The Year We Sailed the Sun

by Theresa Nelson

  * * *

  THOMAS EGAN’S AUTO

  DEMOLISHED AS BROWNS

  LOSE YET ANOTHER

  * * *

  * * *

  FOURTH WARD businessman Thomas Egan was rudely routed from his box seat in the American League stadium yesterday, when police entered the stands to inform him that his Chalmers auto-mobile had been wrecked by a gang of would-be car thieves.

  The incident occurred at half-past three in the afternoon, in the thirty-six hundred block of Dodier Street.

  Of the brazen delinquents, whose attempt at larceny ended abruptly when the car collided with a lamppost, only the driver, William J. Delaney, fifteen, was taken into custody. Immediately following his arrest, Delaney was moved to the City Hospital, where he is being treated for injuries sustained in the smash-up. Police say he is thus far refusing to name his companions, who remain at large.

  Mr. Egan, well-known throughout this city for his many political interests, told reporters that he is “both surprised and saddened by the remarkable lack of judgment these heedless youths have exhibited.” He said he is personally offering a reward of five hundred dollars for any information that leads to the apprehension of the rest of the gang.

  The Browns lost to the Detroit Tigers, 1-0.

  When asked if this unfortunate experience had dampened his enthusiasm for the St. Louis team, who are finishing their second consecutive season in last place, Mr. Egan, also well-known for his jocularity, said not in the least. He told reporters he was planning to return to the park for the doubleheader on Sunday. “I have another car,” he added. “And I’ll give another five hundred dollars—make that top-o’-the-line silver—to any Brown who can apprehend home plate.”

  * * *

  * * *

  “Would you do it?” asked Marcella, when I was done reading, by the dim yellow glow of the oil lamp. It was just before lights-out, and she was sitting with Hazel and Winnie on Mary’s bed, since Mary herself was still stuck in the infirmary, and I didn’t have the energy to kick ’em off.

  I shrugged. “Do what? Hit a home run?”

  “Ah, come on, Your Majesty, you know what I mean. Your brother’s gang—tell the truth, now. For five hundred dollars, right there in your fist—would you give ’em up?”

  “I would!” said Hazel. “I’d do it before breakfast. I’d take every red cent and ride the train to New York City and spend the rest of my life eating oysters with the Rockefellers.”

  “You would not,” said Marcella.

  “Yes, I would! Why wouldn’t I?”

  Marcella narrowed her eyes at the lot of us. “Because we don’t do favors for Thomas Egan. Because he’s the scum of the earth, that’s why. Because he’ll break your daddy’s legs and torch your mother’s house, if they stand up for the union. Don’t you dare cry, Winnie. And the next thing you know, you’re living with the nuns, reading the funny papers to a bunch of nitwits.”

  In the hall below, the clock struck nine. Orphans scattered to their rightful beds. Marcella lifted the lamp to douse the wick, before Sister Bridget’s boots came tapping up the stairs. But first she turned and held it near me, so the light shone full in my face. “So would you do it?”

  “In a pig’s eye,” I muttered.

  What did she take me for, anyhow?

  There were rules, if you were a Patch kid, strict as any commandment. We could rattle ’em off before we lost our milk teeth:

  Never throw rocks at a union man, or a boatyard boss, or his cousin, or anyone north of Biddle Street named Brophy.

  If you take what ought to be yours already, how can it be stealing?

  Look out for your own.

  Stick up for your mother.

  Don’t swap at Doc Monaghan’s unless you’re desperate.

  And NO SNITCHING. EVER. Not even to priests. Better to die unconfessed and do your time in hell like a good sport than to shame yourself for all eternity by naming names.

  Of course, it was true there was a bit of a loophole in that last one. If you had to clear your conscience, just keep it simple: “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned; it has been one hour since my last confession; I committed attempted murder, due to extenuating circumstances.” Not “Me and Spud Murphy knocked the stuffin’ out of Jerry Sullivan ’cause the son of a gun kicked me cat.”

  But none of that changed the point of all points, the rule of all rules:

  Never rat on a friend.

  Or an enemy, neither, if he was from the neighborhood. Though that just got you a few years in Purgatory.

  For traitors, hell starts NOW.

  Still . . . five hundred dollars!

  It made me weak in the knees just thinking about it. And I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Lucky for Mickey I didn’t know which rock he’d crawled under. All that endless October, every dull-as-dirt day, that bleedin’ reward sat in my head, hissing at me: Hazel was right! She was right, wasn’t she? Well, not about the Rockefellers. And who would eat an oyster on purpose? But the other part—the train part—oh, sweet mercy, if we had five hundred silver dollars jangling in our pockets, we could hop right aboard any train in Union Station and go anywhere in the world, wherever we wanted! Just the three of us—me and Bill and Mary, too (she’d been over her pox for a week now and was down in the laundry, drudging away; I wouldn’t have any trouble getting her to come with us). Not New York City; I was sick to death of cities. Somewhere out West, maybe? “Home on the Range” . . . Papa used to like that one. He’d make us laugh when he sang it with his Edenderry accent—“Ah, give me a hoom where the buffaloo room”—oh, wouldn’t it be wonderful? Far, far away out West, where the Rats would never find us. And then—why, then we could build our own house, couldn’t we? And raise our own chickens—Gran always said you couldn’t go wrong with a chicken—and eat scrambled eggs every morning and custard every night. And milk—we’d need milk for the custard, of course. . . . How much would a cow cost? I wondered. Never mind, we could afford it. We’d have to use our heads, was all, not go off half-cocked, like some people. Even five hundred dollars wouldn’t last us forever. But once we got the cow, why, then we could sell some of the milk, and butter, and cheese, and ice cream—ah, sure, the whole world liked ice cream—and then maybe we could get two cows, and—

  “Julia Delaney!”

  I slammed shut the cover of my Big Chief tablet, where I was supposed to be doing long division, not drawing the sun shining on a house with a half-open door, and a chicken coop, and cows peeking over. But Sister Sebastian didn’t seem to have noticed my artwork. She wasn’t looking my way at all, really, only calling out names from the list that Sister Gabriel—waiting beside her—must have just brought in:

  “Agnes Crouse! Geraldine Mulroney! Hannah Hogan! Put your books away quickly, girls, and get your coats and hats from the cloakroom. Then report to Sister Maclovius in the front hall.”

  Ah, crikey. What now? I turned to the others, hoping for an explanation, but they kept their red-cheeked faces to themselves.

  And then I saw Marcella Duggan leaning back in her desk, winking at me. She lifted her right hand in a salute. “Beggars’ Brigade,” she whispered, as the four of us trudged away.

  Chapter 16

  “Great jumping Jehosaphat,” Geraldine Mulroney muttered as we clattered down Lindell Boulevard, packed tight in the orphan buggy, and lurched at last to a bone-rattling halt.

  “Close your mouth, Geraldine,” said Sister Maclovius. “You look like a mackerel.”

  And who could blame her? We were going in that place? Up that tall stone stairway, with the huge dark door at the top, and the ten-ton, mile-high, curlicued columns towering over it?

  THE ST. LOUIS CLUB, the sign said in small, polished letters on the brass plaque attached to the hitching post. I hoped the members weren’t expecting us anytime soon. We’d be four to five hours just climbing the front steps.

  “All right, then, ladies, follow me,” said Sister Maclovius, once the half-a-nun had hopped down from
the driver’s seat, hauled her up, helped her out, got her safely on the sidewalk, and handed her her cane. “Thank you, Sister Bridget. And no slouching, girls!” she added, frowning down at the lot of us. “Chins up, now! Heads high! You have nothing to be ashamed of. These people are no greater than the least among you. ‘And again I say unto thee, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.’ ”

  So we were here to help squeeze ’em in, was that it? The Beggars’ Brigade, for Pete’s sake. Me and Geraldine and Aggie and Hannah Hogan, no bigger than a minute, and Betty, of course, holding tight to my hand. (She’d let out such a mournful wail when she’d seen us leaving in the buggy, the boss nun had breathed a long-suffering sigh and let her come too.)

  And now we were trooping up toward the clubhouse in our itchy brown orphan coats, with Sister Maclovius leading us on—tap-thump, tap-thump—and Sister Bridget guarding the rear, so there was no escape. Please, God, I prayed, don’t let any of my old friends see me. I would die of mortification. . . .

  But just then a pair of crows flew over us, flapping—right over our heads, I swear—and I remembered: Ah, what was I thinking? It was the thirty-first, wasn’t it? The thirty-first of October! Well, sure it was. I was safe for now. You wouldn’t catch a Patch kid out of the Patch, today of all days. The whole neighborhood would be too busy carving the pumpkins, by this time, and building the bonfire on Carr Street, and getting out their ghoul clothes and bogey beards, like normal people. And smelling that grand smoky smell in the air—the Halloween smell—not so cold and plain in their noses, like this air here, like somebody scrubbed it with yellow soap, but . . . browner somehow, spicier . . . with the wind blowing the leaves off the mulberry trees by the priests’ house, and the boys splitting apple boxes for the burn pile, and the barmbracks baking in all the ovens—you know the grans would be baking the barmbracks—the good warm loaves with the favors in ’em, for telling the future.

  Ring for the bride-to-be, penny for riches . . . unless you swallow ’em first. Don’t gobble so, Julia!

  Ah, we’d never know the future without the barmbrack. . . .

  “Good afternoon, Sisters,” said the man at the top of the stairs, doffing his hat and swinging the door open for us. He was nearly as tall as it was, and decked out like a first-class swell, what with the hat and the gloves and the pearly gray suit with the tail to it.

  “Is that the king?” Hannah Hogan whispered.

  “I don’t think so,” I whispered back. “It ain’t a castle; it’s a club. He’s prob’ly just the president.”

  But Sister Maclovius only nodded at him and marched on past, so we all marched right behind her.

  And then we were standing inside, blinking, and every one of us had the fish-mouth now, because you never in all your life saw such a place as this. Sweet Mary and Joseph. You could’ve put a circus in here. I couldn’t half tell you what all I was looking at, but whatever it was, there was plenty of it. Gigantic pictures in gorgeous gold frames and crystal lights hanging down from the ceiling and little naked angels standing tiptoed on three-legged tables, shooting arrows at one another, and a palm tree in every pot and a pot in every nook and cranny and then the whole shebang all over again, in eight or nine million mirrors. Not to mention another enormous staircase—this one right dead ahead—reaching halfway to heaven at least.

  Hazel and the Rockefellers would have loved it.

  But before we could even dream of taking it all in, a couple came hurrying across the marble floor toward us: another tall man and a lady in black (black dress, black hat, black feathers on it, with a little net half-veil hanging down) and both of ’em with their hands reaching out, all ready to shake ours. Smiling up a storm, too—well, the lady was, anyhow; you couldn’t really tell about the man so much, with his moustache in the way—but even from a distance you could see her beaming, just like we were all old . . .

  Oh dear Lord.

  Oh no.

  The handsome man and the hat lady? Mr. Hanratty-Ma-Who’s-It and Miss Cora—Cora Downey?

  Ah, sure it was, of course it was. Of all the rotten-imp Halloween tricks . . .

  “Hello, Sister!”

  “Good afternoon, Sister. . . .”

  “Thank you so much for coming,” said the lady. “And Julia—how lovely to see you again. To see all of you. Oh my, what a fine group. Wasn’t it good of them to come, Daniel? And on such short notice!”

  My face was so hot now, you could have fried an egg on it. And the other girls seemed fairly miserable, too—

  Well, all except Betty, who took one look at the smiling lady, lit up with a happy grin herself, and threw her arms around her as if she’d found her only friend in the world.

  “Oh my,” said Miss Downey, gasping a little, but looking pleased at the same time—or as pleased as a person could look with the breath knocked out of her. “And who is this? Will you introduce us, Julia?”

  “Her name’s Betty,” I began, but before I could add the “Brickey,” Sister Maclovius was leaning in and looming over and aiming her smile at us—I could have told the lady that was never a good sign—and with her eyelid hopping again too, and a kind of purplish look to her. “Now, now, Miss Brickey,” she said, trying to tug Betty away, “behave yourself; stop that at once. STOP THAT AT ONCE, MISS BRICKEY! I’m terribly sorry, Miss Downey. . . . Ah, for heaven’s sake, Sister Bridget, she has hay in her hair. Will you see to your niece before she smothers the poor woman?”

  “Oh dear,” said Sister Bridget. “Come on, now, Betty. You wouldn’t want to hurt the pretty lady, would you? Well, of course you wouldn’t. That’s right, now; that’s better, isn’t it? We shake hands; we don’t squeeze the life out of people. . . . I’m so sorry, Miss Downey. It’s only her way, you see, when she likes someone. Her heart—well, it brims right over. I think it’s what they call ‘unbridled enthusiasm’.”

  “Oh, no, no, please, I’m fine,” said the hat lady, keeping the grimy little hand in her own elegant gloved one, while Betty kept right on gazing up adoringly. “So you’re a Betty, are you? Well, now. Short for Elizabeth? My favorite aunt was a Lizzie. And Daniel’s mother was called Eliza—isn’t that right, Daniel?”

  The handsome man smoothed the corners of his moustache. “She was,” he said quietly.

  He’d backed up so far to make room for our Elizabeth, I’d almost forgot he was there.

  And then the two of them led the lot of us to the foot of the second great staircase, where Sister Maclovius paused, looking doubtful.

  It seemed even taller now, up close.

  But when Mr. Hanratty-Maguire turned, and offered her his arm, she held her head high and took it.

  Her eyelid seemed to be settling down some, too.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” said Sister Maclovius, “benevolent friends and esteemed members of the Optima Petamus Society, let me begin by saying, in all humility, what an honor it is to be here today, by dint of your kind invitation, as we endeavor to fill the large shoes of Father Peter Dunne, who requested us to do so. . . .”

  Geraldine snickered softly in the seat beside me.

  “. . . and to speak from our hearts—as would he, no doubt, had duty not called him elsewhere—of the plight of the motherless children of St. Louis, such as these you see before you. . . .”

  So there we sat, and nothing to do about it, in the club inside the other club, right up front on the left, fiery-faced, staring out at a room full of rich people. Row after row of ’em, with the men all straight-backed and neat-whiskered, and the ladies right beside ’em (not counting the hat lady, who was sitting next to Betty, her hand still trapped). And all of ’em decked out in their hats and gloves, though they were older than Miss Downey, mostly—the ladies, not the hats—and tending more toward the hatchet-faced.

  “. . . the poverty . . . the ignorance . . . the moral degeneration . . . from which, at times, though it pains me to say it, we struggle in vain to shield t
hem . . .”

  It wasn’t so awful as some things, I told myself. Like being boiled in oil, maybe. As long as you paid no attention to the pitying glances or the crawling feeling in the pit of your stomach. If you thought about the chickens, and the ice cream, and the good, warm Halloween barmbrack, and counted up all the baked-in favors again . . .

  “. . . and on that dread day, which ye know not, when the fateful hour is upon you, will you say to your Maker, ‘Have mercy, O Lord. I once was a friend to—’ ”

  . . . the penny and the ring, the old maid’s thimble, the little paper boat, for traveling. . . .

  “And so to conclude, with heartfelt thanks: ‘Give and it shall be given unto ye. . . . The generous man will himself be blessed, when the mighty trumpet sounds. . . . And as you’re drawing your last breath, may heaven swing wide its gracious portals and crown you for your kindness to the poor, whom we e’er strive to serve, and have always with us, unfortunately.’ ”

  And then it was over—at least, she sat down, finally—once the rich people had finished applauding and the ladies were done dabbing their eyes. And I thought we had got through the worst of it.

  But nobody had warned us about Mrs. Horace Merriweather.

  “. . . our musical guest today, admired by all who have had the privilege of hearing her,” said the Optima Petamus president—he had taken Sister’s place at the podium—not the man in the tailcoat from the front door, after all, but a little string bean of a feller with an enormous Adam’s apple that bobbed up and down when he spoke: “And to our further (bob) delight, Mrs. Merri (bob) weather will be accompanied on the piano (bob) by Miss Cora Downey, who has recently become the fiancée of that fortunate (bob, bob) man, our treasurer, Mr. Hanratty (bob) Maguire.”

  I slid my eyes toward Geraldine, who had just made a small strangling sound.

  So then the club members applauded again, and Miss Downey blushed a bit, and gave Betty a little wink so she wouldn’t worry, and patted her on the shoulder with her free hand, meaning she’d be right back. And then she got up and went over to the piano, which was off to the right, just across from us, and sat down there to wait for Mrs. Merriweather—