Maggie Now

by Betty Smith

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-NOV 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 lIaggie-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 . . ." ilaggie-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 th
en 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. Th
e 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 llaggie-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