by Betty Smith
her outspread right hand under his little backside.
"Why he Its, Mama," said l~laggie-Now in surprise. "He
fits to me just right!"
"lIarparet: 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, ilary. 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 beadvork. 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
while, an item of clothing for herself.
Each time she bought a neN boiltlet for L)enny or a
new pair of rompers, she brought him over to llr. 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 lla~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-Nov, 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,
