I stay on the seventh step till it gets too cold or Dad gets up and tells me go back to bed. He’s the one who told me the angel comes to the seventh step in the first place and you’d think he’d know why I’m sit- ting there. I told him one night that I was waiting for the angel, and he said, Och, now, Francis, you’re a bit of a dreamer. I get back into bed but I can hear him whisper to my mother.The poor wee lad was sitting on the stairs talking away to an angel. He  laughs  and  my  mother  laughs  and  I  think,  Isn’t  it  curious the way big people laugh over the angel who brought them a new child. Before Easter we move back downstairs to Ireland. Easter is better than Christmas because the air is warmer, the walls are not dripping with the damp, and the kitchen isn’t a lake anymore, and if we’re up early we  might  catch  the  sun  slanting  for  a  minute  through  the  kitchen window. In fine weather men sit outside smoking their cigarettes if they have them, looking at the world and watching us play. Women stand with their arms folded, chatting.They don’t sit because all they do is stay at home, take care of the children, clean the house and cook a bit and the men need the chairs.The men sit because they’re worn out from walk- ing  to  the  Labour  Exchange  every  morning  to  sign  for  the  dole, discussing the world’s problems and wondering what to do with the rest of  the  day. Some  stop  at  the  bookie  to  study  the  form  and  place  a shilling  or  two  on  a  sure  thing. Some  spend  hours  in  the  Carnegie Library reading English and Irish newspapers.A man on the dole needs to keep up with things because all the other men on the dole are experts on what’s going on in the world.A man on the dole must be ready in case another man on the dole brings up Hitler or Mussolini or the ter- rible state of the Chinese millions.A man on the dole goes home after a day with the bookie or the newspaper and his wife will not begrudge him a few minutes with the ease and peace of his cigarette and his tea and time to sit in his chair and think of the world. Easter  is  better  than  Christmas  because  Dad  takes  us  to  the Redemptorist church where all the priests wear white and sing.They’re happy because Our Lord is in heaven. I ask Dad if the baby in the crib is dead and he says, No, He was thirty-three when He died and there He is, hanging on the cross. I don’t understand how He grew up so fast that He’s hanging there with a hat made of thorns and blood every- 107