Later, Dad goes to the Labour Exchange for the dole.There is no
hope of a laboring man with a North of Ireland accent getting a job in
Limerick.
When he returns, he tells Mam well be getting nineteen shillings a
week. She says thats just enough for all of us to starve on. Nineteen
shillings for six of us? Thats less than four dollars in American money
and how are we supposed to live on that? What are we to do when we
have to pay rent in a fortnight? If the rent for this room is five shillings
a week well have fourteen shillings for food and clothes and coal to boil
the water for the tea.
Dad shakes his head, sips his tea from a jam jar, stares out the win-
dow and whistles The Boys of Wexford. Malachy and Oliver clap
their hands and dance around the room and Dad doesnt know whether
to whistle or smile because you cant do both and he cant help himself.
He has to stop and smile and pat Olivers head and then go back to the
whistling. Mam smiles, too, but its a very quick smile and when she
looks into the ashes you can see the worry where the corners of her
mouth turn down.
Next day she tells Dad to mind the twins and takes Malachy and me
with her to the St.Vincent de Paul Society.We stand in a queue with
women wearing black shawls. They ask our names and smile when
we talk.They say, Lord above, would you listen to the little Yankees, and
they wonder why Mam in her American coat would be looking
for charity since theres hardly enough for the poor people of Lim-
erick without Yanks coming over and taking the bread out of their
mouths.
Mam tells them a cousin gave her that coat in Brooklyn, that her
husband has no work, that she has other children at home, twin boys.
The women sniff and pull their shawls about them, they have their own
troubles. Mam tells them she had to leave America because she couldnt
stand it after her baby girl died. The women sniff again but now its
because Mam is crying. Some say they lost little ones, too, and theres
nothing worse in the world,you could live as long as Methuselems wife
but you never get over it. No man can ever know what it is to be a
mother that has lost a child, not if the man lived longer than two
Methuselems.
They all have a good cry till a red-haired woman passes a little box
around.The women pick something from the box between their fin-
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