those olden times and that she expected
Maggie-Now's to be fixed in the same times.

                   ['69]
                     
  Maggie-Now got r estless at the many repetitions of the
phrases: "And that kept us sweethearts," or, "So we staved
sweethearts to the end." Maggie-Now didn't think it right
that this aging woman still considered herself a sweetheart
when Maggie-Now, who was in her early twenties, had no
anecdotes about sweethearts. It wasn't fair. The friendship
waned as Lottie kept talking of the past and Maggie-Now
kept wondering about the future.

  When Denny started school, Maggie-Now was at loose
ends. She had many lonesome hours on her hands. She
got a little tired of the house and the same old streets and
stores and the same Old people. She wanted a change to
see and to know new things. She got a little frightened.

  Why, I might get old aild die before I've ever lived, she
thought.

  The girl was young, vital, healthy and had a normal sex
urge  although she'd never think of calling it that. She
wanted to marry and lie in bed with her husband. She
wanted to love and to be loved. She wanted children. She
had her desperate moments when she wondered how
she'd ever get to know any man whom she could marry.
No young men ever came to the house and she couldn't
pick someone up off the street.

So she was all ready for Claude Bassett when he showed
up.

         ~9 CHAPTER TTUENTY-SIX ~

CLAUDE BASSETT drifted into Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Nobody knew where he came from because he didn't say.
He was tall and good-looking but a little too thin. He had
a closely clipped small mustache and he wore pants and
coat that didn't match, which made him very conspicuous
in a neighborhood where men wore pants, coat and vest
all made of the same material. He smoked cigarettes,
which made him suspect in a community where men
smoked cigars or pipes or chewed tobacco.

His speech was precise English on the academic or even
lit

                  [ 17 ~1
                     
eraryside. This was a strange affectation or was it a sort of
defense? After :he warmed up to a person or began to
feel at ease with someone, his English w as just as
colloquial as the next man's.

 He had what appeared to be another mannerism. When
one spoke to him, he listened intently for a moment, then
cocked his head sharply sidewise. I his gave the
impression that he didn't want to miss one precious word
of what the person was saying. It was very
flattering especially to women. They felt that he hung on
to every word they said.

 As a matter of fact, he had a punctured eardrum which
made him deaf in his left ear. Therefore, the habit of the
sharp turn of his right car to the speaker, in order to
enable him to hear better. He cocked his head more for
women than for men because men spoke louder and he
didn't have to strain to hear.

 He would have been su rprised to know that he was
under observation as he walked the streets. He thought he
moved about unnoticed in that strange, teeming, yet quiet
neighborhood with its old-law tenements and new walk-up
apartment houses and slanted-roof houses dating back to
pre-Revolutionary times wedged in between the larger
buildings. He would have been surprised to know that
lATilliamsburg, along with Greenpoint, Flushing and
Maspeth, still retained the customs and way of thinking of
the small town. And he vitas a newcomer in a small town.

 Maggie-Now first saw kiln in Van Clees's store when
she went to buy tobacco for her father. Claude Bassett
had some placards under one arm and a burning cigarette
in his other hand. He was talking earnestly to Van Clees
in a very educated voice and Van Clees was answering
with ;l flat, uneducated "No." Claude gave Maggie-Now a
quick appraising look when she walked in and then
continued urging something on Van Clees.

 Maggie-Now gathered that the young man was trying to
rent Van Clees's store in the evenings for a week. She
heard him mention "school." Van Clecs said "No," looking
with distaste the while at the cigarette in the man's hand.
Ingratiatingly, the man asked something about a card in
the window and it was "No" again. Maggie-Now felt sorry
for the man. She wished she could tell him he'd get
nothing from Van Clees while he held a cig,arette, the
way Van Clees 1lated cigarette smokers.

                  ~ 1-1 ~
                     
 Later, Maggie-Now saw his placard in a grocery-store
window. It announced a free course in salesmanship.
"Earn twenty dollars a week in your spare time. Nothing
to buy and etc. etc." Classes were to start the following
Monday and the place where instructions would be given
was written in ink at the bottom of the placard.

 Schools were always cropping up in the neighborhood.
Someone was always setting one up in a parlor, a loft, a
basement or a too-long-vacant store which could be
rented for a song. Selfstyled teachers gave lessons in
tatting, tattooing, singing, dancing, juggling everything.
There were lessons in marcel waving and in how to sit and
stand and breathe; how to make hair grow, how to get rid
of hair growth, how to develop your bust and how to grow
mushrooms in the cellar.

 So many teachers w ho knew these things and couldn't
get rich by knowing them thought they could get rich by
telling other people how to do them. Those who took
lessons or courses dreamed of being headliners in
vaudeville like those other Brooklyn boys, Van and
Schenck, or a dancer like Irene Castle, or getting to be
Miss Flatbush with a developed bust or being in a carnival
to exhibit hair that grew in waves down to the ankles like
the Seven Sutherland Sisters on the hair-tonic bottle.

 No teacher became rich; no pupil's dream came true.
All that teacher or pupil garnered was a little gleam of
hope for a while. None of the schools lasted long; a week
or two or, at the most, a month. But they brr ught a little
interest and excitement to the community.

 Maggie-Now decided to attend the classes. One, she was
interested in making twenty dollars a week in her spare
time. Two, she was anxious to get out, be with other
people; and, three (she didn't fool herself at all), she
wanted to see more of Claude Bassett.

 The school was an upstairs dentist's waiting room on
Grand Street. The dentist didn't practice nights and the
waiting room just stood there and the dentist thought he
might make a dollar or two out of it.

The little room was crowded w hen Maggie-Now arrived.

                 [ ~7-'1
                    
There were about a dozen women there and four men.
The women ranged in ages from eighteen to forty. The
men were nearer middle age and one was quite old. There
weren't enough seats. Five women sat on a wicker settee
meant for three. The others were two to a chair. They sat
slightly sidewise, turned a little away from each other.
They looked like Siamese twins joined at the hip. The
men sat on the floor. They looked awkward and ill at
ease.

  The scent of Djer Kiss and Quelque Fleurs talcum
powder and of Pussy Willow face pow der and of sachet
powder that smelled like sweet, warm candy tilled the
room. This scent was interlarded with the acrid medicinal
smell belonging ho dentists' offices.

  I'm the stilly flue, thought .~1ag~gie-N't>>v ruefully,
without cologne on.

  The women for the most Part wore cheap georgette
waists, transparent enough for the camisole, beaded with
pink or blue baby ribbon, to show through, or crepe de
(,hine waists and long, tight skirts with wide, cinching
belts. They wore beads and pearl button earrings and
dime-store hracclers which filled the air with jingle-jangle.

  Their hair was arranged in the styles of the day: spit
curls or dips or an iron marcel wave. The youngest girl,
being the most daring, had a Dutch cut. She thought it
made her look like Irene Castle. All seemed to have the
same makeup faces powdered dead white with two coats
on the nose, painfully plucked eyebrows and mouths
painted to look like baby rosebuds.

  Why, it's like a party, or a dance, decided Maggie-Now,
the way everybody's so dressed zap. They didn't come here to
learn anything, she thought derisively. They came to get a
man! Listen to me, she chided herself. As if I didn't cone
here for the same thing!

  "Good evening," said C laude Bassett, who was sitting
behind a small table on which were piled a dozen books.

  I know her, he thought. I've known her for a lore; time.
Bitt W]~?o is she? He smiled at ~NIaggie-Now.

  She smiled back. He's trying to place me she thought. He
doesn't remember he saw me ifs the store.

"I'll fetch you a chair," he said to .~1aggie-Now.

                 [ '73 ]
                    
"She gets personal service yet," whispered one girl to
another. He went into the dentist's lavatory and brought
out a threelegged stool. They stood a second, the stool
between them, and looked steadily at each other.

  She sat apart from the rest on the low stool. Claude's
eyes roved over the others but alv,~a~7s came back to
rest on her. She wore a plainly made, russet-colored dress.
It was high in the neck and had long sleeves and a full
skirt. Her thick, straight, dark brown hair was in two
braids wound around her head. He thought her mouth
was too wide but then he realized it was not
foreshortened by lipstick. In fact, she wore no makeup
and no ornaments.

  She's as wholesome, he thou kit, as an apple on an
India'~-s?'mmer afternoon.

  She felt his interest. Oh, why, she moaned, didn't 1 wear
my blue dress with the lace collar and cuffs and my
rhinestone neck1dee and a hat, and I moist plot lipstick on
hereafter so my mouth don't look so big.

  He stood up and tapped the edge of the table with his
pencil. The jingle-jangle of the bracelets stopped suddenly
and the waves of scent seemed to settle in the room like
a fog.

  "This is a course in salesmanship. Salesmanship is the
art of using friendly persuasion to induce people to buy
merchandise that they are quite certain they do not
Avant." He paused. The "class" looked stunned. This
unnerved him. He didn't know it was their way of paying
absolute attention. He continued. "To sell, one must have
a product and," he paused, "personality." He looked at
Maggie-Novv.

  "This is our product." He picked up one of the small
books. "This is The Book of Everything."

  There was a rustle among the girls and a perfumed
murmur of "Everything?'

"Everything," he said fimlly.

  From somewhere, he got a stack of matted colored
litho,,raphs. He held one up. "It tells you how to set a
table for guests." The picture showed a table with a lace
cloth and candles and American beauty roses and silver
and crystal with a turkey on a platter and champagne in
a cooler. "How to fix a stopped-up sink." He showed a
picture of a naked sink. "How to dress a

                 [ /-f 1
                    
baby." They saw a pink and blue and golden chernh in a
lacebedecked bassinette. "How to clean wallpaper . . ."

 Then he showed them the pictures as transferred to the
book. There was some disappointment. In the book, the
illustrations were two by four inches and in black and
white.

 After extolling the book and illustrations, he went into
the sales approach. "The best time to approach the
prospect is after dinner when he is relaxed and in a
mellow mood." One of the men raised his hand.
"(question?" asked Claltde Bassett.

"I work in the afternoon," said the man.

"He means after supper," explained one of the other men.

 "Of course," said Claude "Thank you." He continued.
"After supper, then. You hold the book in the crook of
your arm . . . so. You ring the bell or knock on the door
and greet the prospect with a pleasant smile. Your
approach is: 'I am . . .'" He looked at Maggie-Now.
"What's your name`" he asked.

"Me?" she said.

"Please."

"Margaret Moore."

 Now, he thought, I know how, she books. 1 knave the
so~`n`1 of her voice and I know her name.

 "You smile, then, and say: 'I am Margaret Moore. I live
down the block a way and I came over to see how you
folks are getting along.' Allow the prospect to talk, and
then, as if by the way, mention the book...."

 The hour dragged on. I^1ATO of the men sitting on
the floor played a surreptitious game of odds-and-evens
with their fingers. The old man was sound asleep, legs
spread out, back against the wall and snoring in rhythm to
the rise and fall of Claude's voice. The fourth man sat
with his chin in his hand staring moodily at the pattern of
the oilcloth covering the floor. Maggie-Now sat with her
hands loosely clasped in her lap with a serene half smile
on her lips. The other girls leaned forward tensely, staring
at Claude, not hearing a word he said, but trying
subconsciously to project themselves as desirable females
to the attractive male.

 At last, Claude got to the heart of the matter: making
money. He told them that the first lesson was free. There
would be four more at a quarter a lesson. At the end of
that time, each would be given a certificate and a copy of
The Book of Everything,

                 ~ 17s:1
                    
free. They would then go forth and sell the book for two
dollars. With that money, they'd get two books from him
at the salesman's price of one dollar per copy. They'd sell
these and buy four; sell those, buy eight . . . sixteen . . .
thirty-two . . . s~xtyfour . . . And so on into infinity, it
seethed. And all for an initial investment of one dollar
and a little spare time!

 Maggie-Now recalleci the time in her childhood when
she had tried pyramiding her capital. She had a weekly
allowance of five cents. Wishing merely to double her
money, she bought ten pretzels from the cellar pretzel
baker at the wholesale price of two for a cent. She
borrowed her mother's market basket, stuck a stick in the
end, put the pretzels on the stick and sold the ten that
afternoon in Cooper's Park.

 It seemed easy to double her money again. The next day
after school, she bought twenty pretzels and managed to
sell them although she had to stay out longer. The next
day v. as Saturday. She debated whether to take her profit
and quit or go on. She bought fony pretzels. She sold two.
Then the rains came. It rained three days. The pretzels
got soggy and MaggieNow lost not only her profit but her
initial investment of five cents. In addition, her father had
been angry and made her eat most of the pretzels in lieu
of bread, for almost a week. Remembering, she laughed
aloud.

 Claude looked up Prickly. "You are amused, I\liss
Moore-' he asked.

"No. I was just remembering the pretzels."

 "The zvEat-" he asked, astonished. He tilted his head
sharply to hear better.

 "The pretzels." (Only she pronounced it the Brooklyn
wav  Pretzels.)

 He threw his head hack and burst into laughter. The
men laughed. The girls stirred and the room was full of
jingle-jangle and disturbed layers of perfume.

One of the men said "She's full of life."

 Another answered. 'Yeah. I wish my wife . . ." He put
away the disloyal thought. 'Anyway, my wife's a hard
worker."

 The other girls relaxed their tense attitude of sweet
attentivencss. They knew they had lost. This Miss
Margaret Moore had captured the handsome teacher's
interest and attention. They

                 ~ 17<s]
                    
whispered to each other under the laughter of the men.

"I wouldn't be found dead in a tacky dress like hers."

"I bet she made it herself."

"Yeah. Without a pattrin, too."

"And that old-time hair comb she's got!"

"I couldn't be forward like her. I'd sooner die a old maid."

  Claude tapped for silence. "All who wish to continue,
please remain to register."

  It seemed that everyone tried to get out of the door at
once. When the smoke had settled that is, when the
waves of scent stopped swirling and the jingle-jangle died
away there were five people left behind: three women,
the old man and MaggieNow.

  Oh, well, thought one of the women, maybe the old man
has a nice son I can get to meet.

  Another, about thirty with graying hair, thought: He
might have a brother . . . a little younger.

  The third one wiped her glasses and thought: It's hard
for a decent girl to get a chance to meet a decent man any
man. Just the same, though, it's better to sit here nights than
to sit alone in that hall room of mine.

  Maggie-Now registered last, after the others had left.
She wrote her name slowly and carefully because she
knew he was watching her and she wanted to write nicely.

  Watching, he thought: Beautiful hands. Strong, shapely,
capable and thank God she doesn't file her nails to a point
like so many wom:erl do.

  Why, oh ~why, she thought, didn't I take time to file my
nails and buff then? My hands must look just awful to him.

  "Thank you," he said, when she returned his leaky
fountain pen, the point toward herself, as the nuns had
taught her to do.

  He gave her a slow smile. She grinned back. He stood
up and took a deep breath. "Tell fine about the pretzels,"
he said.

"I'll put the stool away first," she said.

  She carried it into the dentist's lavatory. She looked at
herself in the mirror. She was surprised she looked the
same as before because she felt that some great change
had taken place in her during the evening.

She searched her mirrored face and thought how queer it
was

[ ~7~?]

that she didn't know him at all and yet had that feeling
that she had known him always. And how natural and
right it seemed that they were alone together in this
place sort of like keeping house.

 She straightened the hanging mirror. She noticed some
spilled face powder on the basin's ledge and wiped it off
with a piece of toilet paper. She pulled the roller towel
down until a clean place showed up. Lastly, she put the
seat down on the toilet. The cubicle looked neater that
way. She gave the place a last searching look before she
left it.

There! she told herself with satisfaction.

 She went back into the waiting room and told him
about the pretzels. She straightened the room as she
talked. He'd put the magazines back on the little table.
(They had been put on the floor to make room f`,r his
copies of The Book of l~verytinng.) The magazines were
piled helter skelter. She interrupted her story to chick,
"Tech! Tsch!" \vhile she stacked the magazines neatly.

 I hope she's not a `'oily straightener, he thought. If she is,
I'il break her of it

 "So I had twenty cents . . ." she went on with her story.
She started to push the settee back to the wall.

 "No, no," he protested. "You stand there and look pale
and helpless while I move it."

"Helpless?" she asked, pu7.71ed.

No sense of humor. 'he told himself.

". . . Then you bought fort\ pretzels."

"And it rained . . ."

 Under the settee, she found an orange powder puff
Iying in a little nimbus of face powder that had shaken off
when the puff dropped to the floor. ',he threw it into the
wastebasket. He fished it out and put it in his pocket.

 "Have to get rid of it," he said. "Compromising. Dr.
Cohen may be married."

So may you, she thought.

As if divining her thought, he said: "lout I'm not;."

 First she looked startled, then relieved. She finished the
pretzel stores He tucked his books and pictures under his
arm. They stood

                ~ d'?8 1
                    
at the door ready to lease. She looked around the room
lingeringly as some women are prone to do when they
leave a room which belongs to them and which they had
attended to.

"Now 1'1] wind the cat and chuck out the clock," he said.

"What?" she asked, puzzled.

  Serious minded. I warns you, Bassett, he admonished
himself, she's not one to like joking.

  "Nothing," he replied. "A poor joke. Something out of
my childhood."

  With her finger extends d toward the switch plate, she
paused. She had seen the dentist's mezuzah higher up on
the door frame. Something out of her childhood . . .

  Ida was a friend. Maggie-Now was in Ida's kitchen,
visiting just before supper. There were the candles on the
table and the kitchen smelled of chicken soup and baked
fish. Ida's father came in from work. He closed the door,
turned and touched the mezuzah with two fingers.

  "Why did he do that?" asked Maggie-Now in a whisper.
The father overheard and answered.

  "So we shouldn't forget," he said. "This is a mezuzah. It
holds the prayer." Then he intoned: "Hear, oh Israel! The
Lord our God is one Lord . . .

  "The prayer is here. I touch it and I remember. In the
old times the prayer was written on the posts of the house.
It was the Hebrew law." He quoted: "And thou shall write
them upon the posts of thy house."

  "But we move away all the time we Jews. We own no
house posts to write the prayer on. The mezuzah is the
post the house post that we carry with us when we
move."

  If Mama were here now, she thought, she'd say, "And they
touch the mezuzah the way we dip our fingers in holy water."

He noticed her abstraction. "Tell me," he said.

  "As you said: It's something I remembered out of my
childhood." Outside in the hall, she said: "It's funny, but
tonight seems to be the night for remembering things of
when I was a little child."

                   ('7Y]
                     
 He was about to say that was because she was sorting
out her past and putting it away because she had no need
of it now that her future was starting. Instead, he said as
they went down the stairs: "I don't believe you were ever
a little girl."

 "Oh, yes. I was," she somberly. "And for a long time,
too."

 I told you before, he reminded himself. She is a serious
~vo~na,~. And very literal, too.

 Down on the street, she held out her hand and said:
"Good night, Mr. Bassett. I enjoyed the lesson."

 "I have to go past your house on my way home, and, if
I may, I'd like to walk with you."

"I would like you to walk with me," sue said frankly.

"Thank you. Now v here do V U live?"

"But you said . . ."

I warned you, Bassett . . .

 "Anyhow, we turn at the next corner and then it's three
blocks."

 "Thank you, Miss Floors. It is Bliss isn't it?' he asked
suddenly.

"It's 'bliss' all right,' she said.

"All the men around here must be stupid or blind.''

"Oh, no."

 "Yes. Else you would have been snatched up long ago
by one of them and put away in cotton wool."

 "You mean, marry me?" she said in her frank way. "No.
No one ever asked me. You see, I have a brother and
some people think he's my son. (He's just started in
school.) My mother died when he was born. I brought him
up. I mean, new people coming to the neighborhood think
he's my child and . . ." She thought briefly of the yard and
the boy from upstairs. "Anyway, a man wouldn't want to
marry a girl and take her brother, too." She sighed.
"Another thing: My father's strict. He wouldn't let me go
out with anyone."

"I'd like to meet your father and shake his hand."

";lly father?" She was astonished. "But why?"

 "For heating oflf all the boys and men. For keeping
N' U locked up. I mean for keeping you safe for me."

He's kind of rip, she thought critically, pleased that she had
1: I8'() 1

found a flaw in him. I'm Clad I Jocund that out so I don't
fall in love with him so quick.

 Again, as if reading her mind, he said: "You think I'm
flippant, don't you? "

"Flip . . . flippant . . .? '

"I)on't you?" he persisted.

  "I don't know what to think," she said honestly. "I never
knew anyone like you before. I don't know whether you're
serious or making fun of me."

  "Of you? Never!" he said earnestly. "Really, I'm a
serious person. Or so I like to believe. I say things lightly.
I mean, I say light things. I've traveled around a lot, met
many people, got to know none of them well and got into
the way of saying things quickly and lightly . . . no time to
really get to knov. anyone enough to be sincere . . . that
takes a little time . . ."

"You must have traveled a lot."

  He gave her a quick fool`. He decided she \vasut being
sarcastic. She wouldn't know how.

"Quite a lot," he said. "And you?"

"I've never been out of Brooklyn, except . . ."

  "San Francisco," he said dreamily. "Cincinnati . . .
Chicago, Boston . . ."

". . . except once. When 1 went to Btlston. '

  "I'm crazy- about big cities. Denver . . . a mile nearer
the sky than other cities . . ."

  Suddenly she knew they weren t in tune with each other.
He w as in a world of his own. She shivered. Someo~e's
Stalking offer my grave, she thought.

  She stopped walking and he, talking, walked on ahead,
not knowing he was alone.

"Good night," she called ahead to hiill.

He whirled around and came back to her. "What
happened?"

"I'm home."

  "What's the matter with me? Could you overlook my
rudeness? "

  "There is nothing to overlook. And it \was interesting .
. . about the cities."

"But you weren't interested."

"A person must say the`` are, anN-ll`3\\!. to be polite. lent I'm
1 it'll

not really. I like Brooklyn and . . . anyway, I have to go in
now." "Not yet. Not yet," he said. He grasped her arms as
she stood on the step above him and he spoke rapidly as
though time was short. "I wanted to tell you I need to
tell you so many things."

 He spoke fast and breathlessly. "I want to tell you about
the way you smell of good soap and fresh-washed,
dried-in-the-sun clothes, and . . ."

 "Oh, that's only castile soap," she said. "it's cheap. They
have blocks of it in the drugstore and you ask for a
nickel's worth and they cut off a slice."

 "Your good healthy hair smell. And I wanted to tell you
hoN`much I like your beautifully simple dress."

 "I know it's plain but I made it myself. I make all my
dresses the same way because it's the only pattern I can
figure out."

"And the classic simplicity of your hair style."

 She started to feel uncomfortable. She thought he was
making fun of her.

 "I know it's old-fashioned. At my hair's so thick and
stubborn, I can't make it curl like other girls do."

 "If you don't stop belittling yourself, I'm going tO call
N'OU my little Chinee."

"Chinee? Why?"

 "Because, in China, \vhen you complhllent someone on.
say. a lovely jewel, he'll say it has a flaw in it. Admire a
Ming vase and you'll be told it has a crack in it."

"Why do they do that?''

"It's their way of beings modest."

 She was about to ask v~dletller he'd been in China.
She decided against it, fearing he'd start talking of far-off
places and she would lose him again.

 I'm silly, she thought. Here 1' afraid of losing him. When
did I ever have him? Ile's just someone / met only a few
ho?lrs ago.

 "Who's modest? I just happen to know that m!- dress is
not in style. That's all."

 "It is always in style. A girl in a P`irn~gai village wore
one like it a hundred years ago. Tonigllt in l ondon, a
duchess is wearing one like yours. Only of white satin.

                1: /8'21
                    
 "And those shining braids wound around your head: So
Ruth wore her hair, perhaps, when she stood in the alien
corn.... And Narcissa Whitman . . ."

"Who? "

 "They opened up the Oregon Trail she and her
husband, Marcus. The Oregon trail . . ." He waited, his
head turned as though straining to hear something from
far away.

 "You say nice things," she said. "But I know I'm behind
the times. I can tell by the way the other girls look at me."

 "You are not of any time, past, present or time to come.
You are of all time. You are forever."

 Maggie-Now squirmed a bit. She felt uncomfortable. She
thought his talk was sort of fancy. Did he mean all those
things Or did he just like to talk to fill in time?

 She was a combination of child and woman. At sixteen,
she had been a mature woman with a woman's grave
responsibilities. At twenty-two, she was yet a child waiting
to come into her maturity. She waited for the new thing
which was just around the corner; she clung to a few
modest dreams. The woman and c hild in her walked side
by side. In a way, she knew, as the saying goes, all about
life. Conversely, she knew nothing about it. But she
believed in so much. She didn't love all the people she
knew but she believed implicitly that they were as they
seemed to be. Her father presented himself as unkind and
unloving. She believed he was unkind and unloving. That's
the way it was and she accepted him and loved him as a
child should love a parent.

 She believed that Mr. Van Clees tried to put his hand
on the life of everyone he kne\v. Sure, that made him
intrusive and tiresome sometimes. But it teas in the open.
He did not try to be otherwise than he was. She liked him
and believed what he said.

 She believed that Lottie and Timmy had been
sweethearts all their life because Lottie told her so. She
believed Annie was kind and good because Gus and Van
Clees had told her so. She took it all on faith.

 Now came the first intimations of maturity. This
man holding her arms and looking up at her: Was he to
be believed? Was he speaking true? Did he mean all he
said? Or did he talk one

                  [ /83 1
                     
way and think another. He spoke as people spoke in
books. Was that natural with him? Was that natural with
him or was it something he put on like a coat? How could
she know? In her characteristic way, she decided the only
way to know was to ask him.

"Mr. Bassett . . ."

 "My name is Claude and I hereby serve notice," he said
severely, "that I will not be called 'Claudia.' "

"You want me to call you by your first name?"

"I do."

Why, she thought, didn't he just say, Call me Claude?

 "I couldn't," she said. "Not yet. I don't know you long
and Mr. Bassett is strange to me. Claude would be even
more strange." She paused. "What I started to say: Do you
mean everything you say to me?"

"Why not?"

 "I could understand better," she said a bit timidly, "if
you'd say yes or no."

 "Margaret," he said sincerely. "I do. Oh, I use too many
words, perhaps. I talk too much. But you see, it's so long
since I had someone to really talk to. But I mean what I
say. Believe me, please."

 "I'm glad you do," she said, "because the way you talk to
me you make me feel like a princess or something. And
it's a wonderful feeling."

"Thank you."

"Good night.'

"Where you been?" asked her father.

 "Now, Papa," she said patiently, "after all, I'm over
twentyone."

"I know how old you are. But 1 don't know where you
been."

"Good night, Papa." She moved toward her bedroom door.

 "Listen," he said to hold her, "did you use up all the
house money yet?"

"I don't know," she said. She went into her bedroom.

 She acts funny, he thought. Like she's sick. Could it be
she met a man was out wits' him? And she, what don't
know

                 [ 184]
                    
nothing about men~what bastids they are? I wonder does
she know what she should know' She must. Lottie or
somebody must-a told her. He was relieved, then
characteristically, he became angry. Sure and they told her.
They couldn't wait. Dam

married wimmen always blabbing. Always disthroyi~zg in-
nocence.

 Suddenly he felt old. l his made him angry, too. He
didn't want to be old or feel old But if he had to be or
even feel old, he wasn't going to work any more.

 By God, he vowed, I'll go out on pension. That's what I'll
do. The old man will stay home all day. I'll get in her way,
he thought with satisfaction. That'll fix her. That'll fix
everybody. He felt more cheerful.

 He took down from the shelf the broken-spout teapot in
which Maggie-Now kept the household money. There was
only twenty-eight cents in it. EJe stuffed two dirty dollar
bills in the teapot and put it back on the shelf. He
changed his mind, took it down again and brought it over
to the table. He removed the bills and smoothed them out
on the table. After a little hesitation, he took another bill
from his pocket. He put the three bills side by side on the
table where Maggie-Now would see them the first thing in
the morning. He put the teapot on top of them so they
wouldn't blow away.

 After Maggie-Now went into her house, Claude walked
over to Lorimer Street to catch a streetcar. There was
none in sight so he went into a bakery and got two
doughnuts. He stood on the corner and ate them w bile he
waited for a car. A newsboy turned the corner calling:

"Extra! Extra! Read all about it. The President asks for
war!"

 Claude beckoned to the boy. "Don't you know that
according to books and stories you should call lliuxtry and
not Extra?" he said

 The boy said "Huh?" and backed off staring at Claude as
if he were a freak.

 I thought she had no sense of humor, thought Claude.
But nobody seems to in Brooklyn.

He bought a paper. The extra announced that President
Wil

                  1 15~]
                     
son had spoken before Congress that night at eight-thirty
and had asked for a declaration of war. Claude felt a
tingle of excitement.

War! he thought.

 He looked at the books and posters he was carrying,
with revulsion. What am I doing with this r~oizser~se' he
asked himself.

         ~ CHAPTER TWENTY-SE VEN ~

ONLY l\,Iaggie-Now, three women and the old man
showed up for class the next night. Maggie-Now wore her
blue dress with the lace collar and cuffs and the new hat
she had bought for the coming Easter Sunday. She smiled
widely at Claude when she came in. She put her quarter
on the table as the others had done. He looked up and
frowned. Her heart sank. She thought perhaps he was
offended that she had put a quarter down. He frowned,
however, because he  lidn't like her to wear a hat. It made
her seem like a stranger.

 The three girls were sitting on the settee, leaving the old
man sitting alone in the middle of the room. Maggie-Now
felt sorry for him. She took the chair next to him. Claude
Bassett arranged the five quarters in a row, then in a
circle. Finally, as if coming to a definite decision about
them, he piled them one on top of the other. He stood up.

 "I appreciate more than I can say your willingness to
come here again but . . ."

 He announced that the course would be discontinued.
The enrollment, while interested, was small and there was
the rent on the classroom and he smiled and said he didn't
believe anyone would be interested in The Book of
Everything. War was inevitable .. he had decided to enlist....
He spoke at length.

 Maggie-Now thought: I'll clever see him again! She
envisioned him Iying on the field of battle; torn, bleeding
and dying. She shuddered.

"The money will be refunded, of course." [ lS6]

There was a chorus of objections.

"No.''

"I don't want my quarter back."

"You should get something for your time."

  "You will have to pay the rent for these two nights," said
Maggie-Now.

  Everyone was friendly now and they spoke back and
forth. The girl who lived alone in a hall bedroom took off
her glasses and wiped them and put them in her lap. She
had a suggestion. A sort of organization or club was badly
needed in the neighborhood a place where people could
get together and meet other people and just talk and
maybe serve refreshments . . .

  "I mean," she said, "couldn't we just keep on meeting
here nights and just sit around and talk; read books, say,
and talk about them? I mean, it would be worth a quarter
a night to me," she said defiantly, "just to have someplace
to go to."

  There was a hush. The other women looked away from
this girl, ashamed that one of them would display her
loneliness so nakedly.

  "I don't see any haml in asking," she said. She put her
glasses back on.

  "That is a fine suggestion," said Claude. "Nothing would
please me more, but. . ."

  Again he spoke of America at war and the uncertainty
of war years. They sat around for the rest of the hour
discussing the war touching vaguely on the changes it
would make in th

community and so on.

  At the end of the hour, he tried to give each his quarter
back. There was great indignation at the idea on the part
of the three girls. Maggie-Now and the old man did not
press the matter one way or the other. Finally Claude said
he'd keep the quarters if each would accept a copy of The
Book of Everything in return. The three girls accepted
enthusiastically. They wanted their copies autographed.
Claude obli~,red. His inscriptions were flowery, which
was the way the girls wanted them:

In memory of a brief encounter . . .
With gratitude for pleasant hours . . .
With the hope that we shall meet again . . .
~ 1'9?1

 When Maggie-Now held out her book for autographing,
he said: "Later." The old man said he didn't want a book.
"I'd sooner have my quarter back," he said. Claude gave
him his quarter and a copy of the book inscribed simply:
In friendship.

 After Maggie-Now and Claude had straightened up the
room, turned out the lights and gone down the stairs, they
found the three girls standing on the sidewalk comparing
inscriptions.

"That was real swell of you, Mr. Bassett," said one.

"That's nice of you," he answered.

"It was a real pleasant evening," said another.

"The pleasure was surely mine," he said.

"I still think . . ." began the girl with the glasses.

"And I agree with you," he said.

 "Good night, good r;ight," they said singly and in chorus.
They withdrew a little, waiting for Maggie-Now to join
them. Claude took Maggie-Now's hand and drew her arm
through his.

"Good night, ladies," he said.

"Good night, girls," said Maggie-Now.

The girls walked down the street discussing Maggie-Now.

"Ain't she got the luck?"

"It's not that she's classy or anything."

"Old-fashioned, if you ask me."

"Whatever he sees in her . . ."

  "I know what he see s in her. She's got one of them big
busts and some men like that. You know. puts them in
mind of their mother? "

  Going down the street, Maggie-Now turned to wave to
them. They waved back and made their smiles friendly.

"Take your hat off,' said Claude.

"My hat? Why?" asked Maggie-Now.

  "Here." He removed it and handed it to her. "You
should never wear a hat."

"Where'll I put it?"

"Carry it."

"Like this?"

  "In the hand away from me. You can swing it now and
again as we walk, if you like"

"I thought it was a pretty hat," she said sadly. She stared at
it. ~ IS8 ]

It was made of soft straw with a wide brim, flat crown and
a band of velvet.

 "It is a pretty hat. Very pretty. And you rushed out
today and bought it to, wear tonight." She hung her head
because it was true. "It's a pretty thing to carry," he said.
"And nothing looks prettier than a woman with lovely hair
holding her pretty hat as she walks. Now don't hold it
between us. The outside hand I said." She changed. Again
he took her hand and drew her arm through his.

 They walked slowly in step and she remembered to
swing her hat a little from time to time. They walked
without talking, savoring the warm night and the wind
from the west. (He broke the silence to tell her the wind
was from the west and she, having always taken the wind
for granted, was pleased to know it was from the west.)

 They walked past a saloon with door open to the warm
night. The drinkers were discussing the impending war.

 "I got nothing against the Germans theirselves," said a
man, "I figure they're yu-men like everybody else. It's the
Goddamned Kaiser...."

 Claude and Maggie-Now smiled at each other. Children
played on the streets, calling to each other in muted
voices (because night-time street playing was a privilege
not to be abused), while their parents sat on the stoop or
in chairs lined up before closed stores. And there was
music. An opened tenement window, a Victrola playing a
recording of Lee Morse singing and her Blue Grass Boys
helping out. Oh, her husky voice . . .

 This is me, thought Maggie-Now, walking so. With him
on such a night as this. I can't believe it's me that this is
really happening to me. This is something I'll remember all
my life.

 After a while they talked. That is, she did all the talking
that night. He wanted to know everything about her life;
especially her childhood her mother, brother, father and
grandfather. He prodded her with questions and drew her
out and she spoke freely as if dictating an honest
autobiography. As she had everything else, she had taken
her childhood for granted. But as she noted his delighted
and interested reactions, her childhood seemed very
wonderful all of a sudden.

[ is9]

  He laughed in delight when she told him how she had
always wanted cousins and how her mother had found
Sheila and her bouquet in Boston, and he grinned when
she told of her father spanking her publicly for dancing on
the street, and he pressed her arm very tight when she
told of how Sister Mary Joseph had to have the wedding
ring sawed off and how she, Maggie-Now, had felt about
it. He blew his nose very hard after she told how her
mother had told her to pick up the new-born baby....

  She told how Gus Vernacht had said his Annie would be
her friend . . . and how he had forgotten to tell Annie.
And MaggieNow said she still felt sad when she thought
about it because she had wanted a friend so badly. And
then Gus had died....

  After she had finished that story, he lifted her hand,
which was resting so lightly on his forearm, and kissed it.
Then she was much embarrassed, though pleased, and she
said she had talked too much and that they had walked
past her house and she'd really have to go in because her
father . . .

  "You don't have to go in yet," he said. "It's only a little
after nine."

"No, I don't. But it's better that I do."

  She knew her father would be waiting and he'd fuss and
scold and maybe take the extra dollar out of the teapot.
But, she decided, he'll complain Nether I come in at nirle or
at twelve. I might as~u~ell stay out.

"Please?" he asked.

"All right," she said. "After all, I'm almost twenty-three."

"And I'm thirty. Where shall we walk?"

"Where do you live?"

"At the Bedford Y."

"I'll walk you home.'

"Good! Then I'll walk you home."

  He urged her to tell him more about the years of her
growing up. She demurred at first, saying it wasn't
interesting and that he was asking just to be polite.
Besides, she said, she'd like to know something about his
childhood.

  "No," he said. "I want to know all about you. I want to
walk every step of the way with you through your
childhood so that I'll know you from the beginning of your
life."

                  ~ 190]
                     
 She told him all she could remember (excepting the boy
upstairs who had kissed her). They walked to the Bedford
Y.M.C.A. and back to her house and it was nearly
midnight. She stood on the bottom step of her stoop and
looked down at him and smiled.

 "So you see," she said, "my childhood wasn't much of
anything. The beach once a year, the cemetery on
Decoration Day, a trip to Boston, the few girl friends I
had the few people I knew. Church, school, home and
parents. And that's all."

 "Ah, my little Chinee," he said, "again belittling
something that was quite wonderful. You don't know how
wonderful.... Oh, how you take everything for granted.
Why, one thing! Even the sewing of beads on slippers for
pin money . . ."

 "I forgot 1 told you that," she interrupted. "That was
kind of silly.7'

 "Stop it!'7 he said. "Nothing was silly. It was all part of
the wonder of a girl growing up into a woman.7'

 He told her how moved he had been at her stories and
hov.amused, too. He spoke ecstatically about the wonder
of her childhood.

What's so wo'~derf?'l, she thought. Wasn't he ever a child?

 After a while, she saw it a little through his eyes and
she was strangely disturbed. It was as though he had lived
her childhood but on a more wonderful plane than she
had. She felt, vaguely, that she had given away her
childhood that night. She had given it to him or he had
taken it from her, and made it into something wonderful.
In a way, her life was his now.

 A light came on in the window. "My father," she
whispered, and trembled a little bit.

 He grasped her arms as she stood above him.
"Tomorrow night," he whispered. "I'll come by for you.
Eight o'clock. I want to meet your father."

"Yes, yes," she whispered nervously. She scuttled into the
house.

"Out again," was her father's greeting.

"Yes," she said.

"You was out last night, too.'

"I know."

"1 suppose you're going out tomorrow night."

                 L /9/ ]
                    
"Well, you ain't," he said flatly.

"I'm over twenty-one...." she began.

 "Age's got nothing to do with it because I'm going out
tomorrow night and somebody's got to stay with the boy."

 "I'll ask the tenant upstairs. Mrs. Heahly? She'll keep an
eye on Denny while you slip out for a beer."

 "I ain't going out for no beer. I'm going out. I have a
friend. For once I'd like to spend an evening with her."

 "Here You mean another woman?" Maggie-Now was
shocked and indignant. "All these years you've gone out
with some woman and enjoyed yourself w bile I . . ." her
voice broke as though she were going to cry, ". . . while I,
a young girl growing up, who should have been out with
boys and girls my own age, stayed home and cooked and
washed and cleaned and took care of the baby?" She
paused. When she spoke again, her voice was steady.

 "Ah, no, Papa," she said gently. "You couldn't. You
couldn't after having been married to Mama."

 "Your mother, God rest her soul, was a good woman.
The best there ever was. But she's been gone from me
these seven years or nearly, and, well, a man's a man."

 "Then a man should love and marry in love. Otherwise,
a man is no better than an animal."

"Where'd you hear that nonsense?"

  "Father Flynn said so. He had this special sermon for
young people."

  "And what would he be knowing about it the way he
prays and fasts all the time?" Suddenly he had one of his
rages. "How cast he!" he shouted. "Talk about such things
to them what is innocent or should be? I'll get him
fired...."

"Priests can't be fired."

  "Well then, defrocked . . . unfrocked. Something. At
least transferred. I'll talk to the bishop."

  "Now, Papa, you stop it. He said nothing out of the way.
He is a good man and you l~now it. Look how good he
was to Mama You forget."

"It is true," he said. "He was good to your mother."

  "And he is to everybody. Oh, Papa," she sighed, "when
I was sixteen, you never thought of me as a child. You let
me handle a grown-up woman's job. And now that I am
a grown-up woman, ~  792 ]

you're trying to pretend I'm a child. Papa, you must face
it. I'm going to live my own life from now on."

  He had to think out an answer to that. This man she just
met: He's putting her up to it. I bet he's been giving her a lot
of blarney and making her feel like she's somebody. Now I
must watch me step, he planned craftily. Be nice to her like
l know how everything is. 'Twould be the same like throwing
her in his waiting arms was I strict flu ith her now.

  "You are right, girl dear. You're a child no longer.
You're a fine figger of a woman and you can thank the
good food I worked me life away to get the money to buy
for you that made you the fine woman what you are."

  "No. It wasn't the food." She turned her wide smile on
him. "Because you're a fine rigger of a man yourself,
Papa, and to hear you tell it, you were brought up on
hard, little potatoes and chicken only once a year on
Christmas and that tough, too, back in Kilkenny."

  That's me girl, he thought with pride. Smart as a whip.
Like meself.

  He said: "Don't be changing the subject on me. Sure
and you're a grown woman and it's right and healthy that
you want a man of your own. And do I not want
grandchilthren round me knees in me old days?"

  And so l do! he thought with surprise. Or am I talking
meself into it?

  "'Tisn't that I'm not willing to give you up but I don't
want you to throw yourself away on the first man what
says, 'Ah there,' to you. Remember, he's not the only
pebble on the beach."

"Who wants a pebble?"

  "You know what I mean. There's always another
streetcar coming along."

  "You'd never let me look for a pebble on the beach or
stand on a corner to wait for the next car and you know
it."

  "You know what I mean, i~laggie dear. Me thoughts
don't always come out in the right words. But I have only
your good in me mind." Then very offhand, in order to
conceal his craftiness, he said: "Now here's what we'll do:
You bring the young man . . .

"What young man?"

                 ~ ~931
                    
 "Now, now," he said roguishly, "I know. Bring him
around to meet your father, like the decent girl what you
are, and I'll size him up and tell you whether he's good
enough for you."

 "Oh, Papa! Even if he was the Sheik of Araby, you still
would say he wasn't good enough."

 "Listen!" he yelled, forgetting to be diplomatic. "Child,
girl, woman whatever you are, don't give your father
none of your sass.

 She didn't answer. She went out to the kitchen and
noisily filled the kettle with water. I le followed her.

"Hear me?"

 "Oh, Papa, stop annoying me, do," she said. Whenever
her speech sounded Irishy, he knew it was a sign that she
was going to lose her temper.

 "I'll say no more," he said with quiet dignity. But he did.
And he said it loudly. "But you're not going out tomorrow
night!" He hurried out and into his own bedroom before
she could answer. He wanted the last word.

 The long walk had made her hungry. She thought of
Claude as she made coffee and cut some of the supper's
pot roast for a sandwich. She thought of the way he
talked to her the way he listened, with that quick turn of
his head when she spoke, and how it made everything she
said seem so wonderful and important. She thought how
different her father was from Claude.

 She wondered where people got the idea that girls were
inclined to marry men who were like their father. Sure,
she loved her father and she'd feel bad if anything ever
happened to him. But she was in love with Claude
because he was so very different from her f ether.

 She poured a cup of coffee and poured heated gravy
over her sandwich and thought briefly of Annie Vernacht,
spending the best years of her life, as Van Clees put it,
making open sandwiches. And she felt a little grateful that
her life was easier than poor Annie's.

 "Mama? I mean, Maggie-NoNv?" The little boy, in
pajamas, stood in the doorway.

"I thought you were asleep this good while, Denny."

"I was. But now I'm awake."

                 I Ig} I
                    
  "Hungry?" He nodded. "Come on then. Sit down. I'll get
you ginger snaps and milk."

  His eyes strayed from his milk and crackers to her hot
sandwich and rested there longingly.

"Can I have some of that?"

"No. It's too heavy to eat late at night."

"You're eating it."

"Never mind, now."

"Just a taste?"

  "Just a taste, then. No more." She gave him a fork. He
ate from one end of the sandwich, she from the other. "Do
your crayon work?"

  "This afternoon. You saw me. You forgot," he said
reproachfully.

"That's right. You did. N\'ell, what did you do tonight,
then?" "Me and Papa played checkers."

"Who won?"

"Papa. I let him."

"Now why did you do that?"

"Because he won't play with me if he don't win."

"If you are winning, you shouldn't back up like that."

"Oh, I don't care if I don't win."

 "You should care. You shouldn't do anything if you don't
care. Drink your milk.''

"You drink half with mc.''

"I've got coffee."

 "I helped you eat half your sandwich. Now you gotta
help me drink my milk."

"Oh, all right." She pour d half his milk into her coffee
cup.

 "Maggie-Now, if you c ver get married, would he be my
father? "

"Your father?"

"You know. Like you're my mother, only you're my sister?"
"What's the matter with you, Denny?"

"Would he?"

 "Let's see: If I was ever lucky enough to get married,
why, my husband would be your brother-in-law. Whv did
you ask?"

"Because Papa told me you were going to get married,
he

1  9; ]

guessed. He said he guessed you knew a man, now. But
he said I shouldn't tell you what he said."

 "And you shouldn't tell, then, if he asked you not to."
She paused. "What else did Papa say?"

 "He told me to tell you that you shouldn't get married
and leave me here alone. And leave Papa alone, too."

"Oh, he did, did he?" she said grimly.

"But don't tell I told because he said not to tell you."

"Do you know what a tattletale is?"

"Sure. But you ain't going away like Papa said, are you?"

 "No." She put an arm around his shoulder. "I'll stay with
you until you get old enough to find some nice girl to
take my place. Okay?" He nodded. "And if I ever have to
leave here before then, I'll take you with me."

"And Papa, too?"

 "No. Papa's a big man and can look out for himself. But
don't tell him I said that, hear?" She knew full well he
would tell their father the next morning.

 "And now, bed! And don't beg because you can't stay
up any longer."

"I want more milk first. You drank half of mine."

 "Oh, no, you don't. You had your chance with the milk.
Come on, now. I'll put you away for what's left of the
night."

 She tucked him in. He tried to prolong her stay. "Do I
hafta have a blanket?"

"Yes."

"But it's hot out."

"It's warm now. But it will get cool towards morning."

"What time will it get cool?"

"Four o'clock."

"How do you know?'

 "Now stop it! I'm not going to get tricked into a long
conversation with you."

"I want the light on, rhen."

"No!"

"Then I hafta have a drink of water."

 "No! Good gosh, Denny, it's one o'clock in the morning.
Now shut up!" She smiled and kissed him.

About to turn out the light, she gave her usual
hotlse\vife's

                  ~ ~ 1
                    
last look around the room, trying to imagine what it would
look like if she were a stranger seeing it for the first time.
It wasn't a room, really. It was a corridor with a window.
It was an oblong partitioned off Maggie-Now's room.
There was space only for Denny's cot and a small dresser.

 He had tacked a Dartmouth pennant to the wall. She
smiled, remembering he had traded two of the flags he
had taken from the cemetery for it. He had two flags left
from the handful he'd swiped from the graves two years
ago. They stood in an empty soda-water bottle next to his
mother's picture. The photograph had been made soon
after her marriage.

 To Denny, thought Maggie-Now, Mama will always be a
young woman whom he's never seen.

 Then there was a dirty baseball with a strip of bicycle
tape covering a tear in the horsehide and one of
Maggie-Now's good sauce dishes, holding a dozen blue
clay marbles. His glass shooters were gone and she
surmised that he'd played a bad game that day.

 There was the inevitable ball of tin foil. Like other kids,
he garnered discarded cigarette packages and gum
wrappers, the foil of which he added to the ball. When it
got as big as a baseball and twice as heavy, it was believed
that any junkman would give you a dollar for it. To make
sure it would be heavy enough, Denny had placed an iron
washer in the core of it.

 He was making a rubber ball, too. It started with a wad
of paper and every rubber band he could get was
stretched and wound tightly around it. It went slowly.
He'd been working on it for months and it was only the
size of a golf ball. He persisted because he knew if it ever
got to be the size of a regular ball, it would be the
bouncingest ball in the whole world.

 On an impulse, Maggie-Now picked it up and bounced
it. It hit the ceiling on the rebound. She scrambled after
it awkwardly, her hands cupped to catch it before it
bounced again. She missed it and had to c base a couple
of more bounces. Denny giggled into his pillow.

 "That's enough out of you," threatened Maggie-Now. "If
you don't go to sleep . . ."

 A newly-made slingshot on the dresser caught her eye.
The kids called it a beanshooter. It was made of a
crotched twig which she suspected was broken Of a tree
in the park when nobody

                  [ '97 1
                     
was looking, two strips of rubber and a square of fine
supple leather. She felt the leather.

"Oh, no!" she moaned. "Oh, no!"

 She picked up his shoes and, as she had feared, the
tongue of one of them had been cut off and used in the
slingshot.

 "Oh, Denny," she said despairingly, "what did you do to
your good shoes?"

 "Don't start no conversations with me," he said, afraid
of a scolding, "because I'm sleeping like you told me."

 When she put his shoes away under his cot, she saw his
sled there where he liked to keep it until it snowed again.
But now it was spring. Soon it would be kite-flying time
and he'd get sticks and tie them together into a sort of
rhomboid and paste a sheet from the colored comics of
the Journal over the frame and tease her for rags which
he'd tear into strips and knot together for a tail, and hint
for two cents to buy a ball of cord to fly it.

 Maybe I'll buy him a ready-made loon kite this year. It
would he nice if we could afford to get him a two-wheel
bike, but . . . Maybe there'll lee some money for a catcher's
mitt. Oh, well, Papa can get him a new baseball, at least.
Still and all, he seems content with what he has or makes or
gets on his own. He has what the other boys have. If he had
less, he'd be sad. If he had more, he wouldn't fit in with the
other boys. Anyway, he seems satisfied.

 She smiled toward her mother's photograph and said
aloud: "You know. It's relative?"

"What-cha say?" asked Denny sleepily.

"Nothing. I'm going to turn the light out now." She did so.

"Don't close the door all the way, Mama."

"Afraid? "

"Naw."

"I'll leave it open anyway. For air," she added tactfully.

 Preparing for bed, she thought: Funny that something
that makes me so very happy makes Denny so sad and
worried and Papa so mad and worried. Papa, she thought
scornfully, who makes believe he's got another woman! As
if he could've kept it a secret all these years if he did have
one! Still and all . . .

 Gratefully she settled into bed and started to recall
dreamily her whole wonderful evening with Claude; what
he said, what she said how he had looked when he spoke
to her and the won

                 1 ~98]
                    
derful nuances of the silences made by the pauses in the
conversation.

 But she was so tired from the long walk so used up
emotionally from her father's antagonism and her
brother's concern that she fell fast asleep in the middle
of severing all over again the thrill when he had tucked
her arm into his.

         ~ CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT ~

THE next morning, when Maggie-Now went to the baker's
for the morning buns, the neighborhood seemed to be in
a state of excitement. Since President Wilson had
addressed Congress, wild rumors had been flying around.
Some said war had already been declared; others, that it
was merely a question of hours before it would be
declared. Some body said that Hamburg Avenue was
going to be renamed Wilson Avenue.

 She passed some men waiting for a streetcar to take
them to work. One said his wife had kept him up half the
night urging him to change his name from Schmidt to
Smith. Mr. Schmidt told the others that the way he looked
at it he was an American citizen, no matter what his name
was, but his wife thought no one would give him a job
with a German name like that. Another man said that as
soon as the war started the bosses would get down on
their knees begging men to work no matter what their
names were.

 Maggie-Now bought a morning paper. She set it next
her father's coffee cup and told him of the talk of war
being declared. He merely grunted and told her that just
the same he was going out that night; war or no war.

 Maggie-Now spent the day in an ecstasy of preparation.
She pressed the last of her three dresses, a summery,
flowered print made like her other two. She got out her
last summer's white pumps and cleaned them. She bought
a cake of geranium-scented

                  [ ~99 ]
                     
soap and washed her hair with it. She rinsed her hair in
lemon juice and water and sat out in the sun to dry it.

 Later in the day, she took a bath with the scented soap.
She lathered and rinsed, lathered and rinsed until her skin
was almost stiff. She dried herself and dusted all over with
Mennen's Violet Baby Talcum Powder. She braided her
hair, pinned it up and buffed her fingernails.

 When she had dressed, she went upstairs to see the
tenant about keeping an eye on Denny in case her father
carried through his threat to spend the evening with his
mythical (as MaggieNow firmly believed) woman friend.

 There was an understanding that landlords did not make
friends with tenants, especially when both occupied the
same house. It was considered right that a tenant should
not be burdened with social obligations toward the
landlord. The tenant should be free to come and go. Also,
friendship would weaken the landlord's right to request
prompt payment of rent and his privilege of making it
uncomfortable for the tenant when he defaulted in paying
the rent.

 Maggie-Now knew that by asking a favor of the tenant
she was giving up her right to dun Mrs. Heahly for last
month's unpaid rent. She was willing to risk this, however,
rather than possibly miss out on her evening with Claude.

 Maggie-Now felt uncomfortable and turned her head
away when she saw the look of apprehension on Mrs.
Heahly's face.

"Come in," said Mrs. Heahly, not meaning it.

"For a moment," said Maggie-Now.

"Sit down?"

"No, thank you."

 "Somebody looks very nice today," said Mrs. Heahly
with an ingratiating smile.

 The poor thing's trying to get or my good sid e, thought
Maggie-Now. She sighed. It's hard to be a landlord.

 "About being late with the rent," said Mrs. Heahly
brightly. "Never fear. You'll get it. My husband's working
steady now, but we had some extra expenses, and . . ."

"I didn't come about that. I came up to ask you for a
favor."

 "Any time! Any time!" said Mrs. Heahly eagerly. "If I
can do anything for you . . ."

                 ~ 200 1
                    
 "I'm going out tonight and my father might step out a
few minutes while I'm gone. If you could kind of keep an
eye on my brother . . .t'

"Glad to, Miss Moore. Glad to."

 "You don't have to do anything. Just in case there's a
fire or he gets sick."

 "Sure! Sure!" The woman's relief at not being dunned for
the rent was pathetically obvious.

 Yet, after Maggie-Now left, Mrs. Heahly justified herself.
I don't mind her father getting it in the neck, the rip, telling
me to go soak my head the time I told him the toilet was out
of order. But it's a dirty trick to pull on the girl. She's halfway
nice. Mrs. Heahly sighed. Ah, well, you can't make a deposit
077 a new fat and pay rent on the old one at the same time.
Then there's the cost of moving in the bargain.

 By the time she had it all thought out, she was indignant.
She figured that the landlord owed her more than she
owed hirn.

 Maggie-Now had supper ready ahead of time and, of
course, Pat took this special night to be late. Maggie-Now
was sure he was doing it on purpose because he knew she
was going out and he wanted to make her so nervous that
she wouldn't enjoy herself.

 When he got home, however, she saw that he had a
reason for being late. He had been to the barber's for a
shave and haircut. He smelled of bay rum, hair tonic and
Danderine. Maggie-Now's heart sank.

 He wasn't f ogling then, she thought, when he said he was
going out. She tossed her head. Well, I wasn't fooling either.

 He smelled the soap and talcum powder and the scent
of lemon juice coming from her healthy hair. He noticed
that she was dressed with unusual care.

 So, he thought, I can talk meself deef, dumb and blind
and she'll trot out all the same.

 "We're getting in the war after all," he announced. He
went into the bathroom to wash his hands.

 The bathroom was no more than a windowless closet.
The tub was a shallow scoop of white-painted tin enclosed
in an oblong box of zinc. Had it had a lid, it would have
looked like a coffin for a shrimp of a man. The closed
quarters smelled strongly of scented soap, talcum powder,
wet hair and wet towels. The

                  [ 201 ]
                     
painted walls were still wet from steam. It was hardly the
place or setting for Sybaritic rites of the bath and the
voluptuous longings engendered thereby. But Pat feared
the worst.

 He thought: She must be serious about the bastid whoever
he is. and she's out to get him. Then Vat's to become of me
in me old days, he worried, and her married and away and
one left to die alone in a furnished reborn?

 As they sat down to supper, he said: "Who's been taking
a bath, now? "

"Me," said Maggie-Now.

 He fixed her with his eye and spoke slowly with hidden
meaning: "Don't you think you're going a little too
far taking a bath in the middle of the day?"

 She saw Denny jerk his head to stare at her, "Eat," she
said. "The both of you, befort it gets cold."

 They were eating in complete but scented silence when
a low voice came through the keyhole. "Are you all right
in there?" asked the voice. Denny looked scared and Pat
dropped his fork.

 "That's only the lady upstairs minding Denny," she
whispered. She raised her voice. "Thank you, Mrs. Heahly,
but we're not gone yet," she said.

"Excuse me," breathed the voice.

 So she fixed it! She fixed it so I got to go o?lt. But where,
Pat thought in despair, ala I going to go?

 Maggie-Now bribed I jenny to help her wash the dishes
by giving him a nickel for a glass shooter. Pat went into
his room to change from uniform to Sunday suit.
Maggie-Now went into her room to primp a little. After
the dishes were done, Denny sat in the kitchen to do his
homework. It wasn't exactly homework there was no
school during Holy Week. It was "review work," one
crayon picture each night to keep the kids out of mischief.

 l\laggie-Now and her father came out of their rooms
simultaneously and went into the front room. I le sat at
one window, she at the other.

"We're getting in the war, now," he said.

"You said that before, Papa."

"Anything that important you can say twice."

"That's right," she agreed.

                 [ 202 1
                    
  He read his paper and she watched for Claude. She
started to get nervous. "Papa, if you're going out, go."

"When I get good and ready."

  "Look, Papa. I asked the tenant the favor of keeping an
eye on Denny. That means I threw away my chance to
push her about the back rent. So, since it's going to cost,
take advantage. I want you to go out. I fixed it up."

  Sure she wants me out, he thought, so's she can have him
in here. He said: "Don't you go putting me out of me own
home. First I want to see what kind of gink is coming for
you."

  She had feared he had that in mind. He and Claude
couldn't meet. They just couldn't! Her father would insult
him and throw him out and she'd never see Claude again!
Now it was a quarter to eight. She was so nervous she had
to do something. She went out into the kitchen to talk to
Denny.

  "Denny, if you feel like buying your marble now, I'll walk
to the corner with you."

  The boy was willing. Pat was relieved when he saw them
leave the house together. Taking the boy with her, he
thought. I guess she can't be so serious about the man, then.
Anyways, there won't be no spooning. Not with a wet blanket
of a boy along.

  He relaxed. He took off his pinching shoes and his
chafing celluloid collar and removed the brass collar
button that had already branded his Adam's apple with a
green circle. He unbuttoned his vest and put his feet up on
a chair.

  ~ man, he told himself, stretching luxuriously, is a fool
to go out sporting of a night when he's got a clean, decent
home to sit in. Ah, yes.

Then Dermy came back.

"Where's your sister?" asked Pat.

"Don' know."

"Did she go off with a man?"

"Don' know."

"What do you know, hah?"

  "I know she went with me to buy my marble and then
she said I should go home because you ain't going out and
you would be lonesome."

"So I ain't going out, she thinks!"

He buttoned his vest and with many a sigh he put his
shoes back

                  ~ 2 3 ]
                     
on. The tarnishing collar button was put back into place
and the restricting collar and tie He went for his hat.

"I'm gonna be here alone," said Denny.

 "I'll tend to that," said Pat. He went out into the hall
and bellowed up the stairs: ''Hey!"

 Mrs. Heahly opened her door and hollered back down:
"Hay is for horses."

 "Don't forget to mind me kid," he said, "like me
daughter told you."

"Mind your own kid,' she answered.

 "Yeah? And you put that back rent in me hand first
thing in the morning."

"Yeah? And you go to hell," she said, and slammed her
door.

 He walked down to the saloon feeling pleased with
himself. That'll learn her riot ta get srlotty with "TT]e, he
told himself smugly.

 Denny wasn't afraid to stay in the house alone. He just
didn't like it. He went out and sat on the stoop. He told
himself that he wasn't lonesome, yet he wished some boy
would come along so they could talk about his new
marble. A woman came by and asked: "What class are you
in?"

"One B." he said.

"That's nice," she said and went on her way.

 Denny was not an introspective child but he couldn't
help wondering why people always asked him what class
he was in, and his sister and father were always asking
him, how's school, and, did he do his homework Why did
people think he had no other life than school?

 Gloomily, Pat watched the bartender shave the foam
from the small beer he'd ordered. With no preamble at
all, he started in on his troubles.

 "You raise a kid. \170rli like a dog. Do without things
yourself to give her things. Then she gets big. And just
when she could be a help pay back the old man what
happens? She goes loony over the first gink what come.
her way."

 "That's the way it goes," said the bartender, giving the
bar a ritual wipe.

"That all you got to say about it?" asked Pat.

                 [ 704 ]
                    
  "What do you want for a nickel beer?" said the
bartender. "The Gettysburg Address?"

  "I had to earn that nickel for that beer, I'll have you
know," said Pat.

  "Well, you better earn a dime for the same next week.
Maybe fifteen cents. Beer's going up now that we're
getting in the war."

  "War or no war, sooner than pay fifteen cents, I'll go
without me beer," said Pat.

  "You'll go without it pretty soon whether you want to or
not. This here prohibition is going through someday and
then, goodby, Charlie. '

  The only other customer further down the bar now
entered the conversation. "It's a Goddamned shame," he
said. "That's all I got to say."

  "Another county heard from," sneered Pat, and he tried
to wither him with a look. Rut the man was at the other
end of the bar and the saloon visas dimly lighted. In lieu
of the look, he raised hi, voice.

"Yeah, and I suppose you went down and enlisted today,
hey?"

  "Met" called back the stranger. "Why I'm fifty-two if I'm
a day*!'

"Who asked you your age?" said Pat.

"Nobody."

"Who you calling nobody? ' asked Pat, itching for a fight.

"Nobody. "

'Dry up, then," said Pat.

  I feel I know him from someplace, brooded the stranger,
staring down into his beer.

  Walking home, Pat had the same feeling. I ~nz~st-a
seen him someplace before, he thought. But where?

  Denny saw his father turn the corner. He scuttled back
into the house and did his crayon work all over attain so
he wouldn't have to gfJ to bed right away.

  Claude and Maggie-Now were walking arm in arm. "I'm
disappointed," he said. "I had hoped to meet your father."

"I thought it wasn't the right tine...."

"I see." He solulded offended.

                  [ -US ]
                     
"I mean, he's not used to the idea that I . . . I . . ."

 "That I ~ . . you and I . . ." He didn't finish because,
startlingly enough, she was blushing. "You haven't told me
much about your father, excepting that he vvas born in
lkilkenny."

 "There's not much that I know about his childhood.
Anyhow, I talked too much last night."

 "Oh, no! No, it was wonderful every word of it. I'd like
to hear it all over again. You see," he said simply, "I never
had a childhood with parents and a home and relatives
and stores to go to and penny candies and a sled in
winter. No, I never had the things you had."

 "Please tell me how it \vas," she said impulsively. "I'd
like to know more about you."

"There is nothing to sell nothing to know," he said
harshly.

"Excuse me," she said humbly.

 His face cleared and he smiled. "Oh, someday, when
we're old Ed sitting by the fire and it's snowing outside,
I'll tell you everything."

"I will wait," she said shyly.

 He looked at her strangely. After a hile he said: "In
the meantime, I'll take your c hildhood for my own and
your Brooklyn and all your friends, too, your brother,
your father, your Aunt I,ottie . . ." Suddenlv, he said:
"Take me to see her."

 "She lives way over in East New York. Some night next
week . . . I'd have to send her a card first."

"I may not be here next week."

 Her heart fell. He dian't mean If, she thought sadly,
about HIS getting old with each other. I must try izat to
believe everything he . . . anybody says.

 "Maybe," she said tentatively, "you'd like to see the
house where my grandfather lived ~ here my mother
divas brought up?"

 Enthusiastically, he told her that was exactly what he
wanted to do.

 It hadn't changed much since Magerie-NoNv was a little
girl. The white swan, now grey from dust, still sat placidly
in the showcase. Claude visualised the house as it must
have been in the nineties. He admired the fine,
\vrought-iron grillwork of the basement door and house
railing.

"Yes, like New Orleans homes," he said.

                 ~ ~6 1
                    
"Then you've been there, too," she murmured.

 The stable plumbing shop was more up-to-date now.
Showcase windows hid the lines of the stable. A new auto
truck stood in the yard. The sign over the door, Pheid e)
Son. Plum/~ers. Day Cal Night, was now framed in
electric bulbs.

 A young man came out of the store and walked toward
them. "That's 'And Son,' I believe," whispered Claude.

 The young man smiled at Maggie-Now and said, "Yes?"
inquiringly, as his father had done twelve years ago.

 Claude answered. To Maggie-Now's distress, he used his
acadenmic voice on the young man. "May we be permitted
to browse around? "

 Young Pheid looked at him \vith distaste. "HON\PS that
again?" he asked.

 "My grandparents . . . my mother used to live here,"
explained Maggie-No,~v.

"No kidding!" said young Pheid, smiling at her.

"My grandfather owned this property."

"Kolinski, the notary?"

"No. His name was Moriarity. Michael Moriarity."

 "Hey, Pop," the young man called back to the store. "Did
you know a Moriarity?"

"Moriarit`,r? "

"Yeah. Moriarity."

 The name was sounded back and forth and, for a
breath, I\like Moriarity seemed to lee again.

 "Naw," said Pop Pheid, and the breath was gone. "Sorry,"
he added.

"That's all right," she said. "We just want to look around."

 He said what he had said many years ago to her mother:
"Help yourself." Pop and Son went back into the store.

 "There used to be a hedge of snowball bushes, Mother
said, along here."

"Snowball. . . ?"

"Some people call them hydrangea, I guess. Mother loved
them

so."

 Walking back home, she told him how her father had
lived in the stable loft when he first came from Ireland
and how he had hated the horses.

                  ~ ~o-1
                     
 "The more I hear about your father," he said, "the more
I want to know him."

"You wouldn't like hi7n."

 "I'm sure I would. If for no other reason than that you
like him."

"Oh, I don't like him.'

"You don't?" he asked, astonished.

"I suppose I love him, though."

"How can you love without liking?"

 "I don't know. But he's my father and a child should
love its father."

"I see. You love him because he loved your n-~other."

"No. Because my mother loved him."

 They said good night on her stoop. He turned his head
away to tell her he couldn't see her the next night; he'd be
busy. And she turned her head away to say that was all
right.

This is the end of it, she thought. I'll never see him again.

 But, he told her, he might be able to make it Friday
night if that was all right with her. She told him that
would be fine. And she thought: He's trying to let me doyen
easy. I know I'll never see him again.

"Good night," he said.

"Good-by," she whispered. She turtled and w ent into the
house.

 filer father Noms standing by the No. indo\v. He let the
curtain fall back into place when she came in.
lVlaggie-Now knew he'd seen them together and she was
dully surprised that he hadn't come out and made a fuss.

 "I seen him! I seen hint," said Pat exultantly, "the little
bit of a man what you think is in love with you."

 "Oh, Papa," she cried out, "he isn't, he isn't. No one is
in love with me."

 He felt her despair and was jubilant, thinking it was all
over  her friendship with the man. Perversely, however,
he was indignant that the man wasn't; in love with her.

"He's not worth your little finger," he said.

 She 10017ed at him, waiting for the quick retort to
come into her mind. It didn't come. She said: "I'll get you
up early tomorrow so you can go to six o'clock Mass
before work."

                 ~ ~o8 1
                    
"What f or? "

"Because tomorrow's Holy Thursday."

  "It's enough to go on Sunday," he mumbled. "Once in a
while," he added.

  "I'll get you up early for Mass," she said. She went into
her room and he heard a sound he'd never heard before:
the key turning in the lock of her door.

  Why alla' she go and do that for, he mused, just because
I didn't say right away I'd go to Mass? Just for that, I won't
go.

  Sadly, Maggie-Now prepared for bed, convinced that
she'd never see Claude again. I should have been more
careful, she thought, watched myself more and not told him
everything about myself and I shouldn't have shower so plain
how much I liked him.

  After all, what do I know about him? Nothing, come to
think of it. And the things I told him about me!

  And all the wonderful things he said to me the first two
nights! And tonight, nothing. He never said a word about my
dress or noticed that I'd washed my hair or even, she
swallowed a sob, how I smelled! That's how I know it's all
over.

  Ah, well, no use being a fool, she thought as she turned
out the light. Like Papa said, he's not the only pebble on the
beach. He's not the only man in the world. She sat up
suddenly in the dark. But he is! I'o me, he's the only man
in the world and I want him no matter what! If I can't have
him, I don't want anyone else.

  She couldn't get Pat up the next morning to go to Mass.
He said his back hurt. She and Denny went to the eight
o'clock Mass. When Pat came home that night, he noticed
with relief that there were no wet towels, no steamy
bathroom or scent of soap and powder. And she had
cooked his favorite supper: breaded veal cutlets, mashed
potatoes, stewed tomatoes thickened with a slice of rye
bread, and an open-faced apple cake from the baker's.
Also the coffee was good and strong the way he liked it.

  Ah, the good girl, thought Pat. She's making it up to me
the way she tormented me by going out with that feller. Sure
and she had a fight with the little man and sensible girl what
she is, she gave him the gate. Now she's glad she's got a
father to fall back on.

  He had a feeling of well-being. It made him generous.
"Have another piece of cake, Denny," he said.

                  [ 209 ]
                     
~ ou took the last piece already,!' said Delmy.

 Pat shoved his piece of cake over to Denny. "Have it,
do,'' he said. "I ain't touched it yet." He turned to
Maggie-Now. "Girl. dear, being's tomorrow is Good
Friday, I'll go to Mass."

"I'll try to get you up early," she said without interest.

 '~You don't need to. I'll go to the eight o'clock with
you and Denny."

"You'll be late for work."

 "Half an hour. I'll make it up Saturday afternoon. The
way I look at it," he said, "a family should stick together;
go to church together."

"Ah, Papa! " she said, and gave him her wide smile.

         ~ CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE ~

GOOD FRIDAY was alway s a somber day, but the
Good Friday of April 6, 19~7, was more somber than
usual. The morning papers carried the news that the
House of Representatives had finished the ratification and
formal declaration of war with Germany was expected
hourly.

 The church was crow deaf for the eight o'clock Mass.
Workingmen stood in the back: the letter carrier, bag
slung over shoulder, pausing in his rounds to attend Mass;
the uniformed cop deserting his beat for ten minutes; Pat
among them in his street cleaner's uniform, and others.
Few missed Mass that Good Friday.

 After lunch, Maggie-Now took Denny shopping with her
to buy the fish and vegetables for supper and the
huckleberry pie; and dye and eggs for colored Easter eggs.
The streets seemed unusually crowded and people moved
about slowly or stood silently in groups as though waiting
for something to happen. She heard one man ask another
what had happened.

The man said: "They say we're in the war." He shrugged.

                 [ 210 ]
                    
"But I don't know. You hear all kinds of things
nowadays."

 Within the hour, the extras were on the streets. The
word "War" was in black letters six inches high.

 "War!" read Denny, proud that that was another
three-letter word he could read.

 There it was. President Wilson had signed the
declaration of war at 1:13 P.M., Good Friday, April 6,
1917. The President had made a statement: "America has
found herself."

 The people of the neighborhood were one with each
other as they were always when there was a blizzard or a
great fire, a child raped and murdered by a fiend in the
neighborhood or some other great catastrophe. People
spoke to each other without formality or preamble.

"War is terrible," said a woman, a stranger to Maggie-Now.

"Yes," agreed Maggie-Now.

 "But it's more terrible when it starts on our Lord's Day,
Good Friday. And the time one-thirteen. That's unlucky
and it makes it more terrible."

 "War by itself," said another stranger, "is terrible, no
matter what."

Maggie-Now and the first woman agreed.

 Later in the afternoon, there was proof positive that
America was at war. The kids in the street had already
invented a war game. Maggie-Now and Denny watched
from the front window. Three boys, about Denny's age,
had their sawed-off-broomstick shinny sticks aimed at the
enemy. They stood in a row. The "enemy" was a little kid
of three, his sodden, baby-wet diaper hanging out the legs
of his manly little pants. They had placed an upside-down
white enameled child's chamber pot on his head for a
Hun's helmet.

 "Bang, bang, bang," they shouted. The little kid stood
there, bewildered.

"You're supposed to be dead," yelled a kid.

"Fall down, you Goddamn bologna," said another kid.

 And the little kid stood there and cried and baby-wet his
diaper some more.

"Can I go out and play? " asked Dennis.

"No!" said Maggie-Now.

"Why? "

                  t211 ]
                     
'Because I say so," she said sharply.

"Why do you say so?"

  "Because," she said more gently, "this is the day our
Lord died and it's not right to play such games on this
day." She pulled down the shades.

  Pat was relieved that night when he came home from
work (full of theories about the war which he was anxious
to give voice to) to smell fish frying. She wasn't going out,
then!

  For no woman in her right mind, he thought, would K
oust to meet her sweetheart smelling of frying fish.

  He also smelled the incense she had burning in a tin jar
lid on the stove. He assumed it was some religious
observance. (His wife used to burn incense on special
religious days.) He would have been upset had he known
she was burning it to take the fish smell out of her hair.

  Maggie-Now was going out to meet Claude. Her strong
feeling that she'd never see him again had changed to a
stronger feeling that she would see him again. The
declaration of war had something to do with it. Also, the
candle she had burned in church that morning. She
dressed after supper.

"So you're going our again," he said.

"Yes.,'

"What about the boy?"

  "He is your son, Papa. You should look after him once
in a while."

  After she had left, Pat prepared to go out, too. He
wanted to talk about the war to somebody. Denny
followed him from the bathroom where he waslled, to the
bedroom where he changed his clothes.

"Why are you follying me around?" he asked.

"Because I don't want to be left," said Denny.

  Standing before the mirror, struggling with his collar,
with L)enny standing next to him, Pat examined his son's
face in the mirror. Again, he wondered where the boy got
his red hair from. There had been no red heads in the
Moore or l\loriarity family. Timothy Shawn had had red
hair. It occurred to Pat that maybe a hundred or so years
ago, back in Ireland, a Moore had married or mated with
a Shawn and the red hair had worked through to Denny.
Somehow, the thought pleased Pat.

                  [ 212 1
                     
  I'd be proud, he thought, if the boy grew up to be half the
man that Timmy Shawn, the bastid, God rest his soul, was.

  He turned around and looked directly at the child. The
boy didn't have the light lashes that usually went with red
hair. He had dark lashes like his mother and he had his
mother's eyes, too.

  He thought of Mary with the baby in her arms; how he
had said he'd always wanted a son to go hunting and
fishing with. He had a small moment of prescience.

  When I'm a very old man, he thought, I'll remember how
the little boy wanted to be with me this night and I'll cry me
heart out and wish I was young again so I could stay with
the little boy. So I will grieve when I am old.

  But tonight I am young and I don't want to stay with the
little boy. I want to talk to men about the war.

He compromised. "You can come along when I go out," he
said.

  The boy :looked up at him and put his hands together
in ecstasy and smiled the way Mary used to smile at Pat
when he said or did something nice. Pat's heart turned
over a little.

  Walking down the street, the boy slipped his hand into
his father's and said: "I like to go out with you."

  The man felt a drop of moisture in the corner of one
eye and felt a second of anguish. Why does he always give
in? If he'd only tell me to go to hell! Then I'd know what to
do. First I'd beat the be-Jesus out of him for talking that way
to his father. Then I'd be proud of him for standing up to his
old man and not taking no guff from me or nobody.

  They came to a candy store. Pat said: "Here's five
pennies. You go in and buy whatever you want. And look
around. See if there's anything you want for Easter. Not
more than a quarter, hear? And maybe I'll buy it for you."
The boy gave him what Pat called 'that l\lary look" a look
of gratitude and happiness combined. "And wait for me
here."

  Pat asked for a short beer. The bartender said maybe
he'd like to think it over. A small beer now cost a dime
and would cost fifteen next week. On account of the war,
explained the bartender.

  The saloon was crowded. There was a lot of loud talk;
they talked loudly about the war and much louder about
beer going up a nickel a glass. The little fellow that Pat
was sure he had seen someplace was in the center of a
group of men, waving his glass

                  [ 715 1
                     
of beer and giving his version of the outbreak of war. Pat
made his way over to the man.

 "I thought you'd be in uniform by now," he sneered. To
Pat's surprise, the little man shook his hand.

 "The honoryou did me," said the stranger, "yourself
saying I should enlist and me wllat'll never see fifty again.
You gave me me youth back. Do you not remember me,
Pathrick, your old friend from night-school days>"

 Pat knew it was Mick Mack, Jor, he thought, Ho else in
all the world would take an insult for a complir~ie~t.

"Ah, you've changed,' said Mick Mack.

 "Not as much as you," said Pat, "the bad way you look,
I didn't recognise you."

 "And I didn't recognise you, Pathrick, the grand w ay
you look after all these years."

 Mick M[ack's story was soon told. He had sustained a
bacl; injury when a big treacle had run into his trolley car
and, after years of litigation, the truck company had
settled fifteen dollars a week on him for life. His wife was
dead and his children all married. He didn't see much of
them. In his own words, they had no room for the old
man. But he was happy, he insisted, with his fifteen
dollars a week and the room and board he got at the
home of a grand widder woman for ten dollars a week.

 "She owns her own house," he said, "on Schaeffer Street,
just off Bushwick Avenue. She runs a hat store for ladies
in the basement and upstairs is the boarders. And, oh, the
grand table she sets! Her husband," he continued, "rest his
soul, even though I never laid eyes on him, deft the
widder well fixed with the house in her name, and, I
wouldn't be surprised, a bit of money to go with it, and
she with a darlen shape in the bargain."

 "And I wouldn't put it past the likes of yourself," said
Pat, "to look at her darlen shape and get idears."

 "Ah, no. 'Tis her cooking has won me heart. Do you
come and eat Easter Day dinner with me, Pathrick. Only
thirty-fi~-e cents for outsiders."

"No," said Pat. "Home I eat for nothing. And eat good,
too.

 "I'll treat," said Mick Mack. "Friendship, to me, is more
than money "

                 [ 2~4 ]
                    
 "I'll eat with you then," said Pat. "Not that I want to, but
because I'm sorry for a miserable little man, the likes of
you, having to pay to have someone eat with him."

 "Ah, you talk so mean," said the beaming Mick Mack,
"because you don't want me to find out the goodness what
is in

you.',

"Miss me"' asked Claude.

"Yes."

  "That's the way it should be," he said, tucking her arm
into his. "I am taking you to dinner tonight."

  "That's nice." She was pleased. He didn't ask and she
didn't tell him she'd already had her evening meal.

  He took her to an upstairs chop suey restaurant on the
corner of Broadway and Flushing Avenue. After they were
seated, they made an agreement not to discuss the war.

  "Let us talk only of ourselves," he said. "Our time
together may be shorter than we know. Now: Will you
have beef or pork chop suey?"

  "Could I have something else?" she asked. "You see, I've
never eaten Chinese food before and . . ."

"Start on something familiar, then. You like eggs?"

"Oh, yes."

  The Chinese waiter was at their table. He had come
silently. 'iYiss?" he inquired.

  "Shrimp eggs foo yung for the lady and pork chop suey
for me.

"Yiss."

  The waiter brought a pot of tea and two little bowls.
"Oh, how beautiful," she exclaimed, admiring the
bone-white china with its larkspur-blue Chinese markings.
"And this!" She ran her hand over the raffia-wrapped
handle of the teapot and smiled across the table at him.

  He picked up one of the little bowls and looked at the
bottom. "Yes. Made in China. The Orient." He smiled
back at her and her smile widened. "~411 the Orient is in
your smile," he half spoke, half sang.

"There's Egypt in your dreamy eyes," she quoted.

                 [ 2 ~ A ]
                     
'That's a bold thing to tell a man," he said.

"No. I mean, that's the name of the song you started to
sing."

"We have our song, then," he said. "Will you pour the
tea?"

 Thrilled, she filled his bowl and her own. "Sugar?" she
asked, arching her eyebrows as she had seen an actress,
Jerry Morley, do at the Lyceum in a play where Jerry had
poured tea.

He grinned. "No sugar."

"I don't take sugar, either," she said.

  'Good. We have the same habits. She'll have no trouble
getting along."

"It's such good tea," He said.

  "I don't l~now whether it's good or not. But it's
wonderful because we're drinking it together." After the
third bowlful, he sighed, leaned back and relaxed. "All we
need is a fire on the hearth and a cat purring on the rug.
Do you like cats, Margarct?"

"I don't know. I never had a cat."

"We'll have a cat, maybe two," he said. "You'll love them.''

  Stle set her bowl down because her hands w ere
trembling. Now, she thought, he'll say, we'll have a cut
Chest we set up o'er ow

home after we nearby.

He said: "Ever see a Phalanx cat?

"What kind of cat is that?"

   'They have no tails. ~l hey're verb colllnlon in
Scotland. Scotland! Have you ever been . . ."

  "No," she interrupted. "I've never been to Scotland." He
laughed.

  T he waiter brought the food. She stared adnniringly at
the nicely arranged, steaming mound on Claude's plate.
She said the obvious thing: "Ely, that looks good!"

  Now! he wondered. Will she say I'll give you some of
mine arid you give me some of yours? He detested women
who wanted to share food in restaurants. He tried her out.

  "HONV about I give you some of this and \70U give
me some of yours?"

  "You can have SOII1C of mine," she said, "there's such
a lot of it. But I don't v,~ant any c hop sucy."

  Perversely then, he ~ anted her to share his food.
"Please?" lie asked.

' 1 can't. Bet ause it's l? ridav."

                 1 /6 1
                    
"What does Friday have to do . . ."

"I can't eat meat on Friday, especially Good Friday."

"And why not?"

"My religion . . ."

 "Of course! How could I be so stupid? Please don't
hold it against me." He reached over and put his hand
on hers.

 So he's not Catholic, sighed Maggie-Now to herself.
F:ven if he did want me, that's another thing religion in
the way.

'I d like to go to service with you," he said.

  "Service? Oh, Mass. There's high Mass Sunday. Easter
high Mass is very beautiful. Even outsiders," she said
bravely, "think

so."

 "I'll think so too, my little Chinee," he said. "I want to
share it with you. I want to share everything with you."
Again, he leaned across the table to put his hand on her
arm.

 She saw the w alter coming with the dessert and, as
many women do, she changed the subject, feeling that talk
should be casual in the presence of a waiter.

"It's sprinkling outside," she said.

"An April shower," he said.

  Dessert was two almond cookies each. 'Would it be all
right," she asked Claude, "if I took one home for my
brother?"

  "Only if you false one of mine, too." She wrapped the
cookies in her clean handkerchief and put them in her
pocketbook.

"It's raining harder," he said.

"I like to walk in the rain," she said.

  "We'll stay here and drink tea," he said. "And talk.
Maybe the rain will let up." He ordered another pot of
tea. "I have about two days left," he said, "and I'd like to
spend them with you. Could I spend tomorrow at- your
home?"

  She looked so stricken his heart went out to her. He
knew she was thinking of her father. He made it a little
easier for her

"Could we aide out to the cemetery?"

"Cemetery?' She was astonished. "But why ....~"

  "It sounded so wonderful when you told me how your
mother took you there and how you took your brother. .
. "

  "Well, its not Decoration Day, but I guess we could go
just the same." He laughed. "Only, I'd have to take Denny
"

"i wouldn't think of going if he didn't come along," he said

                1 '~ 7 ]
                    
 ,allantly. Site gave hell her wide smile for that. i'And
tomorrow night?" he asked tentatively.

 "Well, I al\vays go to see Aunt Lottie Ott Easter eve,
To bring Laster baskets to the twins, but . . ."

"Would you," he said eagerly, "u ould yotl take me?"

"I u ould like to," she said.

  I he rain continued. they were the only guests left in the
restaurant. The waiter started to mop the floor and they
left. They walked home in the rain. He put his arm
around her waist, holding her close to his side as they
walked, saying that one side of her' at least, wouldn't get
wet. She thought that was a very nice waN7

to \Valk.

 When she got home, L)enny was sitting on the floor
with a shiny, new humming top. "Why aren't you in bed,
Denny?" she asked with a frown. Denny and his father
exchanged understanding looks.

"He's still up because I asked kiln to keep me
cornpanv."

"~li7here'd you get that pretty top?" she asked.

'Papa bought it for n e. For Easter."

  "Ah, Papa!" she said. She put her hand on his
shoulder in a gesture of affection.. She was pleased that
he'd been nice to Dennv and relieved that he hadn't
started the usual argument about her going out that
night.

  "By the way," said Pat casually. "Don't count on me
for Easter dinner. I'm going to have Easter dinner with
me friend."

  Maggie-No\v's heart Icaped a little. I call have (:laude
here far dialler, she told herself joyously.

"I hope vou won't mind," he said with stiff formality.

"Lao, Papa. I'm glad you have a friend," she said
sincerely.

 j_ l (\|

            ~: CHAPTER THIRTY ~

ON THE way to the cemetery, Claude didn't ask Denny
how old he was; what grade he was in; whether he liked
school and what he wanted to be when he got big stock
questions that adults usually ask children when they're
trying to get acquainted. He drew out Derllly about kite
making and he listened with sincere interest. He told
Denny how the Chinese made kites; the lacquered sticks
and the gold and silver paper and the symbols painted on
them; turquoise, jade green and Chinese red. And the kite
itself in the shape of a dragon, perhaps, and the tail,
intricately made of twisted paper to look like a dragon's
tail. The trolley ride seemed all too short to Denny and to
Maggie-Now, too.

 She bought a red geranium and the man said the price
had gone up. It was fifty cents now and he confided that
the price would go up to a dollar on Decoration Day. On
account of the war, he said.

 Claude insisted on buying a hothouse hydrangea. It cost
a dollar and a half and Maggle-Now told him it was too
dear, but Claude said, since her mother had loved them
so, he wanted to plant one on her grave.

 "Margaret," he said, as they walked through the
cemetery, "do you believe that when someone dies, he dies
altogether?"

"Yes," she said. "Except the soul."

"What is the soul?"

  "What goes to heaven when you die," said Lenny.
"Brother Bernard said so."

"That's h;S catechism teacher," explained 1\/laggie-No\v.

"What do you think the soul is, Margaret? "

  "I suppose it's the something that stays or is after
someone dies. The soul of him is around. It's the kind of
stamp he made on

                   [~9]
                     
whatever he did and thought anti the nay he lived; things
that sort of stay after he dies. And it is what goes to hea\
en, too, like Denny said."

 "Do you believe that a person eN or lived before in
another thlle, a htmdred or so years ago, mayl e'''

"Oh, no."

 "Have you ever turn. d a corner h1 a strange
neigllborllood and come on a street that you'd never seen
before and had the feeling that you'd been there before?
In another lifer"

 "No. I walk around only in my own nei;rllborhood and
I lKno\N all the streets anct they never are strange to me.
No, I never had that feeling."

 "Some people believe,' he said, "that a person comes
back to live in some other form after death."

"I,ike what?" she asked.

 "Like these hydrangeas: You told me yotlr mother loved
hydrangeas. Wouldn't it make you happy if yol. knew she
lived again as one of these plants?"

 "I couldn't say," said l\laggie-Now, disturbed and ill at
ease. "No. I wouldn't like it. ~ Otl wouldn't want to be a
flower, ``voulct you? "

"Not a flower. A bird."

 "A bird?" blurted on; Lenny ill astonisllnlent.
Mag4-ie-~\oNv pressed his shoulder hard, meaning he
was not to laugh.

"But why?" she asked.

 "Because a bird is frte . . . free. I-le flies over the sea
and over the land."

 "In winter," said Denny, "chippies come hi our ! a. d arid
Maggie-Now throws out bread crumbs for them."

 "NO, not a sparrow; not a small bird. A great grav and
W trite sea gull. I saw some when I crossed over on the
Staten Island ferry some weeks ago. That kind of a bird,
Denny."

 The talk was making Maggie-~Tow uneasy and
uncomfortable. She vitas relieved when Denny ran ahead
and shouted: "Here it is! I found the grave all by myself."

 Claude read the graven names aloud. "Michael
~\loriarity; a powerful name." He paused and breathed,
"Mary l`.ioore. The sound of it is like a sigh in the valley
on a gravy autumn day."

                 1 77~) 1
                     
 Maggie-Now's eyes misted over because she thought
that was such a beautiful thing to say. But Denny backed
off and looked at Claude witch suspicion. He liked Claude
when he talked about kites and things like that. But he
wasn't sure of liking him when he talked about being a
bird and how somebody's name sounded.

 They had the traditional pot cheese and chives for lunch
and Denny had his usual hot dog and strawberry soda.
The waiter asked Claude wouldn't he like a glass of beer
with his pot cheese and Claude said, no, as if he were
astonished that anyone would ask him to drink beer. This
pleased Maggie-Now. She thought that, at least, he wasn't
a drinking man. She invited him to Sunday dinner at her
home. His acceptance was humbly grateful.

 With flattering courtesy, he consulted Denny. "Is it all
right with you, Denny? "

 "Sure," said Denny. Ele vitas so overwhelmed at being
asked that he forgot about Claude wanting to be a bird
when he was dead.

 Going back in the trolley car, Maggie-Now told Claude
all about Mrs. Schondle. E le listened raptly and, when
she had finished, he pretended to be angry.

 "Why didn't you tell me about her before?" he asked.
"Why did you hold it back?"

"I never thought about her until today," she said.

 "Ships that pass in the night!" He savored the words.
"And Mrs. Schondle! What a wonderful name!"

 "She gave me a penny once," said Denny. "Because I
said 'hello' to her."

 They went up the stairs, Denny carrying the Easter
baskets for the twins. Maggie-NoNv tapped on Lottie's
door.

"Who is it?" called out Lottie.

"Me. Maggie-Now, and Denny."

"And a friend!" called out Claudc.

 There was a living silence before I,ottie called out: "Just
a minute, please."

 There were hurried thuinpings and bumpings behind the
closed door. Maggie-No\v knew that Lottie was furiously
straightening out the room for''compally.''

                  1 221 ]
                     
  "I guess [ should have dropped her a card," whispered
MaggieNONV. "But I thought she'd expect me. Denny
and I always come over Easter eve with the baskets."

  A slightly disheveled Lottie opened the door cautiously,
stared frankly at Claude and said, '~Come in." She
embraced MaggieNow warmly, gave Demly a kiss on a
reluctantly offered cheer;, smiled at Claude and saicl: "I'm
their Aunt Lottie."

  "Aunt I,ottie," said l\ laggie-Now, "let me introduce Sir.
Bassett."

  Claude took Lottie's hand and bowed a little bit too
much over it. "This is a pleasure I've been looking forward
to for a long time," he said.

  Maggie-Now was dismayed. Claude vvas using his
"educated' English and Maggie-Now knew that Lottie
would think he was putting on airs. She saw that Lottie,
expecting the traditional "Pleased to meet you," W.IS
taken aback by Claude's little speech.

  Lottie replied with the traditional, "Likewise," and then
felt foolish because her reply didn't fit. She had not
looked forward to the pleasure of meeting him because
she hadn't even known he lived until a few moments ago.

  "These are for the twins," said Demly, handing Lottie
the two baskets.

  "What a shame," she said. "They're not here. Last mght,"
she explained to Maggie-NoNv, "on account of the w ar
starting, Gracie dreamed Widdy was killed on the
battleship and she said the children would be all she had
if Widdy died so she took them back." Courteously, she
included Claude in her explanation. "You see, Mr.
Bassett, Dcnny and my twin grandsons were born just a
few Steely apart."

itRcally?~, he said

She thought he sounded doubtful. She said, "Yes,"
emphatically.

"How's your mother?' asked Maggie-Now.

  "Mama fell asleep while she was eating her supper so I
put her to bed. All she eats now is mashed potatoes and
a glass of port wine the doctor says she can have." She
turned to Claude. "i\ly mother is ninety-two, yo u know."

"Really?" he asked.

"Well, she is," said Loctie.

"Can I show him the album, Aunt Lottie?" asl~ed
Denny.
                [ 222 1
                
"Sure, go ahead, Denny." Again she addressed Claude.
"I\lr.
Shawn, Timmy, my late husband . . ." she waited. Ile
waited,
knowing something was expected of him, but what?
"God rest his soul," said Maggie-Now.
". . . gave it to me," continued Lottie, "on our fifth
anniversary.
He wrote on the card: 'To my sweetheart.' He always
called me
sweetheart. "
"Is that so!" He opened the album and cocked his ear to
listen
to the tinkling music. "Why, this is charming," he said.
Lottie looked at him strangely. She turned to
Maggie-No\v.
"Come in the kitchen with me a minute. I want to show
you
something." To Claude, she said: "Excuse us?"
"Certainly." He stood up.
"Stay sitting," said Lottie.
Out in the kitchen, Lottie spoke in a tense, hurried
whisper.
"Who is he?"
"Claude Bass . . ."
"I know his name but who is he?"
"Someone I met last Monday."
"What does he dot"
"Oh, different things."
"What does he work at?"
"Different things."
"Where does he come from?''
"Different places."
"Wherein"
"I don't know, Aunt Lottie."
"Is he got parents?"
"I don't know. He never said and I never asked."
"He ain't Catholic."
"I never asked"
"I Pro. Because he didn't say, 'Rest his soul' when I men-
tioned Timmy's name. 1 ook! I'm your godmother and
it's my
place to see that you don't marry outside your religion."
"You don't like him, do you, Aunt Lottie?"
"No."
"Why?''
"Because he's not like Timmy. Oh, Maggie-Now, dear,"
said
Lottie, "what do you see in him?"

                  [ 223 ]
                     
 "I:verything. Like when he tall<s . . . the things he says
malice nZe feel like a princess."

 'And the things Timmy did for me made me feel like a
queen. Like the way he'd lift my washboiler on the stove.
Your man would only look at it anti say, 'Interesting, ain't
its"'

 "Oh, Aunt Lottie, if you knew hoNv much I loved hhn,
you wouldn't run him down so."

"Why do you love him?"

"Because he needs me so," said Maggie-Now.

"Famous last words," said Lottie cynically.

"The way Uncle Timmy needed you, Aunt 1,ottie."

"Timmy didn't need nobody,. I needed him."

 Maggie-NoNv hung her head. She was saddened
because the godmother she loved didn't love the man she
loved. "He asked to :~TO to Mass with me tomorrow,"
she said hopefully.

 "Sure! Sure! Them smooth talkers will do anything
before marriage and not}ling,T after. Well, I tell you this,
I\laggie-Now, it's my place to see that you don't marry
him. And you won't marry him. I had my say, now, alla I
guess we better go back. He might think we're talking
about him."

 As they came out of the kitchen, Lottie talked loudly
and brightly as though continuing the kitchen
conversation. "I just wanted you to look at it and tell me
if I paid too much for that wash wringer."

 Claude was not foolec'. He stood at the mantelpiece,
holding the china pug dog With the china nursing
puppies, and looked at .Maggie-NoNv appealing!,`. Her
heart went out to him.

"My Timmy . . ." said Lottie. And waited.

 "God rest his soul," said Maggie-Now, looking intently
at Claude and hoping he'd understand that he was
expected to se! teat' too. But poor Claude only looked
t~evvildered.

 "Thanks," said Lottie pointedly. She continued, ". . .
gave me that pug dog on our first wedding anniversary."

"It's an amusing little thing," he said.

 .\laggie-NoN`.r moaned inwardly. I Vhy, she thought,
can't he talk plain to her the clay he talks to me? I know
whet he means that it's cute in a Tray that makes you
smile. but Lottie thinks he wean that he thinks it's co7nical.

Indeed she did. She snatched the dog from him and held
it to

                 [ ~4 1
                    
her breast. "I was going to give it to Maggie-Now when
she got married. Yes, I was going to give it to her." Her
intonation said plainly that she wouldn't think of giving it
to her now.

 It was an uncomfortable visit. Claude kept saying the
wrongthings as far as Lottie was concerned and his
habit of cocking his head to hear better, a habit that
usually endeared him to women, made Lottie nervous.

 It was time to go and Lottie gave Denny the Easter
basket she had prepared for him. It was large and
elaborate.

"Oh, Lottie! You shouldn't have," protested Maggie-Now.

 "Why not? You give two and I only give one back so it
should be bigger. Like it, Denny?" He nodded. "Well, what
do I get for it?" He gave her a big hug.

 "Well, Mr. Bassett, it was nice to meet you," said Lottie.
"And come again when you call stay longer." She didn't
mean it, but that was the right thing to say.

 Going home on the trolley, Claude said: "I'm starry she
doesn't like me your Aunt Lottie."

 Maggie-Now thought of saying, BUt she does. It's just her
way. But she was too honest to say it. She said: "Lottie's
not used to strangers. She'll like you after a wlli!e. When
she knows you better."

"But I like you, /mrw," said Dermy.

 Claude placed the little boy's hand on his palm. When
he saw 110V`T little the hand was and 110NV vulnerable
it looked, Claude put his other hand over it protectively.
He held the child's hand 50 and said: "Thank you, Dcnny."
There was a little break in his voice. ''I'll always remember
that.'

                  t22, ~
                     
         ~; CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE ~

Liar many people w ith limited amounts of money to
spend, Maggic-Now thoroughly enjoyed the spending of it.
She loved to shop, especially for ~ rod. She loved to see
things in great abundance: a basket of tomatoes, a bin of
potatoes, a thick stalk of bananas or a huge side of beef.
She was one of those women who like to touch things; she
picked out onions one by one to drop into the bag the
greengrocer held for her. She picked up muskmelons to
hold and to smell before she bought. She picked up
objects in stores and held them a second before she
replaced them; ran her palm over dress goods in the bolt.

 Shopping for food was a daily pleasure but shopping for
Easter dinner for Glaude Bassett had been pure ecstasy.
She had taken Delmy along with her, as .oon as they got
back from the cemetery and before they went to l,ottie's.

 She had wanted the traditional ham for Easter but
prices were up to twent~y-tvvo cents 2 pound on account
of the big demand. She decided on marinated leg of lamb.
Her usual butcher had lamb but it was twenty" two cents
a pound and Maggie-Now thought that was too dear.

"Last week it was eighteen cents a pound," she said.

"It's gone up because we're in the war," he said.

 She didn't see Low being in the war for tvventy-four
hours would affect the price of meat he had had in his
icebox for two weeks, but she said nothing. Another
woman in the store said: "Pst! " Maggie-Now went to her.

 "Go by Winer's, near L~orDtler Street," she whispered.
"He's got lamb for seventeen cents."

 "What goes on there, hall?'' called out the butcher
suspiciously from behind the counter.

                 ~ 226 ]
                    
 "Nothing'7, nothing," said the woman hurriedly. (She
owed him money.)

 Maggie-Now went to Winer's but there was a catch in it.
It was seventeen a pound if one bought the whole leg;
nineteen a pound for half. Also it wasn't lamb; it was
mutton. Maggie-Now felt a thrill. She liked mutton better
than lamb but the butcher mustn't know or the price might
go up. She hesitated and he said eighteen a pound if she'd
take the shank end. That was the end she'd intended to
buy but she was crafty.

"bet me see it first," she said.

 He brought out the leg of mutton and threw it on the
block. Maggie-Now fell in love with it at first sight. "All
right," she said.

"How much?"

 "About four pounds and cut off the bone end for soup."
It w as done and she was happy.

 While the butcher was sawing away, Denny worked his
way behind the counter and watched the butcher. "Denny!"
called Maggie-Now reproachfully.

 "Leave him," said the butcher. "Maybe he'll be a butcher
when he gets big." Maggie-Now must have made a little
grimace for he said: "But maybe you'd sooner he was
President?"

"I wouldn't mind," said Maggie-Now.

 "Listen, lady. How many Presidents is there? Just one.
But how many butchers? A couple thousand. He's got
more chance of being a butcher than President." He
wrapped up the meat and gave Denny a slice of liverwurst.

 She bought a few pounds of small, new potatoes with
curls of red skin peeling off, a bunch of green spring
onions, the smallest carrots she could find and a sliver of
Roquefort cheese.

 She put the mutton in a big bowl with sweet oil, pickle
vinegar, salt, pepper and a bay leaf, and left it to marinate
overnight in the icebox.

 The next morning, Easter Sunday, Pat got dressed up
and left soon after breakfast with the information that he
wouldn't be home until the evening. In a flurry of
excitement Maggie-Now put up her dinner so it could
cook while she was at Mass.

 She took the mutton from the bowl, wiped it dry and
braised it in hot bacon drippings until it was a golden
brown. She transferred it to her'oig, heavy iron pot, added
five peppercorns, salt.

                 ~ 2 2? 1
                     
a new bay leaf and a cup of water. She let it boil up, put
the heav v lid on and turned the hea, down to simmering.

 She fixed a simple salad in her old, warped, wooden
salad bowl: chopped lettuce, grated onion, slivers of green
pepper, crumbs of Roquefort cheese and olive oil and
vinegar dressing with seasonings and a pinch of sugar.

 At ten o'clock, Dennv, all washed and pressed, left for
the children's Class. Maggie Now dressed herself carefully,
wishing she had a new dress but released that she had the
new hat she had bought that week. JUst before eleven, she
put the potatoes and carrots (wl-~ich she had scrubbed
earlier) into the pot, added the peeled onions, let the
whole thing boil up once more, and then put the heat
down to simn1er. It wouLl be done to a tender turn when
they got back front church.

 She wet the cork of a little of oil of cloves that her
father used for his toothaches, and touched the cork to
each hand (in case her hands still smelled like onions), and
rubbed until the pungent scent vvas sorrlewhat faint and
smelled a little like spicy carnations. She took a fresh
handkerchief from the box where it had rested all week on
a bag of or,-isroot, and was ready for her church and her
Claude.

 He Noms waiting outside the church. She thought he
looked handsome in his freshly pressed suit and shined
shoes. He had a package and a book under his arm. The
children's Mass was just getting out and Denny ran over to
say hello. Claude asked Dennv to take the package and
t,ook home.

"And don't open the package to look," said Maggie-NoNv.

"I won't," he promised.

"And nobody's home so don't go near the stokes hears"

"I never no near the stave."

a,

"Promise me plain."

'I won't go near the stove."

 He walked down the street, holding the package up to
his ear and shaking it.

 "Margaret," whispered Claude as they entered the
church 'how will I know what to do?"

"Do whatever I do," she whispered back.

 They remained after the Mass was over because
 Claude wanted
n, examine the Stations of the Cross and see the details
of the
~ ~'s1

altars. He watched fondly while she knelt before the statue
of Saint Anthony, lit a candle and bowed her head briefly.
She stood up and smiled at him.

"Why did you do that?" he asked.

"For my intention."

"What was your intention?"

  "I can't tell you." She couldn't tell him that she had
prayed to the saint, asking him to intercede for her in
gaining Claude's love.

  Father Flynn was standing outside the church in cassock
and biretta, enjoying the spring air and anticipating the
goodness of the Easter dinner that would break his long
fast. He greeted Maggie-Now and looked sharply at
Claude.

  "Father," she said, "I want to introduce Mr. Bassett.
Claude Bassett." To Claude, she said: "This is Father
Flynn."

  Claude started to extend his hand, then drew it back. He
didn't know whether to bow, genuflect or shake hands. The
priest noticed his confusion and reached out and grasped
Claude's hand. Claude didn't know whether to address him
as Father, Reverend or Mister. He decided on "sir."

"How do you do, sir."

"I am pleased to know you," said the priest.

  Father Flynn watched them go down the street. So she's
found her Fran, he mused. And his faith isn't the saline as
hers. He sighed deeply.

  Denny was sitting on the stoop with the packages
because the door was locked and he couldn't get in. Denny
was disappointed when Claude took the package and book
from him. He had thought he'd say: Keep the package, a
present for you.

  When they entered the house, Claude said what
thousands of men were saying all over the country at that
same time: "Something smells good."

  And women were answering: "I hope it tastes good," or
"Why shouldn't it smell good? I spent the whole morning
cooking it." But Maggie-Now said: "Oh, it's nothing. Just
some meat and potatoes."

  He followed her out into the kitchen, informing her that
he was the type who peered into pots to see what was
cooking. He told her it was the most beautiful kitchen he'd
ever seen.

She looked around the large room, wondering whatever
an

                  1 229 ]
                     
other person could see in it. There was the plate shelf
running around the walls with her mother's hand-painted
china plates leaning against the wall. The wooden bowls
for the morning oatmeal stood on the shelf and her blue
willowware dishes. The cups hung by hooks from the
bottom of the shelf.

 "Reminds me of the kitchens in Devon," he said. "They
have blue willowware with the cups hung up like that."

 "Oh, those," she said. "Everybody around here has
dishes like these. You get them for trading stamps. It's
such a common pattern."

"Is it, my little Chinee;" he asked.

 The conversation bored Denny. He went out to the
front room and sat on the lounge next to the package,
sweating out the time until Claude should either open it
himself or give it to him, Denny.

 Maggie-Now was chattering away in the kitchen. '`I like
those dishes, though. Lots of women keep them in dish
closets but I like them where I can look at them. The way
some people like to look at books."

 While she was talking, she thickened the gravy with
flour and stirred in a teaspoon of grated horseradish. On
each of tluee plates she placed a thick slice of mutton,
three of the small new potatoes with their skins flaking
off, a couple of soft but intact baby carrots and a ladleful
of soft, almost transparent, tiny onions. She gave the
mutton a thick coat ing of the pungent gravy and called
Denny to the table. Before she sat down, she set the
wooden bowl full of salad in the middle of the table.

 She watched anxiously as Claude took his first bite of
the mutton "Venison!" he amlounced.

"No," she said. "Just mutton."

 "No, my little Chinee. Venison afar something better."
She flushed with pleasure.

 Denny, feeling the oneness between theta, and feeling
left out in the cold, pushed his plate away. This had his
hoped-for result. He got his sister's attention away from
Claude.

"NONV what?" she asked.

"I'm not hungry," he answered.

"Eat!" said his sister.

"But I don't like it."

"Eat it anyhow." She explained to Clande: "He's been
eating

                 [ ~3('1
                    
eggs from his Easter basket, that's why he's not hungry."

"Just two," Denny mumbled.

 But he ate everything on his plate. So did Claude and so
did Maggie-Now. Claude had some gravy left on his plate.
He looked over the table, wondering why there was no
bread and butter.

 "This wonderful gravy," he said, "cries out for a piece of
bread to sop it up with." Denny opened his mouth to say
something.

"Don't tell him, Denny," said Maggie-Now sharply.

"Tell me what?" he asked smiling.

 "About the dessert," she said. "It's supposed to be a
surprise. Do you want more gravy?" Yes, he did. She
poured a ladleful on his plate and gave him a spoon.
"Please use this for the gravy,'? she said graciously.

 "Denny, will you gr ind the coffee while 1 go and get the
dessert? "

"Okay."

  "Denny," said Claude, "I'll give you a nickel if you'll let
Ate grind the coffee." The deal was consummated.

  Maggie-Now almost ran the two blocks to the Jewish
delicatessen The bread wagon was just leaving. Inside the
store, Mrs. Fine was arranging the warm round mounds in
the showcase.

  "You come just in time," she told Maggie-Now. "Only
now did the breads come. Still warm. Half a loaf like
always?"

"Like always," smiled Maggie-Now.

  The woman wrapped the half in a clean rag. "So it
should stay warm for you," she said kindly.

  Maggie-Now went to the dairy next door. Three tubs of
butter lying on the side faced the customers across the
counter. The vats were labeled: Good, Better and Best.

  "A half pound of the best sweet butter," said
Maggie-No\v. The man lifted the glass door and picked up
the wooden paddle. "And all in one piece," she added. "No
crumbs!"

  He faced her, hands on hips. "No crumbs! No crumbs,
she says! So I'm magic and can cut exact-tle one half
pound! Sure! Well, look con bottom the tub. Look on all
the pieces from people what don't want crumbs. Them," he
said dramatically, "them pieces is my profits."

"My bread's getting cold," she said.

He put the wedge of butter on the scale. His hand
trembled as

                  ; Hi ]
                     
he did so because he feared the worst. His fear was
justified. The wedge weighed an ounce over the half
pound. He hit the side of his head with the flat of his
hand.

 "My profit! My profit!" he cried out. "Now I must cut off
my profit and throw it on the floor of the tub!"

"Oh, I'll take the whole thing," she said.

 "Don't do me no fav`,rs," he said bitterly as he wrapped
the butter.

 She made the coffee vie ry strong and heated a
saucepan of milk and served it half coffee, half hot milk.
She brought the still-warm bread to the table and stood
before Claude holding it in her hands.

"Ceres!" he said.

 "I guess you'll think it s funny bread and butter for
dessert," she said.

"No, my little Chinee, 1 think it's a very nice idea."

 "We always have it for- Sunday dessert because it's
better than any pie I could bake or Cooke I could buy."

 He stood up. "It's wonderful, Margaret. Beautiful bread
Nice to look at and it smells so good. It's nice to the
touch and will be nice to the taste. Like good wine, it
appeals to all the senses except sound."

 "Listen!" she said. She pressed her forefinger on the
eœ,rr,rshellthin but crisp crust. An inch of the crust
collapsed into flakes with a sound like a small sigh.

 "The clink of touched glasses that gives sound to good
ovine," he said.

"Can I have a piece now? " asked Denny.

 She cut the bread. She watched while Claude broke off
an edge and spread it thinly with butter.

 "Let me do it for you," she said. She took his slice and
spread the whole thing thickly with the good butter. "That
way, it's dessert," she said. "Eat it all in one piece."

 He took a bite. "Wonderful! Wonderful!" he said. "It
deserves to be brought to the table under a glass dome
like pheasants and mushrooms."

 They're startin`,r up that do talk again, thought Denny r
esentfully.

 He decided to make a diversion. He folded his buttered
bread in half and defiantly plunged it into his cup of
coffee and milk.

                  f 7~]
                    
 "Denny!" cried out Maggie-Now. "Where are your table
manners? "

 Claude put his hand on the boy's arm. "Thank you,
Denny," he said. "You opened the way for me to do
exactly the same thing." He dipped his bread into his
coffee.

 "What can I do with you, the both of you?" said
Maggie-Now in pretended despair.

"Nothing. Just smile and put up with us."

 She gave him her big smile. "You make everything seem
so special," she told him.

 "Ah, no, Margaret. You do. You're the one. You make
the simple ordinary things of life seem good and new and
wonderful. You put a shine on life."

 Denny couldn't stand any more. "When you go," he said
to Claude, "don't forget your package. It's on the lounge
in the front room."

"Denny!" she said, horrified at the broad hint.

 "What's the matter with me?" exclaimed Claude. "I
forgot to give you the little present I got for you." He got
up from the table. "Come on, Denny." To Maggie-Now, he
said: "I hereby give notice that I'm not the type of man
who helps with the dishes."

 "And I give notice," she said, "that I can't stand a man
fussing around my kitchen."

 The package contained an Easter gift for Denny, a beau-
tiful little kite made of paper-thin red silk as transparent
as a bubble, with a dragon design picked out in gold
thread. The sticks were thin bamboo, lacquered black, and
the tail was of jade-green and turquoise-blue strips of
paper. Maggie-Now said it was too beautiful to fly and
that it ought to be framed and hung on the wall. Of
course Denny had to go right out and fly it.

 Left alone in the house with Claude, Maggie-Now
worried. Suppose her father came home and found her
alone in the house with Claude! She suggested that they
take a walk. But he begged to be allowed to sit and talk
with her for a while.

 He told her how much he'd enjoyed the dinner how
much it had meant to him that she'd let him share for a
while a part of her family life. He spoke of Denny with
fondness and understanding and seemed genuinely
disappointed that her father hadn't been

                  ~ 233 ]
                     
with thern. After that, he fell silent. She stole a look at
him and saw a muscle twitching in his cheek.

 She thought: He 5 It yi??g to figure out a Fly to ask ?Z?e
SOlMethi?zg important.

"Margaret," he said. "About religion."

"Yes?" There was a faint warning bell in her mind.

"The services this morning . . ."

"Yes? You mean the Mass?"

 "The .\Iass, then. It was wonderfully beautiful with the
pageantry and the chancing and the glorious Latin. A
revealing experience to me. The stately progress of the
ritual . . ."

 "High Mass is always like that," she said, uncomfortable
because he used words like "pageantry" and "chanting" and
"ritual"  words that nice outsiders used when they spoke
of a Class.

"Do you understand it?" he asked.

"Not all of it."

"Aren't you curious about the things you don't
understand'" "Why, no. I believe. I don't have to
understand."

"How can you believe without understanding? "

 "Oh, I believe that my heart beats and that I breathe,
but I don't understand a thing about how those things
happen. Well, let me say it this way: I believe without
understanding it but I k~zoqv, that when the priest
elevates the Host, the wine changes into the blood of
Christ and the bread into His body."

"But you can't explain it."

 "No. A convert might be able to explain it. They're the
ones \vho understand every small thing about the Catholic
religion. I don't know why."

"Do you know any converts?"

  "No. Yes, I do. She never said she was a convert, hut I
kilos. she is."

"How do you know "

"By the way she talks."

"How does she talk?"

  "Well, she lives down the block and sometimes I walk
home from church with her and this lady will tell me how
she went to confession the night before and what penance
she got and how she went to bed early so that she
wouldn't forget and take a drink of water after midnight.
Then she'll say she took communion.

                  ~ 2]4 1
                     
(I always say, I received.) And she'll talk a long time about
hoNv wonderful she feels after confession and
communion."

"Don't you feel wonderful afterward?"

 "I've been going to confession and communion ever
since I was six; before I could read. It's . . . it's always
been there the feeling about it. I never think that I have
to talk about my penance or my receiving."

"Perhaps she's more talk. rive than you, Margaret."

 "Oh, I talk enough," acknowledged Maggie-Now. "It's
just that u e talk ciii jerent about our faith."

 "She may be different from you the kind of woman
who likes to analyze everything."

 Maggie-Na,w thought that over. "No," she decided. "She
only talks that way about the faith. Not about other
things." She paused while she searched her mind for an
illustration. "Like, well, she lives down the block and she
washes her hair like I do; she sits in the yard on a nice
day and lets the sun dry it and then she brushes it and
braids it like I do. But all she says is, 'Well, I washed my
hair today.' And I say, 'So did 1.' And that's all. She
doesn't tell me how much the soap costs and what time it
was and how she felt and how her hair felt and how it's a
good thing to wash your hair once a week. Because she's
used to washing her hair the way I'm used to 'teeing a
Catholic."

 "Margaret, have you ever thought what it would be like
to have another religion? A simple one where the minister
doesn't wear robes, and lives like other men with a wife
and children, and understands people's problems because
he has the same problems, and who conducts the service
in clear English and everything is clear and
understandable?"

 "Why, no. I've never thought about how it would be to
have a different faith."

"Why not?"

 "Well, I vvas born white. I never sit around and think
how it would be if I had been born a colored person. I'm
a woman. I never think about how it would be to be a
man."

"You take your religion for granted, then."

"I guess I can't explain. I can only krZow."

"Tell me this, Margaret. No, don't tell me if you don't
want to."

"I don't mind. What?"

                 1 -',, 1
                     
 'Understand: I'm not asking you all these questions
because I'm curious but because ['m very interested."

"Oh, that's all right," she said.

 "Don't you think having to make confession is an
invasion of privacy? "

 "Oh, no," she said with a half laugh. "Everybody has sins.
Mine are no different from other people's. When Father
Flynn asks me exactly how many times I told a lie in the
week, I never think it's . . . what did you call it?"

"Invasion of your privacy."

"No. I never think that. He's supposed to ask."

"Now, Margaret, you re a Catholic."

"1 know." She smiled.

 "Now that's all right for you. But if you had a child,
maybe he wouldn't want to be a ( atholic. Don't you think
he ought to be allowed to choose his own religion when
he's old enough?"

 She was so astonished for a moment that she couldn't
answer. Then she said: "Before a child is born, is it
allowed to decide whether it will be a boy or a girl? When
it wants its first nourishment do you let it starve until it's
old enough to decide whether it wants milk or beer? Do
you keep him without a name until he's old enough to
pick out one for himself? When he's six years old do you
let him decide whether he wants to go to school or not?
No. You give him milk, you give him a name, you send
him to school and you give him a faith."

 "I see." He got up and walked to the window and stood
there looking out.

"Couldn't we talk about something else?" she asked
timidly.

 "Just one thing more, Margaret, and then we'll never
talk about it again as long as we both shall live." He
asked the question very carefully "If you were in love with
a Protestant, w ould you give up your religion to marry
him?"

 "I wouldn't have to. We could . . . I mean, a person
could marry a Protestant with a Catholic ceremony. But
he'd have to say that he wouldn't interfere with her
religion and that their children would be brought up in
the Catholic faith."

 "But the next morning she'd expect him to go see the
priest and be converted."

"Oh, no," she said quickly. "It's not as easy as that. It takes
a

                  1 236 1
                     
long time. You have to have the faith."

"How do you mean?"

  "I don't know words to explain it. If you have it, you just
know it."

  "Margaret, look at me." She got up and went to him and
looked clearly and truly into his eyes. "Do you love me?"

"Yes," she said simply.

  "Could you, if we married, take my religion and bring
up our children in my religion? Could you?" She shook
her head dumbly. 'Couldn't you love me enough to do
that?"

  "I could want to," she said, "and I could say I would and
mean it w hen I said it. And I could try very hard. But
inside, I couldn't change."

"Like you couldn't change into a Negro or change into a
man."

  "You wouldn't like me, would you," she asked
beseechingly, "if I was any other way than the way I am?"

"I don't suppose I woulcl," he said in an offhand way.

She knew it: was all over. Slle had a feeling of numbness.

"Would you like some coffee?" she asked timidly.

"No, thank you." His tone was brusque.

  They talked a little while longer about the w ar and
rising prices and the coming of prohibition, and his
language was academic and strained the way it was when
he spoke to strangers.

  After a while, he thanked her politely for the nice
dinner and expressed regret that he hadn't met her father.
He said good-by and left without making arrangements
for another meeting. She stood at the window and witched
him until he was out of sight. Only then did she notice
that he had forgotten his book. It was lying on the lounge.
She picked it up. It was The Book of Everythin~r,'. She
opened it. On the flyleaf he had written:

To AiLlargraret, with love, Claurie.

She cried, then.

                 1 ~,7 1
                    
         a<,< CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO A

SHE knew he wouldn't collie back. ~ et, she thought that
if sue admitted the fact and suffered over it she would,
paradoxically, be rewarded by his return. So she bathed
and dressed carefully each afternoon, and, after supper,
she sat at the window and waited. Pat often sat with her
and spoke enthusiastically of .7\1rs. O'Crawley, Mick
Mack's landlady, who was trim and tidy and forty-two and
owned property. He was lyrical about the Easter dinner
she'd served: baked ham with pineapple slices and candied
sweet potatoes and creamed onions and peach shortcake.

 "All home-cooked, you understand," he said. "No bakery
stud and nothing out of a can. And why can't we have
candied sweet potatoes sometime?"

 Maggie-Now said, yes, and, no, and that's nice, not
really listening to him but making the sounds of interest
and companionship. Evidently, Denny hadn't told him that
Claude had been there for Easter dinner, for Pat made no
comment.

 Although Maggie-Now had not forbidden Denny to tell
of Claude's visit, he probably found it expedient to say
nothing on account of the kite. It was broken the next day
and Denny said his father had broken it, but under
pressure Denov admitted that he himself had broken it.

"Why did you lie, then?" she asked.

"Because I didn't want to get scolded."

 "Oh, Denny," she sighed, "you mustn't lie. If it was
broken by accident, I'd feel sorry along with you, but if
you broke it on purpose, you deserve a scolding and
should be man enough to take It."

 She worried a little bit about Dcnny. He was inclined to
tale the easy way out of things. I-le never faced up to an!
of his

                  1 ENS 1
                     
small problems; he never made a protest when he was
wronged and he was learning that a quick lie was the
easiest way out of a tight spot.

 Maybe he needs more love and more understanding, she
thought. I love him and I try to understand him. But maybe
there are some things that only a man can understand about
a boy. He can't look to Papa for much. Papa treats him like
somebody that's visiting here. But Claude, now . . .

Yes, Claude.

 The weeks passed and no word from him. She wrote a
careful little letter, thanking him for The Book of
Everything, and addressed it to the Y.M.C.A. and timidly
wrote a small Please Forward on the envelope. It came
back stamped Address Unknown.

 She tried to convince herself that he had enlisted or
been drafted. (She knew he had been anxious to get into
the war.) And maybe he had been shipped overseas right
away and now was someplace where he couldn't write to
her. But in her heart she knew that he'd find a way to get
in touch with her if he wanted to.

 The hours of her knowing him, five evenings and two
afternoons, had changed her whole life. She was no longer
content to be her father', housekeeper and her brother's
mother. She'd had a glimpse of another way of life; a full,
rich, woman's life. She had known for a bit of time the
wonder of unspoken understanding with another soul, the
delight of perfect companionship and the happiness of
exchanging thoughts (and no thought had been too trivial
or silly to exchange) with a sympathetic being. And woven
throughout all this had been the golden anticipation of
physical love to come.

 He seemed to like everything about me, she told herself,
but not enough to want me for all of his life. He thought my
religion was beautiful at first, but not beautiful enough to let
it be. Should I have gone against it f or him? Love is so
scarce and so hard to find, especially the love I have for him.
Wouldn't it have been better to give up my church for the
sake of love, marriage and children? After all, Protestants are
Christians, too. I told him I couldn't do it. But if I had
tried tried hard! Maybe . . .

 She sighed because now she had another sin to confess
to Father Flynn the sin of thinking of giving up her faith.

                  ~ 239 ]
                     
 Now Father Flynn still know, she thought. And he won't
like him. Au?lt Lottie doesn't like him; Mr. Vail Clees
doesn't like him. clod Papa. He doesn't I now qvLat
Claude's religio7? is arid he netter spoke to him blat he
doesn't like him a~7y1~0~v.

 If they only flew him the way I k7?0w him, they mould
lo:,e 07?' too.

 She needed so much to have someone to talk to some
understanding woman. Oh, if Ald7~7a there only still here,
she grieved. She =~07ui'd urlderstand /10~, it is with me.
Mild she'd say so7llethi

to make me feel better.

 About this time, she had a card from Lottie, asking why
she'd stayed away so long and saying that Llama was
failing and asked for her, .'\/laggie-Now, a lot.

 Maggie-Novv brought a jar of jellied chicken broth over
for 1,ottie's mother. Lottie was touched and greeted
I\1agg7ie-Now tenderly. She asked about Claude.
Maggie-Now told her that Claude was gone and had not
written. Lottie's face showed satisfaction at tlZe news and
concern for l\Iaggie-Now's sadness.

"It's all for the best. Maggie-Now, dear," said Lottie.

 "Not the best for me," said i\laggie-Now. 'But I guess it
couldn't be. He was a l'rotestant...."

 i'Oh, I had nothing against his religion," said Lottie
quickly. "I just thought he wasn't good enough for y out"

 "But you said that as my godmother you couldn't let me
m.ZrrN a Protestant."

 "I thought it over after. Sure y ou could, if he got
converted. And sometimes converts are more religious
than these born in the faith. "

"I don't think he'd ever have turned. '

  "He would if you went about it right. I ike some night,
if you was alone with him, all you'd have to do is put your
arms around him and kiss him hard. Yo't1 know. And you
could ask him while he was under the influence if he'd
turn for you. And he u70llld.'

  "No, he's not that kind. Anyhow, I wouldn't w ant to
trick anybody.... Aunt Lottie, tel] me. Would you have
married Uncle I imply if he hadn't been a Catholic?"

  "Oh, that reminds me of something funny," said Lottie.
"when I immy and me was keeping company, he knew I
was a Catholic but I didn't knew \vh3t he was. I thought
he wriest he being s

                  1 24  1
                     
he was Irisll and a cop but I wasn't sure and I didn't like
to ask. So I asked Mama, yO'JI know, just to find out how
she fen about it. I said, 'Mama, should I marry Timmy
even if he ain't Catholic?' And you know what Mama
said?"

"What did she say?"

 "She said I shouldn't let religion interfere with love,
being's I was thirty years old already. So Timmy gave me
the ring and we set the day. So I asked him what church he
wanted to be married in and he said St. Thomas-iss. And
I said right out, 'That's a Catholic church,' and he said,
'Sure.' So I came right out with it. I said:

" 'Are you a Catholic?'

" 'Sure,' he said.

  "So I got all choked ul, and started to cry and 1 said:
'Oh, Timmy, why didn't you tell me before?' You know
what he snide "

"No.''

  "He said, 'You never asked me.'" She smiled a tender
smile of memory and said fondly: "That Timmy!"

"But would you have married him if he wasn't a Catholic?"

"But I told you he was."

"But for the sake of argument . . ."

"No argument. He was."

"But your mother was w illing to let you marry a
Protestant."
"Oh, she was just talking ',

  Maggie-Now sighed. She doesn't even know what I'm
talking about, thought Maggie-Now.

  But Lottie knew. "That's too bad that you had to fall in
love with him," she said.

"I know," said Maggie-Now.

"How long did you know him, Maggie-Now?"

"Just a week, Aunt Lottie."

"Only a week? You'll forget him."

"If I only could!"

"Don't worry. You will in time."

"Do you really think so, Aunt Lottie?"

  "No, I don't. That's just something to say because there's
nothing else to say."

                  1 241 ]
                     
   A. CHA P T FIR THI R T Y- THRE E ~

APRIL went into l\lav and the lilac bush in, Father
Flynn's yard came into bloom and it was Decoration Day
again. Then it divas June. And all the da's of that spring,
Maggie-Novv sat by the window each evening after
supper, and waited. But he never came by. She stood at
the w indow watching for the letter carrier, but there was
never a letter from Claude.

 She lived on hope; pi rsuaded herself that he w as in the
army and overseas in a trench and unable to get a letter
out. As the weeks passed, she assured herself that there
had been no differences betvv-een them; that the
discussion of religion had been merely a friendly debate
and she had been Prong to get so serious about the whole
thing.

 I shouldn't have said that about the woman, the convert
and about her hair washing. Maybe he was thinking of
becoming a convert and he thought I made fun of converts.
And that silly talk about asl ing a baby whether he wanted
beer or milk. Men don't like women to be too serious but
they don't like them to be silly either.

 She lived on nope and became a little thin and
drawn-looking on this diet. She took little pleasure in
shopping for and preparing food and less in eating it. She
had to work very hard (for instance, painting and papering
the upstairs apartment after the Heah]ys moved out) so
she'd be tired enough to sleep at night.

 She stopped in at the church every other day or so and
lit a candle at the altar of the Blessed Mother, beseeching
her to intercede with her Son to keep Claude safe
wherever he was.

 She no longer enjoyed conversations with the
storekeepers. It wasn't enough for one to sell a bag of
salt. He had to explain how necessary salt was. (Or.`e had
said: "If you have nothing but salt,

                 l 712 ]
                    
bread and water, still you can live.") In a dim, inarticulate
way, she had realized that the selling of stuff was the all
of most storekeepers' lives and they had to round out their
lives by giving background and interest to everything they
sold. Before Claude left, she had enjoyed their
home-made philosophy, but now it irritated her.

  7'alk, talk, talk, she thought. ~11 about nothing. What do
I care? I don't want to know how it is with them and l don't
want anybody to kno w how it is with me.

  But they knew; more than she thought they did. Van
Clees knew. He had seen her pass his store arm in arm
with Claude and had noticed the way they looked at each
other when they spoke. When she came into the store, he
sometimes adroitly inserted Claude's name into the
conversation to see her expression.

"And your friend Mr. Bassett, how does he do?"

  Her face fell into sad lines as she said: "I never hear
from him. He's in the war, I guess."

  "Ah, so?" he said. He waited, hoping she would confide
in him. But she didn't.

  AInd so he left her, he thought. And she's in love with
him and he's a no-good with a fancy name what smokes
cigarettes. She is a good girl and she should find some good
man to take care of her. Bzzt she would not know how to let
anybody take care of her because she is so that she must take
care of others and she wants that man because she wants to
take care of him like he was a baby.

  "Gott damn!" he said aloud. Interested in analysing
MaggieNo\v, he had ruined a cigar in the making.

  Her father knew how it was with her; that is, he knew
according to his way. So she lost the man what she thinks
she loves. I lost the girl what I knew I loved. I got over it. I
didn't die. She'll get over it and she won't die. She'll meet
another man someday and f orget that first one.

Did you forget? he asked himself.

  What has that got to do with it? he answered himself. I'm
stzlbborn and she ain't.

  Father Flynn knew how it was with Maggie-Now. In the
dark confessional, she had told her sins to him; the sin of
carnal pleasure she'd known when a man pressed her arm
against his side; the sin of almost hating her father;
defying him and Iying to him be

                  ~ 241 1
                     
cause he was against her happiness; the sin of thinking for
a second of giving up her faith. She had confessed and
had done penance.

 Theoretically, a sinner kneeling in the dark confessional
Noms anonymous, only a soul seeking expiation of sin.
But Father Flynn knew the timbre of her voice; the clean
smell of soap and water and starched clothes that he
associated with her. He knew she suffered. He knew she
needed comfort.

 He felt, however, that he could not approach her and
say in effect: "Considering the confessions you've made to
me in recent weeks . . ." No. But he waited for her to
come to him for guidance.

 Weeks passed. Finally Father Flynn requested
Maggie-Now to come to the parish house. Father Flynn
was in his garden when Maggie-Now called, and Mrs.
Harrigan, his aged and bitter houseI;eeper, took her
through the house into the yard.

 Maggie-Now admired the lilac bush. The only other
groping thing in the "garden" was a piece of ivy climbing
the board fence.

 "That's from a roved slip your mother gave me many
years ago," he told Maggie-Now. "I had hoped it would
cover the whole fence in time but it grows slowly."

"You'd get more ivy and quicker if you made slips."

 She explained. He went into the house for a paring
knife and they cut off a dozen shoots and l\Iaggie-Now
said she'd take them home and keel, them hi water and
when they formed roots she'd plant them back in his yard.
He seemed pleased. Mrs. Harrigan c ame out with two
glasses of iced tea on a tray.

"Because it's a warm day," explained the priest.

 They sat on a castoff park bench half under the lilac
inrush. breather Flynn had salvaged it from the junk pile,
repaired it and given it a fresh coat of green paint each
spring. I\laggie-Now said it was a very nice bench. Father
Flvnn agreed but added that it was rather uncomfortable.
They sipped the tea.

"Tell me, Margaret," he said, chow are things with you?"

"Fhle," she said.

'Wllat about your future?"

 She looked startled. "I'd like to get a job but I have to
wait until fall, when Denny goes back to school."

 "Life goes on, Margaret. Perhaps you think there is little
of interest in life for you now. That is wrong. You are
needed by

                 ~ 244 1
                    
more than one person in the world, you know."

 He waited, giving her an opportunity to speak of her
unhappiness. She said, "That's all right, Father," meaning:
Do not trouble yourself about me.

"I asked you here, Margaret, because I need your help."

"Yes, Father."

 "I've fixed up the basement of the church as a sort of
recreation room. Someone was kind enough to donate a
pianola, and Mr. Rummel, the undertaker, donated a
dozen folding chairs. I thought we could have
Thursday-night socials. So many of our boys are going into
the services, and a little send-off party . . . Young people
getting together to sing talk. Some modest refreshment.
I want you tc, take charge of this for me," he said.

"I will be pleased to," she answered.

  When they had finished the tea, he took the two wedges
of squeezed lemon and buried them at the base of the lilac
bush. He knelt in the dirt and gestured with his trowel.

  "That's to make the soil acid. I heard lilacs like an acid
soil. But I bury my breakfast eggshells here, too. Just in
case they like a calcium soil." He got up and brushed the
soil from his knees. "Ah, Margaret," he said, "1 had hoped
you'd talk to me."

  She knew he meant talk about Claude and her
unhappiness. '~1 know," she said. "But there s nothing to
talk about . . . now."

  Maggie now canvassed the neighborhood and found
three Uilmarried Catholic girls who said they'd be tickled
to death to do their bit for their country by entertaining
young men about to he drafted. By agreement, the girls
were at the place first in order to welcome the young men.

  The church basement was warm, tidy and softly lighted.
Church supplies were stored on shelves: tins of French
incense, grosses of beeswax votive candles; pads of
marriage certificates and birth certificates. There was a
brand-new iron for baking communion wafers.

  (Nuns frc,m a nearby convent baked the communion
wafers and delivered them each Saturday. But at the time
of the great blizzard the nuns hadn't been able to get
through the drifts and Father Flynn had had to use stale
wafers for the few commun;cants who fought their way t()
Mass. He had, after that, obtained

                  1 ~) 1
                     
the iron and the recipe so that in case of another blizzard
he could bake the wafers himself.)

 There -were many garden implements: spade, hoe,
shovel and rake too many for one lilac bush, thought
Maggie-Now critically--and, looking lost and out of place,
a pair of skis standing in the corner.

 The four young men came together to give each other
nerve, one of them explained. The girls tittered. They
introduced themselves. One of the young men was the son
of Pheid, the plumber. He was introduced as Son Pheid.

"Call me And Son for short," he said.

 This called for some merriment which the young people
prolonged as long as possible because they didn't know
v`7hat to do next. Father Flynn heard the laughter in his
house next to the church, and was pleased. It keeps them
off the street, thought the kindly priest. (Although they
were all too old to hang out on the streets now.)

 Father Flynn was in :~ quandary. If he wells over to
the basement to greet them, he might cast a pall over the
evening. If he didn't go, they might think he wasn't
interested, or worse, might feel they were without
supervision and free to carouse.

 He went over, said good evening, announced that coffee
and doughnuts would be served at nine o'clock, gravely
instructed everyone to have a good time, and left.

 The donor of the pianola had donated but one roll with
it: "The Oceana Roll." They played it four times because
each feller wanted a turn at pumping the piano. They
were sick of that song and were at a loss about what to do
next when one of the boys, named Charlie, which they
pronounced Cholly, said he could play by ear.

"Give us a tune, Cholly. Give us a tune," they urged.

  He was willing. "They laughed at me when I sat down to
play,' he said. Everybody thought that was a very comical
remark.

  Ele threw the lever that changed the plano]a into a
piano. Ele sounded a few mellow chords and played the
chorus of "When You Were Sweet Sixteen." When he
played the chords preliminary to going into the verse, the
other three fellers put their heads together and sang in
fairly close harmony.

                  [ '46 1
                     
And even though we're drifting down life's stream apart,
Your face I still can see in dream's domain.

 The tender little song put everybody in a misty mood.
After it had been repeated several times, the boys urged
the girls to sing. They sang "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her
Now." They refused to be coaxed into an encore and the
party started to die away.

 Cholly, the piano player, who had evolved into the social
leader of the evening, said: "What's the idear standing
around like a bunch of deadheads? Let's get some life in
the party." He struclc up the ragtime rhythm tune of the
day: "F.verybodNT's l~oing It!"

"Sh-h-h!" hissed the girls in horror.

  "Listen, Cholly," said Son Pheid, "don't you think that
tune's a little out of place here with the church right
upstairs?"

  "Just as you say," said Cholly agreeably. "How about a
little reminiscing, then?" All agreed that that would be
grand.

  He played a medley of sentimental songs, old and new,
and the girls stood in a loose semicircle with their arms
about each other's waists and swayed in time to the music
and hummed or sang the tunes, and the boys stood with
their heads touching and sounded "bum, bum," from time
to time for accent, and finally Cholly went into "There s
Egypt in Your Dreamy Eves," and Maggie-Now sang the
song in her heart:

And you stole my llearr, with your cunning err . . .

  She closed her eyes and swayed and hummed and
thought of Claude. She was filled with a delicious sadness
and the sadness pleased her and she thought it was almost
better than being happy. When she opened her eyes, she
saNv that Son Pheid was staring at her.

  Why, that's the girl, he vvas remembering. Ho c,r~ne
over to the shop that night with that feller....

  Maggie-Now pretended he was Claude and gave Son
Pheid a big smile. Eve smiled baclc and one girl whispered
to another: "Oh-oh! "

  After a while, Cholly rail out of reminiscing and they
pumped out "The C)ceana Roll" again. At nine, there was
a tactful tap at the door. Father Flynn gave Maggie-No\v
a tray Oll which

                  ~ ,1~ 1
                     
were mugs of coffee and a plate of doughnuts. He handed
it over as though it Nvere contraband and backed away
into the night.

 They stood around nibbling daintily on the doughnuts
and sipping the coffee until Cholly said: "Look, folks, I'm
just an ordinary, everyday slob with no manners so I'm
going to dunk my sinker."

 That broke the ice. Everybody laughed and dunked and
agreed that that was the only NNTay to eat a doughnut.

 One of the girls, bolder than the others, said: "Cholly,
you're a regular card."

"My mother thanks you," said Cholly. "My father thanks

     ,,
you . . .

 "He's a whole deck," said Son Pheid in an aside to
Maggie-Now. She smiled at him and he smiled back.

 They washed the mugs and the plate in the washtub.
There Noms no towel to dry the dishes so Son Pheid gave
up his clean handkerchief, which was carefully planted in
his breast pocket and folded into a miniature three-picket
fence, to do the job. Maggie-No\N said, "Who wants to
take the tray back to the priest's house?" and Son Pheid
said he would. But, he said, he didn't know the way and
Miss Moore would have to go with him. The other fellers
winked at each other and the girls giggled.

 The two hurried across the yard, talking in whispers.
Since the house was dark, they decided to leave tray and
dishes on the back stoop. Maggie-Now whispered that
they ought to say thanks, at least. Son Pheid took one of
his printed cards from his pocket: Pheid ~ Son. Plumbers.
Day ~ Night, and wrote "Thanks" on the back of it while
l\Iaggie-Now held a lighted match. He put the card on the
tray.

 When they got back. the other fellers leered and said:
"Ahhah!" in a certain way and Cholly said: "We thought
you two went to China."

 "Go fly a Icite," said lion Pheid in an exaggerated, bored
tone of voice.

 They folded the undertaker's chairs and stacked them
against the wall. I\laggie-Now took the key from her
pocketbook to loci; the door. As a matter of course, Son
Pheid took the key from her. locked the door, and, as he
returned the key, he asked could he walk her home. She
said he could.

~ ~8'1

 They grouped on the sidewalk to make their farewells.
All agreed they had had a wonderful time and all the girls
thanked Cholly for his wonderful piano playing.

 "Any time," said Cholly graciously. "And listen," he went
on, "being's that us fellers just been drafted . . ."

"Maybe you were drafted," said Son Pheid, "but I was
selected."

"Greetings!" said one of the other fellers and the girls
laughed.

  "Anyways," continued Cholly, "being's we might get
killed or something, it's only right that we get kissed
good-by."

  Well, what could good, patriotic girls do in a situation
like that? They did it. Each boy received a kiss on the
cheek from each girl. Now it happened that Father Flynn
was sitting at the window in his dark living room and
telling his beads. He had heard the talk and seen the boys
getting kissed. He worried.

  Was I too liberal, he asked himself, leaving them alone in
the cellar for two hours?

  Walking home, Son Pheid said: "I expect to get sent to
Camp Upton any day now. I'd like to take in a good show
before I leave. Would you go with me, providing I can get
tickets for Saturday night? "

"Why I would love to, Mr. Pheid," she said.

  "Look," he blurted out. "It's not my fault and I can't
help it, but everybody calls me Sonny."

  She laughed and said: "And they call me Maggie-Now
and I can't help it either."

"So long for a while, Maggie-Now."

"So long, Sonny."

He kissed her and, to her surprise, she liked it.

  After the show he asked her if she'd care for some chop
suey. She thought of Claude and felt a pang. She said she
didn't care for chop suey, so they had butter cakes and
coffee at Child's. Going home on the B.M.T., he told her
he had been going with a girl but she liked a feller who
could spend a lot of money on her, and the way it was
with him, he was partners with his father and he got room
and board and pocket money, but all the profits went back
in the business. And Sonny said he thought that was all
right seeing that he would get the business after his father
died, but the girl found another feller who had more
money to spend on her and that was that, he said.

                   t249]
                     
"Are you going with anyone?" he asked.

"Not any more," she said.

"We're both in the clear, then," he said.

 He told her he was going to camp Tuesday and he had
to spend Monday night with his family but couldn't they
do something together on Sunday? She told him she had
to go and see her godmother but it would be a short visit.
He suggested picking her up there and they could have a
soda or something. Arrangements were made. She
received his good-night kiss, which she had looked forward
to, with a sensation of pleasure.

 Lottie, her conscience bothering her a little because she
had been so outspoken in her dislike of Claude, treated
Sonny most cordially and insisted that he stay a while. She
made him sit in Timrmy's chair.

 He sat down, leaned back and looked around. "My, it's
nice here, isn't it, Maggie-Now?"

"I love this room," said Maggie-Now.

"Timmy always liked it so," said Lottie.

"Your son?" he asked.

"My husband. He passed away some years ago."

"God rest his soul," said Sonny.

"I'll show you his picture."

 The album tinkled out its little tune when she opened it.
"Say! Do that again," he said. She opened and closed it
several times. "That's a dandy picture album."

 "Timmy gave it to me on our anniversary. Here's a
picture of the two of us taken just before we was married."

 He looked at the picture and looked at her. "You
haven't changed," he said. An old-rose flush came to her
faded cheeks. She showed him a picture of Tim in his
uniform. "Your husband must have been quite a man," he
said.

"Oh, he was! Didn't Maggie-Now tell you about my
Timmy?"

 "I haven't known Mr. Pheid very long," said
Maggie-Now. Sonny looked around the room.

"Looking for an ashtray?" asked Lottie.

"I'm looking for this Mister Pheid."

Maggie-Now laughed. "I mean Sonny," she said.

"Well, I'll tell you about Timmy," said Lottie.

To Maggie-Now, the story seemed interminable. She
had heard
                [ So ]
                
it a hundred times, it seemed. Also she was a little
annoyed with Lottie, who had been so cool toward Claude
and now was so warm toward Sonny.

 Eventually, Lottie concluded her story with the
inevitable: "And we was sweethearts until the end."

 Sonny was moved by the story. "You were a lucky
woman, Mrs. Shawn," he said.

"Don't I know it! "

 He touched her hand briefly and said: "And he was a
very lucky man."

 Quick tears came to Lottie's tired eyes. She rubbed the
tears out with her fingers. "Thank you, Sonny," she said.
She turned to Maggie-l`;ow. "Come in the kitchen with
me. I want to show you something. Excuse us?" she asked
Sonny.

 "Certainly." He didn't get up. He was looking through
the album.

In the kitchen, Lottie whispered: "Where'd you meet
him?"

  "Church social. But I knew who he was, though. He and
his father have a plumbing shop together."

"Will he get the business when his father dies?"

"I guess so."

"He's just the right man for you, Maggie-Now."

Maggie-Now thought of Claude and sighed.

"You're still thinking of that other one, ain't you?"

"Always," said Maggie-Now.

  "Listen. He was all right for one springtime of your
life the way he looked at you and the things he must-a
said to you. He gave you something nice to remember
from time to time as you grow old. And that's all he
should be: a memory.

  "But for the long haul . . . marriage, a home, children,
being supported . . . someone to get old with, Sonny's the
one."

"What makes you think he'd want me?"

"He does. Or he will. Don't be foolish. Hang on to him."

  When they got back into the living room, Sonny was
standing at the mantelpiece. He grinned and said: "Well,
ladies, will I do?"

  Maggie-Nc,w couldn't help but laugh. But she was
embarrassed when Lottie went to him, put her hands on
his arms, looked up at him and said: "You'll do."

Maybe Solmy was embarrassed, too. He looked away from

                 [2Si ~
                    
Maggie-Now and pointed to the china pug dog on the
mantelpiece. "I was looking at this," he said. "Can I see
it?" (He meant, could he pick it up.)

"Sure. Go 'head," said Lottie.

 He examined it admiringly. "Say, it's a little dandy," he
said. "Just a little dandy."

 "My Thnmy give it to me for a anniversary present. He
loved it, too. He used to stand there, just like you, and
hold it and say: 'Look at the little buggers getting theirs!'"

 Sonny let out a roar of laughter. "Sh!" said Lottie.
"Mama's sleeping."

 But Mama had awakened. She called out querulously
from the bedroom: "Timmy? That you, Timmy?"

 "It's all right, Mama," called out Lottie. There was a
little silence. The old lady mumbled and evidently went
back to sleep.

 With av.7ed voice, Lottie said to Maggie-Now, "Mama
thought it was Timmy laughing." She stared at Sonny.
"Yes," she said, "come to think of it, in many ways, he
reminds me of Timmy."

 With a little shock, I\laggie-Now told herself: Yes. He
does! But how? Why? She wondered. He doesn't look like
Uncle l immy.

 "Anyhow," Lottie went on, "when Maggie-Now gets
married, I'm going to give her that little dog for a
wedding present."

 "I better be careful then, not to break it." He replaced
it carefully on the mantelpiece.

 Sonny took Maggie-Now home. "I'd ask you in," she
said, "only...

 "I know how it is," he said. "My pop's the same. My
sister used to go with Cholly. You know, the piano
player? She couldn't bring him in the house. Pop always
passed some remark. He had nothing against Cholly, but
he passed these remarks. She always had to meet Cholly
on the corner."

 In a way, thought Maggie-Now, it's a relief to be with
someone of your own kind, who knows how things are and
who doesn't keep saying he'd like to meet your father.

 "Look, Maggie-Now," he said, "if I write to you, will you
write back?"

"I'd be so glad to, Sonny."

                 1 2S2 J
                    
"Good-by, then." He put his arms about her tightly and
kissed
her urgently.
"Don't," she murmured.
"Just a long good-by kiss, Maggie-Now?"
"Please don't," she said.
"It wouldn't go further than that. I'm not that kind of a
guy."
"I know, Sonny."
She submitted to the embrace, wishing Sonny were
Claude and
unhappy because she felt that she was disloyal to the one
she
loved and would always love, even though she never saw
him
again.

          ~ CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR ~

HE WROTE once a week. } lis first letter was a detailed
account of the weather of Camp Upton. Her answer was a
detailed account of the weather of Brooklyn. In his next
letter he gave her a detailed account of the meals served at
camp. She wrote back how dear everything was getting and
how, now, three people could hardly eat on a dollar a day.

 Next he wrote, asking her for a picture of herself. All the
fellows here have pictures to hang up.... She had only a
picture of herself at six with veil and prayerbook when she
made her first communion and another when she was
twelve and was confirmed. She went down to Batterman's
and had a cabinet picture made of herself. She thought it
was a good picture. She inscribed it: "To Sonny, from
Margaret Rose." (She thought the fellers might laugh if she
wrote "Maggie-Now.") A few weeks later, he sent her a
snapshot of himself in his lima-bean pants and rolled
puttees and campaign hat straight over his eyes and
cradling his rifle in his arms. He was looking straight into
the camera. He looked like exactly what he was: a good,
honest, straightforward,

                   [253]
                     
ordinary boy. She showed Lottie the snapshot when she
visited her.

"His face is a open book," said Lottie.

Yes, thought Maggie-Now, and his life is an open book.

 She knew all about him: she knew his father, she knew
what their business was, what their background was. She
knew where he lived and where he had come from. She
knew of his sister and his brothers and the girl he used to
go with. She knew he had graduated from Boys' High and
that he was a Catholic.

She knew nothing about Claude.

Yet . . .

 Sonny wrote, after he'd been in the army for two months,
that his next letter might come from a different address.

 I can't tell you anymore than that, but if I come back all
in one piece, will you be my girl?

 She was touched. Be my girl was tantamount to saying:
Become engaged to me and we'll marry . . .

 She found it hard writing an answering letter. She was a
fairly direct person and it was always easier to say yes or
no rather than maybe. But now she couldn't say yes, and
she didn't want to say no.

Any girl would be proud to be your girl,

she wrote. (But she couldn't write: I'll be proud to be your
girl.

I'll see,

she wrote, meaning she'd think it over. (She couldn't write:
I've made up my mind.)

His answer came three weeks later.

 I'm tickled to death you didn't say no. I'll wait and I'll
keep my fingers crossed.

The letter came from overseas.

 She looked forward to getting Sonny's letters and she
enjoyed answering them. He kept pressing her for a
decision.

 . . . we'll be moving up soon and it would mean a lot to
me if I knew . . . [And] P.S. If you run into Father Flynn,
tell him our chaplain, Father Newsome, said he went to
college with him and I forgot to say, don't worry if you
don't hear from me in some time.

                   t254]
                     
  She started to worry immediately. As soon as she'd
finished reading the letter, she went to church and lit a
candle and prayed for his safety. She saw Father Flynn
outside the church and told him about the chaplain.

  A longing, faraway look came to Father Flynn's face as
he said: "Oh, yes. Freddy! The best end the school ever
had. It seems so long ago."

  He told her how pleased he was with the
Thursday-night socials in the church basement. Sometimes
there were as many as twenty yotmg people attending. He
told her he had ten new player rolls for the pianola.

  "I went from door to door begging for rolls old and
new," he said.

  "But, Father, we were going to appoint a committee to
go out and get donations...."

  "I couldn't wait that long. I got so sick and tired of
hearing 'The Oceana Roll.'" He paused. "I've heard there
was some criticism about using the church basement for
the socials. I've heard that some of our parishioners are
against them."

  "There are always a few people against things," she said.
"But I heard that people think they're a good thing. They
bring young people together."

  He looked at the letter in her hand. "Yes, they do, don't
they, Margaret?" There was a twinkle in his eye. He put
two fingers on the letter as though blessing the sender.
"He's a good boy, Margaret."

"Yes, he is, Father. But . . ."

  He remembered the way she had looked at Claude that
Easter morning when they came out of the church.

  "He is a good man," he said firmly. "Pray to our Holy
Mother for guidance."

"Yes, Father."

  She prayed long and hard and sincerely and then wrote
to Sonny. She wrote: Maybe . . .

It was some weeks before she got his answer.

                  [ENS]
                    
        ~ CHAPTER THIRTY-FT VE ~

WAR IS a terrible thing, people kept telling each other,
but just the same, they admitted, it sure made things
exciting for the people at home. There was w ork for all
and salaries were high and luxuries were available to all.
The conservative haberdashery on Grand Street was
forced to stock men's silk shirts for the first time in its
long history. Workmen bought them.

 Before the war, women had worked as factory hands,
store clerks, waitresses, telephone operators, typists,
cashiers, housemaids and so forth. Those with more
specialised training could put their names on waiting lists
for teachers, librarians, nurses, private secretaries, and
wait around for an opening.

 Now, most all jobs were open to them. They worked as
trolleycar conductors, operated elevators, drew beer,
worked milk delivery routes, replaced men in the post
offices, wore cute uniforms and worked down at the
Brooklyn Navy Yard and were called ycomanettes. Men
stopped giving them their seats in the subways.

 They wore pants. Since pants made expressly for women
were not available, they wore their brothers' pants. They
discarded high shoes and wore oxfords with spats. They
invaded barbershops and had their hair cut short. They
stopped pinching their cheelcs to make them red. They
used rouge. They took to smoking cigarettes. Like men,
they argued over politics. The time was drawing near
when they'd be allowed to go to the polls to vote.

In short, they were freed at last and they had a hell of a
time.

 The war was good for real estate, too. The "Rooms for
Rent" signs disappeared from the windows and
prospective tenants gave landlords a "bonus" for first
chance on a vacant flat. People sA:ho lived in hall
bedrooms now could afford a flat; flat renters [ 2S6 1

moved to apartments and apartment dwellers moved to
little houses out on the Island that they could buy for so
little down and so much time to pay, small additional
charge for built-in breakfast nooks.

 Landlady Maggie-Now Moore profited. The contentious
Heahlys had moved away, owing thirty dollars back rent,
leaving a broken-back chair and a gentleman roomer in
the hall bedroom. Maggie-Now had believed the woman's
story that the man was a brother-in-law who was "staying"
with them for a while because his wife had just "passed
away."

 The gentleman didn't move away with the Heahlys
because he had paid two months' advance rent on the hall
room. No, he wasn't a relative of theirs, he told
Maggie-Now, but it was true that his wife had died
recently. She left a two-year-old son, he said, who had
been placed in a "home," and he paid the home five
dollars a week, until he remarried. Yes, there was a
widow, he confided to Maggie-Now; they'd marry after the
decent interval of a year from his wife's death. He was
marrying again so his child could have a home and
mother.

 Oh, if he'd only let me keep the baby here, instead of that
place, ?mtil he married. I'd be so happy to have that baby,
she thought.

 I wish l had the nerve, he thought, to ask her to board the
boy for five dollars a week. I could have him every night and
she's so nice....

But he didn't ask and she didn't ask.

 He continued renting the room for ten dollars a month
and Maggie-Now rented the rest of the place to an eager
family who paid twent`TT-five dollars a month rent for it.
Now she collected thirty-five dollars a month in rent,
instead of fifteen. Taxes remained the same and the
surplus in the bank account grew.

 She used some of the money for herself. She bought a
sheer georgette crepe blouse and a lacy camisole to show
through and a tight skirt and high-heeled slippers. She
wore silk stockings now, instead of lisle.

 She still ran the Thursday-night church socials. She was
popular with the boys someone always walked her home.
The girls liked her, too. Some of the girls had their hair
bobbed. They urged Maggie-Now to have hers cut.

                  ~ ~57 ]
                     
"Why don't you get a Castle clip, Maggie?" they urged
her.

 In her mind, she heard Claude say: The classic simplicity
of your hair style . . .

 "You'd look like Irene Castle, wouldn't she, girls, with
those high cheekbones and all>"

 Said Gina Pheid, Sonny's sister, who took almost a
relative's interest in Maggie-Now: "You could be a model
with your face."

"It's only a face," said Maggie-Now.

 Little Chime. She remembered his voice. Remembering
still made her feel a little sad but it didn't hurt much any
more.

She mentioned getting her hair cut to Lottie.

"Don't," said Lottie, horrified. "Don't cut your hair off."

 "Why not, Aunt Lottie? All the girls are doing it. It
would be easier to manage."

 "Listen, if a woman ain't got hair, what has she got?"
asked Lottie.

Maggie-Now decided against bobbing it.

 Pat settled into the routine of taking his Sunday dinners
at Mrs. O'Crawley's boardinghouse. She had three regular
men who roomed and boarded there and a few transients
like Pat. She had been married and widowed twice. Her
first husband left a thousand dollars in insurance. She
never did get around to telling her second husband about
that. Her second husband died and left her two thousand
dollars in insurance and the narrow house.

 She converted the basement dining room into a
millinery shop. (She made all the hats she sold.) She took
in three somewhat elderly men as boarders. They lived
upstairs. She had no children, no relatives. When she
started the venture, her friends advised her to take in
women boarders; they said "people would talk" if she took
in men. She said, "Let them." She took in the men. She
didn't want women boarders because she said they washed
their pants in the sink and asked for hot tea in the middle
of the night when they had cramps.

 She cast an eye on Pat. He was fairly young' worked for
the city. His widow would get a pension when he died.
That was almost as good as insurance.

 Pat cast an eye on her real estate. He asked her if the
house was hers, free and clear, and she asked him, coyly,
wouldn't

                 [ USE ]
                    
he like to know! She didn't tell him, though.

 Pat took an interest in her house. He asked Mick Mack
how much he paid for room and board and he multiplied
that by three and thought, thirty dollars a week wasn't a
bad income plus what she got from making and selling
hats. Although a lazy man, he went to the trouble of
doing some odd-job repairs around her house, saying: "We
don't want the place to run down, do we?"

She said: "No, I don't."

 He brought Denny around once, for Sunday dinner. He
knew Maggie-Now loved children dearly, and his wife had
loved children. He thought Mrs. O'Crawley felt the same
way.

 "Denny," he said, "how'd you like Mrs. O'Crawley for a
mother? "

 Denny sized her up and decided he wouldn't like her
for a mother. He said: "I don't care."

Pat said: "Mrs. O'Crawley, how'd you like a son like
Denny?"

  Mrs. O'Crawley had nothing against children. She just
didn't like them. "He seems like a nice boy," she said. "If
you like children."

  Pat thought it best to postpone his courting until he
could think of a better angle. He nurtured his bitter
friendship with Mick Mack. They spent the long summer
and early autumn afternoons and evenings in footless
arguments.

  "If I didn't have two kids to support," said Pat, "I'd go
and enlist."

  "And sure, you're the one would wipe out the Germans
in no time a-tall," said his admirer.

  "The Germans?" asked Pat, astonished. "Why, I'd enlist
in the German army."

"What for? You ain't German."

  "I'd enlist in the German army just the same to lick hell
out of the English."

"What do you want to lick them for?"

"Because of what they done to Parnell."

  "What did they do to Parnell?" asked Mick Mack in all
innocence.

"You don't know?" asked Pat, shocked.

"I was a boy in Dublin at the time."

"You ignorant mick!" Mick Mack looked hurt but he said
noth

                 [ 259 ]
                    
ing."And you call yourself a man," sneered Pat, aching for
a fight.

"And I am so," said Slick Mack with unexpected dignity.

"Not if you take all this gulf offs me," said Pat.

 "I take it," said the little fellow quietly, "because you're
my friend all the same."

 "And sure, you're the one is hard up for a friend, then,"
said Pat. "Taking all the gulf from me."

 "'Tis better," said Mick Mack, "to have a mean friend
than no friend a-tall."

 Summer went into fall. Denny went back to school. Pat
went to his superintendent and asked how soon could he
retire on pension. He'd put in more than twenty-five years
cleaning streets and Pat thought that was more than
enough.

 "Men are dying in the trenches," said the super, "so that
men like you can live."

"Live to shovel up horse manure," mumbled Pat.

  "And you want to quit! Come around again sucking for
retirement and I'll put you on the ashcan detail and you
can retire after five years with a hernia. Now get out of
here!"

  Maggie-Now had a long letter from Sonny. There was
talk, he wrote, of the fellows getting out of the trenches
by Christmas. He asked her to marry him. He wrote he'd
like to settle down and raise a family. He'd written to his
folks and his father wrote he'd give him half the profits of
the business. And his mother and sister and brothers were
crazy about her, Maggie-Now, he wrote.

  She made up her mind. I want children, lots of them, and
a home for them. Sonny would be a good father, a good
provider, a good husband, like Uncle Timmy was. Of course,
he wouldn't sit around and talk. He'll have his bowling
nights and his lodge meeting and one night a week to play
cards with the boys and maybe fishing at Canarsie like other
men do. I'd be lonesome the first year, then I'd have the
children and my life would be full. I like him. I respect him.
I'm proud that everyone thinks so well of him. And that
must a,ld up to love if not now, someday. At least he wants
me. It's nice to be wanted. And I want a husband.

                 [ 260 ]
                    
I want children. I don't want to wait....

 She made up her mind to marry him and she felt at
peace after her decision.

Then she heard from C laude Bassett!

          ~ CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX ~

HER father, as always, intercepted the postman on the
stoop. Pat was leaving for work. She saw the postman
hand him a card. She saw her father's face tighten as he
read the message and she knew! She came out on the
stoop and held out her hand. Pat made no move to give
her the card. She took it from him. The message was
simple:

Dear M: Wait for me. I'm coming back. Love, C. B.

 Her face went radiant. She pressed the card to her
breast and smiled up at her father. "Oh, Papa!" she said
happily.

"Where'd it come from?" he asked in a thick voice.

 "You smudged the postmark with your thumb," she cried
Otlt. "Now I'll never know. Oh, Papa!"

"What about that plumber?" he asked.

"What plumber?"

 "If you got to throw yourself away, throw yourself away
on the plumber, not that damn Claude Bastid."

 "Bassett," she corrected him. Then she gasped. "How do
you know about Sonny Pheid?"

 "I got ways of finding out things what people think
they're hiding from me."

"Papa! You read my letters in my top drawer!"

  "If you don't want people to read them, don't leave
them, then, where people can find them.'' He left for
work.

~ Hi ]

 She sat at the kitchen table and gloated over the card.
She thought his handwriting was beautiful; like engraving
on a wedding announcement. She smiled fondly at the
picture: mountains and sky and river bathed in rose light.
The title said: Western Sunset.

 She erased the smudge with a moistened eraser but the
postmark got erased along with the smudge. She looked
at the crumbs and thought sadly that now she'd never
know what city it had been mailed from.

And he'll never tell me either, she thought.

 Even though she had no idea when he'd be back, she
started getting ready for him. She washed her hair and
was so happy she hadn't had it bobbed because she felt
that he wouldn't like it.

 She held the card and pressed it to her cheek, thinking:
His hand rested on it when he wrote it. He pressed the stamp
down with his fingers. She envisaged him standing at a
mailbox in some strange city, reading the card once more
before he dropped it in the slot.

 After she had braided and pinned up her hair, she sat
down and wrote to Sonny.

. . . honored. But I must tell you there is someone else
and . . .

 She thought of writing: I hope we can still be friends, but
she discarded the idea immediately. She knew they
couldn't be friends. It had to be love between them or
nothing.

 But I wish I could keep him as a friend, she thought
sadly. Someone to talk to, to smile at, to like the way I
talk, smile at and like Father Flynn and Mr. Van Clees.

His answer came. She read it through her tears.

 . . . so, like we say in France, Ah Reservoir. But honest,
MaggieNow, dear, I wish you all the luck in the world....

 She put this last letter with his other letters and his
picture, and tied them up with a piece of blue baby
ribbon from a discarded petticoat, and put the little
packet in the box with her mother's rhinestone combs.

Sonny never wrote again. She missed getting his letters.

                  [262]
                    
        ~ CHAPTER THIRTY-SE VEN ~

IN November, Maggie-Now got a job as night ticket seller
in a neighborhoodmovie house. When Pat went out
nights, Denny sat in the back row of the cheater and
watched the movies. He liked his sister's job fine.
ILlaggie-Now had an agreement with her father that he
go out on Friday nights so Denny wouldn't have to stay
up until ten on school nights.

 Maggie-Now earned twenty dollars a week and saved
most of it. She knew Claude was coming back and she
knew they'd be married and she wanted to buy a dress for
her wedding and some household things for their home.
She liked selling tickets and chatting with the customers.
When the weather got cold (there was no heat in the
ticket booth), she brought a filled hot-water bottle from
home, took her shoes off and rested her stockinged feet
on the hot bottle. That kept her warm all evening.

 Pat ate Thanksgiving dinner at Mrs. O'Crawley's with
Mick Mack. Since he was spending the evening there,
Maggie-Now took Denny to work with her. He'd seen the
picture and didn't want to see it again. He stood in the
booth and Maggie-Now let him tear the tickets off the
roll. He got sick of that and said he was cold. She gave
him a dime and told him to get a hot chocolate to warm
up. He made three trips that night to warm up. The last
trip, he brought two wafers back to Maggie-Now.

"I thought maybe you vitas hungry," he said.

 The Sunday after Thanksgiving, it started to snow as
evening came on. When l\laggie-Now closed her booth at
ten o'clock, the streets had a covering of snow. She
looked in on her father. He was rolled up in his blankets
and snoring warmly. She checked on Denny. I lis blankets
Nvere on the floor and he slept with his knees drawn up
to his chin and his arms wrapped around his

                [ 26:3 ]
                    
chest. She covered him securely, leaving only his head
exposed. His head still looked like a baby's head: tender
and vulnerable.

 She looked down at him and thought: I want all my
children to look like Claude, except the next-to-last one. I
want him to look like Denny, and the last one of all I want
to look like me.

 She undressed but didn't feel like going to bed. She put
her Navaho-blanket bathrobe over her warm flannel
nightgown and got into her felt bedroom slippers. She
went into the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea. After
she'd had the tea, she banked the fire in the kitchen
range, got her hairbrush and sat by the window in the
front room to brush her hair. The room was comfortable.
I here was still some fire left in the parlor stove.

 That's one thing you can say for Papa, she thought. He
does keep the fires up. I hope the snow doesn't get too deep.
How he hates to shovel snow! He'll go on sick leave if it's
deep and I'll have to go down to the section office and lie
and say he's sick and the super will say, like always, sure
he's sick sick of working, and whoever is standing around
will laugh....

 She wanted him to go to work the next day because she
planned to start making a new green challis dress to wear
for Claude's return and she didn't want him hanging
around the house. He'd spoil her pleasure in the making
of the dress by making remarks like:

"Another new dress?"

"Closet's full of dresses already."

"Think money grows on trees?"

And she'd say, "Oh, Papa!"

  She smiled and decided she wouldn't let her father
bother her if he were home the next day. I'll just think of
Claude, she decided, and how happy I am because he's
coming back.

  She brushed her hair and watched the soundless
movement of the snow coming down and her brush
strokes took the down rhythm of the falling snow. She
looked at the flames flickering behind the isinglass panes
of the stove door. She recalled her wonderful delight, as
a child, at seeing the fire glow through the isinglass.

  What a pity, she thought, that you get used to things and
never see them again the way you saw them for the first
time.

                 [ z64 ]
                    
  She braided her hair, one braid over each shoulder, and
tied the ends with rubber bands so the braids wouldn't
unravel in the night. She leaned forward, idly swinging the
brush between her knees, grateful for the warmth of the
fire and aware of the quiet beauty of the night, and she
had a feeling of peace and blessed relief; the kind of
humble and thankful relief that comes to an anxious
parent when a sick child's terrifyingly high temperature
starts dropping back to normal.

  The fire died down, the room started to get cold and
reluctantly she decided to go to bed. She checked the
front door to see if it was locked and noticed that the
snow had drifted against the doorsill outside. She got the
broom and swept it away before her as she went out on
the stoop. She stood in the cleared place, hands resting on
the broom handle, and absorbed the snowy night.

  Silent night, beautiful night, and for such a little time.
Tomorrow the loveliness would be ugliness. The snow,
with all the debris of the street beneath it, would be
shoveled into hummocks at the curb. It would thaw a
little, freeze a little and be veined with chimney soot and
decorated with bits of dirty paper frozen into it and dogs
would urinate against the peaks and leave behind dirty,
mustard-colored patches.

  Even now, the lovely baby-blanket look of the snow was
being defiled by a man walking down the middle of the
street and leaving dirty holes where his feet had stepped.
Maggie-Now thought he must be crazy he was wearing
neither hat nor overcoat.

  Suddenly, in her breast, where she judged her heart to
be, something clicked out of place and then clicked back.
She dropped the broom and ran down the street in her
nightgown, bathrobe and felt slippers. She threw herself
with such force at the hatless man that she all but
knocked him off his feet.

  "What took you so long?" she asked, as though he had
merely gone to the store.

  "Margaret!" he said. "Oh, Margaret! Here." He tried to
give her the lumpy, sodden paper bag he was carrying, but
she was shaking him by the shoulders the way a mother
shakes a stubborn child. The bottom fell out of the damp
bag and two naked chickens fell in the snow and lay there,
breast to breast.

"What's that?" she asked, startled.

                   [265]
                     
 "I thought you could cook them and we could have a
sort of late supper."

"Oh, (Claude!" She laughed and then she started to cry.

 "Don't, Margaret! Don't!" He kissed her gently. "You
knew I'd come back, didn't you?"

 "Yes," she sobbed. "And you'll never go away again, will
you? " She waited. He stood silent. "Will you!" she
insisted.

 Typically, he wouldn't say yes, he wouldn't say no. He
said: "But I did come back, didn't I?"

"Yes," she whispered.

 He got a soggy handkerchief from his pocket and tried
to wipe the mixed tears and snow from her face. He
succeeded only in spreading the wetness.

 "You waited for me, Margaret, didn't you? Because you
knew I'd come back."

 She thought of Sonny for a second, then said: "Yes, I
waited. I waited all the time."

 They stood on that quiet, empty street, holding each
other tightly, and the snow fell on them and flakes
lingered briefly in the interstices of her braids.

He said: "You'll catch pneumonia."

Simultaneously, she said: "You'll get pneumonia."

 They walked toward the house. He carried the chickens
by their feet in one hand, and put his other arm about her
waist.

 "After your father spanked you for dancing in the street,
did you give up dancing for good?"

"In a way. You see . . ."

 And they resumed talking where they had left off seven
months ago.

 She installed him in the kitchen and closed the door so
her father wouldn't hear and wake up. She punched up
the fire in the kitchen range, threw in some slivers of
wood and some fresh coal and added half an inch of
kerosene measured into an empty tomato can. The fire
took hold. She put on a kettleful of Nvater for coffee and
put the chickens in the roasting pan.

 "I won't bother making stuffing," she whispered. "It'll
take them two hours to get done as it is."

 She made him take off his worn, wet shoes and socks
and she put them in the warming oven to dry. She helped
him off with his [ 266 ]

wet coat and her heart contracted as she touched him and
knew that he had no undershirt under his thin top shirt.

 In the darkness of his bedroom, the sound of the coffee
grinder penetrated Pat's sleep. Morning already, he
thought, and still dark out. Must be raining. Oh, God what
a life, he moaned, having to get up every morning. He
pulled his pants on over his long woolen drawers which he
used for pajamas. He opened the door to his son's room
and called out ringingly: "School!" Hysterically, Denny
threw all the bedclothes on the floor, tied himself into a
fetus knot, and went back to sleep.

 Claude and Maggie-Now talked in whispers as he knelt
before her, took off her sodden felt bedroom slippers and
dried her feet with a clean dish towel.

 Suddenly, her father was in the doorway. "What the
hell's going on here?" he asked, more astonished than
angry.

"You see, it's snowing out," she started to explain, "and .
. ."

 "And who the hell are you?" he asked Claude. "And
what the hell are you doing with her feet in the middle of
the night?"

"Why, I'm drying them," said Claude.

  "Papa," said Maggie-Now formally, "I'd like to introduce
you to Mr. Basset-t."

  "Get up, Mr. Bassett," said Pat. "I'll not hit a man and
him on his knees before me."

  Claude stood up. Pat balled his hand into a fist and
stepped back for leverage to throw a punch. Claude
picked Pat's fist out of the air and pried it open. He fitted
his palm into Pat's to form a handshake. Claude narrowed
his eyes and started to press Pat's hand slowly and
strongly. Pat all but cried out in his pain. He was sure that
every bone in his hand was broken.

  Holy Mother, thought Pat. He looks like a sissy but he's
got the strenth of a murtherin' lasted.

  "I've been looking forward for a long time to meeting
you, old sir," said Claude in his best educated accent.

. . . a murtherin' educated lasted, amended Pat to himself.

  "I hope we will be friends, old sir," said Claude,
releasing Pat's hand after one more bone-crushing
squeeze.

  Pat let his hand hang by his side, using all his will power
not to flex the fingers to feel if they were still intact. His
face burned at the idea of being called "old sir." He didn't
think he was old. He

                 [ 267 ]
                    
vvas only i orty-eight. H' turned furiously on his
daughter:

 "Don't just stand there in your shimmy with your mouth
open," he told her. "Get him out of here!"

"Oh, Papa!" She smiled. "Chemises went out with bustles."

 "You know what I mean," he roared. "Don't turn me
words on me."

 "I think your father wants you to change into dry
clothes, Margaret. You do that, dear, and give me the
chance to ask your father for your hand in marriage."

 Pat nearly choked. /'m going to beat the be-Jesz~s out of
him, Pat promised himself. As soon as me hand gets better.

 Maggie-Now beamed on Claude. He had called her
dear! She went to her room to dress.

"Sit down, old sir," said Claude.

"You telling me to sit down in me own house?" gasped
Pat.

 "Sit down," said Claude wearily. "I,ife is too short for
this nonsense. Get done with the sparring. Hang up your
gloves. Your daughter and I are going to marry. You
might as well get used to me because you'll have to put
up with me until you die."

"I'll bury you first," said Pat bitterly.

 "That may well be. But while you're waiting to do so,
let's be amiable. It's easier on the liver."

 Pat felt a flash of interest. This man might well be an
enemy worthy of him. Mick Mack always turned the other
cheek and Timmy had not been a consistent enemy. He'd
beat up a man and then weep in contrition. But this
Claude Bassett: Pat knew he would fight to a draw. I le
decided to test him with what he knew to be a sure-fire
insult.

"Why ain't you in uniform, you slacker?" he asked Claude.

 "I was weighed in the balance and one of my ears was
found vv anting."

 "A real man," said Pat disparagingly, "woulda Bucked
me in the nose for calling; him a slacker."

 "So?" said Claude. "Old sir, I had hoped we could be
friends, on account of Margaret. But if it's a lifelong
enemy that you want, I'll try to be worthy of your Irish
spleen."

 "Why can t you talk like a man?" said Pat irritably. "All
them Goddamned educated words!"

Claude put his hands in his pockets and stretched out his
legs [ 268 ]

under the table. He smiled at Pat. "You're enjoying this,
aren't you?" he said.

 Pat was so confounded by this remark that he had
nothing to say. Maggie-Now came in dressed and poured
boiling water over the coffee Claude had ground. They
spoke in incomplete sentences to each other as if they had
been living together for many years. Pat couldn't stand it.

 "Now that you're dressed," he told her, "pack your things
and get out. And take him with you."

"Now, Papa," she said with a little laugh, "pack in what?"

  "Now, now, old sir," said Claude. "You wouldn't put
your wonderful daughter out on a night like this in all
that snow."

  "She can stay," muttered Pat. "But," he turned to
Maggie-Now and shouted, "get this man out of my house!"

  "My house!" said Maggie-Now sharply. "Mama said you
were to give it to me when I married." She went to Claude
and put her hand on his shoulder. "Now, Papa, you stop
being so mean. This is my man and I want him.'' Claude
took her hand and pressed it to his cheek. "And if we all
can be friends together, I'll be glad. If we can't, I'll feel
bad, but I ll do what I want to anyway. I'm over
twenty-one and I don't owe you anything, Papa. Except
love. And that's because you're my father."

  By God, he thought in sincere admiration, she's got
spunks She stood up to me for once. Then, he felt that he
had lost the old Maggie-Now. From now on, he knew
where he stood with her. He felt terribly alone. Where, he
cried in his heart, is me mother who would have died for
me? Me wife who loved me so? Timmy who licked me but
all the time knew how it was with me? Where is the little girl
what held my hand so tight when we walked down the street?
He wept in his heart.

  "Margaret," he heard Claude say gently, "you mustn't
speak so sharply to your father."

  "Me daughter can speak to me any damn way she
wants," said Pat belligerently.

  Maggie-Now went to him and patted his head. "That's
all right, Papa. You have a cup of coffee with us and then
you get your sleep; you've got to work tomorrow. Claude
and I will talk a while and have something to eat, then
he'll go and tomorrow we'll all sit down together and talk
things over."

                  [ 269 ]
                     
 At first, he refused the coffee. Then he reasoned that,
after all, he'd paid for the coffee and the milk and the
sugar and he might as well drink it. He had three cups.
He cast about in his mind for something to say that would
make Claude angry but wouldn't make Maggie-Now
angry. He thought he had it. Jealousy! He cleared his
throat.

 "Maggie-Now, dear, did you hear from Son Pheid
lately?" he said.

"Who?" asked Maggie-Now. "Oh, Sonny! No," she said.

"He's a plumber," said Pat to Claude. "In business for
himself."

 "That so?" commented Claude politely. He turned to
MaggieNow. "You didn't tell me," he said, "whether you
lost interest in dancing after that or . . ."

 I got to think of some way, thought Pat desperately. I
can't beat hell cut of him because he's younger and stronger
than me. I got to lick him with me mind. I can't throw him
out. She'll go with him. She's that loony about him. Yes,
she'd go with him and that's just what he wants. Then he
could have her without marrying her and that's what he's
working for. He's not the marrying kind. I know them kind.
Well, I'll think of something. You can catch more lilies with
Elgar than with vinegar, he concluded vaguely.

 He got up and scratched his ribs. "Like Maggie-Now
said, I'm a working man and I got to get me sleep."

 Claude stood up. "Oh, I'm sorry," he said, "but I got to
talking with Margaret and . . . '

"That's all right," said Pat. "Good night, all."

"Good night, Papa," she said.

"Good night, old sir."

 "Good night," Pat paused, "old son." He stood in the
doorway. "I Nvish I wasn't such a light sleeper," he said
with a significant look at Claude. He went to his room,
leaving the kitchen door a) ar.

 Claude went over and closed the door. He came back
to Maggie-Now. "How soon can we get married?"

 She straightened the cup in her saucer before she said:
"You know I'm a Catholic."

"No!" he said in mock surprise.

                 [ 270 ]
                    
"But I told you," she said seriously.

"I was joking," he said.

"I didn't really know...."

 "Ah, Margaret, you know so much about so many things
and so little about so many things. Now: When can we be
married?"

"In a month five weeks. I'd have to ask Father Flynn."

"Do you love me?"

"Yes."

"How much?"

 "There's no measure. I loved you when I first met you
in the dentist's office, I guess. I loved you when you left,
even though I thought you'd never come back. And if I
had married someone else, I still would have loved you
somewhere in the back of my mind. When you sent that
card and told me to wait for you, I thought everything was
all right, even though I was a Catholic."

 "Don't belittle your religion, my little Chinee. It's a
grand faith. But could you love me enough to give it up?"

 He saw her hand on the table tremble. She put it in her
lap. She lowered her head and he saw her face work in
anguish.

 Look at me, he told himself scornfully, a vagabond.
That's classy f or slum. What have I got to give her?
Nothing. I know how she is about her religion. What
dil~erence does it make? No faith means anything to me.
So I ask her to give it up. Why? Just to own all of her? To
prove I'm a man?

 But he h. d to go through with it. "Will you, Margaret?"
Silence. "Will you give up your religion for me?" No
answer. "Please say you will. I need you to say it."

"I will," she said finally.

 "Thank you, Margaret." A pause. "But you don't mean
it, do you? "

 "No," she whispered. Then she burst out: "Why did you
make me say it? How could I fix my mind to mean it? Is
it a crime to be a Catholic?"

 She put her head down on her folded arms on the table
and wept. She cried noisily and her whole body shook. He
went to the door to see if it was tightly shut. He didn't
want her father to hear. Then he went to her, pulled her
to her feet and put his arms around her.

"Why, I wouldn't have you give up your faith for me. I
only

                  t27, ]
                     
wanted to hear you say, just once, that you would."
sobbed louder. "There, Margaret, there! Stop crying.
There, Margaret, there!" I le stroked her hair. "There,
there, Margaret now. There, Maggie. There, Maggie-Now.

 "Listen! You got me around to calling you Maggie-Now.
And you can call me Claudv, if you want to." She shook
her head and continued sobbing. He shook her roughly.
"Stop it, you little fool. Don't you know that I'm anxious
to marry you in the Catholic faith? And you know why?"
She held back a sob to listen. "Because there's no divorce
in the Catholic Church. I want my marriage to be that
way: no divorce. After we're married awhile, you'll find
out I'm nothing but a bum and you'll want to divorce me.
But you won't be table to. And I'll have you safe for
always. Now dry your eyes and tell me how to go about
things."

 She wiped her eyes. "You'll have to see Father Flynn.
He'll give you instructions. I'll make an appointment for
you and I think the chickens are done novv.77

 He couldn't help it. He started to laugh. He laughed
until he was weak.

"What's the matter?'' she asked.

 "You," he said. "You're the matter. Oh, Margaret! Oh,
I\IaggieNow, my practical love!"

 Maggie-Now's sobs had not penetrated Pat's sleep, but
Claude's laughter had. Pat turned over and muttered,
"Bastid."

 They mended the fire, made more coffee and ate the
roasted chicken with bread and butter while they
discussed plans for their marriage. Maggie-Now wanted
to know where they would live.

"Here," he said, "if it's all right."

"But the neighborhood's so rundown...."

"I love this neighborhood."

"And this house is so old...."

"It's wonderful! It's a safe place it's a ho7ne."

"But Papa lives here...."

 "I like your father," he said. "He has his own special
kind of integrity. I'll get a good job and pay all the
expenses. Your father will be our guest."

"Papa would pay something for himself and Denny."

"I wouldn't let him."

The door opened and Denny, in striped flannel pajamas
and

                 [ 272 ]
                    
with his eyes half closed, stood there. He addressed
Claude without salutation.

"You know that kite you gave me?" he said.

"Yes."

"Well, it's busted."

"I'll get you another."

"But I had a kite. I'd like something different,."

"I'll get you something different."

"You mustn't ask for tilings, Denny," said Maggie-Now.

"Denny," said Claude, "will you be my brother?"

  Denny looked at his sister. She smiled and nodded. "I
guess so," he said. He yawned and went back to bed.

  "To think-," said Claude happily, "me who never had
anything; who never had anyone! And now I'll have a wife
and a father and a young brother and a home life. All this
to come to me!"

  Maggie-Now had a flash of intuition. "You were brought
up in an orphans' home, then." She saw his eyes flicker
but he wouldn't say yes and he wouldn't say no. But she
knew it was true. "I wish you'd tell me . . ."

  "There is little to tell. I was a boy, I grew up and got a
fairly good education and I turned into a wanderer. You
could call me a tramp, except that I worked my way
around. I've always liked to travel, see different places,
live in different ways. I'd stay in one place and work
awhile to get money to go on to a new place. I never
wanted to be long in one place, to form ties and
friendships. I liked being a lone wolf. But now my
wandering days are over. It will be bliss to settle down...."
He interrupted himself. "Bliss. There's a word, now. Bliss
to love and to be loved."

  "But there must have been things that happened to
you someone that you got to know real well...."

"Do you mean, have I got a past?"

"I guess so.''

  "You are my past. My past, my present and my future.
I am making my past now. And it is a good one. Twenty
years from now, maybe, someone will ask me about my
past and I'll say: 'My past started one Easter week in
Brooklyn where I met a girl named Margaret Rose
Moore, only everybody called her Maggie

                 ~ 273 ]
                    
         ~ CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT ~

SOME men don't like to work; they duck work as long as
they can. When conscience or need drives them to work,
they're apt to pick the hardest work available, probably as
penance or to prove they can do hard work. Claude took
a temporary job shoveling snow for the city.

 The snow was a curse to many but a blessing to jobless
men and to children. Even in this war year, with so many
men in the services and well-paid, wartime jobs for nearly
all, there were still men available for snow shoveling: men
too old or too young to have steady jobs, college boys
wanting to pick up a few dollars, and drifters.

 In one of the far-flung neighborhoods of Brooklyn, there
was a sanitation boss who had seemingly been born just to
hire college men to shovel snow. Henny Clynne had come
up from the ranks. He had started as sweeper and by
taking civil service exams over and over until he finally
passed, and by pull, he got to be superintendent and
gained the power, along with his other duties, of hiring
and firing college men. He liked to hire college men for
snow shoveling because he couldn't stand the sight of any
man who had gone to college. When Claude applied for
work, Henny looked him over and considered him a prize.

"What college you from?" he asked Claude.

 Claude fixed his stare at the bottom of Henny's left ear
and said: "The college of hard knocks."

 "Don't get wise with me," snarled Henny. "Though I
don't blame you for being ashamed to admit you went to
college. But you can't fool me. I can tell a college man a
mile oflf."

 "That's interesting, sir," said Claude. Henny was getting
nervous at Claude staring at his ear lobe. He moved his
head. Claude refocused his stare.

                  [ 274 ]
                     
 "Yep, I can tell by your shoes. A honest, hard-working
man don't wear thin shoes with thin soles. I always say, let
me see a man's shoes and I'll tell you what he is."

"That's very clever, sir."

 "I know you're a college graduate. Come on, now. What
college? "

"Shall we say, Oxford?" said Claude.

"Where's Oxford?"

"In Mississippi."

 "So you went to college! Born with a silver spoon in
your mouth. And you end up begging me for work; hard
work, mind you. Dirty work. Now take me," he went on
complacently. "Never went to school more than three
years in me whole life. Would you believe it to look at
me?"

"Oh, no, sir!"

  "I learned meself everything I know and I know plenty.
I came to this country thirty years ago a ignorant mick
with me trunk on me back. I didn't know nothing. And
look at me today!"

  "My! " breathed Claude admiringly. He thrust his head
forward to take a closer look at Henny's ear lobe.

"What's-a matter?" asked Henny.

"Nothing."

"You wait here, now, till I interview them other rah-rah
boys."

  Henny separated the wheat from the chaff. Then he
lined up the wheat, gave them instructions, handed out
shovels and marched them to their work area. He went
back to his office, which was a rented store, and examined
his left ear in the lavatory mirror.

  For a nzinz~te, there, he thought, the way that feller was
looking at me, I thought there was a louse or something
crawling around me ear.

  The men had been working two hours when Henny
showed up for the morning pep talk. He chose to address
his communal remarks to C'laude.

  "Shovel it up, college boy. Shovel it up! We ain't here to
pick daisies, you know." Some of the men stopped working
and leaned on their shovels. Penny was waiting for this. "I
see that the coach called time out. That gives us a chance
to give out with the old razz-a-ma-tazz, fellers." He took
a cheer leader's stance and

                  ~ 27S ]
                     
chanted: "Raw-raw-raw! Raw-raw-raw! Shovel it up, shovel
it up, raw-raw-raw! "

 One shoveler guffawed, one grinned, another turned his
head to spit, some looked astonished, some looked
sheepish and Claude stared at Henny's left ear lobe. He
stared until Henny scratched it, then Claude resumed
piling up the snow.

 A small crowd had gathered to enjoy Henny's
show mostly old men with nothing to do and marketing
mothers with small children.

"Those men went to college," said a mother to her small
son.

 "How can you tell, I\lissus?" asked a garrulous old man
who had overheard the remark.

 "Because some ain't got overcoats and because Mr.
Clynne said so."

"So they went to college," mused the old man.

"Yeah.''

"And what does that prove, Missus? "

 "I didn't say it proved anything. I just said what was a
fac'. They went to college."

 Late that afternoon, dead tired, but with earned money
in his pocket, Claude went to keep the appointment with
Father Flynn that Maggie-Now had made for him. He was
glad, at the priest's invitation, to sink into a worn,
brown-leather Morris chair.

 Claude was surprised that the priest's living room
looked like any room in a comfortable house. He had
expected it to look a little like a small church. The wintry,
lemon-colored sun slanted in through a window and shone
through a clear glass decanter, half full of sauterne (the
gift of a parishioner). It made a pale golden shadow on
the polished wood of the table. There was a rack of pipes
on the desk (each pipe a loving gift), and a humidor of
tobacco supplied by Van Clees.

 The room smelled good of coffee simmering in the
kitchen, of mellow, burning tobacco, and the warm,
ironing smell of freshly lalmdered linen. He saw stunted
boughs of a bare bush outlined outside a window. He
knew it was the priest's treasure, the lilac bush.
Maggie-Now had told him about it.

 Father Flynn knew the purpose of Claude's visit. After
a few preliminary remarks about the weather, the state of
the world and

                  [276]
                    
the war, and after both had agreed that the boys wouldn't
be out of the trenches by Christmas, Father Flynn filled
his pipe, lit it and settled back in his chair.

 "I understand," he said, "that you wish to marry
Margaret and have agreed with her to a Catholic marriage
ceremony."

"Yes, sir."

"What is your faith?"

 "Oh, I'm a Christian at large," said Claude airily. Too
late, he realized he'd said the wrong thing. He saw the
priest's kindly expression go stern and he waited
apprehensively for the priest's reply.

 "If I asked your political affiliation, no doubt you'd say
you were a citizen at large. Is that correct?" He saw
Claude shift his eyes. "I mean," said Father Flynn, trying
again, "what is your denomination? "

"I'm not a Jew, if that's what you're getting at," said
Claude.

 "That statement," said Father Flynn, coldly minting each
word, "should be made with humility and not with
arrogance."

"Sorry," mumbled Claude.

"For our Lord was a Jew," said the priest.

 Father Flynn thought: '4s an ordained priest, I nzast love,
u~Zdersta~zd and forgive him. But as private citizen
Joseph Flyer`, I calZ't stand the sight of him. God forgive
me.

 Thought Claude: He hates me, the way her father Ed her
godmother hate nze. The way everyone who loves her hates
me.

"What was your parents' religion?"

"I don't know."

  "You, a non-Catholic, have come to nze," said Father
FlyrIn sharply, "to plead for the privilege of marrying a
Catholic. I will refuse you that privilege unless . . ."

"I do not know who my parents were," said Claude quietly.

  Father Flynn put his pipe down very carefully. He put
his finger tips together, leaned back in his chair and
waited. He waited. He waited a long time.

Finally, he urged: "Yes, my son?"

  "I was brought up in a nondenominational institution. A
very good one. Someone paid for me. I was given a good
education. Someone paid for it."

                  1 277 1
                     
 "I see,' said the priest. And he did see. He understood
now why Claude was the way he was.

"Have you told Margaret?"

"No. I have told no one in the world, except you."

"Tell her."

"If I choose not to tell her, will you tell her?"

 "As a priest, I cannot violate a confession. As a man, I
will not violate a confidence."

"Thank you, sir."

"Father," prompted the priest.

"Father," said Claude.

"But tell her, my son. She is worthy of knowing it."

"I think she knows," said Claude.

  Claude had a feeling of immense peace. He felt a great
warmth toward the priest; almost a feeling of tenderness.

  That's why he wanders, thought the priest. He goes to a
new place, thinking there he will find a flit of the piece that's
missing from his life.

  They talked further. (Claude said he would like to be
converted to Catholicism. Father Flynn said he couldn't
become a Catholic merely by requesting it. He'd have to
take instructions, learn the history and theology of the
church. It would take time.

  "And there is the question of faith. It cannot be taught
you, you cannot have it by announcing that you have it. It
must come from something within you. There is no
formula. You will know when you have it. Only then can
you become a Catholic."

  "How soon?" asked Claude. "For Margaret's sake. I
want to be one with her in all things."

  "To some, faith comes soon and to others, late. And to
many, it never comes at all."

  It was dark in the room now. The housekeeper came in
to turn on the lights. She spoke bitterly and said she
couldn't keep Father's supper warm much longer. It was
drying up. Father Flynn apologised and asked her
indulgence five minutes longer. He stood in some fear of
his housekeeper. She left the room muttering.

  "I always have a glass of sauterne before my supper,"
said the priest. "Will you join me?"

  Claude said he would. He stood up when the priest did.
He was relieved that, for once, someone didn't say: "Keep
seated."

                  L278]
                    
 The street seemed cold and lonely after the warmth of
the priest's living room. Claude went to a bakery
lunchroom and had several cups of coffee and a couple of
doughnuts. He was tired to death. The day before he had
traveled through miles of snow to get to Maggie-Now. He
had sat up most of the night talking to her and had put in
a hard day shoveling snow.

 He didn't know how long he had been in the
lunchroom. A stout woman was shaking him awake.

"You can't sleep here, Mister. Go home."

 He made his way to the movie cheater where
Maggie-Now was working. She gave a gasp of pity when
he loomed up before her outside the glass enclosure. He
looked so tired and bedraggled. She gave him a ticket and
told him to wait inside for her; she'd be through in an
hour and would fix a hot supper for him.

 He stumbled into the theater and collapsed in a
back-row seat. He slept soundly through the most
controversial part of The Birth of a Nation.

         ~ CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE ~

IN SPITE of all Pat's efforts to lick Claude with his
"mind," plans for the marriage went forward. Pat had
come to the conclusion that Claude was an ex-convict,
else why was he so reticent about his past? He knew his
daughter would not marry an ex-convict. But how to get
Claude to admit it?

 Pat, knowing how most men babble when they are
drunk, took him to a saloon to get him drunk. Claude
spent the evening staring into his untouched shot glass of
rye. He wouldn't drink; he wouldn't talk. Pat drank too
much and he was the one who talked. He told Claude the
complete story of his life and, when he had finished, he
told it all over again with variations. Then he got sick and
Claude had to take him to the men's room and hold his
forehead while he retched. Claude took him home, gave
him a Bromo

                 [ ,79 ]
                    
Seltzer and put him to bed.

  In order to be with l\laggie-Now in the afternoon,
Claude got a job as night clerk in a downtown Brooklyn
hotel. He wouldn't say what hotel except that it wasn't the
St. George. Maggie-Now asked no questions but Pat had
to know. Claude wouldn't name the hotel but Pat got this
much out of him: that it was a small family hotel catering
to permanent guests, mostly elderly couples who had just
enough money to keep out of the poorhouse.

  From this explanation, Pat concluded that the place was
a brothel, else why should Claude go to so much trouble
to throw him oflf the track by assuring him that the place
was so respectable? Now if Maggie-Now had proof that
Claude was a procurer. . .

  He decided to let Claude compromise himself. He took
him aside and asked how about their having a fling
together. He hinted that Claude would be a long time
married, and . ..

  "Maybe you can dig up two 'skirts' for us from that
hotel where you work and get us a couple of rooms there
and I'll bring along a bottle of Four Star Hennessy and
we'll have ourselfs a high old

  ,,

time.

 Claude looked at him with distaste and said: "Aren't
you a bit along in years for that sort of thing, old sir?"

 After the banns had been read for the first time, Pat
came to another conclusion: that the marriage was
inevitable; that there was no way to stop it mew. He went
on to his next project: the house. He knew Claude wanted
to live there.

"How much will he pay?" he asked Maggie-Now.

"How do you mean, I'apa?"

 "I'll rent him the downstairs for twenty-five a month and
you can have me big bedroom and I'll take your bit of a
one. Of course, I'll pay for me share of the food and the
boy's."

 "Now, Papa, must we go all through that again? Mama
said I was to get the house when I married. You
promised."

"It was one of them promises no man has to keep."

 "Oh, shame, Papa. Shame. Grandpapa gave it to Mama
in the first place. It was never yours."

"Ha! Me deed says: To Patrick Dennis Moore ate us."

"And you know what Et Ux means? "

 "Sure. A/l His," he ventured, figuring that she didn't
know what it meant either.

                 ~ 280 ]
                    
  "It means bled IVife. I know that much Latin anyhow. If
you give the house to me after I marry, even if you don't
want Claude to have it, the deed would have to be in his
name."

"Over me dead body!"

  "All right, Papa. I won't fight with you over it. I'll get
the house anyway after you die."

"Knock wood when you say that," he shouted.

  "I will not!" she shouted back. "I don't want to live here
anyhow. What kind of a married life would I have and you
always making trouble? We'll get an apartment."

  "Do so. 'Tis right married people live alone." She got
her hat. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going out to rent an apartment."

  "Who's going to cook me meals? Who's going to look
after the boy?"

  "I'll find you a housekeeper, Papa. Maybe Father Flynn's
housekeeper knows somebody . . ."

"How much will it cost?"

  "A very old lady will work for fifteen a month and room
and board. Only you have to give her so much every week
for groceries not a dollar whenever you feel like it."

  He did some mental arithmetic; then he started to
negotiate: He'd give her the upstairs rent free for the rest
of her life, provided she continued keeping house for him.
She declined. The downstairs, then; same conditions. She
said, no. They reached no agreement. Maggie-Now went
out to look for an apartment.

  When the banns were read for the second time, Pat
made a deal. Because, and only because, he'd promised
her mother, he told Maggie-Now, he would turn over the
house to her. There were provisions. The house was hers
for her lifetime only; after that, it went to Denny; she was
to continue keeping house for him and Denny; he was to
have the upstairs hall bedroom as his own to occupy or to
rent out he to receive said rent.

"But why do you want to own a hall bedroom, Papa?"

"Because I just got to end up with something out of this."

  She agreed. He had the deed made over to her right
away. She suggested he wait until she and Claude married.

"It would be a nice wedding present," she said.

"I don't want it to be Et lJx," he said. ~81 ]

 Claude helped her move Pat's furniture to the upstairs
room. They painted the walls and ceiling of Pat's old
room, which would now be theirs, and Maggie-Now made
new, rose-sprigged, ruffled dimity curtains. She bought a
new bed and dresser for the room that would be hers and
Claude's, and a taffeta, green bedspread. She decorated
the bed with half a dozen tiny, heartshaped lace pillows
and two French dolls with their legs knotted. This was the
fashion of the time. Claude raised his eyebrows when he
saw the decorated bed.

 "I guess you think it's tacky or something, but all my life
I wanted heart-shaped lace pillows. I like that stuff on my
bed."

"Our bed," he said.

  "That's right, Claude, and I'll put the stuff away after
we're married."

"Oh, leave it, Margaret. Just so there's room for a
husband."

  She was ecstatically happy during those waiting weeks,
but sometimes the thought of Lottie diluted her happiness.
She put off telling Lottie about her coming marriage as
long as she could because she knew Lottie would rave.
She did.

  "A fool! That's what you are, a fool! Marrying this
nobody when you could have had a man like Timmy; you
could have married Sonny. Who is this Claude anyway?
What do you know about him? He might be a jailbird; he
might be already married to someone in Jersey. What do
you see in him? "

"I love him so."

  "You love the grand way he talks to you. And more
shame to you. Are you not used to grand talkers and you
coming from the Irish who is the grandest talkers of all?"

  "But you'll come to my wedding anyhow, won't you,
Aunt Lottie? "

"No! "

  "Please! Since Mama died, you've been my mother. I
want my mother to come to my wedding to wish me luck."

  "I use' to think of you as my daughter. Now I'm glad
you ain't because I' rather see a daughter of mine in her
casket than married to a man like him." Maggie-Now
broke down and sobbed. Lottie wasn't moved an inch by
her tears. "Go on and cry," she said bitterly. "Get use' to
crying. You'll shed many a tear after you're married to
him."

[ 282 ]

 Pat went to Mass with Maggie-Now and Claude the
Sunday when the banns were read for the last time. He
half closed his eyes and the church seemed like the little
church in Ireland. He heard the same names he had heard
in that little church; his beloved's name and his: Margaret
Rose Moore. He half expected that a burly man some
pews ahead would turn around and it would be Timmy.

 He sat with his head bowed, wringing his hands in
anguish between his knees. Oh, if only I was a boy again,
back in Ireland he mourned. I'd marry me Maggie Rose and
gladly. And I wouldn't care what Henny the Hermit, sang
about me. I'd work from morning to night cutting peat, and
when they'd call me a bog trotter, I'd only laugh. 'Twould be
heaven to live in a oneroom sod shanty and sleep on a bit of
straw on the poor and eat the small, hard potatoes that I
planted meself and, yes, take a licking every day of me life
from Tim7ny and never complain. Anything . . . anything! If
I was only young again! Anything, if only I was young again!

            ~ C HAPTER FORTY ~

MAGGIE-NOW was married in the new green challis
dress she'd made; new hat, new shoes, new white gloves
and a winter coat that had been new five years ago. She
carried a bunch of baby bronze chrysanthemums. She
came out of the priest's house on Claude's arm and two
lines of people had made a path for them from the house
to the curb. They were friends, neighbors, acquaintances,
curious people and children. The bride shared interest
with a tall woman at the end of one of the lines.

 The woman wore a large black hat with a long black
crepe veil that swirled around her head in the winter wind.
She wore a long black coat of bearskin. It reached from
her neck to her

                  ~ 253 ]
                     
ankles. Maggie-Now thought briefly of Mrs. Schondle the
ship that had passed in the night.

 Bride and groom walked down the path. She nodded to
the strangers, shook hands with acquaintances and put her
hand, in a gesture of affection, on the arm of each friend
and kissed all the children. Claude bowed from side to
side like a visiting dignitary. When they reached the end
of the lane, Maggie-Now put her arms around the woman
in the bearskin coat, buried her face in the prickly fur and
sighed happily as though she had come home from far
away.

"My Aunt Lottie came to my wedding," she said.

 "Did you think for one minute that I wouldn't come to
your wedding?" said Lottie. "Why, that would be terrible!"

"But you said . . ."

"You know I just talk. I don't do."

 Lottie congratulated Claude and said sternly, but with a
smile: "Take good care of her or you'll hear from me."

 "If I ever mistreat her in any way," said Claude, "I hope
you will take an aunt's privilege and spank me."

 Lottie frowned. She thought his little speech was
affected. puts on too much, was the way she described it to
herself. Claude may have felt her aversion for he put his
arms about her and pressed his cheek to Lottie's.

 "I hope you will like me in time," he murmured. "You're
such a grand, sweet lady."

 Something stirred in Lottie. I don't like him for a nickel,
she thought. And I never evilly But l can see now what she
sees in him.

 She gave Maggie-Now a wrapped gift, said, no, she
couldn't come to the house for a cup of coffee, because
she had stopped going out socially ever since Timmy
passed away. Maggie-Now watched her go down the street.

 Bride and groom walked home arm-in-arm. Children
playing on the street ran up to her, looked up at her, said,
"Hello, Maggie," walked a bit with them and dropped out.
Other children took their place. Maggie-Now gave each
one a flower. A woman with her arms hugging her sides
against the cold came out on a stoop and called: "Luck,
Maggie." A woman in an upstairs flat tapped on the w
indow and, when she got Maggie-Now's attention, blew
her a kiss. Maggie-Now blew one back.

                   [2841
                     
 At home, a little party had been arranged. Guests stood
in a line behind the parlor table, on which were a bottle
of port wine, glasses and a wedding cake. There were a
miniature bride and groom on top. The groom looked like
Charlie Chaplin. Pat stood at the head of the line. Next to
him was a tiny, trim woman with a chenille-dotted veil
stretched taut across her face, taut kid gloves and coat
buttoned tautly all-out her waist. At her side stood a little
grinning gnome of a man with two rows of perfect white
teeth. Then there were Mr. Van Clees and a stout woman
with three children clustered about her. Maggie-Now was
ecstatic about the cake.

"Who got it?" she asked.

"He did," said the taut lady, indicating Pat.

"She made him," said the little gnome, indicating the taut
lady.

 Pat made the introductions. "This here," he said, "is me
friend, Mrs. O'Crawley, the lady what I eat with, Sundays."
The lady bowed graciously and the newlyweds bowed back.
"And this is Mick Mack," said Pat indifferently.

 The little man grinned up at Maggie-Now and said: "He
is my friend from night-school days."

"Where are your manners?" said i\laggie-Now sharply.

  The beam left his face. By God, he thought, she's just
like her old man!

  "Don't you know," continued Maggie-Now, "that you're
supposed to kiss the bride? Shame on you! "

  The beam came bacl<. Mick Mack put his arms about
her waist. He stood on tiptoe but was only able to reach
her neck. He put a smacking kiss on it.

  Maggie-Now greeted Van Clees. He lifted her hand and
kissed it. "Just so you should be happy, is all," he said. She
thanked him. He said: "And look!?' He smiled at the stout
lady with the three children. "Annie comes by your
wedding."

"Annie?" asked Maggie-Now, puzzled.

"Annie Vernacht. You know. Gus' Annie?"

  Maggie-Now embraced her. "Ah, Annie," she said. "It's
been so long since the first and only time I saw you to talk
to. But you don't know how many times I thought of you.
How nice you were . . . Gus' Annie."

"And you, I would not know no more if somebody don't
tell

                   [285]
                     
me. So big you got! And so pretty you are now." She
addressed Claude. "You have luck, Mister, getting such a
wife like her."

"I know," said Claude sincerely.

 Annie presented her children. Jamesie was now a tall,
manlylooking boy, an inch taller than his mother.
Tessiewas a head shorter than Denny. She was a
conventionally pretty child with curls the color of coffee
with a lot of cream in it, and large, blue eyes. Only she
was frail and wispy looking. Albie was a sturdy, fat-legged
boy of five.

 There was the ceremony of cutting the cake which
everyone tried to make hilarious by all talking at once in
a notched-up tone of voice. They drank to the bride and
groom in port wine. They drank to the future; they drank
to each other. A boy rushed in from the corner candy
store with a phone message from the manager of the
movie house: that, as a wedding gift, he would not dock
Maggie-Now for the night off for her honeymoon. Maggie-
Now gave the boy a piece of cake.

"Give the boy a nickel, Papa," she said.

"Give the boy a nickel, Claude," said Pat. Claude
complied.

 There was the presenting of and the ritual of opening
the wedding presents. Mrs. O'Crawley led off with what
she called: "Just a little something. Not much." It was a
fine linen handkerchief with tatted edges. The bride
proclaimed it "Lovely!" Mick Mack gave her a small
pottery bowl filled with hardened cement into which were
stuck six pink paper roses. Maggie-Now claimed it was
exactly what she had always wanted. Annie's present was
a brown linen cushion top which she said she had
"stitched" herself. It was an American flag blowing in the
breeze worked in silk floss. Deeper shadings of red in the
stripes made it look as though it were actually blowing.
Maggie-Now said it was too good to sit on; that she'd
frame it and hang it in her room. Annie blushed with
pleasure.

 Father Flynn dropped in and accepted a glass of wine.
He declined the cake but asked for a piece to take to his
housekeeper. She was in one of her dish-banging moods,
he said, and the cake might get her out of it. He didn't
stay long. He blessed the bridal couple before he left.

 Mrs. O'Crawley, who was "up" on wedding procedure,
suggested that it was time that the bride change into her
going-away [286]

outfit. Magg de-Now looked surprised. She had no
going-away outfit. Her wedding outfit was the whole thing.
But she said, yes, it was time to get ready.

 She opened Lottie's present in the privacy of her room.
She smiled tenderly at the china pug dog and the nursing
puppies. She didn't like it for what it was, but she loved it
for what it meant. Her father came into the room.

"What's that you got?" he asked.

 "From Aunt Lottie." Impulsively, she thrust it into his
hands. "Here, Papa. Hold it!"

"What for?" He scowled at the thing.

 "Because I remember Timmy standing by the
mantelpiece and holding it. And Aunt Lottie. Claude held
it, too." And, she thought, so did Sonny. "Everyone I love
has held it. I want you to hold it too."

 He held it for the count elf three and then put it on the
dresser. "Trash!" he announced. "Giving away second-hand
junk for a wedding present."

"Now, Papa!"

  "I got a present for you," he said. "I didn't want to show
off in front of the company and make them ashamed of
the cheap presents what they gave you, so I give it to you
in private." He gave her a twenty-dollar gold piece.

  "Oh. Papa! Papa!" She put her arms around him and
squeezed him. He suffered the embrace.

  "Don't lose it," he said, "because them gold pieces is
hard to get. And don't let him spend it either." After
which gracious presentation speech, he left to rejoin the
company.

  Maggie-Now checked the contents of the little red
leather suitcase Claude had given her as a wedding
present. It held a new white nightgown, a new white
woolen robe, new white bedroom slippers, a change of
lingerie and her toilet articles. She tucked the gold piece
in the toe of her slipper and at the last second decided to
take the pug dog with ller. She thought Claude might be
pleased with Lottie's gift. She snapped the case shut, put
on her hat and coat and went out to say good-by to her
friends.

  She looked around for Denny. Only then did she recall
that she hadn't seen him since the ceremony. She went to
his room. He was sitting on the middle of his cot.

                  ~ 287 1
                     
"Denny, why didn't you come out for a piece of cake?"

"I don't like cake."

"Why, you love cake."

"Today, I don't. Where you going?"

"Away with Claude for a little while."

"I want to go with you."

 She knelt down and put her arms around him. "I'll be
back tomorrow."

"NO, you won't. You just say that so I won't cry."

"I promise. And I'll bring you a nice present."

"But I'd sooner go with you."

 "Not this time, Demly, dear. Now come out and see the
company."

"I don't want to."

"Why? "

"Because I don't like to."

 She got to her feet and spoke a bit sharply. "It makes no
difference whether you like to or not. There are certain
things that you have to do. You can't always run away and
hide. Come on, now." He went into the living room with
her.

 She kissed everyone good-by, her father last of all. "Say
something nice to Claude, Papa," she whispered.

 "Not while he's above ground." Pat didn't bother to
whisper, either.

"Please?" she begged.

 Grudgingly, extended his hand to Claude. He tried for
words. He wanted to say something to Claude that would
please Maggie-Now and yet not be something nice.
Eventually he came up with the words spoken to him
more than twenty-five years ago by Mary's father.

"Be good to this good girl," he said.

 "I promise," said Claude, "not to beat her more than
once a day."

 The bastid, thought liar Why couldn't l a-thought of that
remark twerlty-five years ago?

 They scrambled down the stoop in approved newlywed
fashion, ducking their heads correctly to avoid being
spattered with the conventional rice, which Mrs.
O'Crawley had thought to bring with her. Hand in hand,
they ran to the corner to get a trolley ~ 288 ~

and, arriving there out of breath, had to wait fifteen
minutes for a car to come along.

 Claude had two surprises for his bride: the wedding
supper and the hotel where they'd spend their one-night
honeymoon. He took her to Gage and Tollner for the
supper and Maggie-Now couldn't get over how beautiful
it was; the wonderful food and the exquisite service. When
the headwaiter presented them with a split of champagne,
compliments of the management, she was so delighted that
she stuttered when she tried to speak. She took a sip of
champagne.

"I love it!" she said. "It's so good."

  "That's strange," he said. "Champagne is an acquired
taste. Like olives."

  "I love olives, too." Then she cried out in exaggerated
happiness; "I love everything in the whole world!"

  When the waiter appeared before them with the tray of
French pastries, she was lost. "What will I do? What will
I do?" she moaned. "They are all so beautiful. No matter
which one I take, I'll be sorry that I didn't rake some
other one."

  "I'll choose for you," he said. He had not one, but two
pastries put on her plate.

  She was about to eat a pastry the way she ate her
breakfast bun: out of hand. But she saw ( laude pick up a
short fork to eat his with and she followed suit.

  "Do you mean to say," she asked, "that there are people
in the world who eat like this every day?"

  "You ain't seen nothing, yet," he said in an inept Al
Jolson imitation. "Wait until I take you over to the
Chambord in Manhattan. Wait until I take you to
Antoine's down in New Orleans for a New Year's Eve
supper."

  "It couldn't possibly be better," she said flatly, "than this
place right here in Brooklyn."

  He had reserved a room for them at the St. George
Hotel. She had never been in a hotel before. She was so
awed that she spoke in whispers.

  "Do you mean to say," she whispered, "that you take
wages for working in this beautiful place?"

  He laughed. "Good Lord, I don't work here. I work in
a mean, grubby . . ." He broke off to show her the register.
"Look!" In

                  ~ 289 ]
                     
a careful, beautiful hand, he wrote: Mr. and Mrs. Claude
Bassett, Manhattan Avenue, Brooklyn, N. Y.

 Tears of happiness came to her eyes. "It looks so real,"
she said. "Like forever," she whispered.

"It is, my Margaret. It is," he said.

 She babbled happily about the beauty and luxury of
their room. She was awed by the huge, gleaming
bathroom. She would have spent hours joyously examining
each piece of furniture and each bathroom fixture, but he
cut her short.

 "It's been a long day," he said, "and you must be tired.
I know I am. So . . ."

 Faint pink colored her cheeks. "All right," she agreed.
She took her little suitcase and w ent into the bathroom.

 She took a bath, using her geranium-scented soap, and
dusted herself with Mennen's talcum powder. She got into
her new white nightgown and robe and slippers. She took
her hairbrush and went back into the other room. He was
sprawled out in an armchair but he got up when she
entered the room. She stood in front of the dresser mirror
and brushed her hair.

"You look like a bride," he said with a smile.

 "I am a bride," she said seriously. He took his hat from
the closet shelf. "Going out?" she asked, surprised.

"Margaret," he said, "you want children, don't you?"

"Oh, yes," she said eagerly. "Lots of children. Why?"

 He turned his hat twice around in his hands before he
answered. "Wouldn't you like to wait a year or so? Give
us a chance to know each other better; get used to each
other . . . have some fun? You're still so young."

 She turned to face him, her brush stilled and suspended
over her head. "But, Claude! I want a child right away."

He put his hat back on the shelf.

 He bathed and got into his new blue pajamas. He
buttoned up the frogs and examined himself in the door
mirror. He didn't like the way he looked. He put the
pajama coat inside the pants and pulled the string tighter.
He thought that looked worse. He pulled the coat out
again. He took a pair of military brushes from a leather
case: Maggie-Now's wedding gift to him. He wet his hair
and started to brush it. He brushed and brushed and
brushed. Finally, he had to admit to himself that he was
stalling for time.

                  [ 290 ]
                     
 I must be very careful, he thought. She's never been with
a man. I must be careful not to frighten her. Not to disgust
her. She will remember this night all of her life. I must not let
it be a bad night to remember. He made plans. I'll walk
around the room and fix the shades and look out the window
and say easy things like all the stars are out tonight. I'll hang
up my clothes and maybe sit on the bed and get her to
talking about, say, the church socials, and when she's relaxed
and drowsy . . .

 When he felt he could put it off no longer, he entered
the bedroom with trepidation. She was sitting up in bed in
her modest white nightgown and a braid over each
shoulder.

 When she saw him, she smiled, stretched out both arms
to him and said: "Come to me."

           ~ CHAPTER FORTY-ONE ~

"IT AIN'T a home no more," complained Pat. "It's the
Long Island Railroad Depot where people come and go
all hours. It's a shortorder lunchroom where they throw
food at you, and," he concluded vaguely, "that's where all
me money goes."

 It wasn't as bad as he said, even though all didn't sit
down to meals at the same time and all didn't sleep at the
same time. Claude came home from work as Pat and
Denny were leaving the house in the morning. Claude and
Maggie-Now had breakfast together, then she pulled down
the bedroom shades and they went to bed together. She
got up in time to fix Denny's noon lunch and didn't go
back to bed. She put in the afternoon attending to her
household duties.

 Claude go,: up at six and had supper with Maggie-Now
and Denny. Pat got home for his supper just as they had
finished theirs. (This gave him the idea that he was served
leftovers.) MaggieNow left for work at seven and Claude
didn't have to leave until nine. He spent the two hours
talking with Pat; that is, listening

                  [29~ ]
                     
to Pat talk, and helping Denny with his homework.

  Weekends were different on account of Pat or Denny
being home, and Maggie-Now couldn't go to bed with her
husband. Pat complained bitterly that all ought to eat one
meal together at least once a week. Since the
Sunday-noon dinner was the only time in the week when
this could happen, contrary Pat chose to eat that meal at
Mrs. O'Crawley's house.

  There was no religious friction. Claude stayed up
Sundays to go to eight o'clock Mass with Maggie-Now. He
got up an hour earlier Saturday evenings to escort
Maggie-Now to church for her weekly confession. He
waited outside for her or else sat quietly in a back pew.
When Maggie-Now apologised for having fish each Friday
instead of meat, he said he liked fish and that they ought
to have it twice a week. Denny was to make his First
Communion that spring and Claude helped him memorize
his Catechism. Lottie's old mother died in February and
Claude gave up an afternoon of sleep to go to the funeral
with his wife. He told her how much he had been moved
by the great and somber beauty of the Requiem Mass.

  "I'm waiting the day," confided Pat to Mick Mack over
a beer, "when he'll show up in his real colors. He's too
good to be true, the bastid."

  "Yeah, like me own son-in-laws," agreed the little man.
"Bastids Old sonsabitches, all of them!" (He didn't really
believe that. He just wanted to be in sympathy with Pat.)

  "That I can believe," said Pat coldly, "seeing the
father-in-law what they got."

  It was inevitable that changes came about. For one
thing, Claude stopped going to Mass. "I'll wait until I'm
accepted in the church as a convert," he told Maggie-Now.
"It's not right to go merely as an outsider; a spectator."

  He asked her jokingly why she went to confession every
week; how in the world could she accumulate so many
sins in a week? She said she went weekly because she was
used to it, she guessed. He smiled and said that was
hardly an intelligent reason, was it? After that, she didn't
wake him up to escort her to the church. She went to
confession alone.

He no longer sat with Pat and Denny when she left for
her

                 [ 29~ ]
                    
work. He went with her and either stood in the booth and
talked to her or else went directly to the hotel where he
worked. "I can sit in the lobby and read," he explained,
"until it's time to go on duty."

 She surmised that Claude no longer spent the evenings
with Pat because her father asked too many questions. She
recalled a shred of conversation between them she'd
overheard.

"How'd t77OU come to get such a name like Claude?"
asked Pat.

  When Claude answered, Maggie-Now noted he spoke in
that academic way which meant he was coldly angry. He
said: "Shall we say I had a romantic mother?" (Too
romantic, he thought bitterly.) "And she got the name out
of a Victorian novel?"

  "I bet you know how tT7OU got your last name,
though," persisted Pat. "I guess your father's name was
Bassett."

  "Your enunciation, old sir," said Claude icily, "is a little
less than perfect. For your information there is no 't' or
'd' sound in the middle of the name Bassert."

  "Yeah? And for your information," countered Pat, "there
ain't all the time a 'old' in front of that word 'sir' neither.
Especially when a man is still in his forties."

  It was a morning in late March. They were in bed
together with the shades pulled down to shut out the
daylight. He was holding her and caressing her and talking
about nothing in the broken-sentence, murmuring way of
one who is content. Gently, she put his hand away from
her.

"Why?" he asked.

"I can't," she said. "It's My Time."

"What time?"

"You know."

  Sure, he knew. But he liked to tease her. He knew she
had a queer distaste for the medical words of the woman
cycle, such as "menstruate,'' "pregnancy" and "menopause."
She substituted euphemisms for these terms: "My Time,"
"With Child," and "The Change." He liked to try to get her
to say the medical words by pretending he didn't
understand her words.

"I'm so disappointed," she said.

  "You're disappointed! What about me?" he asked in
pretended anger.

                  1 '93 ]
                     
 Suddenly, she was weeping. Why can't I ever
ren~e~nber, he thought, that she takes everything so
literally?

 "I didn't mean it, darling. I'm not mad. Of course, I
know you can't. It's all right. It's only for a few days. I
can wait." Then, hoping to change her tears to laughter,
he said sternly: "Only the next time see that it happens on
a weekend when I can't have you anyhow."

"It's not that," she sobbed.

  He put his arms about her and said, "Then tell me what
it is' love."

  "It's . . . it's . . ." she sobbed, "that I'm not going to have
a baby. This is the second time since we married that I'm
not going to have a baby." He gave a spurt of laughter.
"Don't laugh," she said piteously.

  "But you're so funny, my little Chinee. Most women cry
their eyes out when they miss a period. You cry when you
don't."

  "Because I want a baby. Because I need a baby so bad."
She continued to weep as though she never would ~top.

  He petted her as he would a child. "There, Margaret!
There, Maggie-Now, dear; my own dear, good girl. Don't
cry. A baby takes time. I mean when a girl has been a
good girl before her marriage, she doesn't get pregnant
right away. Now: When you're all over this period, we'll
try again. And this time, I'll put my mind on it."

  This made her giggle through her sobs and soon she
had stopped crying. After a while he said: "Since you can't
sleep with me, would you brush-talk me to sleep, dear
one?"

  Often Men he couldn't sleep, he liked her to brush her
hair and talk to him about her childhood. So now she
took her hair down, got her brush and sat on the bed
facing him. She started brushing her hair.

  "All right. Now! What do you want me to talk about?"
she asked in her practical w ay. He howled with laughter.
"What did I say that struck you so funny?" she asked
indignantly.

  "Nothing. Only you're such a practical darling; such a
dear little thing with your no sense of humor; your dear
no sense of humor."

"Anyhow, what do you want to talk about?"

"Tell me about the mln and the hair and the bird's nest."

"Well . . ." She started to brush her hair with slow,
rhythmic

                 [ 294 1
                    
strokes. "When I was a little girl, Sister Veronica said:
'When you cut your hair, put the cuttings in the yard so
the birds can use them in building their nests.' So I had
bangs and Mama used to cut them every time she washed
my hair. So I told Mama to wash my hair first before she
cut my bangs. You see, I wanted the birds to have clean
hair for their nests...."

 Watching the up-and-down motion of the brush,
listening to the rise and fall of her voice acted like a
hypnotic. Soon his eyes were closed and he slept
peacefully. She looked down on his face with love. With
her forefinger poised an inch above his face, she traced
the outlines. In this way, she conjured up the way he must
have looked as a little boy.

 He is so cold to the outside world, she thought. And so di
jerent when he's alone with me. Oh, if only everyone knew
him the way I know him . . .

The next day, he was gone.

          ~ (CHAPTER FORTY-TWO ~

THE next morning was one of those rare ones that come
sometimes in early March when you had made up your
mind that the long winter would never end. Sunshine
burnished the hummocks of frozen slush in the gutters
and there was a warm breeze.

 Claude was late getting home from work that morning.
Denny was leaving for school and still Claude hadn't come
home. MaggieNow went out on the stoop with Denny to
see if Claude was coming. She sniffed the air. It smelled
like freshly watered flowers. A breeze lifted a tendril of
her hair and let it drop back against her cheek. She
shivered in sensual delight. It felt like a lover's touch.

"Yes," she murmured.

"What?" asked Denny.

"It's a south wind."

                  1 Aft ]
                     
"How do you know?"

"Because it's coming from South Brooklyn."

"Kin I stay home from school then?"

  "I should say not! Get going." She gave him an
affectionate whack on the backside to propel him on his
way.

  She put Claude's slowly frying bacon on the back of the
stove. She put his rolls in the warming oven and threw the
warming coffee away; she'd make fresh when he came in.
She told herself that, because it was such an unexpectedly
wonderful day, he was walking part way before he took
the trolley. She knew how excited he was about all
weathers.

  When he comes home, she thought, we'll lie in bed and
talk about what a worzderfz~l day it is before we . . .

  The day wore on slowly and she began to believe that
he wasn't coming home. She wished and wished that she
knew what hotel he worked at. Why didn't she make him
put the address in a sealed envelope and let her assure
him that she wouldn't open it ever except in a terrible
emergency?

  From time to time, as she went about her routine
household duties, a whinnying sound came from her like
an animal in pain. And while she was washing Denny's
lunch dishes, her throat got dry suddenly and tightened up
and an ugly sound came from her: like an "ugh" when one
is kicked suddenly in the stomach. She leaned way over
and put her forehead down on the sink and sobbed loudly
and hoarsely until she was exhausted. She went about her
housework with violent tremblings in her stomach. If I was
going to have a baby now, she thought, I'd lose it. And she
started to cry again, knowing she was not going to have a
baby and Claude would never come back and there never
could be another man....

  What d,;d I say to hires? What did I do? Was it Papa?
Denny? Was it the house? That we could never be i?Z bed
together all night like other husbands and wives and all we
had was a few hours in the morning? Corpse back, come
back, darling, she prayed, and we'll have our own home . .
. even if it's only one room somewhere....

  Then she got the idea that he had died where he
worked or was deathly sick and they didn't know where he
lived because he never told people things like that. She
washed her face with shaking [2941

hands and got her hat on. She was halfway to the trolley
stop when she remembered that she didn't know where he
worked and could not go to get him if he was sick.

 Denny came home from school. "I got nought in
arithmetic today," he announced, "and I got double
homework."

"Do it! "

"I want to go out and play first."

"Do your homework!" she screamed.

"It's too hard. You got to help me."

"Let me alone!" she screamed.

 This frightened the boy. "I'm going to get Claude," he
said. He went to the bedroom.

"Claude's not here," she said.

  "Where'd he go?" She didn't answer. She went into her
room. Denny went out on the street.

  The three of them sat down to a haphazard supper that
night. "Hey, Papa," said Denny importantly, "Claude
N'`,ent away."

  Pat put his fork down. "So," he said. "So. Three months
was all he could stand, hey? Well, if he thinks I'm going
to support his wife . . ." Maggie-Now pushed her plate
away and ran into her bedroom and closed the door.
"What did I say?" asked Pat of Denny. He sounded
genuinely bewildered.

  Maggie-Now lay on her bed in the darkness. She did not
know how long she had been there. The house was quiet.
She heard someone knock on the door. She jumped up,
thinking it was news of Claude, but it was only a boy with
a message from the movietheater manager. It was
seven-thirty and the manager wanted to know why she
Noms late.

  "Tell him I'm sick," she said. "Tell him I'm sick. I can't
come to work tonight."

  She went into the kitchen to clear the table and wash
the dishes. She saw Denny's books still strapped up and
knew he had not yet done his homework. She looked in
his bedroom. He wasn't there. She surmised he had gone
out with his father.

  Her father came in at eight-thirty. "Where's Denny? "
she asked.

"Why? Ain't 'he home? '

"I thought he was with you."

"Well, he ain't."

                   [297]
                     
 Without bothering to put on her coat, she ran out into
the night, which had turned cold after the warm day,
looking for her brother. She found him at last, three
blocks away. There was a corner candy store with a
newsstand outside. Denny, with two bigger boys, stood just
around the corner. As she waited to cross the street, she
saw a man pick up a paper, throw down some coins and
go on his way. One of the bigger boys, quick as a flash,
darted out, snatched the coins and went back to the
others. As she crossed the street, she saw another man
take a paper and put down the money. She reached the
stand in time to see Denny duck around and grab the
pennies.

 When he saw her, he was petrified with fright. She
grasped his wrist tightly, held his clenched hand over the
newsstand and hammered at his hand until he opened it
and the pennies dropped back on the papers. The other
kids ran away. She dragged him home. He cried all the
way.

 When she remembered the episode afterward, she was
always glad that the candy-store man had been too busy
with customers to notice what had been going on outside
his store. He was a mean man and would not have
hesitated at all to call the police.

 Pat offered cruel reasons for why Claude had left her.
All the reasons were to Claude's discredit. From time to
time, Denny asked when Claude was coming home. There
was talk in the neighborhood. One woman spoke to her
bluntly.

"I don't see your husband around no more."

"No," said Maggie-Now.

 Others, more considerate, said nothing to her but
discussed it with others. "He was never no good in the
first place," was the verdict, "and she's well rid of the
dirty, black Pratt-ess-stant."

 One woman said to a neighbor: "Now I'm just as
broad-minded as the next one. But there's always two
sides to every story and I'd sure like to hear his side. The
way I look at it, a man just don't get up and leave his wife
for nothing."

 Maggie-Now endured the gossip, real or imagined, and
it neither added to, took from, nor diverted her from her
grief.

 On her monthly visit to Lottie, she had to tell her
Claude had gone. Lottie waited a long time before she
spoke. "You know what I think about him," she said. "But
that's got nothing to do

                  [ 298 ]
                     
with the way you feel. I won't run him down. You get
enough of that from your father. But tell me this: Before
you married him and you had known for sure that he
would leave you, would you have married him anyhow?"

"Yes," whispered Maggie-Now.

 "Well, so in a way, you bought it and now you have to
pay for it. Still and all, that don't make it easier. I felt the
same way, almost, when Timmy left me that time to go
back to Ireland. I thought maybe he wouldn't come back
and then I thought, anyways, I was lucky that I had him
for the time I did have him even if he never came back."

 BUt I had a child, she thought. And where is her child?
Her children? She can't marry again while he lives. Not in
our religion. I don't wish him ally hard luck. God forgive
me, but . . .

 Van Clees, the benevolent busybody, went to Annie
Vernacht and said: "Go by the poor girl's house and talk
to her."

"But what do I say, Jan?"

"Tell her she is a good girl and he comes back again."

 Annie visited Maggie-Now on a Sunday afternoon while
Pat was at l\Irs. O'Cra~vley's. Maggie-Now was glad to
see her. She made coffee and sent Denny out to get some
coffee cake. Annie had brought her Tessie and her Albie
along and she suggested they go to the baker's with
Denny. Alone with Maggie-Now in the kitchen, she said:

"Jan tells me your man is gone?"

"Yes. "

 "You are a good girl and he comes back again. You wait
and see." She had told the girl what Jan had told her to
say. Now she was on her own. It took her a little time to
think up something. Finally she said:

 "Sometimes when a man is a little boy other people
too, when they is little- he falls down, maybe on the
head. And he gets big and he goes off and remembers no
more where he lives; not his name even. Tllen he
remembers only he's far away and it takes long to come
home." Maggie-Now smiled. "Is true!" said Annie. "Every
day y ou read in the paper it says so. Even doctors. They
go off like that. But they come back again and they don't
know where they was."

The kids came back and the kids had cake and milk and
Annie

                  1 299 1
                     
and Maggie-Now had coffee with their cake. Maggie-Now
asked about Annie's work. She worked part time from ten
to two. And the children? Well, Jamesie was big and after
school he worked, and Tessie was in school and took her
lunch. Albie? Yes. Free day nursery for working mothers.
Only Annie worried about Holy Week, when Tessie would
have no school. Maggie-Now got a little excited and asked
could she have Tessie then? Annie said it would be a
great lump off her mind the word "load" eluded her at
the moment.

And so, a good, decent friendship was set up between
them.

 Spring came. Denny made his First Holy Communion.
Father Flynn catechised him.

"Who made the world?"

"God made the world."

"Who is God?"

 Denny was letter perfect, not missing a single answer.
Father Flynn was surprised and pleased. Maggie-Now had
told him that Denny did badly in school.

"You did fine, Dennis. Didn't miss a single question."

"Claude learned me . . ."

"Taught you . . ."

"Yeah. Every day Claude made me say the answers."

 Father Flynn was pleased about that and felt a degree
of warmth toward Claude.

 Maggie-Now went to the First Holy Communion Mass
and was proud of her brother. She thought of how moved
Claude would have been at the beautiful ritual and how
they would have talked about it afterward.

 When I loly Week came and there was no school, she
and Denny went to eight o'clock Mass and then went over
and got Tessie. Maggie-Now took Albie, too. Annie came
and got her children at three. Maggie-Now fell in love
with Tessie. "She's like a Christmas doll in a toy-store
window," she told Annie.

 Maggie-Now always had a cup of coffee and a piece of
cake or a cup of soup for Annie. "So many years I wait on
people and give out coffee and now someone gives out
coffee to me." She repeated Van Clees's theory. "You are
a good girl and your man comes back to you soon."

                 [ Joo 1
                    
"Ah, Annie! Gus' Annie," said Maggie-Now affectionately.

 It started to be summer and Denny came home
trembling the last day of school to tell his sister he'd been
left back: a terrible disgrace in the neighborhood.

"Don't tell Papa," he begged.

"He must know and you must tell him yourself."

"He'll whip me."

 "Yes, he will. What's a spanking? It will take your mind
off being left back. And remember: You'll have a little boy
someday and you'll spank him too, if he gets left back."

"Will you hold my hand when I tell him?"

"Yes."

 Hand in hand, they confronted their father. "Papa,
Denny has something to tell you."

"What? "

"Tell him, Denny."

"I got left back." Denny crowded closer to his sister.

 To their surprise, the unpredictable man sided with his
son. First, he said they gave Denny too much homework
for the second grade. Next he put the blame on Claude.

 "I don't wonder," he said, "I knew it would happen the
way that bastid filled the boy's head up with all that stuff
about South America and them grouchies on the pampies
or peepees or whatever the hell they was, instead-a helping
the boy with his A, B. Abs.'

 Pat, in his element because he had a chance to abuse
Claude, ranted and raved and was indignant at Claude to
such an extent that Denny began to feel that he had
accomplished something admirable in not being promoted
to the next grade. But MaggieNow made Denny go to
summer school all the same.

 Missing Claude was still a dull ache to her. Sometimes
she had a tiny flash of resentment toward him. Usually, it
was when her Time came. If only he had left me With
Child, she thought, it wouldn't he so hard for me to keep
going. And, she thought further, it's a terrible thing when a
woman never slept with a man before and then she gets used
to sleeping with one man and then he goes away. That's the
hardest thing of all.

And summer became fall and fall started to change into
winter
                  [3 ~ ]
                     
and suddenly the war was over.

 It was the Armistice and people poured out of their
stores and houses and walked up and down the street with
a jigging, up-anddown walk and hollered across the street
to each other that the war was over. And kids ganged up
and looted the stores. Most shopkeepers locked up for the
day, but the candy-store man, who had two sons in the
service and was deliriously happy that the war was over
and that his boys would come home safe and sound, got
a barrel and emptied the contents of his store into it and
lugged it out onto the sidewalk and threw handfuls of
candy into the air and laughed as the little children
tumbled over each other scrambling for it. Then some big
boys came along, kicked over the barrel, chased the man
back into his store, chased the little kids away and
gathered up the candy.

 Not all the people of the neighborhood were out on the
streets, though. Lots of the older ones went to church to
give thanks. And in some houses, where there was a gold
star in the window, the people stayed home and pulled
the shades down as though it were night.

That was the false Armistice.

 When the real one came through on November I l, an
impromptu block party was organised that night. A band
got itself together: a fellow with a cornet, a girl with a
violin, a middleaged German, taken on sufferance because
he played the concertina, and a high-school kid with a
drum. Two benign cops, one at each end of the l~lock,
closed the block to traffic so that there could be dancing
in the street.

 There were a few men in uniforms. They were from
nearby camps. Some were home on furlough, others on
short leave, and a few were just A.W.O.L. They danced
with their own girls or with pick-ups. There were some
sailors, those who did paper work down at the Brooklyn
Navy Yard, and they had their own girls. You could
always tell a sailor's girl. She wore pants, a lace blouse,
very high-heeled shoes, rhinestone earrings and had a
shingle haircut. Just the same, there were more girls than
men and the surplus girls danced with each other.

 Maggie-Now stood on the sidewalk with Denny to
watch. From time to time, someone started a song in
compecition to the band.

                 [ 302 ]
                    
Though the army is in ~lover,

sang out a voice, and everybody else sang the next line:

'Twas the navy brought them over.

And everybody agreed songfully in the punch line that the
navy would bring them back.

 Maggie-Now saw Sonny's sister dance by with Cholly.
"Look!" called out Gina. She pointed to the chevron on
Cholly's sleeve. "Private first class!" she called out proudly.

 Cholly whirled Gina around so he could talk to
Maggie-Now over Gina's shoulder. "I fought and I fought,"
he hollered, "but I had to go anyhow."

 "Yeah," said a soldier, evidently a buddy of Cholly's.
"Yeah! He fought a good clean war up there at Yaphank."

 Someone started to sing: You're ire the army now. There
were cries of "Shut up!" and "Drop dead!" and "You
should live so long! "

 The next time Gina danced around, Maggie-Now called
out: "How's Sonny?"

"As if you cared," said Gina bitterly.

 Maggie-Now waited until Gina danced around again. "I
ask as a friend," she shouted above the noise.

 Gina made Cholly pause and they stood, swaying to the
rhythm of "There Are Smiles," while she answered
Maggie-Now. "Strange as it may seem to you, Mis. Bassett,
he's just fine."

"Meow!" said Cholly, and they danced away.

"It's late, Denny," said Maggie-Now. "Let's go home."

 Then it was Thanksgiving again, and soon after that
MaggieNow lost her job. The manager of the movie house
told her that the veterans were coming home and needed
jobs and it was only right that he give her job to a guy
who was willing and ready to die to make The World Slfe
for Democracy. Maggie-Now agreed that she felt the same
way.

 "Yeah," said the manager, "they fought for the privilege
of eating apple pie and watching the Dodgers play ball.
And the least we can do . . ."

"That's right," agreed Maggie-Now.

She wasn't worried. She had fifteen hundred dollars in the
bank

                 [ 3 3 ]
                    
saved from her salary and the rent from the rooms
upstairs. If Claude came back . . . if, and if he didn't get
work right away, there was enough money to go on for a
while without her father getting nasty about finances.

 It was December. There wasn't much snow. One day it
did snow real hard but it changed to rain. Then it snowed
again a little and for three days it snowed on and off.
Maggie-Now did not believe that Claude would come
back. What did she have to go on? True, he had come
back last winter, but then he had been free to go away in
the first place. He had come back because he wanted to
marry her then. But now . . .

 Still, she waited for him, pretending.... Each night at
ten, she dressed warmly and went out on the streets,
walking for blocks in the direction he had come from the
year before. Then she'd go home, prepare for bed, put on
her white robe, go out and sit at the window, brushing her
hair, and wait. No, she didn't expect him to come back,
but the waiting for him, the pretending that he might
come back, gave her a kind of surcease.

 One night she was out walking. The snow had been
around for days now and she told herself there was no
rule that he would come back with the snow. She heard
her name spoken in his voice but there was no one on the
street. I'm getting queer, she thought, hearing voices when
there is no one here.

"And where did you get that funny hat?"

  She turned around. He had come up behind her from
the opposite direction. She looked at him, then put her
hands over her face and wept. He took her in his arms
and comforted her in the old way.

  "I know, I know. There, now. There, Margaret, there,
MaggieNow."

  "If you had only sent a line, a note, just a card with your
name on it . . . something that I could have hoped on,"
she wept.

  "I know, I know. Someday when we are old and have
run out of things to talk about, I'll tell you all about it.
Why, I must . . ."

  "If you go away again, please, please, oh, Claude, tell me
first. I won't keep you, I won't hold you, I won't . . ."

"If I go again, will you come with me, Margaret?"

"Yes! Yes! Anywhere . . . anyplace just so we are
together."

                 [ 3 4 ]
                    
 He had brought back two small steaks which were
wrapped up and pushed in his coat pocket. She made
coffee and prepared to fry the steaks. He emptied his
pockets and placed nearly thirty dollars on the table.

 "I earned it," he said, "and I want you to buy a dressing
table so that, at night, I can lie in bed and watch you
brush your hair and see you from the back and see your
face in the mirror at the same time."

 She put the coffeepot clown. He was sitting, she
standing. She took his head in her hands and held it
against her breast, but all she said was: "Oh, Claude!"

 He asked about Denny and about her father and said:
"I hope he doesn't wake up and come out here. I'm too
tired to spar with him tonight. I'll take him on tomorrow."

"I'll see that he doesn't bother us," she said.

 She went up to her father's room. She was going to tell
him under no circumstances to come out into the kitchen,
that Claude was back and they wanted to be alone and, if
he wouldn't let them be alone, she would leave with
Claude immediately.

"Papa, wake up!" He groaned. She shook him awake.

"Now what?" he said irritably.

"Claude is back and . . ."

"What?" he shouted.

"Sh! Don't holler. The tenants . . ."

 "The hell with the tenants! " he shouted louder. "What
did you say?"

"Claude just came home and I want you . . ."

 He jumped out of bed. "If you think for one minute I'm
going down there and give him the big welcome and sit
there half the night talking to that bastid . . ." He was
ranting and raving and cursing and stamping his foot like
Rumpelstiltskin, the dwarf in the fairytale.

 The tenant occupying the rest of the apartment banged
on the wall, and yelled: "A little quiet in there. We want
to sleep."

"Drop dead!" Pat yelled back.

"Yeah?" came the weary voice of the wife. "You drop
dead!"

Pat shook his fist at the wall and shouted: "I'll bury youse
all!"

After a while, Maggie-Now got him bedded down and
quieted.

                  [3 5]
                    
When she got back to the kitchen, Denny was standing
there in his pajamastalking a blue streak. Claude, almost
asleep, was nodding his head from time to time.

 ". . . Ieft back and I went to summer school and got
promoted on prohibition" (he meant probation), "and I
belong to a gang, The Rotten Roosters, and we got a
password...."

"Denny," she said sharply, "what are you doing out of
bed?"

"I got up to say hello to Claude."

"Say good night."

"Good night."

"Now get back to bed."

"But . . ."

 "Don't let me tell you again," she threatened. He went
back to bed.

 Claude fell asleep while he was eating his steak. She got
up and pulled him to his feet. She pulled one of his arms
over her shoulder and got him into the bedrom. ". . .
sleepy," muttered Claude. "Don' know why . . . getting
older . . ."

 She sat him on the bed and got his pajamas from under
the pillow where she always kept them. She got her
nightgown from under the other pillow. But Claude had
keeled over and was sound asleep. She pulled back the
covers, got his legs up onto the bed, pulled his shoes off,
and, not bothering to try to undress him, she got him
under the covers. She undressed. She thought of the
half-eaten food on the table and the unbanked fire and
she didn't care. It was the first time she'd ever left the
kitchen untidy.

 She put out the light and got into bed beside him. She
turned him on his side and got her arm under his
shoulder, put his head on her breast and her hand on his
cheek, pressing his head against her. She was utterly
content. He felt like a baby in her arm.

 He was up early the next morning and in wonderfully
high spirits. She brought him his breakfast on a tray and
he made her sit on the bed and share it with him. He told
her he was going out to get a job. She gave lfim his thirty
dollars back and added twenty of her own and told him to
get a suit and shoes and a hat. He refused at first,
mentioning the dressing table. She said he could buy that
for her out of his first week's pay.

She watched him fondly as he went down the stoop
whistling.

                  [ dog ]
                     
 He walked over to Henny Clynne's section. As he
approached the super who was indoctrinating this
snowfall's crop of "college men," Claude started to whistle:
"High Above Cayuga's Waters." He whistled tenderly,
nostalgically and with many trills. Henny's ears stood up;
his nostrils quivered. He got the scent of a live one. His
little eyes twinkled when he recognised Claude. He was
seldom lucky enough to get the same college man two
years in succession.

"Graduate from college yet?" he asked Claude.

 "Oh, yes, sir. And now, I'm working on my master's...."
He paused and winked at Henny. ". . . you know what.
And when I get finished with that," he looked around
cautiously and dropped his voice to a whisper, "then I'll
start on my pee aitch dee."

 It sounded vaguely dirty to Henny. He snarled: "Don't
get wise with me, college boy."

"Oh, no sir," said Claude eagerly.

 Henny heaved a shovel at him. Claude caught it in one
hand. He stroked the smooth wood. "Oh, sir," he said,
"you don't know how I've dreamed of this. All year, cold
and hungry, I dreamed you would put a shovel in my hand
. . ." Some of the men started to laugh.

 "Fall in, beautiful dreamer," ordered Henny. The men
laughed louder. Henny was satisfied. If they had to laugh,
let them laugh at his comeback.

 ". . . And I dreamed," continued Claude, "that I gave the
shovel back to you, like this." Gently he put the shovel
back in Henny's hand. ". . . And I dreamed I said: 'Stick
it  , you sadistic son-of-a-bitch!'"

 Before Henny could recover, Claude was swaggering
down the street, hands in pocket, and whistling: "Hail to
the victors valiant. Hail . . ."

 He went to a men's furnishing store and bought a cheap
suit, a shirt, a pair of shoes and a hat. While the pants
were being shortened, he went to a barbershop down the
street and had a haircut and a mustache trim. While
sitting in the chair, he read the want ads in the Brooklyn
Eagle. He picked out a job for himself and went back to
the store and got into his new outfit. The man asked
couldn't he interest him in an overcoat. He couldn't.
Claude had a

                  ~ 3 ? 1
                     
khaki wool pullover left over from Maggie-Now's days of
knitting for the Red Cross. That, pulled over his shirt, was
as good as an overcoat, he thought.

 He got home at three that afternoon and Maggie-Now
threw her arms around him and told him he looked just
grand.

"Just grand! But where are your old clothes?"

 "In the store, Miss Practical. I'll pick them up tomorrow.
Your grand husband feels grand because he has a grand
job."

"No!" she said ecstatically.

 "Floorwalker. In one of Brooklyn's biggest department
stores. Basement," he added.

"Where, Claude? Where?"

"Downtown Brooklyn "

 "Oh!" Her voice fell a Iittle. So he's not going to tell me,
she thought. "I see," she said inanely. She turned away
from him. He turned on his heel and went out the front
door. "Where are you going?" she asked, frightened. The
door closed.

 It opened almost immediately and he came in with a
pasteboard box which he had left on the stoop. It said
Gage and Tollner on the cover and it held six pieces of
wonderful French pastry.

"For you," he said. "A surprise."

 "Oh, Claude, I love you so much!" She was grateful. Her
gratitude was mixed with relief. For a second, she had
been afraid that he was going to leave her again.

 I mustn't question him, she advised herself. Even though
a wif e has a right to know where her husband works. But l
must take him as he is and just be so glad that I have him
back.

"We'll have some right away," she said. "I'll make coffee."

 "You will not! You will come to bed with me right away.
Last night, I fell asleep before I had a chance to kiss you
good night."

"But . . ."

"But what? Don't tell me . . ."

  "No. Not that. But I jenny will be home from school any
minute."

  "Let him play outside awhile. It won't hurt him." He
locked the door. "Oh, Margaret." He took her into his
arms. "It's been such a long time!"

"Such a long, long time," she sighed.

                  ~ 308 ]
                     
  She heard Denny try the doorknob. She grew rigid in
her husband's embrace. "It's Denny," she whispered.

  "Never mind," he said roughly. "He can look out for
himself. I come first."

  Afterward, she unlocked the door and looked up and
down the street. "Nova, sweetheart," Claude said, "stop
fussing. You'll make a sissy out of him."

  It was nearly six; supper was almost ready. She looked
at the clock for the tenth time in five minutes. "I can't
help it, Claude," she burst out. "I'm worried about Denny."

"I'll go out and find him, dear," he said.

  He found him a couple of blocks away. He was with a
gang of boys. They were throb. ing icy snowballs at a
Jewish junkman. The man was in a rickety wagon pulled
by a starved-looking dirty white horse. He was having a
hard time getting the horse to pull the junk wagon
through the street as the poor beast skidded from time to
time on bits of ice left from the day's snow clearance. The
boys were laughing and yelling and calling the junkman
dirty names. Claude dispersed the boys, made Denny
apologise to the man and say he was sorry, and took his
hand and walked him home.

  "Now, what devilment was he up to? " asked
Maggie-Now crossly. Denny's hand twitched in Claude's.

  "He wasn't doing a thing," said Claude. "He was only
playing with some other boys."

  Denny pressed his hand hard against Claude's hand.
MaggieNow saw the movement and she knew.

"Claude!" she said. It was a syllable of love.

  "I have a very foolish name," said Claude to Denny,
"and some people make fun of it. But when your sister
says it, it sounds like a very fine name."

Denny smiled up at Claude.

                 1 ' 9 ]
                    
          ~ CHAPTER FORTY-THREE ~

SHE was waiting on the stoop for him when he came
from his first day of work. She kissed him, not caring if
the neighbors saw, and pulled him into the house, where
she kissed him again, this time more lingeringly. Ele was
wearing a white carnation in his buttonhole. The flower
was only a little bit wilted. She put it on the table in a
wineglass full of water.

 She had taken pains with this, the first supper the whole
family would eat together since her marriage. She had
boiled tongue with horseradish sauce and asparagus with
hollandaise sauce, and, with the hope of ingratiating
herself with her father, candied sweet potatoes, a plain
lettuce salad with oil and vinegar dressing, hardcrusted
rolls, airy light inside, sweet butter, the pastries from Gage
and Tollner, and of course coffee. (Only this time with
real cream instead of canned milk.)

 Pat came home and, to everyone's astonishment, greeted
Claude heartily, I\laggie-Now cheerfully and Denny with
fatherly affection. He was so full of good will and
kindliness and cheerfulness that he cast a pall over the
supper. All worried, thinking he was either sick or drunk.

 Thought Claude: He's got something up his grubby sleeve.
Throwing up that good-will smokescreen. I'll wait and see.
This should be interesting.

 Thought Maggie-Now: Papa knows I love Claude and
that he can't do a thing about it. So I guess he thinks he
might as well be nice about it. Only, she w orried, Papa
don't need to be so awfully friendly, I'd feel better if he was
just not unfriendly,

 Pat's thoughts were along the same line as Claude's. I'll
treat him just like he was any other decent slob. He'll get so
mad that I'm not interested in who or what he is that he'll
spill the whole beans about himself, the bastid.

 Denny: There's six cakes and four of us. Papa feels good
and maybe he'll say to let the little boy get the two what's
left.

                  [ 37  1
                     
 After supper, Claude told Denny he'd help him with his
reading homework after the dishes were out of the way.
Claude and Pat went into the front room.

"Sit down, son," said pat benevolently.

"After you, sir," said Claude courteously.

 Each sat at a window, their chairs facing each other. Pat
lit up his clay pipeful of tobacco and Claude lit up a
cigarette.

 "I'm proud of you, me boy, and you getting the grand
job the first day you look. Maggie-Now told me."

"Thank you, sir."

"And how much do they be paying you?" he asked
mellowly.

  "The usual salary." Pat was all ears. "A little more than
they think I'm w orth and a little less than I think I'm
worth."

  The bastid, thought Pat bitterly. He pulled himself
together. I must watch meself and At ask him anything right
out. I got to go roundabout.

"I see you got a nice brown tan," said Pat.

  Claude looked at one of his sun-tanned hands and said
in simulated astonishment: "Why, so I have!"

  "People what stay in the South for a time always get sun-
burned," said Pat.

  "I envy vou your room upstairs, sir," countered Claude.
"You can see the sky while you lie in bed."

  "Funny thing," mused Pat. "You can always tell when a
man gets out that he's been in Sing Sing. Their skin is this
here dead white because they never get out in the air."

  "And," said Claude, assuming an eager naivete, "their
hair is clipped close to the head."

  "Now down South," said Pat, dreamily sucking on his
pipe, "you can't tell. When they put them in jail, they let
them out all day to work on the roads. Then they get a
good tan. So, when they come out, nobody knows they're
ex-convicts."

Now he'll kr~o~v I'm onto him, thought Pat.

"I read that in the paper," he added in a too offhand way.

  "I read the newspapers, too," said Claude, dreamily
contemplating the smoke from his cigarette. "I read that
they put chains around their ankles when they work
outdoors. And you can see white circles on the suntan of
their ankles where the chains were."

In an absent-minded way, Claude pulled up a trouser leg
and

                   [3~']
                     
crossed that leg over his other leg. Pat's eyes, like a
true-thrown dart, went to the exposed ankle. It was
smoothly tanned all over; no white circles.

  "Is there some other topic you would care to discuss,
sir? We have the whole evening ahead of us. My, it's good
to be home again," said Claude.

  Claude brought home his first week's salary: fifty
dollars! Maggie-Now could hardly believe it. Even Pat was
impressed.

  "That's good pay for a man what ain't got no steady
trade," was his compliment.

  Claude mentioned the dressing table but Maggie-Now
said to wait until there was a sale. She put the money in
the bank, all but ten dollars of it.

  Claude seemed to like his work. Each night when he got
home, he threw away the former day's carnation and put
a new one in the wineglass. Each Saturday night, he gave
her his pay intact. He asked nothing more than
seventy-five cents a day for carfare, a luncheon sandwich
and cigarettes. He seemed to want no material things for
himself.

  He gave lavish Christmas gifts to them: a meerschaum
pipe in a satin-lined, carved-wood c ase for Pat, a pair of
ice skates for Denny with a promise he'd take him to
Highland Park to teach him ice skating, and a beautiful
small gold and white dressing table, with an oval mirror,
for Mag~rie-Now.

  Pat pawned the pipe the day after Christmas and gave
the ticket to Flick Mack, who did not smoke. But the little
fellow considered the ticket itself, with Pat's name on it,
as a Christmas gift and he put it in his wallet and
treasured it for years.

  The payday after Christmas, Claude brought no salary
home. He had charged the gifts at the store. He asked her
if she minded and, of course, she said she didn't.

  In January, Father Paul, a missionary priest, came to
give instructions to non-Catholic s who wished to become
converts. He would serve all the parish s in that part of
Brooklyn and his headquarters were the principal's office
in the neighborhood parochial school. Instructions would
be given at night.

Father Paul was incredibly thin. His face looked like skin

                  [ 312 ]
                     
stretched tight over a skeleton of bones with no flesh in
between. He had spent his years in jungles and swamps
and the brush and places not on any map. He had eaten
the strange foods of savage people and been subjected to
the strange ills of the jungle and had endured unheard-of
hardships. He was worn as fine as a knife that had been
honed too much. Every three or four years, he took a
"rest" by carrying on his missionary work in America for
a month or two.

 Here, thought Claude, was no gentle, serene priest like
Father Flynn; no priest who took a glass of wine before a
meal or smoked a cigar or pipe for relaxation; who tapped
a foot to the rhythm of a passing tune. Father Paul wore
a long black cassock, and a sixinch crucifix, that looked
like flashing gold, hung on the left side of his breast. He
raised his hooded eyes to Claude and spoke in a strong,
ringing voice.

"Your name, my son."

"Claude Bassett, Father."

"Religion ? "

"I am a non-Catholic."

 The hooded eyes flashed up and the cross trembled as
he took a deep breath to bring out the full volume of his
voice.

 "Your religion!" he thundered. Religiously Religion!
came back the echo of his voice from the corners of the
room.

"Protestant," said Claude, awed in spite of himself.

"How long have you been married?"

"A year, Father."

"Is there a child?"

"We have not been fortunate enough . . ." began Claude.

 "Has there been a child?" thundered the priest. The
cross moved like a live thing and Child! Child! echoed in
the room.

"No, Father."

"Is a child expected?"

"No, Father."

 "Why?" Claude shrugged and smiled. "Why has your
wife not conceived?" continued the priest.

"I beg your pardon, Father?"

"Do you do anything to prevent conception?"

"Really, Father," began Claude.

                 [ 3~3 ]
                    
 "Do you use contraceptives?" thundered the priest. The
word echoed back.

 A dark color came into Claude's face. He got to his feet
and said: "With all due respect to you, Father, that's
hardly any of your business."

 The priest rose, also. PI he cross flashed like fire and
the echoes of his thundering words made it seem as
though there were three voices in the room.

 "It is my business! It is the business of the Church! It is
the holy duty of those who marry in the Catholic Church
to produce children children for the Church!"

 "We might want them for our own pleasure," said
Claude a little flippantly.

 "Your pleasure will be that you will be custodians of the
children for Holy Moth' r Church!"

 "Good evening, sir," said Claude suddenly. He turned on
his heel and walked out of the room.

Maggie-Now greeted him eagerly. "Is it all settled?"

"As far as I'm concerned it is. For good!"

"Will you take instructions?"

  "I had a heart-to-hea rt talk with Father Paul. He did
the talking."

  "Oh, Claude, can't you give me a direct answer? Can't
you ever say a 'yes' or a 'no'?" She was nervous and tense.
His conversion meant so, so much to her.

  "I'll give you a direct answer," he said coldly. "No! I can
never give a 'yes' or a 'no.' I don't believe everything in
life can be settled by a monosyllable "

  "Don't talk to me that way, Claude," she pleaded.
"When you use words like that, I feel you are away from
me."

  Without another word, he went into their bedroom.
When she got into bed later, he turned away from her and
slept with his back to her all night.

  The next morning, as hi was leaving for work, he said:
"Let me have twenty dollars."

  She choked back the automatic question: "What for?"
She thought she knew what for. He was leaving her again
and he

                 ~ 3~4 ]
                    
wanted twenty dollars to start off on. She gave him the
money. He pocketed! it and put an arm around her and
pulled her to him.

"It's time we celebrated our first wedding anniversary," he
said.

 "That was last week, C laude. I didn't say anything
because I knew you'd forgotten."

"All men forget wedding anniversaries."

"But you're different, C laude."

 "Not that different. Now here's what I want you to do:
Pack your little red bag, put my stuff in too, and n eet me
in the lobby of the St. George at six. Bring a clean shirt.
I'll go to work directly from the hotel."

 She left two cold plates in the icebox for Pat's and
Denny's supper and told Denny not to leave the house;
his father would be home in an hour.

 They had dinner at the same place. They didn't have the
same room at the hotel but one almost as nice. It was like
t'r eir marriage night except this time they undressed
together in the bedroom. He got into his pajamas, loom
d in the glass, put the jacket inside the pants, took it out
again, said, "The hell with it," and stripped off the pajamas
and went to bed naked.

 She went into the bathroom to wash up and clean her
teeth and came out and stood before the dresser and
started to brush her hair.

 "Never mind the brushing tonight," he said impatiently.
"Get into bed."

 "All right, Claude." She picked up the pajamas from the
floor to hang them up.

"Stop fussing around so," he said crossly.

 "All right." She dropped the pajamas back on the floor
and got into bed with him.

 It was a night of wild, almost insatiable passion. When
morning came, she kissed him with great tenderness and
said: "I know I'll have a baby now!"

"If you do, I know who'll be deliriously happy."

"Who?" she asked teasingly, assuming he'd say, "Me."

"Your Church!" he said bitterly.

 She sighed. She guessed what Father Paul had said to
him and she knew IOW that Claude would never come
into her Church and her Faith.

L3~51

 They had breakfast in the hotel restaurant. "I'll walk you
to the store where you work," said.

"You're Daddy's little girl, aren't you?" he said with a
sneer.

  She flushed. "I don't mean to trick you into finding out
where you work. I just wanted to walk with you. I never
asked you to tell me. I never ask you questions any more.
I don't want to know what you don't want to tell me. Just
so I have you to love; just so you are with me."

  He put his hand on hers across the table. "Margaret,
from the time I was born, everyone kept things from
me things I had a right to know; that everyone has a
right to know."

  Intuitively, she knew he meant that no one would tell
him anything about his parents or where he had come
from.

  "They put me oflf when I asked questions.... I grew up
learning the trick of putting others off when they asked eve
questions. Now it's a habit I can't put aside."

"I know," she said.

  One Saturday night hi the middle of January, Claude
came home from work as usual. "Where's your flower?"
she asked.

  "No more carnations for the wineglass. I'm fired," said
Claude cheerfully.

"But why . . ."

  "They needed me only for the Christmas rush and for
the after rush customers exchanging presents. And now
they've all been changed." He gave her his final salary. "I'll
get another job," he said.

"Sure you will," she said.

  The first week, he redid the ads and went out looking
for a job. The second week, he didn't bother. He still read
the ads but told her there was nothing for him. He got
into a routine.

  He'd get up after Pat had left for work, eat a leisurely
breakfast, with Maggie-No\v joining him for coffee, talk to
her awhile and then go into the front room and sit at the
window. At ten o'clock, he'd ask her for a quarter for
cigarettes and a paper. She'd give it to him and tell him
to come right back, and he'd say he would, and kiss her
and be back in half an hour or so. Then he'd put in the
day reading the paper and smoking.

On Saturdays, howeve, he always took Denny somewhere
if

                  ~ 3~6 ]
                     
the weather wasn't too bad. Maggie-Now gave them a
dollar and they were off for the day. He took the boy to
the Aquarium, to Prospect Park another Saturday, for a
ride on the Staten Island ferry, to the Brooklyn Na, y
Yard, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and other places of
interest.

 It was getting late into lilarch. Maggie-Now woke up at
dawn one morning, feeling strangely uneasy. She put on
her robe and went out on the stoop. Yes, the south wind
. . . the morning full of scented, tender promise of
springtime.

 She fixed him a special breakfast: broiled ham and eggs
and poppy-seed rolls and sweet butter and coffee with real
cream. After breakfast, he opened the window and leaned
far out, feeling the soft wind on his face. He did not sit at
the window that morning. He walked up and down
restlessly.

 Maggie-Now went into Denny's room and emptied his
marbles out of their cloth Bull Durham sack. She went
into her room and got the gold piece that her father had
given her as a wedding present. She wrapped it in tissue,
put it in the little sack and pinned it inside the breast
pocket of Claude's coat. She pinned it top and bottom so
that it wouldn't move about.

 At ten o'clock, Claude said: "If you'll let me have a
quarter, love, I'll go out and get my cigarettes and the
paper."

 She fumbled in her pocketbook and gave him a
five-dollar bill. "All I want is a quarter," he said.

"I have no change," she lied.

 She held his coat for him and, when he had it on, she
turned him around and buttoned it for him. "Come right
back, hear?" she said as she said every morning.

"I will," he promised, as he promised every morning.

 She took his hands in hers and pressed her cheek to his
hands. "Oh, Claude, I love you so much!" she said.

 He kissed her and went out for cigarettes and the paper
as he did every morning.

But on this morning, hi did not come back.

                 [ 3/7 ]
                    
         ~ CHAPTI,R FORTY-FOUR ~

 'Now that he's out of the house, I'm going to move me
bedstead downstairs," said E'at.

 "Leave it where it is, Papa. You'll only have to drag it
back up when Claude comes home."

 She frowned over Denny's poor report card. "Oh,
Denny, if you get left back again, what will Claude say
when he gets home? He'll be so disappointed."

 ". . . every day, like clockwork, he'd show up for a pack
of cigarettes and a paper."

 "He's gone on one of his trips, Mr. Brockman. He'll be
back again in the fall."

 "Don't ask me how I know, Aunt Lottie. I just know
he'll come back. In the war, women had to wait for their
men to come back. I can wait, too."

 ". . . anything I can dot Father, to fill in the time until
my husband comes back."

 "Perhaps Miss Doubleday over at the settlement house
could use some help," suggested Father Flynn.

 "You mean hand sewing? Oh, yes, I could, Miss
Doubleday. I could teach them hemstitching and darning
and fagoting and how to make buttonholes. I'd love it!
Two hours, one night a week? That would be just fine!
Only I must tell you that I'd have to give up the class in
November when my husband comes home from his trip."

 "You see, Annie, I kno x. Because if he wasn't coming
back, he would have taken me witl' him."

                 ~ 3~8 1
                    
"But, Jan, she knows he comes back again."

  "Do I fight with you about it, Annie? Sure, he comes
back. Like a bad penny, he always comes back."

  "He'll never come back," said Pat to Mick Mack. "Never!
When he knew I was onto him, he got out before I had a
chance to throw him out.

  "You know, it got so I couldn't sit and talk with him no
more. He gave me the willies. He asked them
questions about me mother and did I remember me
father what died before I was born and did I know where
all me brothers was. He eats off-a people was the way I
fingered it out. He keeps chewing away at me life till he's
got it all for hisself, but he don't give me nothing of his
life; like where he ~ as born and where his relations is
now."

  "Like that pitcher I seen," said Mick Mack. "Where them
zombies climb out-a their coffins nights and go upstairs
and eat the blood off-a people what's sleeping in their
bed."

"You danm fool!" said lent, contemptuously.

  Maggie-Now was so sure Claude was coming back that
she prepared for his return the day after he left. She
sponged and pressed his new suit and hung it in the closet
with a sheet over it to keep it dust free. She shined his
new shoes and wrapped them in newspapers. She washed
and ironed his few shirts and wrapped them in tissue
paper and put them away in his drawer. She knitted a
dark maroon tie for him and two pair of socks. She
washed and ironed his palamas and put them under his
pillow and kept them there.

  She made a sort of shrine of the little dressing table
he'd given her. On it, she placed the little red suitcase
he'd given her, The Book of Everything with his autograph,
and the postcard with its message, Wait for me.

  While she waited, she filled in her days as best she
could. She visited Lottie each first and third Sunday of the
month, and Annie each second and fourth She had her
sewing class, and nearly every Saturday afternoon she had
the little girl sewers over to her house for hot chocolate
and crackers.

  Again she took care of Tessie and Albie during Holy
Week and, when Annie came each afternoon to pick up
the children, she and

                 ~ , 1 9 1
                     
~`Iaggie-Now had coffee and cake together or some little
snack, and their friendship grew stronger.

 She sat in church one Sunday afternoon and saw Gina
Pheid married to her Cholly. Outside the church, she
shook Cholly's hand and kissed Gina and wished them
both luck. Gina invited her to the reception but
Maggie-Now didn't go.

 A month later, at Mass, she heard the banns read for
Thomas Pheid and Evelyn Delmar. She wondered whether
that was the girl who had once given Sonny the go-by
because he didn't have money to spend on her. I ler name
sounded like the name of a girl who liked spenders,
thought Maggie-Now.

 Maggie-Now did not go to see Sonny married. Not that
she was jealous or anything. she assured herself, and not
that she didn't know he'd marry sometime or other. She
just didn't want to see him be married.

 Denny caused her some concern that spring. He played
hooky from school a couple of times. The first time Father
Flynn brought him home; he had found Denny wandering
around the streets. The next time, the truant officer
brought him home and told Maggie-Now to see that it
didn't happen again.

"There's a law, you know," he said.

 For the rest of the term, she walked to school with
Denny each morning and stood outside and waited until
he was safely inside before she went home.

 When she told Lottie, Lottie said that it was nothing.
All boys played hooky now and then. Even her Widdy
had. "I remember like it was yesterday. Timmy caught him
and the next morning Timmy saicl: 'I want you to play
hooky today and if I ketch you sneaking in school, I'll give
you a licking you'll never forget.' So every morning, he
made Widdy go out and play hooky, and the first thing
you know, Wi,ldy was sneaking back in school and he said:
'Don't tell Pop that I'm going to school.'

 "That Timmy!" Lottie smiled a tender, faraway smile of
affectionate memory.

 Annie said it was nothing. Even Jamesie, she said, good
as he was, played hooky once in a while. "Boys is men,"
said Annie. "They like to go away from the woman folks
sometimes. Like your man: he plays hooky." Then, worried
that she had made an

                  ~ 32  1
                     
untactful remark, she put her hand on Maggie-Nov.~'s
arm and smiled beseechingly.

"Yes, Annie That's right." Maggie-Now smiled hack.

 She pried ten dollars out of her father and sent Denny
to camp that summer for two weeks. Denny had been
gone but two days when Maggie-Now got so lonesome
that she went over to Lottie's to try to get her to stay v.
ith her.

 "You've never been to our house, Aunt Lottie, since the
day I was christened. You can have Denny's room. I'll
cook the things you like. You owe me a long visit."

 "No," said Lottie. "I got to be here when Timmy gets
home nights." Maggie-Now looked startled. "Don't look at
me so funny. I only make believe he's c oming home. I
put out the pan of hot water with Epsom salts for his poor
feet right in front of his chair. Don't think I'm funny in
the head. When I was a little girl I used to make believe
I had a little girl friend. I even gave her a name, Sherrv.
And I'd have a little tea party and talk to her and make
believe she talked to me. Well, that's how I do with
Timmy. Thanks anyway, Maggie-Now, dear. But I'd get
homesick if I went away."

 Well, Denny didn't finish out his two weeks at camp.
He'd been gone only four days when Maggie-Now got a
letter from the head counselor saying Denny wanted to
come home; that he would not participate in the activities
of the camp, had to be coaxed to eat; and his tentmates
said he cried nights and said he wanted his sister. The
counselor wrote that she was sending him home.

 Maggie-Now knelt before Denny and put her arms
around him when she noticed that his face had gotten thin
in the time he was away and that there were black circles
under his eyes.

"Why didn't you want to stay at camp, Denny?" she asked.

"Because I wanted to c ome home.''

"Did you have fun, swimming and . . ."

"I wanted to be home with you."

 "Denny, you're a big boy now, almost nine years old.
You shouldn't be so dependent on me."

"I don't want to go no place if you don't come along."

 Maggie-Now knew that she shouldn't be thrilled because
he needed her so much. But she fleas thrilled and moved.
What will

                 ~ 3~' 1
                    
I do, she thought in panic, ~vLeiZ he gets trig and does``'"
need me ally more? Oh, I must have children. I must! I need
so much to be needed.

 She went to see Father Flvnn a few days later and asked
him how she could go about adopting a baby.

 "I'm afraid that's impossible, Margaret. Babies are not
given out for adoption except to good devout Catholics."

"I try to be a good Catholic," she said.

"But your husband is non-Catholic." She hung her head.

"Couldn't I adopt a Protestant baby or a Jewish baby?"

  "No, my child. Methodist orphanages permit only
Methodists to adopt their children. And the Baptists and
Lutherans and Episcopalians, the same. The Hebrew
orphanages place their children with good, orthodox I
iebrew families. You understand, Margaret? "

"Yes, Father," she whispered.

  "We have an orphanage out on the Island and it boards
out some of its children with foster mothers. The foster
mother is given an infant and keeps it, and gives it a
mother's love and care until the child is six, when it is
taken back by the orphanage and put into school."

  She leaned forward, tense and pleading and with her
clasped hands extended to him in appeal. "Oh, Father,
could you . . . would you ask. . . please if I could have
one?"

  "You should have your own children, Margaret. You're
young and strong and healthy...."

"But I don't have any! ' she said piteously.

  "Be patient a while longer, my child. Pray to our Holy
Mother. And make a Novena. I will say a prayer each day
for your intention."

"Thank you, Father."

  It was December and still there was no snow. Nobody
wanted snow but everybody was worried, thinking there
would be no white Christmas. Snow or no snow,
Maggie-Now prepared each day for her husband's
homecoming. He came back on a cold, crystal-clear night
full of stars, in the middle of December.

  When she saw him, she held out her arms and smiled.
She didn't ask him where he'd been. She didn't ask him
never to leave her

                 [ 392 ]
                    
again. She hugged him tight and smiled and said: "What
took you so long?" as though he had just stepped out an
hour ago to go to the store.

She said: "I knew you were coming back. And I'm so
happy."

 She took him into the kitchen and shot home a small
bolt she had set up some weeks before, so that her father
or brother wouldn't walk in on them. He had brought
home some meat: half a loin of pork.

"Pork?" she asked.

 "Not pork. A symbo!. It means that technically I'm your
provider."

 "I'll cut off some for chops and broil them because it
takes all day to roast pork and you have to have
applesauce which I haven't got." He started to laugh. "All
right," she said. "So I'm practical. Laugh all you want to."

 He grabbed her and hugged her tight. She felt the
pressure of the gold coin in his pocket. He didn't need it
there, she thought. She unbuttoned his coat and took it off
and hung it over the back of a chair. He had a package
under his pullover sweater. She pulled it out.

"What's this?" she asked.

"Open it."

 She did so. It was a beautiful kimono of jade green, dull
silk. "Oh, how loNely . . . lovely . . ." she said. "Oh,
Claude!"

 "I thought it \vas time that my little Chinee had a
kimono. Put it on, love."

 It looked beautiful on her. She held out her arms so he
could see how wide the sleeves were. She looked up into
a sleeve. She sane the label, The Chinese liazaar. She
couldn't read the street and number but the city was San
Francisco.

So he was way out there, she thought.

 She admired the kimono profusely and he admired her
profusely and they had the broiled chops and coffee and
he asked her what she had been doing with herself and
she told him about the sewing class and Lottie and Annie
and Dennv. It was as if he had been away for but a day.

 Early the next morning, he put on his good suit and
shoes and went out job hunting. She took the gold coin
out of his old coat and wadded up his old suit and shoes
and hid them on the top shelf

                  1 ,23 1
                     
of Denny's closet. When he left in the spring, she wanted
him to wear the good suit, because the old one was
threadbare. Already, she was making preparations for his
leaving in the spring.

 He got a job on the third day out. He didn't say where
or at what, but the first day he came home from work she
saw tufts of cotton clinging to his shoulders. She smiled
inwardly, but said nothing. He gave her his first week's
pay, thirty dollars. The second payday fell on (Christmas
Eve. He didn't bring home his pay. He had bought
Christmas gifts with it.

 "I noticed, old sir, that you do not have the pipe I gave
you last year,' said Claude. "So I bought you another one.
Merry Christmas."

 It was a cheap pipe in a cardboard box. Pat muttered a
reluctant thanks anal, under his breath, he said: "The
bastid!"

 Claude gave Denny a Waterman fountain pen with a
fourteenkarat-gold clasp. Pat eyed it enviously. Claude
gave his wife a book. It was a beautiful book bound in
smooth and supple blue leather, the pages were
gold-edged and there was a fringed, blue satin page
marker. The book was Sonnets from the Portuguese. Inside,
in his fine hand, he had inscribed: Sonnets for my little
Chinee and Love and Claude. At the bottom of the flyleaf
he had w ritten:

How do I love thee? Let one count the ways.

 Then Denny and Claude went out to buy the Christmas
tree and Maggie-Now got out the ornaments. Denny was
allowed to stay up and help trim the Christmas tree
inasmuch as now he was too big to believe in Santa Claus.
Pat sat in the kitchen with the boxed pipe in his hands. I
le was very angry because the pipe was too cheap to pawn.
It was as if the cardboard box was magic, because every
time he opened the lid the word "bastid" came out of Pat's
mouth. He promised himself that he'd find some way to
get back at his son-in-law.

 Maggie-Now called bedtime on Denny and Pat followed
his son into the boy's bedroom. "I'll swap you this new
pipe for that old fountain pen Claude gave you."

"I don't know what to do with a pipe," said Denny.

                 [ 324 ]
                    
"Blow bubbles."

"I'm too big to blow bubbles."

 "You can take this pipe on the street and swap it for
something . . . marbles or a Daisy air rifle. It's a dear
pipe."

 "I'll go out and ask Maggie-No\v should I," said Denny
hesitantly.

 "Never mind! Never mind!" said Pat hastily. He went up
to his room.

 As they were preparing for bed, Claude told her casually
that he was out of a job; it had been merely a Christmas
job. She said that was all right and he said he'd get
another job and she said she knew he would.

 Claude didn't bother looking for another job. He again
took to sitting at the window and at ten o'clock asking for
a quarter for cigarettes and the paper. Maggie-Now didn't
care. He'll be gone from me long eno?`g,'', she thought. I
want him here with rile all day the f ew weeks he's home.

 One Monday morning early in February when
Maggie-Now went up to wake her father, Pat said he
wasn't going to work that day and not any day for two
weeks.

"I'm on me vacation," he announced.

"Vacation?" she said aghast. "But you always take it in
July."

 "What do I do when I take it in July? I just sit by the
winder in me stocking feet. If I got to sit through me
vacation, I might as well sit in winter when it's cold outside
anyhow."

"But . . . but Claude's Income."

"I'll keep him company," said Pat.

 As soon as Claude took his chair by the wh~do\v, Pat
took the one at the opposite window. The pipe Claude had
given him for Christmas was prominently displayed sticking
out of Pat's shirt pocket, while Pat smoked his stubbed
clay pipe. Pat said nothing. He sat there staring at Claude.
Claude stared at Pat's left ear lobe, meaning to disconcert
bin,. But Pat knew that trick too. He stared at Claude's
right ear lobe.

 At ten o'clock, Claude signaled Maggie-Now to follow
him into their bedroom. He asked for the usual quarter,
explaining that he didn't like to ask her in front of her
father.

 While Claude was outs Maggie-Now said: "Why don't
you sit in your own nice room upstairs, Papa? "

                  ~ ]21 ]
                     
"It's cold up there."

"I'll put the little oil stove up there for you."

"I like it down here better."

 Claude came back and resumed his seat. Pat resumed
his staring. Claude got up and, without a word, went into
the bedroom. When Maggie-Now went in t`, tell him lunch
was ready, she found him lying on the bed, hands clasped
under his head, staring up at the ceiling. He refused
lunch. She sat on the side of the bed and patted his cheek.

 "Mister, did you know that two weeks ago eve had been
married two years?"

"I forgot again."

"I forgot. Let's go out tonight and celebrate."

"Fine!" He swung his feet over onto the floor and sat up.

 "Let's go to that chop suey place you took me to, when
you were still Mister Bassett to me. We had so much fun!
I did anyhow. Remember how it rained? "

 "Ho, hum." He tucked back a pretended yawn. "That
was way back in my past. I can hardly remember."

 "I'll make Papa cook his own supper, just because he's
such a pest. And Denny's supper, too."

 They had a wonderful time. After the chop suey dinner,
they went to see the vaudeville show at The Bushwick.
When they got out, it was nearly midnight.

 "Let's end the celebration with our usual champagne or
its equivalent. "

"You mad at me?" skit asked.

"Why?''

"Then don't use those dictionary words on me, hear?"

 They went into a cider store. To prove that it was a
cider store and not a speakeasy, there were a jug of cider
and a bowl of apples in the window. They went through
the empty store to the back room and each had a glass of
needle beer. It cost thirty cents a glass and Maggie-No\v
thought that was a terrible price to pay and she liked
champagne better, anyhow. And she wondered whether
her father paid thirty cents for his weekly glass of beer,
because he wasn't a person to throw his money around.
Claude said Pat drank near beer and he drank it only
when his little friend Mick Mack paid for it. Then they
started to laugh about

                  ~ ]~r 1
                     
Pat staring at Claude all morning the Christmas pipe in his
pocket.

 "He was hinting," said \iaggie-Now, "that he hadn't
wanted a pipe for Christmas."

 "It was a nice, quiet hint, though," said Claude. And they
laughed and laughed....

 But the next morning it was the same thing: Pat, pipe in
pocket, smoking his blackened clay one, and staring silently
at Claude's ear. At ten o'clock, Claude went out as usual
for cigarettes and paper. An hour passed and he had not
returned. Denny came home for hmch, ate, went back to
school and still no Claude. Maggie-Now started to tremble
inwardly. At two o'clock, she went in to her father. She
addressed him with cold self-control.

 "All right, Papa. You did it! You drove him away with
your mean, spiteful ways. A big, grown-up man like you!
Sulking for two months nearly because you didn't like your
Christmas present! Shame! Shame! If you weren't my
father, I'd horsewhip you! If he doesn't come back, ['m
going to get my money out of the bank and leave here and
go all over the United States looking for him...."

 Then she broke down and burst into sobs. "I love him so
much; I love him so much. And 1 have him for just these
few weeks and you have to drive him rut.... I just can't go
on living this way," she sobbed. "I wish I was dead!"

 Pat was ashamed and a little frightened, too. "Aw, I was
only fooling, girl, dear. I ain't on me vacation. I took
meself two days' sick leave. I'm going back to me work
tomorrow."

 She throttled oflf her sobs. "You have my vote for the
meanest man in the world. And Denny takes after you.
He's growing up mean, too. Just like you. (give me that
pipe!" she shouted. Before he could hand it to her, she
grabbed it out of his shirt, tearing the pocket. She pulled
his clay pipe out of his mouth and smashed it on the floor.
"Another word out of you," she said, "and I'll break this
new pipe over your head!"

 Good girl! Good girl! he exulted to himself. Oh, the
beautiful temper of her . . .

 He got dressed and went out looking for Claude. He
found him right away in Brockman's store. Claude was
sitting at the counter on a stool, a glass of seltzer water at
his elbow. Brockman was

                   1'27]
                     
leaning over the counter. His voice was hoarse. He had
been telling the story of his life since ten o'clock that
morning.

 "So . . ." he was saying as Pat walked in, "my old gent
never did learn to speak English. So he had this farm in
Hicksville out on the Island. Land was dirt cheap in those
days and . . ."

 Claude saw Pat and polled out a stool for him. "Mr.
Brockman," he said, "I'd like you to meet my father, Mr.
Moore. Old sir, this is Mr. Brockman."

 Brockman and Pat clasped hands. "Seltzer water for all!"
proclaimed Pat. "I'll treat." The seltzer water was served.
Brockman resumed his saga.

 ". . . so my old gent use' to get up at four in the
morning and wash the lettuce . . ."

 "Take a rest, me good man," said Pat. Pat settled
himself on the stool, cleared his throat and began: "I was
a boy in County Kilkenny . . ."

 They got home in time for supper. They walked in,
mentally arm-in-arm. Maggie-Now had a grand supper
ready for them.

The house u as at peat e.

         ~ CHAPTER FORTY-FT VE ~

THEN came that day in March, the day of false spring.
While Claude sat in the kitchen eating breakfast in hi;
pajamas, she slipped into their bedroom and pinned the
gold piece in its cloth bag in his coat breast pot ket, and
laid out a clean shirt and underwear and socks for him.

 I mustn't let him see me cry. I robust act as though it
revere any other day.

 He dressed, all but his coat, and went in to sit by the
window. Maggie-Now finished her kitchen chores quickly,
took a piece of sewing and went in to sit with him as she
did every once in a while. She spoke to him from time to
time in a low, quiet voice and he answered with a look or
a smile.

He opened the window and leaned out. She leaned out
next to

                 ~ 328 1
                    
him and the south wind lifted a tendril of her hair and she
put her cheek next to his.

 "It's a chinook wind," he whispered as though he didn't
want her to hear.

 "Yes," she whispered bat k. He didn't seem to know she
was there.

 She went out into the kitchen and came back walking
heavily. He started at the sound of her steps and closed
the window.

"If you'll let me have a quarter . . ." he said.

 "Of course." She gave him the quarter and went in and
got his coat. She helped him on with it and turned him
around and buttoned it.

"Come right back, hear? ' she said brightly.

"I will." He kissed her and was gone.

And this became the pattern of their lives.

 He'd come home with the first snow and bring her
something and he'd work a week or two and then not
work and she'd be happy treasuring each day of his being
there, and he was always so tender toward her and so kind
to Denny and so patient with her father. And it was all so
u onderful because she knew it was for such a very little
time.

 Then would come that day in March a day like no
other day. The next day, there might be a blizzard, but on
this day there would be that sweet south wind. And
people would walk along the street with their coats
hanging open and a newspaper on somebody's stoop
would unfold itself and its sheets would swoop into the air
like kites.

 And Claude would be restless and open the window and
lean out and feel the wind on his face and close his eyes
as though in ecstasy and listen as though he heard a
faraway and well-beloved voice calling him. He'd whisper:
Chinook, and bow his head as though making a promise.
I-hat was the day he'd leave her.

 As he sat by the window in the winter, looking out on
the street and UK, at the grey skies, was he waiting . . .
waiting . . . for that day and that feeling he'd get that told
him there was a chinook wind blowing over the mountains
of Montana and that it was time for him to leave? And as
he sat there, silent, waiting, watching, what was in his
mind?

                  [ 329 ]
                     
 Did he dream great dreams of prairies with the wheat like
bowing gold in the winds? Or how, where the great Rockies
pierced the sky, you hall to believe in God because the world
was so grand? Did he get lo the old Southwest and believe
that he had walked into Spain? Did he think of a time he
had followed a river to find out where it began or where it
ended? Did he recall standing on a beach somewhere in
southern Florida and looking out over the wide Atlantic
Ocean and thinking that it was the same ocean that he
mzelled in Brooklyn just before it rained? And if he started
wall ing north along the beach, in time he'd come to
Rockaway just an hour away from his dear love?

 Did he go because those great dreams led him on? Or
was it, as Father Flynn had deduced when he first spoke
to Claude, that he roamed the country trying to find a
name, a place or a human soul who would tell him who
he was, what he was, where he had come from? Was he
looking . . . searching for his birthright? Did he think of
that in his hours by the window in the winter?

 Or did he sit there all winter with no such thoughts, no
such dreams waiting only for cogs within him to mesh
and put into motion that slow, patient walk that would
propel him across the country for no reason at all except
that that was his destiny?

No one knew. He told no one what his thoughts were.

 When her father lashed out as he did from tone to time
and called Claude unspeakable names, Maggie-Now
defended her love and tried to explain to her father that
he roamed away because he was in love with the country,
"Its rocks and rills," she quoted from a song she used to
sing in school; because he was in love with rivers and
mountains and cities....

 But Pat had his own version of where Claude spent his
wandering months. He told no one but Mick black.

 "He's got me poor daughter fooled," said Pat. "The
bastid! The innocent girl thinks he goes away to look at
the sky and smell the flowers. But I knov. better. You see,
I'm the one what knows what men is. I'm a man meself."
He waited.

"You are that!" said Mick Mack emphatically.

 "So I wouldn't be surprised a-tall if he had another
woman over in Jersey or somewheres. And he lives with
her until cold weather comes when he has to put coal in
the furnace and carry out the

                 ~ 33  ]
                    
ashes. Then he comes back to me ~\laggie-Now and stays
with her till it gets warm again and the furnace is out in
Jersey. And I wouldn't be surprised either if he ain't got
three or four kids by this here woman."

"Ah, poor, poor Maggie- Now," said Mick Mack.

 "Me daughter don't want none of your sympathy," said
Pat coldly.

          ~ ClIAPTI,R FORTY-SIX ~

SHE missed him, as she would always miss him. But
missing him had become part of her life now and she was
able to stand it more or less . . . if she kept busy and
didn't think about it too much. But she never adjusted
herself to not going to bed with him. As far as sex went,
her time with him was very wonderful. For a few months
each year, she had a fulfilling and contented love life. The
lack of it anguished her terribly physically, emotionally
and mentally.

  She tried to fill her life with substitutes. The sewing
class again; the bimonthly visits to Lottie and Annie;
stopping in at his store to exchange gossip with Van Clees;
scrubbing and polishing up her home; shopping carefully
and economically for family food and necessities;
preparing meals carefully; going to Mass every day; getting
Denny ready for his Confirmation; seeing to it that Denny
served as altar bov at half a dozen Masses because she
thought every Catholic boy should have the high and
humble honor of serving as an acolyte sometime during
his youth.

  (Of course, Pat had something to say about that. "Don't
try to make a priest out of the boy," he said.)

  Maggie-Now ran into Cdna on the street. Gina was
pushing a beautiful white perambulator. Gina's baby was
dressed like a valuable doll in lace and ribbons. The
blanket, of fine angora wool, had been knitted on needles
as thin as hatpins. The blanket cover was shell-pink silk
topped with a pink satin bow. A pink rattle, with
hand-painted blue forget-me-nots, hung by a pink

                 [ ill' 1
                     
ribbon from a strut of ~ he perambulator hood.

 "How beautiful she is," said Maggie-Now, "and how
beautifully you keep her."

 "You only have yot r first baby once in your life," said
Gina. "My mother says wait ll I have three or four. I won't
be so particular."

"What's her name?"

 "Regina. After me. But Cholly you know how Cholly
is? He calls her Reggie. Honest! My mother has fits!
Reggie! And, oh! Ev's expecting in Octcber."

"Ev? "

"Evelyn. You know. Sonny's wife?"

"Oh! "

  "You better catch up. Maggie. When you got married,
I thought you'd have a baby every year, the way you're so
religious and the way you're built for having children."

"Yes. Well . . ." Maggie-Now could think of nothing to say.

"Come see us sometime, Maggie. We often speak of you."

"Thanks, I will." (But she knew she wouldn't.)

  Soon after that, she went to see Father Flynn about
taking in some orphans to live w ith her.

". . . and it's been a year, Father, since I asked you."

  "The home has strict rules, Margaret. It will not give
children to a family living in a flat or apartment. It has to
be a house and yard. Of course you have that. And the
child or children must occupy a separate room in the
house."

"I have an empty room waiting."

  "The home pays five dollars a week for each child. No
foster mother must profit from that; nor divert the money
to her own uses. It is for the child's food and necessities.
Therefore, there must be proof that the husband works
and has a steady income."

  She bowed her hea.l and squeezed her hands together
in anguish. She did not ha\ e that kind of husband. The
priest's heart went out to her.

  "Of course, in the case of a widow, a son or daughter
living at home and supporting the mother . . . or if she has
a small legacy . . i"

  "I own my own home," said Maggie-Now, with eager
hope, "and I have rental property and it's my money and
Papa has a

                   F33'1
                     
steady job. And Claude brings home money . . .
sometimes. And he always works for a Mole after he
comes home and gives me every cent...."

  "You would surely get an 'A' on finances and on a
suitable home," he said with a smile. "Of course, there
must be no history of sickness in the family, like
tuberculosis or congenital . . . well, social diseases."

  "Oh, we're all so healthy," she exclaimed. "Nobody's ever
been sick in the family with anything catching, except the
time Denny and Papa had measles."

  "That would be an easy 'A,"' he conceded. "However . .
." he paused a long time before he continued. "The woman
must have, or must have had, children of her own. She
must be rearing, or have reared, children of her ov. n."

  "I brought up Denny ever since he was born," she said.
"I have experience."

"Of her own," he repeated.

"I see." All the eagerness left her and she bowed her head
again.

  He rose, beginning to terminate the visit. She rose with
him. "But you're a good mother, Margaret, even if you
have no children of your own. If you have no child of your
own within a year, come to me again. I'll speak to Mother
Vincent de Paul and see what I can do. You can wait a
year, Margaret?"

Yes, Maggie-Now could wait a year. She was used to
waiting.

  Denny got through that year without getting into too
much trouble. He was grudgingly promoted. The only
thing, he took to hanging out on the streets with a bunch
of slightly older kids. He'd stay out until ten o'clock at
night if he could get away

                   . . .

with It.

 Claude came home with the winter. There was that same
tender reunion. He brought her a pair of white buckskin
moccasins to wear as bedroom slippers. The name of a
shop in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was stamped on the
inner sole. At least, she thought, he divas where it divas
warm. The gold piece was still pinned in his coat and she
knew he had not been in want.

 Their reunion was tender and their love-making seemed
new again, the way it had been on their honeymoon night.

He worked a few weeks, someplace or other. He gave her
all

                   [333]
                     
of his pay except the money he used for Christmas
presents. He gave her a singing canary in a lovely bamboo
cage. She named him Timmy. It was a nerd cross for Pat
to bear. He was superstitious and instinctively his lips
formed the words "rest his soul" whenever she called the
bird by name.

 Pat kept up a nudging feud with Claude all winter. To
compensate, Denny openly worshiped Claude, and worked
hard in school for good marks to get Claude's
approbation.

 It was a wonderfully happy winter for Maggie-Now. But
he left again on that day when that certain wind called to
him.

 And she knew another year would pass and she would
have no child.

         ~ CHAPTER FORTY-SE VEN ~

Now when Maggie-Nt~w made her visits to Lottie, she
was, in a way, visiting Timmy, too. Lottie acted as though
Timmy were in the same room with them and she had
stopped saying, "I make believe."

  "Well, Aunt Lottie, I guess I'll start for home before the
rain comes."

  "Oh, it's not going to rain. L)o you think it's going to
rain, Timmy?" She spoke to the empty chair. She waited.
"There! Timmy says he thinks the rain will hold off until
nighttime."

  Once Widdy was there and he drew Maggie-Now aside.
"I just happened to drop in," he said, "and Mom was
eating her supper. But there was a full plate where Pop
used to sit, and you know, Maggie, she was talking to him
just like he was sitting there eating supper with her? Poor
Mom!"

  "Oh, I don't know," said Maggie-Now. "She's found a
way to be near Timmy."

  Annie had her worries that year. Tessie was growing too
fast. She was thin and frai I and coughed all the time,
Annie said. Maggie-Now assured Annie that Tessie would
be all right when summer came and she :ould get out in
the air and sun. Maggie

                  1 7541
                     
Now took ~I essie over to Dr. Scalani but he wasn't
there. A young Dr. Mahony, who had taken his place, said
Dr. Scalani had gone into some other business. And have
this prescription filled and see that the little girl gets
plenty of rest and lots of milk, he said.

 Maggie-Now was curious about Dr. Scalani and she
went to Mr. Van Clees, who knew everything that went on
in the neighborhood.

 "That doctor goes by the school now to learn how to
take care of the dead. He marries the widow of the
undertaker on Humbol' Street when is a year the
undertaker is dead. This for respect. Then he takes the
undertaking business."

"Why, he must be in his fifties," said Maggie-Now.

 "So; For twenty years Dr. Scalani goes by a woman's
house every Sunday. And now, he don't marry her. She
too is old as him."

"Poor thing!" said Magrie-Now.

  (Dr. Scalani married the undertaker's widow. A week
later, neighbors smelled gas coming from one of the flats
of a side-street tenement. They broke open the locked
door and smashed the kitchen windows. Dodie, the
doctor's dressmaker friend, was lying on the black leather
lounge. There was a small item in the paper.

  . . . fell asleep on the couch while waiting for the coffee
to boil. It boiled over and extinguished the flame.
Neighbors became aware of the odor of escaping gas.
When the police arrived, it was too late to . . .)

  Denny and some other kids stood in front of Golend's
Paint Shop. Out front was a big plate on a tripod. A scar
of healing cement ran across what looked like a bad break
in the plate. A chain went through a hole drilled in the
plate and a heavy iron weight hung from the chain. It said
on the plate that the cement was like iron and would hold
the hundred-pound weight without breaking.

  "I bet that plate would break right away if you even
touched it," said Denny.

  "Go 'head, then. Try it." One of the boys handed Denny
a baseball bat. Denny tapped the plate.

Sure, it broke. It was made of cast iron, enameled
white.
                [ 33S 1
                
 Maggie-Now heard tile hubbub on the street. She went
to the window to look. To her horror, she saw Denny
being escorted home by a tall policeman. A bunch of kids
and some adults were following after. When they got to
the stoop, the young cop dispersed the crowd with a
genial: "Why don't you all beat it, now?"

 They stood in the front room. The cop removed his hat.
Maggie-Now looked up at him. He was a clear-eyed
young man with a nice, homely Irish face. He told about
the plate.

 "Golend was all for sending the kid to the electric
chair," said the cop. "I talked him out of it. I said, let the
kid's mother punish him. So here he is."

 "I don't know how to thank you' Officer.... Anyone else
would arrest him...."

 "Oh, I expect to hate kids of my own, someday," he said.
"I \vouldn't want a boy of mine crucified just because it
was vacation and the kid was full of beans and got into
mischief."

"I don't know how t J thank you," she said again.

 "Say, you look awful young to be the mother of such a
big boy."

"I'm his sister."

 "Well, that's fine! Just fine!" He grinned down at her.
She looked up at him with her wide smile.

 After the policeman had left, Maggie-Now started in on
lecturing Denny. But her heart wasn't in it. She kept
thinking how nice it was to have a man look at her with
admiration.

 The following Friday, she went to the fish store to buy
a flounder for supper. She was waiting for the man to
dress it into fillets when the policeman came in. The
fish-store man's wife smiled at the cop.

"Where's my fish sandwich?" he asked.

 "In a minute, Eddies" said the woman. She stuck a fork
in a thick wedge of halibut which w as browning in a
caldron of boiling oil. "In a minute."

 ~ good Catholic boy, thought Maggie-Now. Fish for him
077 Fridays.

He recognized Mag. de-Now. "Hello," he said.

"Hello," she answered. They smiled at each other.

"How's your brother?"

                 1 3,6 1
                    
'iFine."

"That's fine."

 It seemed they had run out of conversation until
l\laggie-Now said: "My father went around and gave Mr.
Golend a dollar for the plate and Mr. Golend said he was
satisfied."

"That's fine."

 "Here you are, Maggie.' The fish dealer pushed the
package across the counter. "Fifty-~wo cents."

 "Look," said the cop. "NVould it be all right if I came
around to see you some night; I mean in plain clothes?"

"I'm married," she said.

  "Oh, I see!" The smile washed off his face. "I'm sorry,"
he said sincerely.

"I'll always appreciate what you did for my brother."

"That's all right," he said. She left the store.

  "What do you want on your fish sandwich, Eddie?" asked
the woman.

"Nothing," he said. "Just some catsup."

  She prepared for bed as usual that night. She undressed,
put on the Chinese kimono and the moccasins that Claude
had given her. She went out and covered Timmv's cage.
She sat before the dressing table he had given her and
brushed her hair. She ran her hand over the smooth
leather of the little red suitcase, read his postcard and
read a line car two from the SOm?ets. It was her nightly
communication with her husband.

  She lay awake in bed thinking. Make believe, she thought,
that I had never met and married Clande (and that would
have been just terrible!). But make believe anyhow. Suppose
I had married someone like this Eddie. I know I would've
liked him if I wasn't married. We would live in a house on
the Island. We'd all go to Mass together on Sundays and sit
in the back pew so that in case the children got restless, they
wouldn't annoy too many people back there. He would come
hoagie to me and the children every single night and . . .

  The next day, Saturday, she \`ent about with a heavy
heart. She had to go to confession that night and she had
a grave sin to confess and she did not know its name. I
CJ??'t say I committed adultery in my thoughts: that l was
lewd in Any thoughts . . . what name can I give this sill?

                  [ 337 1
                     
 She went to confession late and let others go before her.
She was trying to think of a name for her sin. The church
was empty; she was the last one. She knelt in the dark
confessional and confessed the usual sins in a whisper and
then she came to the big sin.

 "I lusted after a man, Father." It was the only way she
knew how to say it. She thought she heard a snort from
the other side of the tiny screened opening, but she wasn't
sure.

"Explain, my child," said the priest.

  "I thought how it would be if I were married to a man
other than my husband."

  He made no comment. She finished her confession, and
was kneeling in a pew saying her penance, when she saw
Father Flynn come out: of the confessional. He went to
the altar and extinguished the candles. He genuflected and
then knelt to pray before the altar.

  When she left the church, Father Flynn was waiting on
the steps. "Margaret," he said, "Monday I will take you to
the home. I will do whatever I can to get you a foster
child or two."

"Oh, Father!" she said, tears of joy coming to her eyes.

"I think it is time," he said.

         ~ CHAPTI,R FORTY-EIGHT ~

MAGGIE-NOW sat on a long bench while she waited for
Father Flynn to confer with Mother Vincent de Paul. The
room was combined office and waiting room. A nun sat at
a typewriter briskly tapping out letters from shorthand
notes. Another nun had six varicolored sheets and five
carbons in her typewriter and was filling out forms. A very
young nun stood at a filing case expertly filing documents
and letters away. Another sat at a table and filled in a
printed form with the answers of an applicant who stood
before her.

 All the clerical activity should have made it seem like an
efficient office. But the habited nuns and a large picture
of Christ holding a lamb in His arms gave it the feeling of
a busy church. Aside from the woman having a form filled
out, there were four other

                   f338]
                     
women with Maggie-Now on the bench. Two had children
with them. The woman next to Maggie-Now was evidently
foster mother to a beautiful child of six who quietly
wandered about the room, returning to the bench at
intervals. She addressed the woman as "Mama."

 Maggie-Now struck up a conversation with the woman.
"She's very pretty."

 "Yes. I hate to give her up. My husband and I got very
attached to her. We get attached to all of them. But she's
six now and they have to take her back to put her in
school. Well, in the twenty years I been a foster mother,
I had to give up many a one I would have liked to keep.
This one especially." She returned the smile the little girl
gave her across the room before she resumed talking. She
dropped her voice.

 "This one's different. Her mother was a rich and
beautiful society girl and her father was a poor artist. Her
parents wouldn't let her marry this artist. But they had
this child anyhow."

"Did they tell you that here? " asked Maggie-Now.

 "Not in so many words," evaded the woman. "But I
kr~o~v." She whispered: "She's a love child. That's why
she's so beautiful."

 Father Flylm came out of Mother Vincent de Paul's
office and instructed Maggie-Now to file an application.
He stood by her side. The nun asked the routine questions
and filled in the answers. Then she came to "Husband."

"Occupation? "

 "He travels...." Maggie-Now looked appealingly at Father
Flynn.

"Traveling man," said the priest.

 The nun's pen hovered over the blank space for a
second or two before she wrote: "Travels."

"Income? "

  "I live with my father. He's in Civil Service." She stated
his salary. "And I get twenty-five a month from rental
property and I own my own house free and clear."

"Husband's income?"

  "He earns fifty dollars, sometimes thirty dollars a week."
She paused. "When he works," she added honestly. The
nun put a question mark in that space.

The nun picked up the application and said: "I'll take you
to

                  ~ 339 ~
                     
Mother Vincent de Paul. This way."

 The nun put the paper on the desk and quietly
withdrew. It was a small room holding only a desk and a
chair. A large crucifix hung on the wall behind the desk.
The mother wore bifocals and may have been in her
sixties, although it was hard to tell the age of a nun; no
matter what age, their faces were unlined and serene.

 Maggie-Now stood quietly she had not been asked to
sit down and waited. Without looking up, the mother
said: "As you know, there are certain irregularities in your
application." She pointed to the printed word "Children,"
and the inked "None" in the space following. "But Father
Flynn spoke highly of you and we'll waive that. Do you
agree to take two children?"

"Oh, yes! Yes!"

"Children must grow up with other children."

"Yes, Mother."

 "When a child reaches the age of six, he will be taken
from you. There must be no pleas, no tears, no requests
to keep in touch with the child and no requests for
adopting the child. Do you understand? "

"Yes, Mother."

 "In due time, a nurse will visit you and examine the
premises. If her report is satisfactory, your application will
be accepted."

"Thank you, Mother."

 The mother pressed a buzzer and a nun came in and
took the application and went out again. Without looking
up, Mother Vincent de Paul said: "Whatever became of
your horse?"

"My horse, Mother? ' gasped the girl, astonished.

"Drummer."

"Why, gone I guess, Mother," she said, bewildered.

 The mother looked up at her. "I used to know Sister
Mary Joseph," she explained. She smiled; Maggie-Now
smiled back. "God bless you, my child."

 Maggie-Now rode home on the trolley with Father
Flynn. The priest read from his little black-bound book
and Maggie-Now beamed happily at all the people in the
car.

 The nurse came in due time. She was a middle-aged
woman in a tailored suit. She had a large black handbag
from which she extracted a little book and a pencil.
Maggie-Now, who had continually scrubbed, polished and
painted the "nursery" while

                 [ 54  1
                    
waiting for the nurse to call, greeted the woman
cordially.

"Will you have a cup of coffee?" asked.

 "O-o-oh, no!" said the nurse with a rising and falling
inflection. Her tone implied that she ~ ouldn't be bribed.

"Excuse me," said Maggie-Now, embarrassed.

 The nurse made a thorough inspection of everything.
She asked how the nursery room was heated. Maggie-Now
explained that, since it opened off the front room, it was
heated by the parlor stove. The nurse made a notation.
Maggie-Now started to worry. Finally the nurse put her
book and pencil away, straightened her coat and said:

"Now, I'll have that cup of coffee."

Maggie-Now knew it was all right, then.

 Maggie-Now waited: one week, two weeks, three
weeks.... Then Father Flynn came to see her. "Margaret,"
he said, "I've had a conference with Mother Vincent de
Paul." He saw worry lines deepen in her forehead. "The
home nurse turned in her report on your premises." She
held her breath. "The word 'Immaculate' appeared four
times in her report." Maggie-Now relaxed. "However,"
again the worried lines appeared on her forehead,
"Mother and I agreed to put off giving you the children
until spring."

"Why, Father, oh, why? ' she pleaded.

  "Your husband will be returning soon. He knows
nothing of the foster children. It may be hard for him to
adjust . . . then, the children will not have had time to be
adjusted to the home and you. There may be emotional
strain. In the spring, when he has gone, you will have the
children. You'll have the spring, summer and fall, and
when your husband visits you . . . returns in the following
fall, you will have become accustomed to the children,
there will be a settled routine...."

She was badly disappoints d but she saw the logic of the
matter.

"You can w air, Margaret " he asked.

"I can wait," she said.

  It was just as well. One morning after breakfast, instead
of leaving for work, Pat settle d himself in the chair by the
front windoNv.

"Aren't you working today, Papa?" she asked.

"Me working days is over. I put in me full time and today
I

                 ~ 341 ]
                    
start me retirement. Today I start drawing me pension."

 Her first foolish thought was. Now I don't have to wash
those heavy, dirty uniforms any more. She said: "But, Papa,
you didn't tell me."

"Must I tell you everything?" he said.

 "But, Papa, you're still young, just a little over fifty.
What are you going to do with yourself all day?"

"Rest!" he said.

 And he did. He slept late and Maggie-Now had to make
a separate and lavish breakfast for him at ten in the
morning. Then he sat by the window in his stocl.ing feet,
getting up only to go to the bathroom and tr, eat lunch,
which now had to be dinner with meat, vegetables and
potatoes instead of a simple lunch. After dinner he
napped on the couch in the front room, and if she so
much as turned on the tap to get a glass of water he
shouted for quiet. After his nap, he took up his useless
vigil at the window. When she came into the room, he
asked her what she wanted now.

 Maggie-Now was almost a prisoner. She had been used
to having the house to herself most of the day. While
dressing, she had often walked out to the kitchen in her
slip to check on something that was cooking. Now she
could never leave her bedroom unless she Was fully
dressed. When she went out, he asked her where she was
going. When she came back, he examined her purchases
and criticized the price she had paid and claimed she was
cheated. When Denny went out, he gave him hell when he
came back. When he stayed home, he asked what the hell
he was hanging around the house for. In short, he was a
pest.

 When November came, Maggie-Now started to worry.
Claude would be home soon, and with her father in the
house all day, feuding with Claude, life would be
intolerable. Claude would leave after a few days, she
knew. She remembered the Christmas pipe incident.

 One night she said: "Papa, when Claude comes you
must go and board at Mrs. O'Crawl~ y's while he's here."

"Oh, no, me girl."

 "Yes, Papa. I mean it. You and Claude just don't get
along. And for the little time that he's here . . ."

 "I won't leave this house," he shouted, "till I'm carried
out feet first! So help me God!"

                [ ,4-' ]
                    
  It was the last week in November. The newspaper
forecast snow for the next day. As Pat got up from the
supper table, Maggie-Now said: "Papa, Claude will be
coming back most any night now and . . ."

  "And I'll throw him out the minute he steps foot in me
door," he said.

  She ignored that. "So I went over to Mrs. O'Crawley's
today and rented a room for you "

"What!" he roared.

  "A nice room and she likes you so much she's only
asking seven dollars a week for room and board. And little
Mick Mack can hardly wait. You can come back again
when Claude leaves."

  Pat made a terrible, hoarse cry. He tore open his shirt
and gasped and his face turned purple. He spun around
and would have fallen if Maggie-Now hadn't caught him.

  "Run, Denny. Run for the doctor! No, wait! Let's get
him to bed first." They got him into the hall but couldn't
get him up the stairs. "My room! My room!" gasped
Maggie-Now. They put him in Maggie-Now's dainty bed.
"Now, get the doctor and hurry."

  "No doctor," gasped Pat "Too late. The priest! The
priest! I want the priest! The priest!" he gasped faintly.

  When Father Flynn arrived, a pale Maggie-Now with
smudges under her eyes greeted the priest with a lighted
candle. She genuflected and preceded him into the house.
She took him into the room. He looked around with a
glance of approval. Everything was in order. Pat lay pale
and still in a clean nightshirt. She had washed his face and
hands and feet. There was a clean linen towel on the bed
table. On it stood a crucifix with a lighted candle on either
side. There was a vial of holy water, a dish of salt, a
saucer with clean bits of cotton for the holy oil, a tumbler
of water and all the necessary things. There was a cushion
on the floor at the head of the bed for the priest to kneel
on. Father Flynn placed his small black leather bag and
the Host on the cleared dressing table.

  "Leave us, my daughter," he said. Maggie-Now left,
walking backward out of the room, still holding the lighted
candle.

  Father Flynn performed the solemn last rites of the
church. When it was all over, Pat said weakly, "I would not
be calling

                  ~ 343 1
                     
you out in the cold of the night but the way me
daughter . . ."

 "You have been shriven of all your worldly sins, my son.
Speak no more." When Pat would speak again, Father
Flynn said: "Be at peace, my son."

He started packing his bag. "I will send the doctor," he
said.

"No doctor," whispered Pat. "I am at peace."

 "To sign the death certificate," said Father Flynn. "It is
the law."

 Father Flynn went cut to ~\laggie-Now and Denny and
prayed with them and left, after speaking words of
comfort.

 Maggie-Now, trembling and with tears falling unchecked
from her eyes, went in to her father.

She found him frantically getting into his pants.

"Papa!" she cried out, shocked. "What are you doing?"

 "I'm getting out of here!" he yelled. "Between you and
the priest and the doctor, youse'll have me buried before
I'm dead! I'm going to the widder's house where I'm
safe!"

Maggie-Now had a beautiful, beautiful winter with her
Claude.

      ~ CHIC P T ER FOR TY-NI NE ~

CLAUDE had come home. While they sat in the kitchen
waiting for the two chickens he had brought to roast, he
asked her, as was his custom, to tell him everything she
had done during his absence. She told him everything
except that she had made an application to take in
children from the home. When she actually had the
children, it would be time enough to tell him, she thought.
Then there was always the hope that she'd become
pregnant. She never gave up hope. Her mother hadn't
given up hope and had had a child in her forties.
However, she had sounded Claude out, hoping to get his
reaction to having the children from the home.

"Claude, wouldn't you like children in the house?"

 He gave a typical Claudian answer. "Every man lilies
children of his OWn about the house."

Unduly sensitive to his every reaction, she thought he
stressed

                  [344]
                    
the "of his own" too much, and she didn't say anything
more.

 When he came home, he had brought her a dozen
Dutch tulip bulbs. They were in a box marked Tulips fro7n
Holland, Michigan, so she knew he had been there. For his
last three returns he'd brought her gifts with labels. It was
as though he wanted her to know where he'd been but
didn't want to tell her in so many words.

 He said he'd wait a week before going to look for a job
because he wanted to plant the bulbs in the yard. First, he
said, he had to whitewash the old board fence. The tulips
were red and needed a white background, he said

 He was whitewashing the boards one Sunday morning
(he had one side of the fence done), when the tenant
upstairs opened her window and called down to hin`..

"Mr. Bassett?"

 He gave that quick turn of his l cad' which gave the
woman a thrill, and looked up.

"That's going to look real nice. '

"Thank you," he said and gave her his charming smile.

 She closed the window. "I had to be halfway nice to
him,'' she told her husband, "so's they don't raise the rent
on us saying they made improveme7`tsd'

"Aw, you just wanted an exctisc to, talk to the bum," he
said.

"He's not a bum. He's a pentlcman."

"A bum!" he said. As an afterthought, he added: "Shut
up!"

 The ground was not frozen under the snow but it was as
hard and barren as cement. Claude had to chop it up with
an ax. He planted the bulbs. All during the winter, he
garnered MaggieNow's coffee grounds and tea leaves and
potato peelings and the dottle from Pat's pipe and the
ashes from the stove and other things and made a
compost pile in the yard.

 "In the spring," he said, 'we'll plant zinnia and marigold
seeds . . . things that come up the first year . . . later,
perennials . . ."

 He spoke as though he wasn't going away in the spring.
Her heart lifted; then fell. If he stayed, would he let her
have the foster children?

 For Christmas, he gave her a big, beautiful garden
encyclopedia. It had hundreds of colored plates. (It must
have cost ten dollars.) He and Maggie-Now pored over it
and he made a garden on

                  t347 1
                     
paper and the list of seeds they'd need. He seemed
obsessed by the garden. "This summer," he said, "we'll sit
together in our garden in the evening--flowers smell better
after dark, you know. . . ." Yes, it seemed that he wasn't
going to wander any more.

 But by January he had completely lost interest in the
garden. Now when she got the book out, he frowned and
said he guessed he'd go for a little walk. Once he asked
her why she bothered. "Nothing will ever grow in that
soil," he said. "It's hard as cement and just as barren." She
didn't get the book out any more after that.

 But it was a beautiful \vinter. He was a tender and
loving husband, and, as always, it was as though they were
newly married.

 That l\larch day can e and that softly demanding faraway
wind blew over Brooklyn again. And Claude listened and
gave his silent promise to something that was not tangible,
and went away again.

 This time her grief tat his going was gentle and mixed
with a tremulous inner excitement. She cried a little, but
smiled as she cried and was stirred bv a great anticipation.
I'll wait until twelve, she thought, to see if hi comes back.

 But she waited only until eleven o'clock. She ran around
to the furniture store and told the man he could deliver
right away the two cribs and high chair she had been
making weekly payments on since the fall. She went to
another store and bought two thick white china bowls and
two little spoons.

 The store sent the cribs over. There was a two-drawer
chest in the room that Maggie-Now had bought in the fall
and enameled white. From a drawer, she took crib sheets
she'd made from the best parts of worn household sheets
and clean, worn blankets that had, so far, warmed two
generations of babies: Widdy and Widdy's twins. (Lottie
had said: "I forgot I still had those blankets until Timmy
reminded me.") Maggie-Now was in a kind of ecstasy as
she made up the little beds.

 When Denny came home at noon, she gave him a
makeshift lunch of bologna sandwich, milk and a wedge of
crumb cake. She herself was too excited to eat.

"Did Claude go away3" he asked.

"Why, yes." Then she was dumbfounded! Claude had left

                 [ ~ Is ]
                     
only two hours ago and she had all but forgotten that she
wouldn't see him again until fall.

"The flowers he planted in the yard are up. Did he see
them?"

  "Are they?" She went to the window. Yes, there were a
dozen inch-high clubby spikes showing. "No, I guess he
didn't see them."

  As soon as Denny went back to school, she rushed over
to Father Flynn's house. "Now, Father?" she asked. "Now?
Please, now? "

He matched her tone. "Now!" he said.

"Honest, Father?"

  "Honestly, Margaret. Mother Vincent de Paul has two
little boys all ready for you."

"Honest, Father? Honestly?"

"One is four, I believe, and the other a babe in arms."

"When can I have them, Father? When?"

  "I'll phone Mother and tell her you're on your way to
the home."

She was out of the house and down the steps like a flash.

  "Margaret!" he called. She paused in her flight.
"Remember! In two years, you'll have to give up the first
one."

"Yes, Father."

"And when you are sixty, you will have to give them all
back."

"It will be forever till I'm sixty," she called back.

I used to think so too, thought the priest.

  Maggie-Now loved the beautiful ritual of getting
breakfast for the children. Denny had gone off to school
and her father was still sleeping. The sunshine poured in
through the kitchen windows and the tulips were in bud in
the yard and Timmy in his bamboo cage sang so lustily
that the cage jiggled.

  Mark, the four-year-old, sat in the high chair eating his
bowl of oatmeal with soft sliced bananas on top. From
time to time, gently and patiently, she transferred the
spoon from his left hand to his right. Just as patiently, the
little boy transferred the spoon back to his left hand.

  John, not quite a year old, was in her arms. She fed him
with a spoon. He inhaled the oatmeal, gummed the soft
banana and tried his best to drink milk from his mug with
a sucking motion.

                  ~ 347 ~
                     
lye never took his eyes off Maggie-Now's face. He stared
at her unblinkingly, moving his eyes only when she leaned
over to change Mark's spoon.

 The children were quiet children. Mark seldom spoke
and the baby seldom cried. Mark obeyed any order
instantly. The instant they were put in their cribs, they
closed their eyes. They had been well trained at the home.

 Maggie-Now had been astonished at the way Pat took
the news of the foster children. She'd had them three days
when he came home from Mrs O'Crawley's. She told him
all in one sentence and all in one breath. She ended up
saying she would get five dollars a week to buy their food.

"For the two of them"' he asked.

"Five dollars each."

 "Say! That's all right," he said. "Them two kids won't eat
up ten dollars of food a week."

 "The money is for the children and the children only,"
she said firmly.

 Who knew the workings of Pat's mind? He got the idea
that Maggie-Now got the babies to take the place of
Claude and that now Claude was out of her life forever.
He explained it to Mick Mack:

 "Me daughter says: '1 got the chilthren in place of you.
And now when you go away don't come back no more.'
And he says: 'So now the chilthren have taken me place
and I am no longer wanted."'

 "And you living at the O'Crawleys' the time he says
that!" said Mick Mack. He was not doubting his friend's
veracity. It was merely one of the little man's automatic
compliments.

 "I don't have to be Johnny-on-the-spot," said Pat icily,
"to know what goes on in me own home. Anyways, warm
weather comes and the bastid says: 'Nooky!' NO, that
ain't the word. Yeah! 'Chinook! "'

"And what would that be ~meaning?"

 Pat had to think quick. "Why . . . why, it would mean 'so
long!' In the Eskimo language," he added. The little man
looked as though he doubted that, but Pat clinched it. "It
stands to reason: First he says: 'Chinook!' Then he goes
away. What else could it mean?"

                  EMS]
                    
 It cannot be said that l'at fell in love with the children;
he hadn't even fallen in love with his own children when
they were small. But he got on with them; especially
Mark. Pat was garrulous and, since his retirement, he had
the whole day to talk in and Maggie-Now was not one to
sit and listen. But little Mark listened. Pat told the boy all
the things he thought his daughter should know about
the beautiful room he'd had at the widow's; the exquisite
meals she'd fed him and, yessir, he'd marry her in a
minute but what would his daughter and son do without
him? Although he spoke to the little boy, he raised his
voice so's l\laggieNow could hear him.

 The little boy didn't know what Pat was talking about
most of the time, but he listened with flattering
concentration.

 As for Denny, he was neither interested in nor
indifferent to the newcomers. He was tot, old to play with
them and too young to feel protective toward them. He
gave them each a nickname: the baby, "Pee Wee," and
Mark, "Snodg7rass." That was the total of his relationship
to the orphans.

 Lottie was ecstatic abol t it. "Now you'll have one of
your own. I never known it to fail. As soon as a woman
adopts a baby, bang! She gets in the family way. You wait
and see."

"I didn't adopt . . ."

"It amounts to the same thing, Maggie-Now."

 "I've given up hope," said Maggie-No\v. "Soon I'll be in
my thirties and it'll be too late."

 "Don't talk foolish. Your mother had Denny when she
was in the change. Take me: I didn't have Widdy till I was
thirty-two. Of course, though, I didn t get married until I
was thirty-one. I'll never forget it. We W:IS on this picnic
up the Hudson, and when I hollered to the boat that we
was going to get married, the captain said all our troubles
should be little ones. I wish you could've seen Timmy's
fact ! Well, so we was married...."

 And Lottie was off, red iving again her wonderful life
with her sweetheart.

 The nurse came once a month to check the children and
the cribs and the condition o f the home. Her report was
always favorable; extremely so. On one visit, she said:
"Mrs. Bassett, you ought to have a furnlce put hi, you
know. Your heating

                   [,49]
                     
would not be adequate if we happened to have a severe
winter. It would really pay you. You could get more rent
for your upstairs apartment, you know." Maggie-Now said
she'd talk to her father about it.

 Fall came. Maggie-Now told her father he'd have to go
to Mrs. O'Crawley when Claude came back.

"He ain't coming back!" said Pat.

"He always comes back in the fall."

 "But you threw him out when you got the kids." By now,
Pat believed the story he'd told Mick Mack.

"I did no such thing! That's all in your imagination."

"Well, I won't go."

 "But all summer you re saying how wonderful it was
there and how good the cooking was and how much you
liked it."

"I still won't go."

"But why, Papa? "

"Because them orphans need me here."

"Oh, Papa!"

 The inevitable time came. She let her father eat his
supper first before she told him she had made all the
arrangements and that Mrs. O'Crawley expected him in
the morning. Without a word, he got up and went up to
his room. He signaled Denny to follow him.

Upstairs he said: "Denny, get Father Flynn."

"You sick, Papa?"

 "Don't tell him I'm sick." (Pat didn't want Extreme
Unction again; that was too close to dying.) "Say I am
troubled and need me priest. Here's a quarter and don't
tell your sister you're going for the priest."

 Maggie-Now opened the door. "Why, Father! What a
nice surprise!" Then she sat` he was carrying the Host. She
preceded him into the house walking backward.

"Dennis said your father needed me."

  "I . . . ] didn't know." she stammered. "I did not prepare
. . . forgive me, Father . . .' She took him up to Pat's room
and left after setting up the crucifix and lighting two
candles.

"You are not ill, my son?" asked Father Flynn gently. L3so]

 "Only in me heart and me soul," said Pat. "Father,
tonight me only daughter says to me: 'Papa, pack up and
leave the house.' I says . . .

 "Then," continued Father Flynn, "get out of bed, get on
your knees and make a good confession."

"But . . . but . . ." spluttered Pat.

"A good confession," said the priest.

 They knelt on the floor. "Bless me, Father, for I have
sinned. 'Tis one year since me last c onfession."

 Pat paused. That, he thought, will get me five Hail Marys
and five Our Fathers to start or with.

 When it was all over and Father Flynn was packing his
bag, the priest said: "Patrick, have you ever heard the story
of the boy who cried wolf?"

"What boy? " asked Pat.

  Father Flynn told him the story. When he had finished,
Pat was indignant at the fabled boy. "Was he mine," said
Pat, "I'd take a stick to him fooling good people that way."

  "Someday, you'll cry wolf," said the priest, "and nobody
will come. Yes, someday you'll cry wolf once too often."

  Surreptitiously, Pat pressed his knuckles three times
against the wooden headboard of his bed.

  There was a little flurry of snow the third week in
November. It didn't amount to much but Maggie-Now
took up her nighttime vigil at the window waiting for
Claude. She waited two nights and he didn't come. The
third night, she sat there until midnight, decided he wasn't
coming that night and went out into the kitchen.

  She always prepared the babies' oatmeal before she
went to bed at night, got it started, then left the saucepan
on the back of the stove to simmer all night so that the
cereal would be creamily well-done in the morning.

  She heard the hall door open. She thought it was the
tenant upstairs coming in late, then she thought of
Claude! She stopped stirring the oatmeal, covered the
saucepan and set it on the back of the stove. He walked
into the kitchen.

"Oh, Claude! Claude!" She was in his arms.

"This is the first time you didn't run down the street to
meet

                  ~ 35i ]
                     
me. And I walked around the block three times...."

  "I was going to watch for you again as soon as I had this
oatmeal started."

"Oatmeal? I haven't had that since . . ."

"Want some? It's good and hot."

"No!" he said sharply. "It reminds me . . ." His voice
trailed off.

  He had brought her a small silver stiletto that had the
word Mexico stamped on the handle; to be used as a letter
opener, he said. She smiled. She didn't get many letters:
one a month, the electric bill; two a month in the summer
when she used the gas plate for cooking; and one a year
from the tax collector. Just the same it was a beautiful
thing to have and to hold in her hand.

"I have to give you a coin for it," she said.

  "You believe in that superstition that a coin must be
given in return for a knife?"

"Yes. It's bad luck if you don't."

  "Your luck is good. You gave me a coin some years
back," he said. She knew he referred to the gold piece.

  He had brought home a duck. She put it in the oven to
roast and then went to sit on his lap. He patted her hip
and then started to laugh.

  "What's funny?" she asked. (As always, it was as if he'd
been away only for the day.)

  "You're funny," he said, "sitting here in your Chinese
kimono and Indian moccasins, waving a Mexican dagger
and roasting a Long Island duck." He kissed her long and
hard; then said: "Tell me all you did while I was away."

  "Well," she hesitated, "I went over to see Lottie . . ."
Her voice trailed off.

"What else? "

"Annie came to see me. . . that's about all, I guess."

  He wondered what had happened. Usually, when he
asked her what she'd been doing, news literally poured
out of her.

  "You've been up to something, Margaret. Have you
been a good girl?" he asked lightly.

  "Oh, I forgot to tell you!" She was all animation. "The
tulips came out. And they were beautiful, Claude. Just
beautiful!"

"Did you plant zinnias and marigolds and . . ."

                 ~ 352 ]
                    
"No. I didn't plant anything."

 "You're an odd girl. Here you cook and sew and love
children and enjoy keeping house and. . ."

"What's odd about that? "

 "It follows that you'd enjoy working in a garden; making
things grow. But you don't, do you? "

"Why, no, I don't, Claude."

"Why? "

 "Oh, I don't know. I guess I like flowers in pots. You
can put them in different places. I love to see flowers in
the florist shops. That's how I'm used to flowers, I guess.
If I had a lot of flowers in the yard, I wouldn't enjoy so
much going to the cemetery and seeing Al the flowers on
the street outside the flower stores. And in May, when
Father Flynn's lilac bush is in full bloom, he invites me to
sit on his bench a while and we have iced tea, and if I had
a lilac bush in my yard then it wouldn't be so wonderful
any more to see Father Flynn's lilacs and I would miss
that."

 "You'll always be a city girl, love. And now, speaking of
bushes, stop beating around one and tell me exactly what
you did while I was gone." Suddenly, she was tense in his
arms. "What?" he asked.

"I thought I heard something."

"Your father?"

 "He's at Mrs. O'Crawley's. Listen!" The sound again. It
was the wail of a baby. She jumped to her feet. "He never
cries. He must be wet and uncovered."

 He jumped up too and grabbed her arms and shook her
a little. "No!" he said in a high ecstatic voice the way
people say "No" when they expect a sure "Yes" back.

"Claude?" she said. It was almost a whimper.

  "And I wasn't with you when it happened! I am a
bastard; a pig." His self-reproaches w ere terrible. He got
down on his knees and put his arms about her legs and
pressed his cheek against the silk of the kimono.

  She stood listening with her head turned, the way he
stood and listened for the voice in the wind on the day he
left. She relaxed and breathed deeply. "There! He's gone
back to sleep."

"I am nobody from nowhere," he said, his voice muffled
against

                  [ 353 ]
                     
her kimono. "There is no one before me. But now one will
come after me. A son . . . my name, a continuation of me
. . . me! Who is a continuation of no one."

 It was very hard for her to tell him that he had no son;
that the child was one of her two foster children. He got
up. His face was bone white.

"What have you done to me?" he asked in a reasoning
voice.

"I don't know," she said, genuinely bewildered.

 "I'll tell you," he said pleasantly. "All you did was tell
the whole world that I could not get you pregnant." He
was pleased when he saw her wince at the word. "All you
did was tell the world that I couldn't support you and you
had to take in bastards for pay."

 "What world?" she asked. "Whose world?" The baby
wailed again. She turned quickly and went out.

"You Goddamned peasant!" he hissed after her.

 She came back carrying the baby. She pulled a chair
close to the stove, spread her Icgs to make a large lap,
and changed the baby's diaper. He looked on with
distaste; even disgust. Mark called out, "Mama?"
querulously from the nursery. She got up, put the baby in
Claude's arms and went to Mark.

 Claude held the baby. No miracle happened. The feel of
the helpless child in his arms did not bring on a surge of
tenderness; his heart did not turn liver. The child, thumb
in mouth, looked up at him with brown, unwavering eyes.

 He looked down on the child and thought: IVhose spawn
are you? The child's eyes blinked once and he took his
thumb halfway out of his mouth and put it back again. But
who am I to throw stones? he continued in his thoughts.
Whose spawn am I for that matter? Without his volition,
his arm tightened convulsively about the child.

 She came in leading rhe boy by the hand. "Claude," she
said, "this is Mark."

 Claude and the boy stared at each other. Neither said a
word. If, thought Claude, she says, And Mark, this is Papa,
I'll throw the one l'In holding rigl.,t in her face!

 She said nothing more. She took the baby from him and
took both children back to their cribs. When she returned,
she spoke to him as though continuing a conversation.

                   [3s41
                     
 "And Claude, they are not bastards. Maybe they're
orphans; maybe they're children that were not wanted by
a mother . . . Or a father. But they are not . . . what you
say. They are God's children. They are Catholic children."

 "Sit down, Margaret," he said gently. She complied.
"Margaret, I want you to get a divorce and marry someone
who will give you all the children you want."

"I can't, Claude."

"Why? "

 "Because I love you and could never love another man
in the way I love you. Because I slept with you and could
never sleep with another man. And then, there's no
divorce in the Catholic Church."

"The Church cannot prevent a legal divorce."

 "No. But what good would it do? I couldn't ever remarry
in the Catholic Church. I wouldn't want to marry any
other way because it would be adultery."

"Nonsense! "

"Adultery. Yes! According to my Church."

 He thought on that for a while. She put some more
coals on the fire and basted the duck which was roasting
in the oven.

"We are married then for life," he said.

"For eternity."

  "That is, married until one of us dies. I am your
husband. You love your husband."

"I love you, Claude. I do."

"Then send those children back to the orphanage."

  "I can't! Oh, Claude, if You only knew how long I
waited; had to wait. Because it was so hard to get them.
If it hadn't been for Father Flynn . . ."

"The point is, you did get them."

  "Yes. Father Flynn spoke up for me," she said proudly.
"He told them I was all right."

  And so you are, he thought. And I'm as much of a
sadistic sorlof-a-bitch as that super who hires college men to
shovel snow. Belt, by God, I'm not going to let those children
take my place. I want her f or me alone. I ve got to have
that. Someone who's all mine ... who waits for me....

He grabbed her arms alla held them so tightly that his
finger

                   C355]
                     
nails went: into her flesh. "You give them up. Hear me?
Will you take them back where they came from or must
I go to your priest and make him take them back?"

"If you make me, I'll take them back, Claude."

He was instantly mollified. "Yes, Margaret, that's best."

 "But you know that, as soon as you go away, I'll get
children again. If it's too hard to get them from a home,
I'll manage somehow to have one of my ONvn." She
hardly knew what she was

. , .

trnplylng.

 But he knew. He knew of many women, many barren
wives who got with child by another man and the husband
believed the child was his. Claude was afraid.

 "Margaret, love, I'll never leave you again. I've had my
lesson. I have been too careless of you. But a man can
change. I'll get a job. I can always get a job. We'll be
together all the time as married people should--not for
just a few weeks in the winter. We'll have a child. If, after
three or four years, we don't, we'll go together and adopt
one or two. I'd want them to take my name. But I swear
it, Margaret, I'll never go away again if you will only send
those children back."

 "You will always go away," she said quietly. "Because it
is in you to go away. The ~ ay it's in me to be a
Catholic. The way it is in me to want children, to need
them so bad that I'll get them any way I can."

I've lost, he thought. Bzlt their, 1 hall no right to win.

"The duck's done," she said.

 "The hell with the duck," he said wearily. I hate her, he
told himself.

 They went to bed, and, because essentially and in spite
of everything they loved each other, and because they
loved to make love to each other, and because they had
not been with each other for so long, everything was new
and wonderful again.

 Afterward, he drifted off to sleep. She prodded him
awake. "Claude," she asked, "what's so wrong with being
a peasant?"

 He laughed and he found that he didn't hate her any
more. "Nothing, my little Chinee," he said. "Nothing."

                 1 556 ]
                    
             ~ CHAPTER FIFTY ~

CLAUDE got up next morning to say hello to Denny
before the boy left for school. He kept the boy company
with a cup of coffee. Claude didn't speak to l\laggie-Now,
and when Denny went off to school Claude went back to
bed.

 It was nearly ten when Claude got up and dressed. He
went into the kitchen and had a cup of coffee and a roll.
Then he went into the front room. The baby was sitting in
the high chair at the window with a rattle in his hand.
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.
I\iTarble 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

                 ~ USE 1
                    
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.

                   1 Is]
                     
 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 people see him to sell ties."

  "That's because he m: kes such a good appearance," said
l\laggieNow.

  "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-No\v 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. I\laggie-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 l\iaggie-No\v. "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-No\v 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."

 "Remember? You laughed at note when I sat down at
the piano, but when I started to play, you had hysterics?"

"Aw, Cholly," she said fondly.

"So long, then, Maggie."

 As he went down the stoop she called after him: "Tell
Gina I said she's a very lucky girl."

"That's what I keep telling her," he said. "But she don't
listen."

 Eventually Denny got another job. He worked for an
Italian greengrocer whom everyone called Ceppi. They got
on well enough together. Denny insulted Ceppi every time
he spoke to him. Ceppi insulted him back. Denny enjoyed
it. He was just like his father that way.

 "I worry so about Denny," confided I\laggie-Now to
Annie. "He's going on eighteen now and . . ."

 "Denty is all right," said Annie. "Only wild. You wait.
When he finds the work he likes to work on, he'll be a
new boy. You wait." Annie sighed. "My Albie, he is like
that, too. He gets .

                  1 36s]
                     
nickel and goes on the elevator train and gets off by a
station and bangs on the gum machines so pennies should
fall out. Then he goes back on the train gets oflf the next
station. Same thing." She sighed again "Albie, he needs a
father. Is all what is wrong with him. No father. Your
Denty, he needs a father, too."

"He has a father, Annie," said Maggie-Now quietly.

"Excuse me." Annie blushed. "I forget."

 Maggie-Now inquired after Jamesie. Jamesie had
married his Shirley and Shirley was going to keep on
working as long as she had no children. And ,:hey were
saving their money because Jamesie wanted to go into
business for himself someday. Yes, Jamesie gave her five
dollars a week, and with that and Tessie's pay they got
along hne. Of course, Annie's new flat was smaller than
the old one, but then the rent was lower.

Yes, Tessie still liked her job.

  Annie had obtained a job for Tessie in Annie's old alma
mater, the dime store. Tessie dici not work behind the
lunch counter. She didn't work behind any counter. She
walked up and down the aisles wearing a wide leather belt
to which was attached a small leather satchel. When a
salesgirl tapped the bell on top of her tiny cash register,
it was Tes~ie's job to go over, take the bill that the girl
was waving in the air, and give her ones for it. No girl was
allowed to have more than five dollars in her register.
Once each hour, Tessie counted the change in the
registers and put all over five dollars in her satchel.
Between times, she wore a little black apron and carried
a small feather duster with which she dusted oflf the
hardware.

  "She marries in a few years, maybe," said Annie. "Some
feller sees she is pretty." Another sigh. "Then I don't have
her money, but," she said brightly, "then Albie works.
When Albie gets married, I don't care no more. Then I be
dead," she said cheerfully.

  And every winter, Claude came back to her again. And
every spring he left her again.

                  1 ,'66]
                     
         ~ CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE ~

SUNDAY afternoons, Denny hung out with some fellers
around the newsstand of a corner calmly. Denny had an
act, the purpose of which was to give the fellers a good
time. Strolling girls were the stooges of the act. Denny'd
see a girl approach. As she passed, he'd say something
like: "Oh, you kid with the bedroom eyes." The girl would
pause, startled, and say something like: "You fresh thing,
you!" This put the fellers into hysterics.

  He used a different routine for the next passing girl. He
took off his hat with a flourish, bowed and said: "How do
you do . . ." When the girl stopped in surprise, he'd
continue. ". . . that trick with your hat? Like this?" He'd
twirl his hat around on his forefinger. Laughter from the
crowd.

  He had a killer, though, in his moving-hat trick. He had
a derby hat rigged up with strings and rubber bands. The
strings ran down into his coat pockets. He'd stand there,
hat on and hands in pockets. When a group of girls
appeared (the trick was too good for one lone girl), he'd
say, "Hello," in a dull oafish voice and manipulate the
strings in his pocket and make the hat stand straight up
on his head, the brim resting on the nape of his neck.
Then he'd make the hat turn to sit sidewise on his head.
The reaction was terrific. Sometimes a girl would shriek
in terror, another would laugh her head off and so on.

  One day, Denny saw a pretty girl coming along. She had
a cute shape, too. As she was passing, he said: "Hello,
good-looking." When she turned to give him an indignant
look, he said: "Can't you take a joke?" Instead of tossing
her head and going on her way, the girl came right up to
him.

  "Dennis Moore! You ought to be ashamed of yourself,
hanging around on the corner like a loafer and insulting
girls, and you with such a nice sister and such a nice home
and all."

  It took him a while to realize that she was Tessie
Vernacht. The last time he'd seen her, she'd been a
skinny-legged kid of four

                 [ 357 1
                    
teen. But now! Wow! was his opinion of her.

 She lectured him for a good five minutes and then went
on her way. Dennis was thoroughly ashamed. That must
never happen again, he told himself. From that time on,
the fellers on that corner saw him no more. Denny took
up with a bunch of fellers in another neighborhood w here
he could perform his acts without the danger of anyone he
knew seeing him.

 But Tessie stayed in his mind. He wanted to see her
again to tell her that she had no right to call him down so
hard in front of the other fellers. He didn't know where to
find her. He didn't want to ask his sister where she lived.
Maggie-Now might get ideas, he thought.

 He figured Tessie went to church. He went to a
different Mass each Sunday: the eight o'clock, the ten
o'clock, even the eleven o'clock High Mass, which he
usually avoided because it was so long. He left the church
before the service was over and waited outside. He waited
outside for two Sundays but Tessie never appeared. Then
Denny hit on a way to make Maggie-Now tell him without
her knowin, what he wanted.

 "I saw Annie in church today," he said. "And she sends
regards."

 "That's funny," said his sister. "Annie doesn't go to our
church. She goes to that one on Montrose Avenue, that
German church. All the Vernachts go there."

 The next Sunday, he went to the six o'clock Mass at his
own church, then took up his watch outside the church on
Montrose Avenue. He saw Tessie come out and he fell in
step with her. He started talking fast before she could say
a word.

 "Look," he said. "I'm sorry for what happened a couple
of weeks ago. I didn't know it was you. Gee, you grew up
so pretty. You did right to bawl me out the way you did.
Course, I was ashamed in front of the fellers and all, but
I wouldn't mind being ashamed again that way. I'd like to
make it up to you, Tessie. Would you go to a movie with
me or a show?"

 Tessie was pleased with his flattery and his humility and
a little sorry that she had shamed him in front of his
friends.

"I'd like to, Dennis," she said. "But I'll have to ask my
mother."

"Can I walk you home?" he asked.

"No, Dennis. Not until after I ask my mother."

                   [358]
                     
 He was waiting for her the following Sunday. "Did you
ask her? "

"Yes."

"What did she say?"

"She said [ couldn't go out Witil you."

"Did she say why?"

"She said you were too wild, Dennis."

  "Gee, Tessie, you're old enough. I'm eighteen and you
must be nearly that. You can go out with me without
telling your mother."

  "I'd like to go out with you, Dennis. But if I fooled my
mother, you'd start thinking that maybe I was fooling
you."

"You talk like Maggie-Now."

"I'd be proud if I was as good and decent as your sister."

  "Listen," he said, kicking at a nonexistent pebble.
"Maybe I am what your mother calls wild. But if I had a
girl a good girl like you maybe I'd be different."

"I'll ask her again, Dennis."

  "I don't want to be the way I am," said Denny
inarticulately. "But I don't know any other way to be."

"I'll ask her," she repeated.

"No!" said Annie. "This the last time I say it. No!"

"But, Mama, I don't even need to ask you. I'm eighteen."

"He puts that idea in your head."

"Nobody needs to put it in my head. I am eighteen."

  "You can't go out mit him." Whenever Annie got
excited, she dropped into her instinctive German.

"But why?"

  "I tell you before, I tell you now: He iss too wild. And
you are a good girl."

"Sometimes a good girl can get a wild boy to change his
ways." "I do not bring up my daughter to make angels out
of devils."

"But, Mama . . ."

 "No! " shouted Annie. "Nein! Und das is alles. Is all," she
translated.

 Annie went over to see Maggie-Now right away.
Fumblingly, inarticulately, apologetically, mixing German
with English, but firmly, she told Maggie-Now to tell her
brother to keep away from Tessie.

                  [ 369 J
                     
 "lch liebe dicta, Magg~e-Now," she said. "You are like
daughter to me. Aber ich . . . I got feelings about Tessie.
She is mine only girl. And Denty . . . good. But like they
say, is wild. Maybe they get older, Denty gets berter, then
I have nothing to say."

 "I'll speak to Denny," said Maggie-Now. "They're both
very young." I\laggie-Now did not mean to speak coldly but
her voice came out that way. Amlie lowered her head and
kissed MaggieNow's hand. "Don't! " said Maggie-Now
sharply. "He's my brother and I think he's good enough for
any girl. But I'll tell him not to bother Tessie."

 On the way home from Maggie-Now's house, Annie
decided to buy an open peach cake for Tessie's supper
dessert. It was a kind of compensation to the girl. She
detoured to have a chat with Van Clees.

"I bought cake for my Tessie's supper," she announced.

  "Tessie comes in the store last week," he said. "My, what
a nice young lady she turned out to be. But all your
children is nice, Annie."

"I think, yes. But then. I'm the mother."

  "Even so. Now Jamesie: married to a nice girl with what
they say, class."

  "Shirley," Annie shrugged. Shirley was all right only
Annie didn't think she was good enough for her son.

  "And Albie." Mr. Van Clees raised his eyebrows and
spread out his hands. Annie took this as a gesture of
disparagement against her youngest.

"Albie is not worser as other boys like his age," she said.

  "Did I say different? Then excuse me. But Tessie, now.
Too bad Gus don't live to see her grow up to be a lady."
There was a moment of silence our of love for a beloved
husband and a beloved friend.

  "Yes, Tessie, now," continued Van Clees. "Only yesterday
a straight-up-and-down kill. And today, a woman with a
built."

  Annie tucked her pocketbook under her armpit to
indicate that the visit was over. "I say to you, good day,"
she said.

"Did I say something?" he asked, worried.

"You did, then you know it. You don't know it, I don't tell

you."

She walked away angry. She didn't think it becoming of Mr.
                   ~,701
                     
Van Clees, who had known Tessie from infancy, to notice
and to comment on the fact that the infant had grown a
bust.

  That's what I get, she thought, talking all the time to
everybody what listens.

  Annie was upset about Van Clees's observation of
Tessie. She was upset that Denny W.IS, as she presumed,
after Tessie; that Tessie wanted Denny to be after her.
She trembled for Tessie's safety in a world suddenly filled
with wolves.

  There is things I should tell Tessie. Like my mother
should-a told me. But she didn't know how to tell me and I
don't know how to tell Tessie. So l till her anyway because
somebody must talk.

  After supper, Amlie sent Albie off on an errand in
order to Tell Tessie Things.

  "Tessie, now you change to be a young lady. Young
ladies what just stopped being girls, sometimes they get
funny idears. Then a man looks on them and gets funny
idears."

  Here it comes, groaned Tessie inwardly. Mama's going to
tell me about sex and it's going to be terrible for both of us.
Just because I want to go out with Denny, all of a sudden all
eaten are awf ul.

  "In the world," began Annie portentously, "there gives
men and women And from men and women together,
come babies."

"No kidding!" said Tessie.

  "Get fresh with me," said Annie, "and I'll give it to
you big like you are."

  "I didn't mean to get fresh, Mama. But this makes me
nervous; this all about where babies come from. I know all
about it."

"Ha! "

  "Listen, Mama. I know how you and Papa had us three
children and how it happened that: Shirley and Jamesie
are going to have a baby. A girl gets married, she's going
to have a baby. That's all."

  "Sometimes," said Annie darkly, "a girl could have a
baby even if they ain't married."

"Not a decent girl, Mama."

  "Them kind, too. A i~mercent girl she loves a
nice-looking man and they go out dancing and they dance
like they was stuck together like flypaper. After, they
stand in the hallway where is dark and he says: 'You is
beautiful like a queen with a crown on.'

                  t37i 1
                     
And then . . ."

  Annie's face flamed red with embarrassment. She
looked the other way.

  "And then . . . and then . . . he kisses her on the neck
where it tickles and the next thing, she's got a baby."

  Tessie choked back a laugh. "Sit in the rocker, Mama."
Tessie faced her mother, her hands on the rocking-chair
arms, and rocked her mother back and forth soothingly as
she spoke. "Look, Mama, I appreciate it that you're trying
to tell me . . . things. But listen, Mama, I know. In high
school the girls and me talked about such things and w hat
one didn't know, the other one did. And one of the girls
had a book that told all about it. So I know, Mama. And
you don't have to knock yourself out telling me. Okay? "

  "Ho-key. NONV stop rocking me. You want your mama
should get a headache?"

          ~ CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR ~

". . . and as far as I'm concerned, Denny, you're good
enough for any girl. But Annie's worried...."

 "Okay! Okay! Do I have to sign a paper? I felt sorry for
the kid. Who'd give her a second look; I offered to take
her to a movie. Tell your Annie for me that her kid's
poison as far as I'm concerned." He threw himself out of
the house.

 Maggie-Now sighed and wished that Denny wouldn't, as
always, give up so easily.

 Each Sunday when Tessie came out of church, she
walked slowly, expecting Denny to appear and fall into
step with her. She gave up expecting that after three
Sundays in a row.

 Denny went out with other girls. Maggie-Now always
knew when, because he made a derogatory remark about
Tessie after each date with some other girl.

 "That Tessie!" He mimicked her in a mincing way. "My
goodness! I must ask my mama." That was one remark.

                  [ 372 ~
                     
 "All you got to do is say hello to that Tessie and she
thinks she's engaged to you." Remarks like that.

He likes her, deduced Maggie-Now.

 Denny got to staying out late nights. Pat got tired of
telling him to get home early. He issued a simple
ultimatum: "From now on, if you ain't in the house by ten
o'clock, I'll go looking for you with me big stick."

 Denny took the easy way out and got home before ten.
His father was always sitting by the window with his
shillelagh between his knees, his expression black with
disappointment because Denny got in on time and he
couldn't go out looking for him.

 One night, Denny wasn't home by ten and Pat went out
looking for him. He found him in the areaway of a vacant
store. Dennv and four other boys were kneeling in a
circle. They were shooting craps. Facing Pat was a fat
backside straining at the seat of a pair of pants. It was as
though Pat had been waiting all his life for that. He gave
it a good whack with his thorny shillelagh. The boys
scattered, except Denny, who knew it was no use to run,
and the fat boy, who was in too much pain to run.

 Pat spoke gently to his son. "Here, me boy. Hold me
stick." Denny held it while Pat got down on his knees and
scooped up the nickels and dimes.

"Hey, mister," whined the fat boy, "that money belongs to
us."

 "I will give it to the Churcll,'' said Pat, "for the sins of
all of youse."

(Of course, the Church never saw the money.)

 After that, Denny took to hanging out in the pool
parlor. In those prohibition days, nearly every poor section
of Brooklyn was the headquarters of some crime syndicate
or some gangster corporation. The poolroom where
Denny hung out was a front for the neighborhood gang
lord.

 Sal (The Gimp) Hazzetti (he got his nickname because
one of his legs was a half inch shorter than the other)
used this poolroom as a sort of gangster college. Entrance
requirements were simple. A kid had to be a punk to
matriculate.

 One of Sal's instructors worked on the punk and turned
him into a hoodlum. Then a sort of assistant professor
came in and turned the hoodlum into a gangster. If the
gangster worked hard and did what he was told and didn't
doublecross Sal or the syndi

                  ~ 37, 1
                     
care, why, in time he might get to be a first-class
criminal.

 The punks stood around and their faces brightened and
they stood up real straight when one of Sal's men walked
into the poolroom. Who would be chosen? All were
anxious. When the man chose a kid and gave him a neatly
wrapped box containing three fifths of rye or Scotch with
an address and the instructions: "Collect twenty-five and
keep five," the boy beamed as though he had been tapped
for a fraternity, and all the other punks were jealous.

 Denny had no part in this. He sat on a high stool and
watched the pool games and watched the comings and
goings of Sal and his men. It was like a show to him. He
was fascinated by Sal with his expensive tight-fitting black
overcoat and his cream-colored Borsalina hat and his
two-hundred-dollar suits and ten-dollar ties and his long
black Packard.

 From time to time, Denny was approached and asked if
he'd like to make an easy "ten." Sure, Denny would have
been glad to make an easy ten, but not that way. He
always said "No." Why? He was afraid of F ether Flynn.
Denny went to confession each week. He had been doing
so since he was eight years old. It was as much a part of
his life as eating dinner at noon and supper at six. He'd
have to confess to Father Flynn. The priest would not
violate the confessional but he might withhold absolution
until Denny went to the police and confessed. It never
occurred to Denny flat to go to confession or to falsify a
confession.

 Then he was afraid of his father. He always had a
feeling that his father divas waiting . . . waiting for him,
Denny, to do something real bad so that he could beat
him to death with his shillelagh.

 So while he did nothing worse than sit in the poolroom,
it got around in the neighborhood that he was in bad
company and he was tarred, bad.

 It was the common consensus of the neighborhood that
Denny was headed straight for Sing Sing.

                   1 374
                     
   ~ CHIC P T. E ~ Fl F T. Y- Fl V E An'

DENNY'S boss, Ceppi, the greengrocer, always brought
his lunch from home. But one day he left it home standing
on the sideboard and never missed it until noon. He called
Denny out from the back room where the boy was sorting
tomatoes: the firm for salads and eating out of hand in
one basket, and the soft ones for soup or stewing in
another basket.

 "Hey, Wal-yo," called the boss. "Go by Winer the butcher
and buy me six slice' hard salami slice' thin like fishy
paper only to Winer you say dingy because he's a Heinie."

 Otto Winer, in white apron, white coat over a sweater
and straw cuff protectors and wearing a straw hat as all
butchers did, even in winter, had taken advantage of the
noon lull in trade to eat his steaming hot dinner in the
room adjoining his store.

 The dinner, which he ate from a cake-mixing bowl,
consisted of pigs' knuckles, spinach, noodles and
sauerkraut, all of which had been simmering together in
a covered iron pot since seven o'clock that morning. A t
hand was a lump of Schwartzbrod, spread with butter, to
be used to sop up the broth, or "bree," as he called it,
when the solid food had been eaten. His beverage was a
bottle of beer which he had brewed himself.

 Since his wife's death some years back, he'd lived in and
cooked in the little back room. His living was lush, but his
equipment sparse. All he had was a one-plate gas stove,
the covered iron pot, a coffeepot, a coffee mug, a drinking
glass and a knife, fork and soup spoon.

 He had a basic recipe with seven variations, one for
each day of the week. Each morning' he put all the stuff
in the pot, covered it with w ater, added salt a Id pepper
and let it simmer all day long. At noon, he ate a bowlful
with knife and fork because the meat was still in chunks.
For his mid-afternoon snack he used only a fork because
the stuff had cooked to stew by that time. By supper, it
had simmered down to I thick soup, which he ate with a
spoon.

                   F3 s]
                     
After supper, everything, in the pot was fed to his cat.

 The cat was a huge black one with a white face and a
head like a codfish. The cat's name was Schweinefleisch.
Translated, it vaguely meant "Porgy." The only thing was
that the cat wouldn't answer to the name Schweinefleisch
in or out of translation. He answered only to the name of
"Kitty."

 The cat slept all day in the clean, empty window of the
butcher shop against a backdrop of brown paper bags,
each hung up by one corner, to make an overlapping
diamond design: a standard butcher-shop window
dressing. The big, fat, sleek cat in the window was a good
ad J or the store. People thought it must be a very clean
butcher shop. No rats or mice. People figured that the cat
was big and fat from eating up all the rats and mice.

 Schweinefleisch had never been known to chase a rat,
much less eat one. He was too fastidious for that. He was
fat and shiny and strong from all the melted bones and
meat and vegetables that he ate, and from the "bree,' that
the cat lapped up in lieu of milk.

 As Winer ate today's dinner, he dreamed of tomorrow's.
He planned to put some chunks of veal in the pot, whole
potatoes, whole onions, a couple of handfuls of uncut
string beans, seasoning and half a gallon of buttermilk.
That would make a nice "bree," the buttermilk.

 He lacked sugar in his diet. He didn't take sugar in his
morning coffee. He liked his coffee thick and black and
laced with chicory. Sometimes just before bedtime, he got
a craving for something sweet. At such times, he poured
himself a tumbler of pre-prohibition, thick, sweet port v.
ine. After downing that, he felt he was caught up on sweet
stuff for life. Usually, he ate a sour pickle as an antidote.
But he was a good man, just the same.

 Denny walked into the empty shop and saw Winer
eating in the back room. "Hey, Otto," he yelled, "Ceppi
the Boss wants six slices of hard salami sliced di72ny."

 "For a penny profit," said Winer coldly, "I don't let my
dinner stand."

 "Aw, come on. Chop-choiJ! Chat means get the lead out
in Chinese."

"Listen! Go by Blyfuss the butcher, for your worst."

 "The boss said to get it here. I lave a heart. I'm only
trying to make a living."

                  1 376
                    
"D, Bzll?lme1~" muttered winter.

 Denny wished he was still hanging out at the newsstand
with the fellers. What an act he could put on. He
rehearsed the lines.

"Ihe boss says to me, 'Iley, what'a mat'? Where's me,-
eats?'

(Denny thought of IIOW he u ould make the dialect
broad for comic effects.) " 'Get-a-me der salam'.!"

  But there was no newsstand crowd now and the fellers
in the poolroom would think he has ntits if he \`ent into
a routine like that.

  While he vitas mentally rehearsing, he jiggled his way in
back of the meat counter. He looked at the meat-cutting
block. He remembered coming to this s me store when he
u as a little kid, the time Maggie-Now came h re to buy
a leg of lamb for Claude's first dinner at: the house. He
remembered vividly how he had been entranced with that
meat block then.

  Now he took his fill Of looking at it. I he hardwood
WJS whitely clean and had a slight hollow like a big,
shallow bowl. He ran his hand over the smooth wood and
a thrill a shiver went down his spine. He fell in love
with the block. He looked at the rack of sharp knives
fastens d to one side of it. He had an impulse.

  "Hey, Otto," he called, "mould you let me cut the salami
for you? "

  NONV, whether there was something in the timbre of
Denny's voice, or Winer's conscience bothered him
because he had been mde to a customer, or he felt
generous because he was replete with good, sound food,
he matle an answer ullich had a tremendous effect on
Denny's life.

He said: "Go 'head! "

"Where's the salami? '

"Is in icebox."

  The icebox was a small rooll1 lighted by a small barred
window high in the wall. TNVO huge blocks of ice stood
on the sawdustcovered floor. Denny looked around
reverently like an art connoisseur in an art museum.

  The focus of interest was a large, cleaned, split hot,
crucified from a rack by a hook i ~1 each front foot.
There w as also a quarter of beef hanging up and legs of
ham and legs of veal. Also there was something he had
never seen before. It looked like a rubber washboard.

L ,77

"Gee!'' he breathed admiringly.

 He found the salami hanging with other bolognas, near
the door. He brought it out to the block. He took a knife
from the rack. It was as big as a saber. He walked twice
around the block, half afraid to start cutting the salami.

"Hey, Otto," he called. "How do you make it dingy?"

 Otto sighed, put down his bread and came out into the
shop. He snatched the saber from Denny, gave him a dirty
look and said: "Dockle!" He replaced the saber and
withdrew a long thin knife from the rack. It had been
honed so many times that it was down to a quarter inch
of blade.

"Watch!" commanded the butcher.

 He inserted the fingernails of the middle and forefinger
of his left hand deep into the salami near the edge of the
roll. He leaned the knife blade against his fingers and
sliced. He held the slice up to the light. It was
transparent! Even a little seed in the salami had been cut
in half.

"My God!" said Denny in admiration.

"Dinny!" proclaimed the butcher.

  Winer handed him the knife. Denny dug his nails into
the salami, wishing they were cleaner, and placed the
knife blade against his fingers. The hand holding the knife
started to tremble. He looked an appeal at Winer. The
good man understood.

  "I ain't done eating yet," he said. He went back to his
bread and "bree" and beer.

  Denny breathed easier. His hand stopped trembling. He
cut through. He held up the slice to the light. It was
almost as transparent as the butcher's!

"Gee!" he whispered. thrilled.

  He cut four more slices, testing each against the light.
The fifth slice was opaque. He had grown too confident.
He popped that into his mouth and cut the last two slices
perfectly. He arranged the slices overlapping on a bit of
oiled paper. He thought he had never seen anything so
beautiful. He carried the salami roll back to the icebox
and hung it up. Still holding the knife, he went over to the
hog and stared at it.

"You like the hog?" said Winer, who had come in behind
him.

"It's a ditty," said Denny.

                 [ 378 ]
                    
 "C;o 'head," said Whler. "Tell Nile kinds of pork it gives
from a hog."

 Denny touched the hole with his knife. "pork chops?" he
asked hesitantly.

"Sure."

"Honest?" said Denny, all aglow

 Otto Winer felt a distinc t thrill. I-le recognised
immediately a meat aficionado. "Go 'head' Show me
more."

Denny touched a haunch with the ktlife. Fresh ham?"

"Good! "

"Shoulder ham?"

"Good! "

"Pigs' knuckles."

"Good."

"Spareribs?''

"Sehr good!"

"But where's the bacon?" asked Dentin.

 "Smoked. Hanging on the hook by the ~ indo\N;," said
Winer. scathingly. "Dockle!"

 Denny drew himself up :-o his full height and even
stretched a little. He looked Winer right in the eye.
"Listen," he said, "I don't like that name Dockle. Call me
Dennis."

Winer measured him with a look, then said, "All right,
Den-iss.' "What's that white wrinkled skin hanging there?"

"Tripe."

"Tripe? I always thought that v. as a word meaning 110
good." "I don't like tripe, needer," said Otto.

"Do you ever need a helper? " asked Denny.

"When I'm busy, I need, when I ain't, I don't."

 But thoughts raced through Winer's mind. I know a lot
of things about meat, he thought in (Berman. It is not right
that, when I die. nobody lives no more as l nows caveat I
know. For forty years, the meat is nzy life and I learned
many things by myself. About cutting meat. This boy here, I
could teach him these things. A son l never had. But this boy
. . .

 Denny broke in on his revery. "Well, if you ever do need
a helper, think of me. The name is Dennis Moore."

 "I don't hear good from you," said the butcher. "You go
by the poolroom every night.'

                   t'791
                     
"I quit that."

"How long ago you stop?"

"Starting now."

He don't Arrow, thought Winer.

 "But where you world, you don't stay long. You get
fresh with the boss and you be lazy."

 Denny put away the fresh retort which came so handily
to his mind. He took his cap cliff and wrung it in his
hands, looking away from Wmer.

 "I've been working since I'm sixteen. All the things I've
worked at, I never liked. I don't like to work at jobs I
don't like. So I get fresh so I can get fired. But here . . ."
He looked around at the sides of meat. "To work here, it
would be like going to Coney Island every day in the
summer."

 It was done! Winer knew it and Denny knew it. But
there were certain formalities.

"How much does Ceppi pay you?" asked Winer.

 Denny was going to lie and say twenty dollars. He
decided against it not that he believed in the truth, but
he thought it would be bad luck if he lied now.

"Eighteen dollars," said Denny.

"Maybe I could pay that," said Winer. But he sounded
doubtful.

"I get eighteen dollars. And tips for deliveries."

 "Eighteen dollars I give you and no more," said Winer
firmly. "Your tips is that I learn you a good trade."

 Denny's heart jumped. He was hired! He had never
expected ... why he would have worked for nothing....

 Winer mistook Denny's introspection for hesitation. He
felt he had to add something. "Never will you starve are
you a butcher because always people must eat and always
they like to eat meat."

"Eighteen dollars is fair enough," said Denny.

 They shook hands clumsily over the deal. Both were
embarrassed with being so secretly delighted. "You start
Monday?" asked Winer.

"First, [ must tell Ceppi and my sister."

"That's a good boy," approved Winer.

  "But are you sure, Denny? 'All my life' is a long time
when you're only nineteen."

                 [ 3S  ]
                    
 'I'm sure. I went in there and there \vas this cat in the
window and clean sawdust on that clean floor, and the
wood block and the good knives that he keeps
sharpened.... I wish I could get it over to you,
Maggie-Now, btlt I can't. Anyway, I knew all of a sudden
that that was what I wanted to do all my life. This is a
dopey thing to say, but I felt that I'd been born just for
that."

 She smiled. Maggie-Now had never expected Denny to
grow up to be President of the IJnited States. Still and all,
she'd had a dream or two for the baby her dying mother
had put into her arms; a dream for the vulnerable little
boy who had sat on his cot alone the day she married;
who had said: "I want to go with you." No, she had never
~ xpectcd hin1 to become President or even a governor.
Yet . . . ye t . . .

 "I'm glad you found what you avant to \N ork at, Denny.
I think it's a fine trade for a n1an."

 Denny was making soup greens. He walked along the
bins, taking a wrinkled carrot, an outside stalk leaf of
celery, pinched with wilt at the top, a tomato with a soft
spot and a sprig of parsley. He put these in a twist of
paper called a toot. When he had enough toots filled, he
wrote a sign on a paper bag: Sale on Soup Greens. Only
5›. He put the toots on a stand near the door to
immediately attract buyers. He \vas following the boss's
orders to push soup greens that morning.

 "Ceppi," asked Denny briglltly, 'do you think you could
do without me?"

"Anytime. All-a time," said Ceppi.

"Because after Saturday you won't see me any more."

 "Sure, I see you. Ever' Sunday I cotne see you in reform
school and I bring orange for you."

 "All kidding aside," said the boy. "I'm quitting Saturday
night. I'd quit now but I don't want to leave you holding
the bag."

 Ceppi snatched a toot of soup greens out of Denny's
hand. "Go! Go now!" he said passionately. "Beat it!"

 "I'll stay to the end of the \veek. You uptight have
trouble getting another boy."

 "Ha! You think? Oh, to! ~ here's plent' more loafers
where you come from."

Denny came home with half a vveek's pay. f 3811

 "Oh, well, you were going to leave Ceppi's anyhow,
Denny," said his sister.

 "Sure! But he didn't have to kick me out while I was
resigning. And he didn't have to give me that loafer and
reform-school routine, either. But I'll show him! I'll show
them all," vowed Denny. "I'll be the best damned butcher
in the whole damned Borough of Brooklyn!"

 That was Denny's version of his father's far-flung
challenge to the world: "I'll bury youse all! "

          5< CHAl'TER FIFTY-SIX ~

To DENNY'S disappointment, he wasn't allowed to cut
meat right away. Winer said he had to work his way up
from the bottom and he meant it literally. Winer, like
many a lonely person, was scrupulously neat about himself
and the store and first Denny had to learn to carry out
Winer's ideas of neatness.

 Each night, after the store closed, the sawdust had to be
swept out and fresh sawdust sprinkled on the floor. Each
day, the marble block that was the store window's floor
had to be scoured and rubbed with a cut lemon; the
cutting block had to be cleaned daily, with salt and a wire
brush; the knives had to be washed and honed daily. The
meat-grinding machine had to be taken apart and washed
after each usage, and it was used ten or fifteen times a
day. The counter scrubbed; the store window washed once
a week; the walls swabbed down every so often. Clean,
scrub, polish . . . Winer was fanatically neat.

 Winer tossed all fat scraps into a barrel. Winer sold the
fat to a soap manufacturer. Once a week, Denny risked
getting a double hernia carrying that barrel Otlt to the
curb to be picked up by the soap people.

 And Denny loved e very bit of w ork connected with the
butcher shop.

 The second week, Winer let him cut meat from bones
and cut up scrap meat and grind it into hamburger, which
was called

                  1,''7~1
                     
chopmeat in the neighborhood. It fell to Denny to place
the sprig of parsley in the center of the artistically
arranged swirls of ground meat on the grey agate platter.
Winer let him sell soup bones: a marrow bone, a knuckle
bone and a straight bone, all for a nickel. He let him slice
bologna. He let him give away dog meat and dog bones
free -hut only if the customer made other meat
purchases.

 "When they ask for dog meat," instructed Winer, "you
must say should you wrap it or do they want to eat it
here."

"But that gag's got hair on it," said Denny. "It's that old."

 "Just the same, the customers like it. It belongs with
giving away dog meat."

 Now Denny knew that hamburger was one hundred per
cent profit; being made from meat that couldn't be used
any other way. He asked Winer wouldn't it be better to
urge the already ground hamburger on a customer when
she asked for a pound of chuck or round ground to order.

 "That's out of date," said Winer. "Here's how you sell
chopmeat off the plate. A lady wants a pound of round
ground. You make out like you're very happy to do this.
You grind it right in front of her. When you put it on the
scale, you look mad like you grind too much meat. You
take a lumper off and throw it on the choprneat in the
showcase like vou don't care. The lady and any other
ladies in the store will tell theirselves: I should pay thirty
cents for ground round when I can get the same off the
plate for eighteen cents. And I know it's the same. I saw
the butcher put some on the plate from my
thirty-cents-a-pound ground round."

 The bane of Winer's life was a woman coming in and
asking for half a pound of sirloin or one lamb chop or any
other quality meat which meant cutting into a whole side
of meat for little profit. Winer instructed Denny.

 "A lady comes in and wants only half pound sirloin, it
should be cut thick. You then go in icebox and come out
and you are carrying a side of beef on your shoulder. You
make your legs bend like is the beef very heavy. You put
it on block and put hand over your heart like it hurts a
little from carrying. Then is the lady so ashamed, all that
trouble for half a pound, she says she may as well take
whole pound steak."

                  ~ 3~3 ]
                     
 Winer instructed further. "People buy kidneys and
hearts and pigs' feet. Maybe they is shamed they buy such.
They all make the same fun about it but all thinks he
made up the fun in the first place. Like a lady says: 'You
got kidneys?' "

"So I tell her," said Denny, "not to get personal?"

 "No. That's fresh. Y on say, like this: 'I hope sot' then
you smile and make a wink. They think, ain't he fresh!
But they like it ail the same. Also on all the old ladies
and middle ones, you should smile and make a wink even
without the kidneys."

"Yeah. But I don't see you winking, Otto."

 "That I cannot do. They think I got dirty feelings
because I am a widder man living by myself in the back.
But for you what is so young and nice-looking, it is a
present, the wink, to the ladies what ain't so young no
more."

 Just then, Denny saw Maggie-Now turning in to the
store. He knew that Winer did not know Maggie-Now. He
said, "Otto, let me try the wink and the smile on this
customer." Otto gave permission.

 Denny gave his sister a big wink. To Otto's
consternation, the lady winked back. "What can I do for
you, Tootsie?" asked Denny.

Otto, shocked, whispered: "Say 'Missus.'"

"Missus Tootsie." said Denny. "What's yours?"

"Do you have spareribs?" she asked.

  He made a great to-do about clutching his ribs and
feeling his back. "I thought I had some," he said. "But I
must have left them home, hanging up in the closet."

  That was better, thought Otto. He beamed. Denny
weighed and wrapped the ribs and Maggie-Now asked,
"How much?"

  "I'll let you have them for a nickel," said Denny, "if
you'll give me a big hug and a big kiss."

  "You go too far!" shouted Otto. "Excuse, lady," he said
to Maggie-Now, "but the boy is new here."

"That's all right," smiled Maggie-Now. "I'm his sister."

"No! "

"This is Maggie-No~v. I'm her baby brother."

"He is lucky baby, Missus Now," said Winer gallantly.

Denny laughed. "Mrs. Bassett. We just call her
Maggie-Now.'

"By me," said Winer, "she is always Missus Now."

                 [ 354 ]
                    
 Winer had never come across the word "lagniappe." Yet
he and many other storekeepers observed the custom. The
bulk of the shopping was done by children sent to the
store by their mothers. The kids patronized those
shopkeepers who gave them little treats. The Chinese
laundry man gave a lichee nut, the baker, a cookie, the
druggist a sweetwood stick to suck on, the butcher a slice
of bologna and so on.

 "Every kid what buys gets piece of bologna," Winer told
Denny. "A kid what comes in the first time, you know, she
did not come here before? She gets click slice worst to
knush on. She comes in again, it should be dimly."

 Denny asked about the alleged custom of weighing the
thumb with the meat. Winer was indignant.

 "The thumb, it is not meat. We don't weigh that. You
only weigh the thumb when you don't want the customer
to come back no more."

"I don't get it, Otto."

 "Like that lady. You see how she comes in yesterday?
She says: 'Take back this weal stew what you sold me this
morning. It ain't fit a dog should eat it, especially my
husband. So now give me one pound without no bones or
gritzel or fat.' So I put the meat on the scale and I make
out I don't see so good and I look near to see how much
it says on the scale and I put my hand on the scale, it
should stand still, then I press the thumb down. Hard."

"Didn't she get wise?"

 "I wish so. Then she don't come here no more." Ele
made a rationalization. "A lady what likes to be snotty, is
right she pays extra for the thumb."

 It was these things that Otto knew and that he wanted
to be known by someone before he died. Ele stopped
worrying that the knowledge would be lost with his death,
now that he had Denny to teach these things to.

 In time, he taught Denny how to cut meat. Denny
learned fast. He had a great aptitude for meat. Denny
became very popular with the customers. Mothers told
their children: "When you go by Winer's ask that Denny
should wait on you. He don't skin people."

 Winer called Denny "I)inny," because Den-iss was too
difficult for him to say and the name Dinny was like an
affectionate

                  ~ 38S 1
                     
souvenir of the fate that had sent Denny to his store that
day.

 Winer depended a lot on Denny. Winer found he could
take things a little easier now. He experimented with new
combinations of food, because Dennv ate lunch with him
now and Winer liked to surprise him. Winer took walks in
the morning and naps in the afternoon while Denny tended
the store alone.

 Came the time when he left Denny in charge of the store
for a whole day. Winer was going over to Yorkville to
spend the day with a Landsmann, also a butcher. Denny
had long since been promoted to sweater, straw cuffs and
white bib apron. On this day, he got his stripes--a straw hat
to wear in the store.

 "There," said Winer, placing it on Denny's head with two
hands as though it were a crown. "Today you are full
butcher. Now I go to Yorkville and I would not stay all dav
if I did not trust you, Dinny."

 Denny was so accustomed to being mistrusted that he
didn't know whether Winer's remark was a compliment or
a warning. Denny tipped his nev. straw hat over one eye.
Winer frowned and set it straight on his head. Denny
always wore it straight after that.

 Denny had always wanted to know why butchers wore
straw hats in the store even in winter. At first, he thought
it was to prevent dandruff from falling on the meat. Then
he decided it Noms to prevent a butcher from running
bloody hands through his hair. Now he had a chance to
find out the truth.

 "Otto," he asked, "why do butchers always wear straw
hats in the store?"

"So people should know they're butchers," said Otto Winer.

         ~ CHAPTER ~ IFTY-SE VEN ~
THE neighbors who once eagerly discussed Denny's bad
ways,
because they had to talk about so1~et~ing, IIOW discussed
his
success just as eagerly because they still had to talk about
some
t/'i~zg. They used to warn their boys not to be like that
Dennv
                  ~'86'1
                     
Moore, now. Now they asked their kids, why couldn't they
be like Denny Moore? Once it had been agreed that he'd
end up in Sing Sing. Now it was agre. d that he'd own his
own butcher shop before too long.

 Mothers of marriageable daughters put off buying meat
until the daughter came home from work. Then it was:
"Go to Winer's before they close and tell Denny you want
four loin pork chops." At six each evening, there was
always a rush of girls in the store. Each time a girl came
in, Denny hoped it wasn't "That" Tessie and when it
wasn't Tessie he was disappointed.

 Maggie-Now and Wine r laid the foundation for a
teasing friendship. She bought all her meat at Winer's
now, and brought her foster children along A hen she
shopped.

 Nearly every Saturday night, Winer gave Denny some
delicacy to take home to Missus Now: a couple of veal
kidneys or a sweetbread or a Delmonico steak. She was
touched and grateful. And she told Winer so.

 He said: "I ain't so dumb like I look. If I give Dinny
meat to take home, how can he ask me for a raise?" And
he knew MaggieNow didn't believe that.

 She said: "Why, Mr. Winer! You're just terrible!" And
she knew Winer didn't believe that.

 Pat, of course, had to take a dark view of Denny's
profession. "Do you know, me boy," he said, "that when
you went in the butcher business, you gave up your great
right as far as the constitution is concerned?"

"No, I didn't. I can still vote when I'm twenty-one."

  "I mean the right to serve on a jury. In a murder trial,
they don't take butchers on the jury, because a butcher is
use' to blood and chopping off bones."

"Were you ever on a jury, Papa-"

"No. I had better things to do with me time."

  "Gee, Papa," said Denny "if I live until I'm a hundred,
I'll never understand how you figure thUlos out."

"I'm deep," explained Pat.

  One Sunday morning, Denny just happened to wander
over to the church on l\lontrose Avenue. He wanted to
see Tessie, he convinced himself, to drum up business for
Winer. He planned

                 1'38-, 1
                     
to say that they had just gotten a side of prime beef and,
if she'd like to stop in after her work, he'd give her a
good cut of steak.

 Tessie came out Title a young man. She saw Denny and
smiled all over. "Hello, Dennis," she said. "Hello, Tessie,"
he answered and started to walk an ay. Tessie spoke to
the man she was with and the man tipped his hat and left
her. Tessie started after Denny, then decided that she v.
as not the sort of girl who ran after a man.

 Denny hung around the house all that afternoon and
was short-tempered with everybody. He told his sister: "So
her mother wouldn't let her go out with me! And you
ought to see the bum that Tessie's going out with now."

 A few nights later, after Denny had had supper,
Maggie-Now said: "Denny, will yolk do something for
me?"

"Sure. What?"

 "I pressed your good suit today and polished your other
shoes...."

"Gee, Maggie-l!Tow, I don't want you shining my shoes."

 "Oh, I love to do it. I want you to get all dressed up and
go over to see Annie."

 "Do you think I'm crazy or something?" he asked in
sheer astonishment.

"I want her to see how very nice you turned out to be."

"Who cares what she thinks of me, one way or the other."

 "I was over to see Annie a couple of Sundays ago and
Tessie asked all about you. She said that every Sunday
when she comes out of church she alvv:lys hopes you'll be
waiting for her . . ."

 ". . . when your sister brought you here. How old was
she then? Yes, she had eighteen years, and you was a
baby, Denty, and Tessie was in my arms yet and Albie
wasn't even here yet."

 "I hardly remember that," said Denny, and Tessie smiled
as though he had said something very significant.

 "My, think on it!" said Annie. "And now you are such a
big man."

 She s.w that Denny wasn't listening. He sat there
looking at Tessie and Tessie sat there looking at him.

"I talk too much," said Annie, suddenly embarrassed.

 "Mrs. Vernacht," said Denny suddenly, "would you mind
if took your daughter out?"

~ ,8Y 1

"Take my Tessie out?"

"Yes. Take Tessie out."

"She has the say of that," said Annie.

"Well, what do you say, Tessie?" he asked.

"When:" she asked right back.

 In this way was the pact between them made and it
would endure for all of Tessie's life.

 Annie knew the inevitable. She sighed as she thought:
He ain't rich, but he has a good trade and now he is a good
plan. What more could a mother ask from God, only that
her daughter gets a good man?

 A two-year courtship started with that first date. In that
more leisurely era, courtship was considered the happiest
time of a young girl's life. It was a tender interlude of
man and girl adoring each other; of presenting their best
aspects to each other; of considerate attentions given and
received; presents given each other that would be kept
and cherished and handed down to the children.

 It was the growing excitement of getting to know each
other well; it was the delight of kissing and
embracing the drawn-out prelude to the ultimate
physical togetherness that came with mar

riage.

 Too soon after marriage, things would get tough. The
children would come along pretty soon one after
another, because in their religion children wele the
objective of marriage. There would never be enough
money. There would be sickness and debts and work and
worry and little time for acts of tenderness. The bright
articulation of courtship Could dribble away into mono-
syllabic communication. The essential love between them
would seem lost. But it would be there. It would be there
in their memories of their loving and wonderful courtship.

"We'll be different," they told each other.

  "I won't be like some women," said Tessie, "and get
sloppy as soon as I have you for good. No matter how
much housework there is how many children there
are I'll have my hair curled and my nails manicured
when you come home from work and I'll treat you as
though you were company."

"And 1," said Denny, "will be just as polite to you as
though

                 1 359 1
                    
you were a girl I'd jtiSt met and was anxious to make a
little time with."

 "And," said Tessie, "we'll have dates, pretending we're
not married but just going steady. And we'll get dressed
up and go out on Saturday night to a show or a dance or
a nice dinner someplace like we do now."

"And I will respect your mother," he said.

 "And I will keep on loving your sister the way I do now
and I will be nice to your father."

"Yes," they agreed. "We'll he different."

        .~N CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT ~

AT ~ lIE turn of the century, Winer had bought two
acres of farm land in a sparsely settled place out on the
Island, called Hempstead. He had only paid a hundred
dollars for the land. But now Hempstead was growing into
quite a city and Winer had a notion that a de luxe butcher
shop would do well out there.

 "Otto wants to sell choice meats there and stuff from all
over the world like Italian pepperoni and Westphalian
ham," Denny explained to his sister. "I le wants a cheese
department with fancy cheese from every nation in the
world. And caviar and even snails, I guess. Truffles, he
said, too. A lot of people in Hempstead are well off and
would go for stuff like that. At least, that's what Otto
thinks."

"What do you think about it, Denny?"

 "Oh, he wants Tessie and me to move out there after he
sets it up. Ele wants me to manage it for him."

 Maggie-Now's heart fell. Now he will go from me, she
thought, like ClafJde afZd the children. Ilt first they'll come
if, to see me once a week, then once a mofZth, once every
three months arid then it quill be of Zce a year at Christmas
or my birthday.

"Are you?" she asked.

"Oh, I'd like to fine,' said Denny. "Only Tessie doesn't
want

                 ~ 39  1
                    
to be so far away from her mother. So I told Winer I
wasn't interested."

  Mixed with her relief that he wasn't going (although if
he had said he was, she would have encouraged him to
go) was indignation that Tessie would stand in his way. He
should tell her that's what he wants, she thought. She'd go
with him.

"Anyhow, it's still only .m idea in Otto's mind."

  The wedding was set for the coming June. In the
beginning of March, Denny asked Claude would he be his
best man? Claude seemed very pleased and flattered and
said he'd be honored.

  Denny told Maggie-Now that Claude had accepted the
role of best man. "That means he won't go away this
spring. And you'll have him around to take the place of
me pestering you all the time," he said affectionately.

"Don't count on it, Dennv. He'll go away again in March."

"Not after he promised."

"He'll go. Ile'll always go."

"Listen, Maggie-Now. People change, you know."

"Not at our age, Denny. (2laude's and mine. Things are
set with

us."

Claude went away in March.

 Plans for the wedding went forward. Annie and
Maggie-Now sat together many an afternoon and sewed
for Tessie. Annie made her daughter an oval rag rug and
Maggie-Now admired it so much that Annie made one for
her, too. Denny and Tessie found a modest three-room
apartment that was halfway between Annie's home and
Maggie-Now's house.

 The girls at Tessie's store gave her a shower and Winer
said that after Denny married he could take home from
the store all the meat he needed at wholesale prices. That
was his wedding gift. Tessie even got a present from her
boss, a brand-new fivedollar bill set in slots in a flowered
folder that said, Congrat?clations! This unexpected
kindness gave Tessie the courage to ask if she could keep
her job after marriage. He said, no, business was awfully
slow.

                 [3g! I
                    
"Then who'll bring tile girls change after I'm gone?"

'Me."

"Will you dust the hard\i-are counter, too?"

 "No. The girls will rake thorns doing that. Whenever
they go to the washroom, they can stop a second on their
way back to dust."

"You never needed ale in the first place, then," she said.

 "First off I did," he saicl. "But I don't now. They say this
depression is only temporary that business will pick up
again by Christmas. But I don't know. I should have laid
you off but I didn't because I thought you'd need the
money getting married and all. And besides, I kept you
on for Auld Lang Syne like they say New Year's live. You
see, Tessie, your mother worked for my father and you
worked for me, maybe a daughter of yours might work for
my SO'I, sollledaN'."

 Tessie told Maggie-Now: "He said he didn't need me.
It's sad to think that you weren't needed even in a dime
store."

"I know," said Maggie-No\v. "Everybody likes to be
needed."

 ``And ,'70U know what else he said? He said that
maybe a daughrer of nnine \7Y'ill work for his son
someday. Imagine!" she said indignantly. "No daughter of
mine will ever work in a dime store! "

 That's what hey mother sairl, thought I\laggie-Now, Shell
7 essie was little. Ah, w ell . . . She sighed just like Annie.

 "Here s a last-minute present for you and Denny. It's
from Lottie. You heard us speak of her?"

 "Yes, and I'd love to meet her sometime," Tessie said
auton~atically.

 The present, of course, was the china dog with the
nursing puppies. Tessie laughed hysterically. "That's the
funniest thing I ever saw," she said.

 "I have to tell you, 1 essie, it's not for keeps. Lottie
forgets. In a little while, she'll forget she gave it to you
and Denny and she'll think it's lost and she;ll go around
the house looking for it and crying. I'll have to sneak it
back."

'Of course," said Tessie.

"llut she did think of you."

 'That was nice," said Tessie. In an offhand way, she
added: 'Poor thing!"

                 1 3971
                    
 It was June, it NvaS a Saturday night, and it was the
night before the wedding. There was an excited hush in
the house, the same excited hush that fills a house at a
birth, a wedding and a death. Each member of the
household goes about with a private look on his face as
though recognising acknowledging the great verities of
birth, marriage and death.

 Tessie and Denny had gone to confession, she to her
German church and Denny to Father Flynn. The marriage
would take place in Tessie's church. But after the
marriage Tessie would always go to her husband's church.

 The boy came from the cleaner's with Denny's suit.
MaggieNow brought the suit hi to her brother. He was
sitting in his room on his cot. She remembered how she
had found him there the day she married Claude and he
had said he wanted to go with her and she had knit It
down before him....

"Your suit," she said.

  "Thanks." She hung it in his closet. He said: "Sit with me
a minute before you put the kids to bed." She sat next to
him on the cot. He put his arms around her. "My mama,
my sister, my Maggie-Now."

  She smiled. "Remember hose N' tl stole the little flags
from the cemetery? "

"A man gave them to me," he said in pretended
indignation.

"Happy?" she asked.

"Can't tell you how much," said Denny.

  "Denny, it's your last night home. Go upstairs, and talk
to Papa for a while."

"He and I have nothing to talk about," said Denny shortly.

  "Just the same, he's yol r father and you can overlook
his waN7s one more time."

"All right." Denny went up to say good-by to his father.

  Jamesie gave his sister away and Albie was Denny's best
man. Tessie had a girl from the dime store as her
bridesmaid. Cholly, who had continued being friends with
Denny since the time Denny had worked for him and
Sonny, chauffeured the wedding party around in his car.

  Van Clees, who had known and loved Tessie and Denny
since they were born, treated t!le wedding party to a duck
dinner out

                [ 3'7' ]
                    
on the Island. That was his gift. Of course, Cholly drove
them out.

  Van Clees couldn't stand Cholly. Cholly's jokes irritated
him. "Know what a duck dinner is?" asked Cholly. "You
duck in a place, have a cup of coffee and duck out again."

  "Wisenheimer," muttered Van Clees. But he had to put
up with Cholly, because, after all, Cholly had the car.
There were ten in the party: Annie, Maggie-Now, Pat,
Van Clees, Jamesie, Albie, the newlyweds and Tessie's
attendant, and Cholly.

  Van Clees hadn't counted on Cholly. He'd brought
along only enough money for nine dinners and a dollar tip
for the waiter. Van Clees wasn't stingy. He was merely
careful with his money. In order to pay for Cholly's
dinner, Van Clees ordered only a bowl of chowder for
himself and decided to cut the waiter's tip to seventy-five
cents.

  Cholly, as always, dominated the festivities. "Hey,
Maggie!" he hollered down the long table. "Remember
me? You laughed at me when I sat down on the park
bench next to you. But when I started to play . . . Oh,
boy!"

  Maggie-Now gave him her wide smile. Cholly was
getting stout and he was almost bald now, but to
Maggie-Now he was still the flashing young boy who
reminisced on the piano those many years ago.

  Cholly wouldn't let anybody talk. "I remember when I
was first married to Gina," he said. "Her name is Regina
but ever,vbody calls her Gina. Well, sir, the morning after
our first night, she gets out of bed. 'Hey! Where you
going, Gina?' I said. She says, 'To make your coffee.' I
says, 'Get right back in this bed where you belong,' I savs."

  "Listen, you!" interrupted Pat. "You tell a off-color story
in front of the wimmin, and I'll puck you right in the
nose."

  Cholly was so wound up in his anecdote that he paid no
attention to Pat. " 'Get back in bed,' I says. 'Why?' she
says. 'Because I never drink coffee,' I says. 'I only drink
Postum,' I says."

  They laughed, partly in relief that it wasn't a dirty story,
with a fist fight as an aftermath, and partly out of
politeness because, after all, Cholly had supplied the
transportation.

  At the end of the dinner, Van Clees presented Denny
with a box of fine, hand-rolled Havana cigars. He made a
courtly little speech.

                  ~ 394 1
                     
 "I give you these that you should share them out to all
your friends what was not lucky enough to marry Tessie."

 Of course, Pat had to have one then and there.
Motivated by some black thing in his soul, he took the
cigar apart and stuffed the expensive tobacco in his
five-cene clay pipe, and smoked it. Van Clees held back
his tears.

 Denny and Tessie had a few hours of honeymoon a
night in a reserved room at the Pennsylvania Hotel over
in Manhattan with breakfast served in their room the
next morning. They had a night and morning of
undreamed luxury for ten dollars and tips.

 Around midnight, Cholly called up the hotel and told
Dennis it was the manager spearing and that Mr. Dennis
Moore would have to get that strange woman out of his
room before the police got there.

 T hey came together, they loved and they married. In
innocence. and never dreaming how c ourageous they
were, they started a new life together and a new
generation of their own.

 It was late in the following November. Claude had been
home a week. He had brought with him a half-grown
Siamese cat that someone had abandoned. They sat in the
kitchen watching the cat lap up a saucer of evaporated
milk.

"Tessie's going to have a baby in May," she said.

 "I know," said Claude "They asked me to be godfather,"
he said proudly.

"But that will be May.'

"Of course."

 They asked him, she thought, so that he'd stay this spring.
Bitt he won't. She sighed.

"If it's a boy, they're going to name him . . ."

"Claude?" she interrupted.

"Good Lord, no! John Bassett Moore."

"That's a beautiful name!"

"My name! Bassett!" h said with deep satisfaction.

Maybe he wild stay, she thought hopefully.

Christmas was a little fad with Denny gone hut
l\laggie-NoNv

                  [39il
                    
and Claude trimmed a tree for the home children and he
gave her a cuckoo clock for Christmas. The children were
entranced by it as was the canary, Timn,y TNVO. (The
first Timmy had died some years ago.) When the cuckoo
came out to call the hour, the bird sang hysterically in
competition and the cat lashed his tail and the little boys
laughed.

 It was Annie's first Christmas Eve alone. Jamesie and
Tessie were in their own homes and Albie was at his girl's
house. But Jamesie came over for a few minutes as he did
every Christmas. He gave his mother a ten-dollar bill and
ordered her to buy something foolish with it. Annie said
she'd buy a pair of Educator shoes. Jamesie asked her to
keep the gift under her hat because he didn't want his
wife, Shirley, to know. Not that she'd care, he said loyally,
but . . .

 Annie saw him to the door. He put a warm Christmas
kiss on her cheek. They spol<e tile words of their yearly
ritual. "You are my Mom," he said.

"And you are my good son," she said.

         :~ CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE ~

IT WAS early in March. "] saw Tessie in the store today,"
MaggieNow told Claude. "She expects the baby in May.
She told me to remind you that you promised to be
godfather."

"She did>" he said absently.

  "You remember. Denny asked you way back in
November  right after you came home. They're going to
name it John F',assett. "

"It will be a girl, of co lrse."

  Her heart sank at his indifference. She had hoped
against hope that he wouldn't go away that spring or
would at least stay until the baby was christened. He had
seemed so pleased in the winter about the child's name.
NONV her hopes were gone.

When that day came in March, he left.

                 ~ 39` 1
                    
 The baby was a girl. ~ o Maggie-Now's relief, Tessie
had an easy time of it. Maggie-Now had worried. Tessie
always looked so frail. But Tessie came out fine. While
she was at the hospital, Denny stayed with Maggie-Now.
He slept on the lounge in the front room. Maggie-Now
was happy. It seemed like old times having Denny home
again.

 When it was time for Tessie to leave the hospital,
MaggieNow suggested that Denny and Tessie and the
baby stay with her a week or two until Tessie got on her
feet. Tessie accepted the invitation gratefully and they all
moved in.

 Denny and Tessie had Maggie-Now's bedroom with the
baby in a pillowed wash basket on the dressing table.
Maggie-Now slept on the lounge in the front room. It was
a very happy two weeks for Maggie-Now. The house Divas
full and it was wonderful to her to cook large meals. The
only thing was that Maggie-No wanted to hold the baby
all the time and Tessie, a modern mother who put her
baby on a strict schedule, didn't let Maggie-Now hold and
cuddle the baby.

 Annie came over and they tried to decide whom the
baby looked like. Tessie thought she looked like
Maggie-Now and Denny thought she looked like Tessie,
and Annie thought she looked like Gus.

 Annie fretted because the baby was ten days old and
hadn't been christened. Tessie had decided to call her
Mary Lorraine. Mary, after Denny's mother, and Lorraine,
a name that Tessie would have liked for herself. The
christening was delayed because Tessie wanted a godmoth,
r for her child named Mary. There was no one in the
family named Mary and none of the women had a friend
named Mary. It was Maggie-Now who suggested they ask
Father Flyrm to find a Mary.

 "Good day, Father," said Maggie-Now. "We came
because Tessie wants to ask you something."

"Come in the house, do," he said, "and sit down."

 Tessie had never seen Father Flynn outside of the
church. She was surprised at how old he looked.

"Yes, Theresa?" said the priest.

 "It's this way, Father. I want to christen my baby iNlary.
I need a godmother named Mary but I don't knolls
anyone named Mary."

                 [ 397 ]
                    
 "So we thought, Father," said Maggie-Now, "that you
might know someone in the parish . . ."

 "Ah, there are many Marys," he said. He riffled through
his memory. "Mary O'Brien . . . No, they moved out on
the Island. The Bacianos have one. No. That's a Mario;
a male. Yes! Ah!" He put his pipe aside, leaned back in
his chair and smiled. "I have your baby's godmother,
Theresa." He waited, enjoying the suspense. "Mrs.
O'Crawlcy."

"Who, Father?" asked Tessie.

"Margaret knows Mrs. O'Cravvley, don't you, Margaret?"

"Her name is Mary?" asked Maggie-Novv, surprised.

"I have told you so, Margaret."

 "I mean," said Maggie-Now, "it just seems funny that I
never knew her first name was the same as my mother's."

 "I'm glad it's somebody you know, Maggie-Now," said
Tessie. "Do you think she'll be godmother, Father?"

"How would it be, now, if I asked her?" said the priest.

  "Oh, Father! " breathe d the two w omen simultaneously
in gratitude.

  "Settled! Baptism this Sunday coming at four. You have
a godfather, Theresa?"

"My brother Albie."

"Good! "

  They prepared to league. " l hank you, Father, for
giving us your time," began Maggie-Now.

"A moment," said the priest. Ile raised his voice. "Father?"

  A very young priest with a thin, serious face, and
wearing eyeglasses, came into the room Maggie-Now and
Tessie stood up and remained standing. They had heard
that a new priest had come to the parish to help Father
Flynn.

"This is Father Francis Xavier Clunny."

  How young he is, thought Tessie. No older than Dennis
and all that education behind him!

  "Father, this is Margaret .T\fu`'re. I should SaN'
Rassett," he corrected himself. "I christened her."

  Father Francis stared at the tall, buxom,
rmotherly-looking' woman and then stared at Father
Flynn as though astonished that the frail little priest had
managed to baptize her.

"And Theresa Moore,' continued Father Flvnn. "She married
or 77 fly 1

Margaret's brother all-out a year ago." The young priest
murmured the names as though memorizillg them.
"Margaret," continued Father Flynn, "goes by the name of
Maggie-Now."

"Maggie whoa " asked E ether Francis.

  "The name was put on her because she was wild as a
girl." Maggie-Now blushed, ashamed, yet pleased at the
attention she was getting. "Oh, you never heard the like of
it," continued Father Flynn. "Always her mother calling
through the house and up and down the street:

" 'Maggie' now come and study your catechism!'

"'Maggie, now stop being such a tomboy!'

  "Maggie, now this, and Maggie, now that. And one day
her mother said: 'Maggie, now you have grown up into a
good girl.'

  "It was then her dying mother put her new-borll baby in
this good girl's arms," said Father Flynn.

  Remembering, the always easy tears came to
Maggie-Now's eyes. All was quiet in the room for a while.
Father Francis was arranging all the information he'd
received.

  The mother died, then he thought, and this girl . . .
=~07nan reared the baby and the Libby must have grown
up to marry the younger ~voma7z . . . both s~lrnn~77es
the same before the older woman married....

  The sun was almost gone and night was coming on.
Back in the kitchen another in the series of Father Flynn's
aged housel~eepers was banging pots around as her
predecessors had done.

  A feller passed on the street, whistling "Ma, He's
Making Eyes at Me." Unknowingly, Father Flynn's foot
tapped out a bit of the rhythm. Father Francis frowned
fiercely unti] the whistling faded

away.

 "Father Francis has lately been ordained," said Father
Flynn. "He was sent here to help me. My parish is growing
all out of bounds and I am growing old." He sighed and
looked about the worn and mellow room as though he
loved it very much. "Father Francis will be your priest
after I'm gone."

 "You're not thinking of dying yet, Father, are you>"
asked ,Nlaggie-Now politely.

 "No. But I'm thinking of a vacation. If my Bishop will
grant it. I'd like to gTO to Quebec. The snow . . . You
see, I was quite a

                 [ ~ 99 1
                     
skier many years ago when I was a boy."

 Father Francis made a sound of surprise and admiration
as though the older priest had admitted that he'd scaled
the Matterhorn. Maggie-Now remembered the skis she'd
seen in the church basement long ago.

 "Of course, that's all behind me now. It was fifty or
more years ago. And now, for a little while, I'd like to be
where it's cold and there are hills and where the snow is
hard and dry and powdery "I like the snow, you know.
And I'd like to watch the young people ski. Well . . ." he
rose, signifying that the visit w as over.

 "Father Francis will be saying his first Mass here,
Sunday. Eleven o'clock. You will be there, both of you,
and see to it that all members of the family attend." It was
an order. "At four, Father Francis will perform his first
baptism, your child, Theresa."

 He walked to the door with them and gave each his
blessing and a Sacred Heart scapula.

 Outside, there was a wooden box nailed to the door. A
card above it read: Coal Fund. f or Parish House.
Maggie-Now groped around in her pocketbook for a dime.

"But Maggie-Now," said Tessie, "that's for last winter's
coal."

 "I suppose they'll need coal for next winter though." She
dropped a dime in the box.

 "l\lany years ago," said Father Francis, "when I had my
vocation, I never thought it would lead me all the way to
Brooklyn." Father Flynn smiled. "I'm glad I was sent to
this parish. There's work needed here, much work."

 Had what does he Thirsk 7': e heed doing here all these
years, thought Father Flynn.

 "I've never thought of it as 'work,'" said Father Flynn.
"My duty? Yes. My obligation? Yes. And sometimes my
pleasure."

 "I meant work outside the Church," explained Father
Francis. "These are the facts: This is a slum area; the
standard of living is low. Cultural values . ."

 "Sociology 2, they called that course when I was a
freshman," said Father Flynn with a smile.

"Rut seriously, Father . . ."

                   1 4
                     
 "Seriously, my son, I will not have my people patronized
or labeled 'Underprivileged' or referred to as the 'Little
People.' They are decent and hard-working, most of them,
and their sins are venial for the most part."

"But they are poor," insisted Father Francis, "and . . ."

 "So in the end was your namesake of Assisi poor. Now,
my son," continued Father Flynn, "if the people,
themselves, have not realized by now how poor they are,
it's not up to you to tell them."

 But, thought Father Flynn, I talked just like him when I
came here to my first parish. Poor Father Wingate! What he
",~ust have put up quith from me!

 "Did I sound so pompous?" asked the young priest,
seriously concerned.

 "No more than I did when I first took over here. Father
Wingate warned me not to try to change the world in an
hour. I recall that he said a young man wanting to change
the world is a reformer; a middle-aged man who would do
the same is a meddler. But when an old man tries it, he's
an eccentric and a fool."

 "I had not thought to reform . . . but to make things a
little better... yes."

"Vanity,;' said Father Flynn.

"I ask forgiveness for my sin," said the young priest.

 "It is right that you wish to work to make things better,
but don't do it by making the people dissatisfied with what
they have. Take them as they are and for what they are.
Find them good, but needing correction from time to
time."

 "Needing correction from time to time," repeated Father
Francis as though memorizing a lesson. "Thank you,
Father."

 The housekeeper came in and announced bitterly:
"Supper soon. In case you want to wash up." She went
back to the kitchen.

 "I like a glass of wine before my supper," said Father
Flynn to the new priest. "Will you join me?"

 "Thank ~you, but no. l don't believe that wine, except
as used in Holy Communion . . ."

 "Ah, Francis, you make me feel like a satyr with my bit
of wine once a day."

                  1 401 J
                     
  'Oh, no! Who am I to . . . it so happens I have a little
satyr in note," confessed the earntst young man. "I like a
good cigar, myself, once in a while," he said airily.

'How many do you smol:e?"

  "Three a w eek. One every other day, Sundays excepted,
of course."

"What kind "

"Corona."

"Corona-Coron3 ? "

  "No. The one-\vord kind. They cost five cents each. But
I've been thinking of changing to Between the Acts. You
get more."

  "We will spare you that sacrifice. Our good Lutheran
friend, ~ fine cigar maker, will ke:p you supplied with
good Havana cigars. And it will give him great happiness
to do so."

  "I prefer not to accept gifts. The people of this parish
can t afford . . ."

  "Yes, it is a poor parish," agreed Father Flynn. "All the
more reason we should accept with grace the small
comforts that come our way."

  Father Flynn looked in turn at the humidor of tobacco,
his rack of pipes, the decanter of wine, and at the lilac
tree in bloom outside the window. All were gifts of
parishioners or of nonCatholics who happened to dike
him.

  "Small comforts," continued Father Flynn, "do much to
lessen the strain of making ends meet. Small comforts give
a certain serenity to life and a serene man is a tolerant
man. A harried man is not a tolerant man."

He sipped his wine.

  "I w ould not deny a poor man the privilege the rich
man has  the privilege of being generous. I would not
deny the poor man the grace he feels when he is
graciously thanked for a gift graciously given. It makes
him feel like a king."

  "I have my own way of looking at things, Father," said
the y oung priest eal-rlestly. "In time, i n-`ay see things as
you do. But it has to come to me in my own time and my
own way."

  Father Flynn finished his wine. "You are a good boy,
Francis, he said. "And after supper would you let me try
one of your (:oronas? "

Father Francis had but two in his pocket. Eagerly, he gave

                  [ 4 ~ ]
                     
one to Father Flynn. Tile old priest sniffed it and admired
its shape.

 "Not bad! Not bad at all! It will be a welcome change
from pipe smoking. Thank you, my son. I hope you won't
run short?"

"Oh, no! No! "

 Father Francis glo\ved all over at Father Flynn's thanks.
He felt like a king in a sort of humble way.

            ~ CHAPTER SlXI'Y ~

EVERYONE went to Father Francis' first High Mass,
except Tessie who had gone to an earlier Mass in order to
stay home and mind the children. Even Mrs. O'Crawley,
who was a member of another parish, came. After the
service they stood outside the church.

 "He sang the Mass beautifully, just beautifully," said
Mrs. O'Crawley, holding up her hand to button her tight
kid glove.

"He has the voice for it," said Maggie-Now.

"Better than Father Flynn, anyhow. He's tone-deaf," said
Pat.

"Patrick! Is that nice?" said Mrs. O'Crawley possessively.

"Did I say it was nice to be tone-deaf?"

 Pat was in one of his argumentive hair-splitting moods.
He was going to make somebody pay for making him go
to a long High Mass instead of one of the shorter ones.

 "Will you stop at the house and have a cup of coffee
with us, Mrs. O'Crawley?" asked Maggie-Now.

 "Thank you, Mrs. Bassett, but I must get home. I'm
making a veal shoulder with a pocket for dressing, for
dinner. And, Patrick, I'll expect you at one for dinner.
After, we can walk to the church together for the
christening."

 After the baby had been christened, all went to
Maggie-Now's house for coffee and cake. Except Annie,
who went over to straighten up Tessie's apartment
because the little family w as going back to its own place
to live.

                  ~ 1 ] 1
                     
 "It was beautiful, just beautiful!" said Mrs. O'Crawley as
she skinned off a tight kid glove. "The way Father Francis
said that about renouncing Satal and all his angels . . .
Just beautiful!"

"I can't thank you enough for the locket," said Tessie.

 "It was nothing! Nothing!" said l\Irs. O'Crawley. "Just a
little something."

"And for being godluotller,'' said L)enn>.

"It was an honor."

 "Yeah. But don't let that -ice )'Oti the ide:Zr that you
O\VM me O Crawley," said Pat.

 To divert pat, Mag rie-IN'`,w S.liti: "And Albie made a
fine godfather."

"Beautiful!" agreed Mrs. O'(:rawiev.

 "Thanks!" said Albie hoarsely. "I got to So now.
(lood-hv.'' Ple was off.

 Pat left with Mrs. O (Hartley. Denny and Iessie packed
and got ready to leave.

"You've been awful nice to me, ~\laggie-Novv," said
Tessie.

  "You spoiled her, Mat gie-No\v," said Denny. "She won't
be fit to live with."

  "I wish I could stay here," said Tessie wistfully. "It's
lonely in that apartment Denuis away all day. Only home
an hour for lunch."

  "Come over anytime,' said Maggie-No\v. "And bring
Marv I.or-rainy. "

"Lor-raine!" corrected Tessie, a little sharply.

"She's tired," said Dc nny, apologising for his wife.

  "I1ere! " said Tessie, immediately sorry. "You can hold
the baby a minute, Maggie-Now."

  After they had left, .\laggie-Now changed the sheets on
her bed and put her little possessions back on the dressing
table. (She had put them away while Denny and Tessie
used her room.) She bathed her two foster babies, gave
them their supper and put them to bed. She had a
sandwich and a cup of coffee for her supper. To use
cooking for only one, she thought. She ate standing up
and from the top of the A ashtub. She couldn't bear to sit
alone at the big table where so many had sat the last week
or so.

  She went through the rooms looking for something to
do. Everything was in apple-pie order. It was too early to
start the

                  [ 4 4 ]
                     
oatmeal. The cuckoo clack struck once, and Timmy the
bird answered with a tired chirp. It was only six-thirty. She
covered the birdcage and went in to sit by the front
window. It was going to be a long, lonely evening for her.

 Maybe, she thought hopefully, one of the children nzight
wake up and need something. She sat and waited . . .
waited to be needed.

 She walked into Winer's store. It was a very hot day in
July; too hot to take the children shopping with her. She
had talked her father into keeping an eye on them while
she shopped. She asked Winer could she have a nice piece
of chuck for pot roast. As he served her, she asl.ed where
Denny was.

 "Dinny goes home by his house now for dinner with the
wife and the baby."

 "That's right. I forgot," said Maggie-Now. "Business any
better, Mr. Winer?" she asked.

 "Worser," he said. "The neighborhood so bad is getting.
No one buys good meat no more. The colored people
come in and all want hog chowls. And how many chowls
gives it one hog? Then they want neck bones and how
many necks is one hog got? And they ask for this thing,
side meat. And the rest of the hog stands there.

"And all these new people what moves in; what speaks
Spick."

"Speaks Spick?"

 "You know: Aba-dabba-dabba? They ask for meat in
Spick and I would not say to you how they say it. You
would think I was cursing at you.

 "When does your man come home, Missus Now?" he
asked suddenly.

"Sometime after Thanksgiving."

"Is long time yet."

"Yes," she agreed with a sigh.

 "When the winter is done," he said, "then I build my
never store in Hempstead. Now is time. The men what
work don't ask so much money now and all things for
building is cheaper." He hesitated, then went on, "I talked
to Dinny he should be boss of the new store. I tell him
I build a little house for him and the family he should
pay me off like rent."

"That's so nice of you, Mr. Winer."

                  [ IS ]
                     
 ' Oinny likes it. But the wife . . ." I le shrugged. "She
don't Leant to go far away from tile mama. But I wait and
see. Dinnv's a good boy. He will do via hat is good for
all."

"I know he will."

 "He is like son to me. And maybe u hen I die . . . We
see." he said mysteriously.

 In September when ~ he nurse came from the home
for her monthly inspection, she asked Maggie-Now
wouldn't she like to take another baby? She had a nice
empty room, observed the nurse, and there vitas no I
eason why she couldn't have a third foster child if she
vanished.

 I\laggie-Now was delighted. She said she hoped he'd be
a very young baby so that she c ould have him a very long
time.

 A few weeks later, the nurse brought her a
three-month-old baby. His name was Matthew; Matty for
short. He had a large birthmark on his little cheek. The
nurse said it didn't matter so much with a boy. But it
would be bad on a girl. But, added the nurse, as soon as
he was old enough, the home would see about having it
removed.

         A C'HAP<1'ER SIXTY-ONE ~

WRY ONE said that the November of that year was the
coldest they remembered. On one of the coldest days,
when there was an icy wind blowing and the very hair in
one's nostrils froze, Father Francis set out to make some
parish calls. Toward evening, an icy rain began to fall.
Father Francis came home with wet shoes and four dollars
and thirty cents in contributions for the parishhouse coal
fund. The young priest took off his wet muffler and his
wet coat and his wet shoes. He put on his slippers and
went down and put some coal on the furnace fire and
shook down the ashes.

  "If we go to bed immediately after supper and prayers,"
suggested Father Francis, "we can save on coal."

"No," said Father Flynn. "We may be needed this night.
The

                  ~ 406 ~
                     
cold spell has held on too long and there are old people
who may be dying and we must be available."

 "I had better get my shoes dried then." He stuffed
wadded papers into his shoes. He had but the one pair.
"Has the doctor been by?"

 It was the kindly custom of one of the neighborhood
doctors to inform the priest, the rabbi and the Methodist
minister, by phone or personal call, when one of their
parishioners was seriously ill.

 "No, he hasn't. But, mark my words, Patrick Dennis
Moore will send for me before the night is out. For the
past ten years now, when the cold and snow of winter sets
in, he has the idea he's going to die and he wants the
Church. Well, one of the times may be the time."

 And sure enough! While they were eating their supper,
a neighbor boy came and said Maggie had sent him
because her father was dying and asking for the priest.
Poor Father Francis took the paper out of his still-wet
shoes and shrugged into his still-wet coat.

 It was beginning to snow as they left. Ah! thought
Father Flynn. But he said nothing. A pale and quiet
Maggie-Now met them at the door with a lighted candle.
She genuflected and preceded them into the house in the
proper way and took the two priests up to her father's
room. The bedside table was prepared with crucifix and
candles and the needed things.

 As in other years, there were clean sheets on the bed
and dried blood on Pat's face from Maggie-Now's inept
barber work.

 Pat started talking right away. "You will forgive me,
Fathers," he said, "for getting you out in the weather."

And one of youse would have been enough, he thought.

 "But I'm not long for this world and I want to make me
peace with me God and me Church before I go."

 "You are prepared then, my son?" asked the young
priest of the man almost old enough to be his grandfather.
And there was no incongruity. The young priest was the
older man's spiritual father.

 "I have enough insurance to bury me," said Pat. "And a
bit of money in the bank to pay for Masses for the sake of
getting me out of purgatory when I go," said Pat. No one
but Father

                   tow]
                     
Flynn noticed he emphasised the word when.

 "Be no longer concerned with things of the world," said
good Father Francis. "Prepare yourself spiritually." Father
Francis cot his stole out of his black leather bag.

He believes me! thought Pat in a panic.

 Maggie-Now started to cry. Father Flynn touched her
am' and said: "Come, my c hild." They started to leave the
room.

"Where are you going, Father?" asked Pat, really scared
now.

 "Downstairs. I leave you in the good hands of Father
Francis, my son." The door closed after his daughter and
Father Flynn.

 Pat heard them in the hall. He heard a sob from
Maggie-Now and the murmurous voice of Father Flynn
saying, ". . . a speedy recovery or a happy death."

 They all believe note, thought Pat in despair-. Mild all I
Canted 'as to tell me priest lee troubles.

 Father Flynn noticed that Maggie-Now's kitchen v-as
freshlsscrubbed. There was a new white oilcloth cover on
the kitchen table. The chintz skirts that masked the ugly
built-in soapstone washtubs had been freshly washed,
starched and ironed. There was the good smell of good
cooking in the house, and, furnace or no, Maggie-Now
had a wonderful fire burning in the kitchen range and a
pot of coffee simmering on the back.

 As she poured a cup of coffee for her priest, Father
Flynn noted a strand of grey in one of the braids of her
brown hair. Yet she had an expectant air, subdued as was
natural with a dying man in the house or one whorls she
thought was dying. There was something radiant about
her like a bride waiting for her bridegroom.

"Have you had the doctor, AIargaret? "

"Papa wouldn't let me send for the doctor."

"When was he taken like this?"

 "After supper. And he ate such a good supper, too. He
asked for a clean nightshirt and went to bed. He asked me
to shave him. He said he was too weak. Then he said to
send for you because he knew he was dying."

"Like he did last year, ' said Father F lynx.

 "Like last year and all the other years when it starts to
snow. I'm afraid not to take him seriously because every
time I think it is real." She rubbed a tear from the corner
of her eve.

                 ~ Joy 1
                    
"When do you expect your husband back? "

"Any night, now."

 They talked some more Maggie-Now told him little
anecdotes about the children and made him smile. After
a while, Father Francis came down from upstairs.

"He rests quietly," reported Father Francis.

  "I'll go up and look at him," said Father Flynn.
"I\Iargaret, why don't you show Father Francis your
children?"

  She took the young priest into the bedroom where two
of the children slept. Then she took him into Denny's old
room, where the newest baby had his crib. The children
smelled fresh and clean and wore freshly washed and
ironed nightgowns. The rooms were bare but
immaculately clean.

  Back in the kitchen, she called his attention to the shelf
which ran the length of the room. On it was a row of
heavy white china bowls three of them three spoons,
three mugs and three bananas. There was a large pot of
oatmeal simmering on the back of the stove. She
explained that, in the morning, the bowls would be filled
with the hot oatmeal, sugar and milk added and a banana
sliced on top of each bowlful, and that and three mugs of
warmed milk would be breakfast for three babies.

  "Is it all right, Father?" she asked anxiously. "The way I
do for the boys from the home?"

  Father Francis had a flash of prescience. He knew that
often in the years to come a picture would come to him
unbidden: a picture of three mugs and spoons and bowls
and bananas. And prescience told him that he would have
that same impulse to weep as he had now. But he spoke
in a detached and judicial way.

  "You do well with our orphaned children, Margaret.
They are safe, warm, well-fed and well-loved."

"Thank you, Father. I am pleased and rewarded."

  Pat lay very still, scarcely breathing, until he saw it was
Father Flynn who came in not the other priest. Then Pat
sat up and began to talk indignantly.

"Ah, Father, the curse of ungrateful chiltllrcn!''

What now? thought Father Flynn.

  "I speak of me only son, Dennis Patthrick. He was sent
for. but do you think he comes to see his only father and
he at death's door? "

                 1 4~y 1
                    
"Dennis might think, possibly, that you're crying wolf
again."

"Wolf ? "

"I told you the story often enough."

"It slips me mind."

 The priest told him the fable again, concluding: "And
someday, you'll really need help and no one will come."

 "Is it becoming," asked Pat, "for a holy father to frighten
a poor soul who has no one in the world a-tall . . . but his
priest and his chilthren?" He sighed piteously. "But 'tis
true. No one cares for a man that is old."

"True, you are old, my son. True."

"I ain't so old, Father," said Pat indignantly.

  "Too old," continued Father Flynn, "to act the foolish
way you do."

  Pat felt the sudden need to mend his fences. "I am no
good atall. But I will do better from this day on."

  "You can," said the priest patiently. "You can do better
if you try."

  "And I All do better, Father. Yes, I will! Providing," he
bargained, "our Lord lets me live a long, long time."

"You will start doing better tomorrow morning."

  "Yes, yes," agreed Pat. "I'll get me a good night's sleep
first and . . ."

  "You will be at the church at six tomorrow morning
prepared to make a good confession."

"But I did! I did! This very night!"

  "You will confess that, after receiving Extreme Unction,
you started sinning all over again in word and in thought."

"Could you not make it nine o'clock, Father?"

"Six o'clock."

  Denny and Tessie didn't get over until eight that night.
Tessie made hi m eat his supper first. They had to wrap
up Mary Lorraine in a blanket and carry her with them
because there was nobody to stay with the` baby.

  Denny was on edge from worrying about his father. He
never believed his father was faking in spite of the fact
that Pat always put on the dying act when he wanted
attention. Yes, dike Shakespeare's coward, Pat died many
times before his death.

                  ~ 410 1
                     
 "He's fooled you and Maggie-Now before," said Tessie.
"What makes you think it's real this time?"

Denny pushed his plate away. ''I'm not hungry," he said.

  What that man does to his children, thought Tessie in
exasperation. Always feeding off their lives. And when I
think of my mother! If she was really dying, she'd deny it so's
eve wouldn't be vorried.

  Denny seemed to know what she was thinking. He said,
"Now, Tess, you don't have to go if you don't want to. The
drizzle's turning into snow and no one would blame you."

  "Oh, I'll go with you, Denn. Maybe he is real sick this
time. And I couldn't live with myself if I was mean and
didn't go and he really died."

  When they got to Maggie-Now's house, Tessie w as
fussing because the baby's blanket was wet and she was
worried about her taking cold. Maggie-~'ow hung the wet
blanket on a chair in front of the stove and placed Mary
Lorraine in the middle of her own bed.

"How's Papa?" asked Denny.

"Father Flynn and Father Francis just left."

"Do you think I can see Papa?" asked Denny.

  "Now, Dennis," said Tessie. "What do you think he sent
for you for?"

  Denny smoothed his hair and pulled his tie knot closer
and examined his fingernails. He was very nervous. When
he came into the room, Pat pretended to be asleep. He
tried to throttle down his breathing. He almost laughed
aloud when Denny cautiously placed a hand over his,
Pat's, heart, to check on his father's breathing.

  Let him worry his head off about me, thought Pat. It will
do him good.

"Papa?" Denny sounded worried. "Can you hear me?"

I've got him going, thought Pat.

  Denny tried his best to get through to Pat. Finally the
boy gave up. He tiptoed out of the room and closed the
door carefully.

  I hope he's good and Cared, thought Pat. That'll learn
him to neglect his father.

  Back again downstairs, Denny said to his sister, "I'm
sort of worried about Papa."

                   17/11
                     
"He'll be all right," said Maggie-Now.

 "Why did you send for the priest then?" asked Tessie.
"After all! "

 "Because I always gel: the priest when he asks. I
wouldn't want the responsibility of not getting him. In case
something happened."

 "That's all right, Maggie-No\v, as far as you're
concerned. But what about us? Denn works hard all day
and then he can't eat his supper he's so worried."

"Now, Tess," said Denny soothingly.

"And then we had to drag the baby out in the snow."

"Tessie, I told you! You didn't have to come."

 "I'm sorry I did. I should have thought first of my baby,
who has her whole life before her, than of some old man
who has to die anyhow sometime."

 "Denny has some obligation to his father," said
Maggie-Now evenly.

"His first obligation is to me and the baby," said Tessie.

 "And," said Denny, finally losing his temper, "after that
to your mother and your brother . . ."

"Why, Denn!" said Tessie, immediately hurt.

 Denny loosened his tie, ran his fingers through his hair,
started pacing and said: "The sooner Otto builds that
place in Hempstead and the sooner I get OUt there away
from all this, the better I'll like it!"

 Tessie was instantly ashamed of herself. "Aw,
Maggie-Now, honey, I'm sorry for blowing up. But you're
so swell that it makes me as mad as anything the way you
give in to your father."

"Oh, I don't mind humoring him, Tessie."

 "That's all right for you!" Tessie flared up again. "But it
makes it hard for Dennis and me. You give in to your
father, he expects Dennis to give in. You cater to him and
everybody else has to."

"Papa's dependent on me and I'm used to it, I guess."

 "Get unused to it," said Tessie. "Because it's going to be
tough for you when you get old and nobody . . ."

 "I'll always treat you as though you were company,"
quoted Lenny. "Remember, To ss? "

 "Yes. And," she quoted, "I'll always treat you like a girl
I just met that I'm anxious to make a little time with.
Remember when you said that to me?"

                  1 4! 1
                     
"You said, I will always love your sister and . . ."

 "And I do! I do!" She put her arms around Maggie-Now
and started to cry. "I didn't mean it, Maggie-Now. Honest!
I'm so wrong. I shouldn't talk to you that way. But I'm so
on edge all the time. The baby cries all night long and I
get behind in my housework and I'm alone all day and .
. ."

 "Listen," said Maggie-Now. "HONV long since you and
Denny went out together?"

 "Why . . . why it must have been last February. Yes, I
remember. I was showing so much by then I didn't want
to go out and then the baby came and . . ."

 "Look! You and Denn,` go out tonight. You can catch
the last part of the show at The Bushwick. Or have coffee
and waffles someplace. Anything to get out together."

"But the baby!"

"Leave her with me ovcrnigllt.''

"I couldn't!"

"You can and you will," said Denny.

"But the baby needs . . ."

"Maggie-Now's been taking care of kids all her life."

"But I mean the formula and the diapers."

 "Matty's about the same age as Mary Lorrainy," said
MaggieNow. "I can use the same formula. And I've got
hundreds of diapers. Nova you and Denny go out and
have yourselves a time."

 Tessie held out until Dtnny said: "Let's go out and
celebrate our first big fight."

 There was a thin covering of snow on the ground now.
MaggieNow watched Denny and Tessie go down the
street. Tessie took a running slide but her high heels
threw her off balance and Denny caught her and washed
her face with snow. She broke loose, scraped up a handful
of snow to throw at Denny. He caught her arm and made
her drop it and she squealed and he laughed and they ran
off down the street, hand in hand.

 Maggie-Now watched them out of sight. Just kids, she
thought tenderly. She took a moment to watch the snow
dancing about the lighted orange globe on the corner. The
globe meant there was a fire alarm box there. The white
snowflakes flashed orange as they went past the light

She went back to the kitchen and added half a cup of
water to

                  [ 4~3 ]
                     
the simn Bring oatmeal because it was getting a little
thick. She checked the orphans, arranging the covers more
securely on one and turning another, who was sleeping
upsidedown, the right way. She felt of Mary Lorraine,
whom everybody was beginning to call Rainy, to see if she
needed changing. Lastly, she went Lp to her father's room.

 He \vas on his knees on the floor, half under the bed.
"Papa! What are you doing?"

"Looking for me pipe."

  "Get right back in bed! Crawling on the floor and all. I
wish you'd rest more, Papa." She got him back into bed.

  "Rest, she says! And how can I be resting with me room
full of priests praying over me and me family downstairs
hollering and fighting and me only son out on the streets
with his German girl, jigging and hollering and doing I
don't know what."

"Oh, don't begrudge them a little fun."

  "I begrudge nobody nothing. All I ask is that me
chilthren leave me body get cold, first. before they hold
me wake." He jumped out of bed.

  "Get back ill bed! I've had enough out of you for one
day. Get your sleep because you're moving to Mrs.
O'Crawley's in the morning."

  "No you don't, me girl. No one is shoving me into the
O'Crawley's arms. I'll find me own room. I'll find a room
in some widder woman's house; a widder woman who'll be
glad to marry the likes of me with me pension and all and
carrying insurance."

"Mrs. O'Crawley's a widow," she suggested.

"Too old! She's fifty-five."

"You're sixty-four yourself."

"How did me age get in the conversation?"

"Oh, Papa," she sighed, "if you only would marry again!"

 "What would you do without me insurance then? Answer
'e that."

 "I don't want your insurance, Papa. I hope you live nany
years to come."

"That I will! T hat I chili! " he shouted.

"You don't have to holler so."

 "I'll holler all I w ant," he shouted, "and I won t die,
either. 1'1] live! I'll live just for spite!"

                  1 }~! 1
                     
"Live, then!" she hollered back. "Who cares?"

"I'll bury~youse all!" he roared. "I'll live to bury youse
all!"

 His curse rang through the house. The little orphan boys
downstairs trembled in their cribs. Mary Lorraine Moore
whimpered, wet her diaper, woke up and cried.

 Maggie-Now changed the baby's diaper, pulled a rocking
chair up close to the kitchen range and sat there rocking
Mary Lorraine and talking to her.

 "I'm going to hold you all I want tonight and rock you
and sing to you. Because you're my baby. My brother is
your father and my father is your grandfather and your
grandmother was my mother. You have the same blood
and bones and flesh that I have. So you're my baby. At
least, until tomorrow morning."

           ~ CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO ~

PAT left the next day for Mrs. O'Crawley's. At last, he
had decided to marry the widow. He would have to figure
out the best way to tell her. It never occurred to him to
ask her. He would have told her some time ago but for
one thing: She had two dead husbands and Pat, being
superstitious, believed that everything came in threes.

 He rationalised his decision to marry her: Every year a
priest comes and gives me the last rites and me family leaves
me f or dead. I can lick that. But wheel two priests believe
I'm dying, that's tough. With the Ridder now, I'll only die the
once, iilstead-a every year.

 Tessie came to pay a visit to her baby's godmother and
Pat. From his window, Pat saw her arrival. He sent Mick
Mack back to his own room, saying, "Here comes me
daughter-in-law, the Informer." Pat turned off his radiator.
The Informer will tell me daughter that I sit in a cold room
and Maggie-Now will worry her head off, he thought with
satisfaction.

                   ~4~5]
                     
 She left the baby with the widow and came up to see
Pat. "I brought you some new clay pipes," she said.

"Where's the tobacco?" he asked.

"You've got tobacco."

"What'd you come here for?"

"Just for a visit."

"You came so you could inform on me to me daughter."

 "I did not!" she said hotly. "I know you don't like me.
And I don't like you either. I come to see you only
because it pleases Dennis when I do. Well, I've paid my
visit. Good-by." She left.

 She's got spunk, that ooze, he thought. Me son's in good
hands. After a while, his room got cold. He forgot that he
had turned off the heat. He grabbed his shillelagh and
banged on the radiator pipes.

 "Heat, O'Crawley! !' he bawled. "Heat, Goddamn it! "
Slle came up to his room. "Where's me heat?" he hollered.

 She knelt down and turned the valve. There was an
immediate hiss and gurgle. "You turned it off," she said
reproachfully.

 He looked at the slender, aging woman kneeling there,
her small, work-worn hand resting on the valve. There was
something tender and vulnerable about the arch of her
slender, bent back.

 And so had a young girl, long ago, knelt in a field in
Kilkenny County to pluck a daisy to put in his buttonhole
and her young back had had that same tender and
vulnerable look. He thought briefly of Maggie Rose and
lingeringly of Mary Moriarity.

 "Me first wife was named Mary," he said. "And the one
I'm taking for me second wife is Mary, too."

 She got: up and clasped her hands ecstatically. "Oh, my
man, dear! "

"No fancy wedding, now," he warned her.

  And it was done and he made his permanent home at
the vidow's house. When l\laggie-Now realized her father
had moved 'ut for good, she felt sty angely depressed.

  l hat year Claude came home late, the second creek in
December. Maggie-Now was shocked at his appearance.
Fle had gotten quite thin and his clothes were nearly in
rags and he had an irritating c ought

  He Dent away too far t/JiS year, she thought in dismay.
Where it tubas too cold. Arzd he angst have IJad a hard time
getting back.

                 1 Ales 1
                     
 In her presence, he unpinned the gold piece and took
it out of his pocket. "I almost needed it this thee," he
said. "But I managed to get through without it." He put
the coin in her hand. "You'll never need to pin it in my
coat again. I'm never going away

  ,,

again.

  He pulled a package front his pocket. "My last
coming-home present to you. Open it."

  It was a beautiful thing; a sea gull made of alabaster. It
was poised in flight on a bit of ebony wood. The whole
thing NN7:15 only six inches high.

"It's so beautiful," she said, "that it hurts to look at it."

  "Of all the creatures of creation, the gull is the loveliest.
And the most free. The blue sky and the bluer sea and a
gull poised in the wind . . . alone . . . free . . . nothing but
sky and sea and wind and bird . .

  "Oh, if there is a life after death; if one could return to
earth in another form, I would lie a sea gull!"

  She shuddered. "You'll always go," she said sadly. "And
I'll always miss you."

  He took her by her arms and pulled her close to him.
"Margaret, look at me! I will never to away again. There
will never be a reason for me to go."

  Timidly, she ventured a question. She asked it in a
whisper: "Did you find what you were looking for?"

  For the first time in their life together, he gave her a
definite answer. He said: "Yes."

He said no more and she asked for no more.

  Later they went to bed. As the years had gone by, their
lovemaking had imperceptibly changed. Once it had been
a wild, passionate thing; as if thert had to be a surfeit of
love. NONV, it was a wonderful surcease from not having
had love for so long all during the months he'd been
away.

  Two days later Claude became very ill. It seemed like a
routine cold at first. Only it didn t respond to the usual
home treatment. When his fever went high and he
babbled of inconsequential things, she sent for the doctor.

  "It looks like flu," said the doctor. "Yes, Spanish
influenza. That's strange, though. We haven't had any of
that since the World War. Strange . . .

1 4!- 1

"Have the children shown any symptoms?"

"The children?"

 "It's very contagious and I'm afraid the children must
leave, Mrs. Bassett."

"No!" she cried out.

  "They're too young to survive if . . . You wouldn't vvant
anything to happen to any one of them, would you?"

"No, oh, no!"

  "I'll have to notify the home." He was the home doctor
for the children.

  In two hours, the home nurse and an assistant came in
a car for the babies. They wouldn't let Maggie-Now dress
the children. They brought blankets and clothes from the
home. They put masks on when they went into the babies'
rooms. The nurse was very severe with
Maggic-Now telling her sharply that the home should
have been notified earlier. Of course, Maggie-Now
couldn't even tell ':he children good-by.

  Szlddenly it's all over, thought Maggie-Now. I mustn't
think of the children. I have Claude. Please God, she
prayed, don't let anything happen to him. Holy Mary,
Mother of God, I beseech thee . . .

  Claude got over the flu. It left him weak. And no matter
how she tended him, how many custards and how much
chicken broth she made for him, he didn't improve. She
put the rocking chair near the coal range and put pillows
in it. He sat there and she gave him a footstool to keep
his feet off the floor and put a blanket over his knees.

  He was content to sit there holding on his lap the little
Siamese cat he had once brought her and to watch
Maggie-Now at her household duties. He watched the
time go by, smiling when the cuckoo clock struck and the
canary in its cage rapturously burst into competitive song.

  "We are alone together, love," he said. "For the first
time. Your father's gone and Denny . . ." He didn't
mention the children because he knew she'd cry.

  "I'm glad I've got you, Claude. So glad! And you are my
father, my brother and my children all in one. If I have
you, I need no one else."

"Were you frightened, love, when I was sick?"

                 [ 4~8 ]
                    
"No. I was worried though."

 "I was frightened," he said. "Oh, not of dying. I'm no
fool. I know we'll all die someday just as sure as we're
born. I was frightened of being put in a covered box and
being put in the earth."

"Don't talk that ay, Claude," she moaned.

 "Let me. I've always been free. I hate darkness and
small places; small dark rooms with closed doors. I never
want to he tucked away somewhere."

"It's getting cold in here," she said. "I'll poke up the fire."

"No. Listen, Margaret. Where is that little gull I brought
you?"

"I'll get it for you."

 He held it in his hand and ran a finger over the spread
alabaster wings.

 The little cat on his lap got up, arched its back, gave the
canary in the cage a baleful look, and jumped to the floor.
Maggie-Now picked up the cat and held it close.

 Claude spoke all in a rush. "I wouldn't be so
frightened I'd even be contented if I were sure that my
ashes would be thrown to the winds over the sea where
gulls are flying."

 She trembled so much that the cat struggled to get out
of her arms. She held the cat against its will. "No, Claude.
No! I won't do it! If there is a life after death and I
know there is I want us to be together in it. And that
couldn't be if you . . ."

"Do you love me, Margaret?"

 She let the cat go then and Vent over and held Claude
tightly "My darling, my dear, my love, my everything," she
said. She was trembling.

"There, Margaret! There now, Maggie-Now. There!"

 After a while, she said: "Mr. Van Clees sent over a
bottle of very fine cognac for you. And Annie made some
wonderful calf's foot jelly for you. How about a nice hot
cup of tea with lemon and sugar and half cognacs And
toast and sweet butter and calf's foot jelly spread on top?"

"Wonderful! Will you have some too-"

 "Of course. You don't think you're going to have all of
it do you, Mr. Bassett?"

"No, Mrs. Bassett."

That night, after tucking him into bed' she undressed.
brushed if 4779 ~

her hair and got in beside him. She put her arm under his
shoulder and put his head on her breast.

  "Margaret," he said, 'if you happen to see your father,
ask him to come over. I'd like to talk to him awhile."

"All right," she said.

  Pat came over a couple of mornings later and went into
the kitchen where Claude was sitting. Pat closed the
kitchen door after him. Maggie-Now went into the
bedroom to make up her bed. Pat didn't stay 107lg with
Claude. Pat opened the door and paused to say:

"I said I would. And I will. In fact, I'll bury youse all!"

  Maggie-Now accompanied her father out to the stoop.
"Oh, Papa," she said, and the ready tears came to her eyes.
"Why do you fight with him? And he's so sick."

  "Well, I ain't sick," said Pat. "I didn't like him when he
was well. Should I insult him by liking him just because
he's sick? No! Furthermore," he burst out, "I don't like
that damned skinny cat and that lousy canary and that
dopey clock. That's why I married the widow," he said
illogically, "so's I wouldn't have to put up with all that
stuff. And statures of pigeons, too." He stalked down the
street.

Claude must have said soz7~ethi~?g to upset him, she
thought.

  She went in to Claude. He was smiling. "Your father!"
he said. His voice was full of admiration.

          ~ CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE ~

THERE was a warm day in February and Claude wanted
to sit by the front-room window. Maggie-Now set him up
there and then she knelt down and put her arms about his
waist.

 "Claude," she said, "I always knew when you were going
away but I never let you know that I knew. But now I will
speak out. My dear darling, don't go away this spring.
You're not well yet.

                 [ 4 2  ]
                     
Later on in the summer, if you have to go, I won't try to
hold you. But don't go! Please, don't go! And if you do,
I'll have to go with you. Because now there is no one but
you."

 "I told you, Margaret, chat's all over. I don't want to go
any more. But I would like to sit at the window. I like to
see the skv and the street and watch the people go by."

"But the day that wind c omes, you'll go again."

"I promised you . . ."

 "Could you say it in some way that I could know it's for
sure you won't go?"

 "I'll tell you why I had to go away and why I don't have
to go any more. Once I told you that when we were old
and had nothing more to talk about: . . ."

 "That you'd tell me the story of your life," she
interrupted. "But we're not old yet."

 "We'll pretend. God know s I feel old. Tonight, when
it's dark and we're closed in, I'll tell you. But for the day,
let me sit by the window."

 That night, she gathered all the pillows in the house and
she and Claude sat propped up in bed. She put her arm
around him and made him lean against her. She had a
moment of uneasiness w hen she felt that his heart was
beating too fast.

"If you don't want to tell me, Claude, it's all right."

"No, love. I want to I need to tell you.

 "Well," he began, "soon after I was born, I v as placed
in a private institution for orphans in Detroit. It was
denominational, Protestant, and someone paid for my
care. From that, I knew these things about myself: That
I was white, a Christian, and that someone had enough of
a conscience to pav for my care. Wllo? Father? Mother?
"

 He was not treated badly at the institution, but with a
lot of little boys and an inadequate, overworked staff
there was no time for love and understanding.

 When he was eight he was sent to a boys' boarding
school. Here there was a difference. Some of the boys had
parents, though many were orphans placed in the school
by an aunt or older sister. A good many were children of
divorce. In all his time there. Claude was the only boy
who did not have a visitor.

if-!

 It was here he learner! to parry questions. "Hey! When's
your mother coming?"

"Wouldn't you just like to know!" or,

"Hey! You got a mother?"

"How do you think I was born?"

 At the age of twelve, he was sent to a modest
preparatory school. He had a little surcease there. No one
seemed especially interested in his parentage.

 Parents or guardians deposited money with the
headmaster and, once a week, each boy received fifty
cents' pocket money. Claude got his fifty cents along with
the rest. There was but one thing different about hell: He
was the only boy in the school who never received a letter.

 One day he came across a writers' magazine in which
was a tiny ad that said: Letters remailed fro7n Chicago . .
25› Back. He wrote a letter to himself, starting, Dear Sorl,
and signed it Your Father. He addressed it to himself and
sent it off in another envelope with the quarter. In due
time, his letter came back, postmarked Chicago. From
that time on, he got a letter once a month from Chicago.
Once in a while he displayed a letter with elaborate
casualness and was not above quoting a pithy sentence or
two.

 There came a time when he went to the headmaster.
"Sir," he said. "I know someone pays for me here and I
would like to know who . . ."

"You want to know who you are. Is that it-"

"Yes, sir."

 "You may not know who you are, Bassett, but I'll tell
you went you are: a very lucky boy. Through no efforts of
your own, you are being provided with a good education
in a good school. .'? He talked on and on.

"Then You won't tell me, sir, who is responsible for me?"

 "I can't tell you, Bassett. Your benefactor wishes to
remain anonymous."

 When (~laude finished prep school, the headmaster
told him he had been registered at a small denominational
college in upper Michigan. His tuition would be paid and
rent on a room in the dormitory and meals at the college
cafeteria. There would be a small sum available for
textbooks....

                 [ 42 ~ 1
                     
 Claude matriculated there. After a few months he went
to the bursar of the college.

 "Sir," he said, "I should like to know who is paying my
fees here."

 The bursar got up and took a file from the filing
cabinet. The folder had two sheets. The bursar read the
papers, closed the folder and put his hand on it.

 "Evidently-," he said, "your benefactor wishes to remain
anonymous. I can tell you this much, however: A small
trust has been set up for you. It will terminate when you
graduate from here."

"Sir, may I know the name of the bank or firm . . ."

"I am not in a position to give you that information."

 Claude locked at the folder under the man's hand.
Everything I need to know is in that 1 order, he thought. I
could grab it, ruin oh with it.... But he was not aggressive
enough to make a deed out of his thought.

 In Claude's sophomore year, the little college won an
important football game and some of the boys in his dorm
had a beer bust. They all got a little high and someone
inadvertently called Claude a bastard. Claude hit the
fellow and a free-for-all fight started. They smashed beer
bottles over each other's head. Claude woke up in the
infirmary with a row of stitches in front of his right ear
and they we re picking glass fragments out of his ear.
Probahl his defective ear resulted from that fight.

 At graduation, he slipped out of the auditorium as soon
as he received his diploma. He stood on the steps and
scanned the face of each one who came out. He had a
strong feeling that his mother or father had come to see
him graduate. He saw a man standing alone and the man's
eyes searched the crowd. This is my father, thought
Claude, and he is looking for me. The man's eyes rested on
Claude and the man's searching look \vas replaced by a
smile. He held ou': his hand and Claude started to go to
him. Then he found that the smile and the outstretched
hand were for a young man standing behind Claude. The
father put his arm about the young man's shoulder and
they walked away together.

 Claude stood there in his cap and gown, holding his
diploma and he waited until all the people had gone.

He got a job that fall, :IS English teacher in a small-town
high

                  [ 473 1
                     
school in South Carolina. He loved the town, and he fell
in love with a girl there. She v; as nineteen and he was
twenty-four.

 "I would like to live here all my life. If you will marry
me," he said.

 "I will, Claude," she said. "But first you'll have to speak
to Daddy."

"Why? "

"Because that's the VV.Iy we do here."

 He sat on the porch with the girl's father. It was a
spring night. There was the smell of mimosa and the smell
of woodsmoke. Claude noticed a broken board of the
porch floor. Tomorrow, he thought, is Saturday. And I will
come and fix that board for them. And in spring va. ation'
1 will come and say, Let me paint the porch for you.

 He told the girl's father all he knew about himself. The
father was much moved by Cl.lude's story. But he spoke
of heritage; he spoke of lineage, proud and poor, but
pure. He spoke in firm words of uncontaminated, white
lineage.

 "But, sir," said Claude, "I am a man in my own right. I
have my own kind of honor . . ."

"But this is the South, ' said the father. "And we have to
know."

"What was her name?" asked Ma~g~gie-Now.

"Who? "

"The girl."

"Oh, Willie May."

"I guess I don't like her," said Maggie-Now in a miserable
voice.

"Because she wouldn't marry me?"

"Because you once loved her."

 "Oh, Margaret," he said patiently, "that was so long ago.
It shouldn't matter now."

 He left his town, his job and his girl and started on his
wandering search. He went to Detroit first because there
he had started as an infant. He got a job as hotel clerk
and in his free time he wandered over the city and its raw
suburbs and looked in phone looks, directories, libraries
(to read old newspapers, looking for the name), and
examined the boards in office buildings and looked up
names of professional people and firms. He found a
Bassett or

                 ~ 424 ]
                    
two but they were not the right ones. He tried to
approximate the year of his birth and sent for a birth
certificate. There was no record.

 He went to Chicago and stayed there a fall and a winter
and again it vitas the same. Each state he went to, he
wrote and asked for a birth certificate. Some states had
no records prior to 190O, in others, the records had
burned up, and in other states there w as no record.

 He got out to the West and he loved it there. lle loved
the mountains and the sky and the great loneliness of it.
Here, he thought, a man could liqe. No one would ask who
he was or where he cane from. A r,'an could start his own
dynasty here, he thought grandly.

 It was out there in Idaho that he first felt the chinook
blowing. And he fell in love with it. After that, no matter
where he was, he left the place and set out westward
when he judged the chinook wind was blowing over the
Rockies.

 And as the years went by, it was so that the wandering
got to be more important than the searching.

He made his way to Manhattan....

  "Then I got over to Brooklyn and found you," he said.
"And I knew you were the one. You were the one. And
you took me without question."

  "You could have told me," she said. "And it would have
been all right. I wouldn't have cared. And perhaps you w
ouldn't have needed to go away any more."

  In the summer just past, he had gone back to Detroit
again. There he got the idea that perhaps Canada was the
place. He walked over the bridge into Canada and worked
his way north. One night, he registered at a small,
inexpensive hotel in one of the smaller cities. The old
desk clerk read off Claude's name slowly. He adjusted his
spectacles to look at Claude. Claude had a sudden sense
of awareness. "You have people here, I\lr. Bassett?"

"No. I'm from the States."

  "I inquired because a gentleman of the same name used
to live here."

Very quietly, Claude asked: "Where does he live now?"

                 ~4-'71
                    
"Oh, he passed on. B ifty years ago. I was a lad of twenty,
then."

"What," asked Claude carefully, "became of his children?"

 "He had but the one. A son. I<enmore. He would be
my age now.

"And this Kenmore Where is he now?"

 "That, I do not know." The old man suddenly became
loquacious. "Kenmore never did have children. He was
married, though. He was a professor in one of those big
colleges up in one of the northern provinces. I don't
remember which one, now. Used to know, though. Some
things come back to me. I remember he had a year's
holiday. You call it . . . ? "

"Sabbatical year."

 "Thank you, sir. He went to the States for that year."
The aged clerk started counting the coins in the cash
drawer as though the coversation was ended.

"And when he returned . . . ?" asked Claude nudgingly

"Pardon me, sir? "

"When Kenmore Bassett returned . . ."

  "Oh, he never did come back from the States. Here's
your key, sir, and we like our guests to pay in advance."

  "I would appreciate any information you can give me
about Kenmore Bassett," said Claude earnestly.

  "Let me see: His wife didn't go to the States with him,
you know. He wrote her. Yes, I remember now. He wrote
and asked her to divorce him."

"Did she?"

  "No, SiI'. You see he wrote that there was a young lady
in the States whom he wished to marry. And that did not
go down well with Mrs. Bassett. Oh, my wife could tell
you everything. You see, sir, she was in service. She
worked for Mrs. Bassett until that lady passed on."

  "May I speak to your wife, sir?" asked Claude, feeling
he had come to the end of the trail at last.

  The old clerk shook Lois head sadly. "My wife passed
on ten years ago."

  "You believe then," said Maggie-Now, "that this
Kenmore vitas your father?"

"I can make myself believe it if I wish."

                 [ 426 1
                    
 She thought: Oh, all the wasted years of life! But she said:
"And now, you'll never need to go away again."

"Never more will I go," he said lightly.

 But he had a stab of anguish. Never again to lit e a
while in a sun-baked adobe house of the dreamy
Southwest . . . never again the thrill of seeing for the first
time one of the magnificent big cities of America. Never
again the eternal mountains against the wide and infinite
sky . . . the miles of golden wheat rippling in the sun . . .
the blinding Lila of the great Pacific Ocean. Never again
. . . never.

"And you're happy now that you know?"

  "I don't know, Margarer. If we were younger I'd want
children now. I feel right about becoming a father, now
that I know. But for twenty-five years that has been my
way of life the wandering and the searching. N(,NV that
that's over, I don't know anv other way of life."

  No, she thought, he doesn't know any other way of life.
But how, all of a sudden, can he tell himself that he's
through with it? I know! Oh, dear God, his strength is failing
and he knows he can't make it any more.

  He said that now that he knows, /'e wants children; would
feel right about having children. Did he mean . . . IVhy
wasn't it right before? Could it be that he, like all men who
never settle dowel. didn't want to be tied down by children?
Or was it that he had to know who his father was first?

  She felt oddly ill at ease with him now as though he
were a stranger with whom she had nothing in common.
She felt vaguely inferior as though she were an illiterate
peasant. Then she remembered that, this last time he had
come home, he had asked her nothing about what she had
done in the summer.

  He used to need my life, she thought, to fill in his own.
Now he doesn't need that any more. He doesn't need me in
that way any more. Oh, I'm sorry he told me!

She said: "Claude, in a way, I'm sorry you told me."

                  ~ }27 1
                     
        'A CHAP]'ER SIXTY-FOUR A

IN TIIE days that followed, Claude sat by the window
and MaggieNTow sat with him and there vitas little to
talk about. From time to time, he'd reach out his hand
and she'd take it and tell him she loved him. Sometimes
he'd ask her if she missed the children. She'd hesitate a
moment before she told him, no, now that she had him .
. .

 About a week later, Denny came over in his lunch hour
and ate with them. He brought news. The new store in
Hempstead was ready and they wel e going to move in
March first. They had already given notice to their
landlord.

 "Does Tessie feel better now about moving out there?"
asleep .Maggie-Now.

 "Well," said Denny, a little evasively, "I made her see
that it was for the best."

 Denny spoke excitedly about the new store. He
described the fixtures, the floor plan and some of the
exotic meats and cheese that already had been delivered,
and . . .

 While Denny was spa aking, Claude started to moan.
Suddenly his face contorted in severe pain.

 "My head!" he gasped. "The pains . . . get . . . something
. . . Margaret . . . please . . . I can't stand . . ."

 "Oh, darling . . . deal . . . dear darling!" she said. She
ran into tile bathroom. There was nothing for a headache
in the medicine chest, only a tin of aspirin. She knew that
wouldn't be enough. She ran back to the kitchen. She
spoke to him as though he were a child.

 "There, my darling, Margaret will get you something
and Denny will stay with you while I'm gone and I'll be
right bacl.." She kissed him and rushed out.

                 t4~, 1
                    
 Fortunately, the doctor was home. He was having lunch
with his family. "How often dales he get these headaches?"
he asked.

"He never had one before in all the years we've been
married."

"I'll give you a prescription...."

  "That will take too long, Doctor. And oh, he seemed to
be suffering so terribly! He c ould hardly talk, and . . ."

  "I'd better take a look at him," said the doctor. They
drove over in the doctor's car.

  Denny was on the stoop waiting for them. He seemed
terribly distraught and kept putting his hands up to his
head.

  "Something terrible happened, Doctor," he said.
"Something awful . . ."

  "A stroke," said the doctor succinctly. He gave what
comfort he could: "If he had to go, it was better this way.
A few moments of pain and it was all over."

  Maggie-Now was too shocked to comprehend. "But he
said he wouldn't go away," she kept repeating. "He
promised!"

  "If you loved him," said the doctor, "you'd rather have
it this way. You wouldn't want him to suffer and die by
inches stroke after stroke."

  "But he told me he wouldn't leave me," she said like a
bewildered child.

  "I'm going to give you something, Mrs. Bassett," said the
doctor, "to get you over this first shock." He broke an
ampule and filled the hypodermic needle.

  When she awakened, Claude was no longer there. The
house seemed full of people. She heard Annie's voice
saying she'd take care of everything.

  The talking ceased when Maggie-Now came out of her
room. She went into the kitchen. Annie had the range
going full blast. She was mixing a cake and preparing a
beef rib roast for the oven. Potatoes and vegetables were
on the table waiting to be prepared. Annie knew it was
right to have food ready for the people who would come.

"He's gone, Annie," said Maggie-Now.

"Is better if you cry, Licbchen," said Annie.

"But he promised . . ."

                  [ 4 79
                     
 She went into the front room. "Papa, he said he
wouldn't go . . . he promised."

"Ah, me Maggie-NoNv," said Pat. "l\le poor Maggie-Now!"

 Denny gave her a glass with some pinkish liquid in it.
"The doctor said you're to take this, Maggie-Now."

"I don't want it," she said.

 "You must!" He started to weep. "The doctor said I
must make NTou take it."

"Of course," she said soothingly. "Don't cry. I'll take it."

 "Maggie-Now," said Pat, "you must put yourself together,
girl, dear. We got to fix it about the funeral."

"Funeral?" she said vaguely. "But I haven't any money."

"I have a bit put away," said Pat. "I'll pay for it."

 "But, man, dear!" For the first time, Maggie-Now
noticed Mrs. O'Crawley was there. "Man, dear, wouldn't
it be hefter for .i\~Iaggie to take care of that?"

 "I said I'd bury him and I will," said Pat. "Goddamn it!"
he added for no reason at all.

 Maggie-Now's innate thoughtfulness broke through her
shock. "It won't cost much, Mrs. O'Crawley," she said.
"We have our own plot and he can be with Mama and
Grandfather. And I'll pay Papa back as soon as I can."

 "He ain't going to be put in the ground," said Pat. "He
wants to be ashes and the ashes to be thrown away in the
wind where birds is flying."

"No! " screamed Ma: gie-NoN\T. "No! '

  'He told me the last time I w as here and I said I would
do that for him."

"I won't allow it!" she screamed. "It's against our religion."

"I\laybe it ain't against his," said Pat.

  "No, Papa," she said note quietly. "I have the say and I
won't allow it."

  "Look, Maggie-Novv~.'' said Denny. "You always gave
Claude everything he wanted. You'd have ways to find out
what he wanted and he could have it. You let him go
when he wanted to and you never said no to anything he
did or wanted. Why don't you give him this one last thing
he wanted? It's nothing I'd want." He shivered. "But he
wanted that."

"Yes, Dennv," said Maggie-Nov.~ quietly. "That's right."

                 [ 41  ]
                    
 "Sure," said Pat. "And I'll take care of everything for
you. Everything."

 "Thank you, Papa," she said. Novv she seemed to get
control again. "It was nice of you to come, Mrs.
O'Crawley. I think Annie made coffee. Will you go out in
the kitchen and have a cup ? "

"Thank you, I will," said Pat's wife.

 She turned to Pat. "And thank you again, Papa. And
why don't you ask Mick Mack to stop over? I'd like to see
him."

 After they had left, she went out to the kitchen. "Ah,
Annie, you're so good," she said.

 "Is nothing," said Annic. "Someday, maybe you do the
same for me. Is right people do so for each other."

Maggie-Now put her coat on. "You go out, Maggie?"

"I want to talk to Father Flynn."

"Then you go by the church. Yes?"

"Yes, I will."

Maybe she will cry there, thought Annie.

 Maggie-Now didn't go to the cremation. Pat and Denny
went; no one else. Pat brought her the cheap urn that the
crematory provided.

"I thought maybe you v. anted to keep this awhile," said
Pat.

 "Papa, it would be all right to bury his ashes with Mama,
wouldn't it?"

 "I gave him me word 1 would throw his ashes in the
wind. I'll wait for the right day and then I'll come and get
him and go out on a boat to where birds is flying, and I
will do it."

"All right, Papa," she said, obediently.

 It was terrible, terrible, for Maggie-Now to be alone; to
have no one to care for. The house echoed with
emptiness. All, all were gone. No tenants occupied the
rooms upstairs. Denny was gone, her father was gone, the
children had been taken from her. And now Claude.

 She walked from one empty room to the other,
moaning, How can I live? How can I live alone? There was
always someone. And now no one.

Denny knew how it was with his sister and he was
anguished

                  [45i ]
                     
for her. And he was the one to conic to her aid.

  "I'm not going to tal:e over the never store in
Hempstead," he said. "Well, Tessie and I tallied it over.
We want to rent the rooms upstairs from you and dive
here."

  "Honest, Denny? Honest?" Tears of happiness came to
her eyes.

  "Tessie is tickled to death at the idea. She says no one
can handle Rainy like you can. We could all eat
together Tessie doesn't like to cook especially. And we'd
all be safe together and . . ."

  How wonderful! How wo17derf7~1, thought
Maggie-Now, to have them here with me! I c07~1d take
care of Rainy and I c07~1d cook again: cook for someone
else besides myself . . . I'd have someone to talk to....

"Are you sure that's what yo7l want, Denny?"

  "I would have liked to manage the new place and live
out there. Yes, I would! But in the first place, Tessie
doesn't want to live so far away. In the second place, you
can't stay here alone and starve. And then Tessie says her
mother needs her."

  "It's the other way around," said Maggie-Now. "Tessie
needs her mother or thinks she does."

"Oh, well!" Denny shrugged and smiled.

  Maggie-Now took a little time to savor this wonderful
idea of Denny's before she gave it up. It Ivould be like a
dream come true. Tessie would let me take care of Rainy
and it would be like having my own babies. And 1'.l have
the brother I love with me. And Tessie! I co7lid teach her
how to sew.... And Annie would c0777e over often,, and . .
. Oh, it Ivould be just too wonderf7l1.

She said: "No, Denny! I'm not going to let you do it."

"What? "

  "Don't Ibe such a damned fool!" It was the first time
he'd ever heard his sister use a curse word. "Now look
here! Annie can take care of herself. She's got Albie for
the time being. And I'm around if Annie has trouble."

"But what about you. "

  "I'll manage. I've always managed. The rooms will be
rented again. I'll find something to do. Maybe I'll rent out
the whole house or close it up and go to Atlantic City or
somewhere to find work. I've never been outside of
Brooklyn except twice

                 1 43'1
                    
when I went to Boston with l\ilama and when I wetlt tic
Manhattan with a boy many years ago. Maybe I'd like to
see other places."

"You mean you don't want us?" he said, aghast.

 "Yes, I do want you and your family. But it's not good
for me to want that. And it's not good for you to give it."

"But Jessie wants . . .'

 "Tessie's a wonderful girl. And she's a smart girl, too.
She has one beautiful fault, though. The fault of being
very young. Don't ask her what she wants, tell her what
you want. Tell her how wonderful she i`; how lucky you
are to have her. Tell her you couldn't live without her,
and then tell her that you are all going to move out to tile
new place because it is the best thin;, for all of you. Hind
move out there right away."

 Denny got up, put his hands in his pockets, grinned and
started to swagger around the room. Then he went to
Maggie-Now and gave her a big hug.

 "If Tessie makes a fuss, tell her I'm tired of looking
after people. I want to live m,N own life for a while. And
tell her if she gets out of her mothers way, maybe Mr.
Van Clees might have a chance with Annie."

 After Denny had left, 1~] aggie-Now sat in the kitchen
and wept. What am I going to do? she asked herself. What
am I going to do alone here?

 She sat by the front wmdow. Maybe I can make believe,
she thought, that he left the way he always did in the spring.
And that he'll come back in the fall like always. How I cried,
those first years when he left! I'd pra v f or the time when
he'd never go away again; when he'd be with me always. But
would it have been the same? The man 1 loved was a mall
who left me each spring to come back in the winter to make
me feel like a bride again. That was the man I loved. If he
had stayed with me always, would he have been the same
man?

 She thought over again the things Claude had told her
about his wanderings and his search. What was it he had
said about the rightness of being a father once he knew?

 And when he had come home this last time, he had
known! He had known!

                  14~7 1
                     
 A small ecstasy started to grow. But it faded when she
remembered how he had said: "If we were younger . . ."

 And yet . . . And yet! The small ecstasy wouldn't die.
She prayed:

 Holy Mary, Mother IF God, I beseech thee to let me hope
. . . let me hope a little while . . .

 The clock in the kitchen sounded seven times. The bird
in the cage ran a trill. The little Siamese cat jumped off
the lounge and made no noise when he landed on the
floor. He walked out to the kitchen on silent, velvet feet.
Maggie-Now knew he would jump up on the kitchen table
and sit there and lash his tail and fix his sleepy, baleful
eyes on the caged canary. She smiled.

 Seven o'clock, she thought, and there's still some light in
the sky. The days are getting longer and soon spring grill
come again.

          ~ CHAPTER SIXTY-FT VE A

PAT and Mick Mack had just finished the ample breakfast
served to them by the neat and taut widow

 "Man dear," she said lo Pat, "it's a wonderful day for
beating the carpets Just wonderful!" She handed Pat two
rattan carpet beaters. "And I'm sure Mr. Mack will be
delighted to help you."

 Mick Mack carried the carpet out into the yard. Pat
followed, carrying the carpet bearers. "Get the damn dusty
thing up on the washline," instructed Pat. Mick black
started to struggle with the carpet. There was a soft wind
blowing.

"Hey, I\Iick Mack!"

"And what is it, Pathrick?"

  "You feel that wind? A kin-nooky . . . what did the
bastid call it? Oh, yeah! Chinook!"

"So long," said Mick \lack.

"Where you going?"

  "I just said that means 'so long' in Eskimo. Did you not,
yourself, tell me so?"

L 434

"To hell -with the carpet. This is the day. Come on."

 They went back into the house. "Listen, O'Crawley," said
Par to his wife, "we can't beat your carpet today."

"And why not, man, dear?"

"Because I got to bury me son-in-law."

"But he's been dead three weeks now."

  "It's time he was buried then." He grinned in delight
when he saw his wife's shocked expression.

"Perhaps Mr. Mack will do the carpet while you're gone?"

"He's got to go with me. I got to have a witness."

  Pat carried the urn holding the ashes in a paper bag,.
They beat their way by trolley and subway over to
Manhattan.

"Where you going to bury him?" asked Mick Mack.

"Off-a some high place where there is wind and birds."

"Off-a the Woolworth Building?"

"You damn fool!" said Pat coldly.

  They got on the little boat that would take them to
Bedloe's Island. Pat was astonished that they had to pay
for the boat ride. "You pay," he instructed Mick Mack. "I
left me money in me other suit."

  Mick Mack knew that Pat didn't have another suit, but
he paid all the same.

"You going to bury him f tom of T-a the boat? " asked
Mick Mack.

  "No. From the top of tide Stature of Liberty. We're
going to go up in the torch and do it."

"But I'm afraid of heighths," said Mick Mack.

"A fine time to wait and tell me."

"But you didn't tell me we was going here."

"Why do you always have to argue?" asked Pat.

  The elevator took them as far as the pedestal, then they
had to climb the winding stairway. Mick Mack started to
lag behind. Pat looked back. The little man was pale and
his hand was pressed to his heart. He seemed to have
trouble getting his breath.

  Pat felt a stab of pity. I never saw before how old he's
getting, thought Pat. And he don't look so strong, either. He
went back to Mick Mack.

  "Me old friend," he said, " 'tis shamed I am, making you
climb up here and you with no stren'th a-tall. Do you let
me put me arm around you and I will help you up."

                 ~ 4] ~ J
                     
 To Pat's surprise, he saw that Mick Mack was crying. "Is
it a bad pain you have, me friend?" he asked tenderly.

 "No. It's because of the soft way you spoke to me; the
kindness of your words. It puts a strangeness on you. I
don't know you no more, you black-hearted stranger."

 Pat lost his temper. "That's what a man gets trying to
be decent to the likes of you. Here! Carry this, you
damned fool!" He thrust the urn into Mick Mack's hands.
"Making me do all the work, Come on, now! And let me
hear no more complaining out of you."

The little man looked up at Pat and beamed.

  In those days, people were allowed to go up into the
torch. Pat and Hick Mack slowly made their tortuous way
up through the arm. The torch could hold twelve people
but Pat and Mick Mack were the only persons there at the
time.

  The wind was terrific. They had to hold on to their hats
and the wind tore the paper bag off the urn.

  "Give me that," yelled Pat angrily against the wind,
"before you drop it." Mick Mack gave him the urn.

  Hundreds of gulls flew around the head of Miss Liberty,
and wheeled and banked and swooped and screamed.
"Look at all them pigeons!" said Mick Mack.

"They ain't pigeons," hollered Pat.

"What are they then? " screamed back the little fellow.

"Whatever they are, they ain't pigeons! Take your hat off!"

"What? "

  "Take your hat off! And hold mine." The wind made the
hair stand up on their bared heads.

  Pat lowered his head ;md spoke silently to the urn.
Mick Mack thought he was saying a private prayer for the
dead. Mick Mack lowered his eyes and said his own
prayer. Pat wasn't praying, he was telling his daughter's
husband good-by.

  You wanted to be buried off a high place, Claude, and this
is the highest I can get. And you wanted to go out over the
sea. Well, here's the whole ocean. And there is birds
here the kind you like. And may God rest your soul.

  He removed the cover from the urn. Before he could
scatter the ashes, the wind scooped most of them out of
the urn. Pat had an instant of terror. The gulls, the
screams, the wind and the

                 ~ 436 ~
                    
infinity of sky and sea, and he was such a tiny dot.

 There is things I don't ,'~no~v, he thought, and God
forgive me all me sins.

 Mick Mack vvas screaming. "Say something! " he
screamed. "For the love of God say something! Don't let
him go without a word! Say something!''

"What? " hollered Pat.

 "Good-by! Good-by! " shouted l\lick Slack. He w aved
the hand that held Pat's hat. The wind caught Pat's hat
and blew it out to sea.

 It was more than Pat could stand. He took the urn,
which still held some ol the ashes, anal with all his
strength he hurled it into the wind. He shook his fist at
the slay and the sea and the wind and the gulls.

"I'll bury youse all!" sh ~utcd Patrick Dennis Moore.

                  t4''1