A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

by Betty Smith

  Technically, a child was permitted to leave the room if he asked permission. There was a system of coy evasion. One finger held aloft meant that a child wished to go out but a short time. Two fingers meant desire for a longer stay. But the harassed and unfeeling teachers assured each other that this was just a subterfuge for a child to get out of the classroom for a little while. They knew the child had ample opportunity at recess and at lunchtime. Thus they settled things among themselves.

  Of course, Francie noted, the favored children, the clean, the dainty, the cared-for in the front seats, were allowed to leave at any time. But that was different somehow.

  As for the rest of the children, half of them learned to adjust their functions to the teachers' ideas of such things and the other half became chronic pants-wetters.

  It was Aunt Sissy who fixed up the leaving-the-room business for Francie. She had not seen the children since Katie and Johnny had told her she was not to visit the house again. She was lonesome for them. She knew they had started school and she just had to know how they were getting along.

  It was in November. Work was slack and Sissy was laid off. She sauntered down the school street just as school was letting out. If the children reported meeting her, it would seem like an accident, she figured. She saw Neeley first in the crowd. A bigger boy snatched his cap off, trampled on it and ran away. Neeley turned to a smaller boy and did the same to his cap. Sissy grabbed Neeley's arm, but with a raucous cry, he twisted loose and ran down the street. With poignancy, Sissy realized that he was growing up.

  Francie saw Sissy and put her arms around her right there on the street and kissed her. Sissy took her into a little candy store and treated her to a penny chocolate soda. Then she made Francie sit down on a stoop and tell her all about school. Francie showed her the primer and her homework book with block letters in it. Sissy was impressed. She looked long into the child's thin face and noticed that she was shivering. She saw that she was inadequately dressed against the raw November day in a threadbare cotton dress, ragged little sweater and thin cotton stockings. She put her arm around her and held her close to her own life warmth.

  "Francie, baby, you're trembling like a leaf."

  Francie had never heard that expression and it made her thoughtful. She looked at the little tree growing out of the concrete at the side of the house. There were still a few dried leaves clinging to it. One of them rustled dryly in the wind. Trembling like a leaf. She stored the phrase away in her mind. Trembling....

  "What's the matter?" Sissy asked. "You're ice cold."

  Francie wouldn't tell at first. But after being coaxed, she buried her shame-hot face in Sissy's neck and whispered something to her.

  "Oh, my," said Sissy. "No wonder you're cold. Why didn't you ask to...."

  "Teacher never looks at us when we raise our hands."

  "Oh, well. Don't worry about it. It could happen to anyone. It happened to the Queen of England when she was a little girl."

  But had the Queen been so shamed and sensitive about it? Francie wept quietly and rackingly, tears of shame and fear. She was afraid to go home, afraid that Mama would make scornful shame of her.

  "Your mama won't scold you...such an accident could happen to any little girl. Don't say I told you but your mama wet her pants when she was little and your grandma did too. It's nothing new in the world and you're not the first one it happened to."

  "But I'm too big. Only babies do that. Mama'll make shame on me in front of Neeley."

  "Tell her right out before she finds out for herself and promise never to do it again. She won't shame you then."

  "I can't promise because it might happen again because teacher don't let us go."

  "From now on, your teacher will let you leave the room any time you have to. You believe Aunt Sissy, don't you?"

  "Y-e-e-es. But how do you know?"

  "I'll burn a candle in church about it."

  Francie was consoled with the promise. When Francie went home, Katie did a little routine scolding but Francie was armored against it in the light of what Sissy had told her about the cycle of wetting.

  The next morning, ten minutes before school started, Sissy was in that classroom confronting the teacher.

  "There's a little girl named Francie Nolan in your room," she started out.

  "Frances Nolan," corrected Miss Briggs.

  "Is she smart?"

  "Y-e-e-es."

  "Is she good?"

  "She had better be."

  Sissy brought her face closer to Miss Briggs. Her voice went a tone lower and was gentler than before, but for some reason Miss Briggs backed away. "I just asked you is she a good girl?"

  "Yes, she is," said Teacher hurriedly.

  "I happen to be her mother," lied Sissy.

  "No!"

  "Yes!"

  "Anything you want to know about the child's work, Mrs. Nolan..."

  "Did it ever occur to you," lied Sissy, "that Francie's got kidney trouble?"

  "Kidney what?"

  "The doctor said that if she wants to go and some people don't let her go, she's liable to drop right down dead from overloaded kidneys."

  "Surely you're exaggerating."

  "How would you like her to drop dead in this room?"

  "Naturally, I wouldn't, but..."

  "And how would you like to get a ride to the station house in the pie wagon and stand up in front of this here doctor and the judge and say you wouldn't let her leave the room?"

  Was Sissy lying? Miss Briggs couldn't tell. It was the most fantastic thing. Yet, the woman spoke these sensational things in the calmest, softest voice she had ever heard. At this moment, Sissy happened to look out of the window and saw a burly cop sauntering by. She pointed.

  "See that cop?" Miss Briggs nodded. "That's my husband."

  "Frances's father?"

  "Who else?" Sissy threw open the window and yelled, "Yoo, hoo, Johnny."

  The astonished cop looked up. She blew him a great kiss. For a split second, he thought it was some love-starved old-maid teacher gone crazy. Then his native masculine conceit assured him that it was one of the younger teachers who had long had a crush on him and had finally screwed up enough courage to make a passionate overture. He responded to the occasion, blew her a return kiss with a ham-y fist, tipped his hat gallantly and sauntered off down his beat whistling "At the Devil's Ball." "Sure I'm a divil amongst the ladies," he thought. "I am that. And me with six kids at home."

  Miss Briggs's eyes bugged out in astonishment. He had been a handsome cop and strong. Just then, one of the little golden girls came in with a beribboned box of candy for Teacher. Miss Briggs gurgled with pleasure and kissed the child's satin pink cheek. Sissy had a mind like a freshly honed razor. In a flash, she saw which way the wind blew; she saw it blew against children like Francie.

  "Look," she said. "I guess you don't think we got lots of money."

  "I'm sure I never..."

  "We're not people that put on. Now Christmas is coming," she bribed.

  "Maybe," conceded Miss Briggs, "I haven't always seen Frances when she raised her hand."

  "Where does she sit that you don't see her so good?" Teacher indicated a dark back seat. "Maybe if she sat up front more, you could see her better."

  "The seating arrangements are all set."

  "Christmas is coming," warned Sissy coyly.

  "I'll see what I can do."

  "See, then. And see that you see good." Sissy walked to the door, then turned. "Because not only is Christmas coming, but my husband who is a cop will come up here and beat hell out of you if you don't treat her right."

  Francie had no more trouble after that parent-teacher conference. No matter how timorously her hand went up, Miss Briggs happened to see it. She even let her sit in the first row, first seat for a while. But when Christmas came and no expensive Christmas present came with it, Francie was again relegated to the dark back of the room.

  Neither Francie nor Katie ever learned of Sissy's
school visit. But Francie was never shamed again in that way and if Miss Briggs did not treat her with kindness, at least she didn't nag at her. Of course, Miss Briggs knew that what that woman had told her was ridiculous. Yet, what was the use of taking chances? She didn't like children but she was no fiend. She wouldn't want to see a child drop dead before her eyes.

  A few weeks later, Sissy had one of the girls in her shop write a postcard message for her to Katie. She asked her sister to let bygones be bygones and permit her to come to the house at least to see the children once in a while. Katie ignored the card.

  Mary Rommely came over to intercede for Sissy. "What is there that is bitter between you and your sister?" she asked Katie.

  "I cannot tell you," replied Katie.

  "Forgiveness," said Mary Rommely, "is a gift of high value. Yet its cost is nothing."

  "I have my own ways," said Katie.

  "Ai," agreed her mother. She sighed deeply and said no more.

  Katie wouldn't admit it, but she missed Sissy. She missed her reckless good sense and her clear way of straightening out troubles. Evy never mentioned Sissy when she came to see Katie and after that one attempt at reconciliation, Mary Rommely never mentioned Sissy's name again.

  Katie got news of her sister through the official accredited family reporter, the insurance agent. All of the Rommelys were insured by the same company and the same agent collected the nickels and dimes from each of the sisters weekly. He brought news, carried gossip, and was the round robin messenger of the family. One day he brought news that Sissy had given birth to another child which he had been unable to insure since it had lived but two hours. Katie felt ashamed of herself at last for being so bitter against poor Sissy.

  "Next time you see my sister," she told the collector, "tell her not to be such a stranger." The collector relayed the message of forgiveness and Sissy came back into the Nolan family again.

  20

  KATIE'S CAMPAIGN AGAINST VERMIN AND DISEASE STARTED THE DAY her children entered school. The battle was fierce, brief, and successful.

  Packed closely together, the children innocently bred vermin and became lousy from each other. Through no fault of their own, they were subjected to the most humiliating procedure that a child could go through.

  Once a week, the school nurse came and stationed herself with her back to the window. The little girls lined up and when they came to her, turned round, lifted their heavy braids and bent over. Nurse probed about the hair with a long thin stick. If lice or nits were in evidence, the little one was told to stand aside. At the end of the examination, the pariahs were made to stand before the class while Nurse gave a lecture about how filthy those little girls were and how they had to be shunned. The untouchables were then dismissed for the day with instructions to get "blue ointment" from Knipe's Drug Store and have their mothers treat their head. When they returned to school, they were tormented by their peers. Each offender would have an escort of children following her home, chanting:

  "Lousy, ye'r lousy! Teacher said ye'r lousy. Hadda go home, hadda go home, hadda go home because ye'r lousy."

  It might be that the infected child would be given a clean bill next examination. In that case, she, in turn, would torment those found guilty, forgetting her own hurt at being tormented. They learned no compassion from their own anguish. Thus their suffering was wasted.

  There was no room in Katie's crowded life for additional trouble and worry. She wouldn't accept it. The first day that Francie came home from school and reported that she sat next to a girl who had bugs walking up and down the lanes of her hair, Katie went into action. She scrubbed Francie's head with a cake of her coarse strong yellow scrubwoman's soap until her scalp tingled with rawness. The next morning, she dipped the hair brush into a bowl of kerosene oil, brushed Francie's hair vigorously, braided it into braids so tight that the veins on Francie's temples stuck out, instructed her to keep away from lighted gas jets and sent her off to school.

  Francie smelled up the whole classroom. Her seat sharer edged as far away from her as possible. Teacher sent a note home forbidding Katie to use kerosene on Francie's head. Katie remarked that it was a free country and ignored the note. Once a week she scrubbed Francie's head with the yellow soap. Every day she anointed it with the kerosene.

  When an epidemic of mumps broke out in the school, Katie went into action against communicable diseases. She made two flannel bags, sewed a bud of garlic in each one, attached a clean corset string and made the children wear them around their necks under their shirts.

  Francie attended school stinking of garlic and kerosene oil. Everyone avoided her. In the crowded yard, there was always a cleared space around her. In crowded trolley cars, people huddled away from those Nolan children.

  And it worked! Now whether there was a witch's charm in the garlic, whether the strong fumes killed the germs or whether Francie escaped contracting anything because infected children gave her a wide berth, or whether she and Neeley had naturally strong constitutions, is not known. However, it was a fact that not once in all the years of school were Katie's children ever sick. They never so much as came down with a cold. And they never had lice.

  Francie, of course, became an outsider shunned by all because of her stench. But she had become accustomed to being lonely. She was used to walking alone and to being considered "different." She did not suffer too much.

  21

  FRANCIE LIKED SCHOOL IN SPITE OF ALL THE MEANNESS, CRUELTY, and unhappiness. The regimented routine of many children, all doing the same thing at once, gave her a feeling of safety. She felt that she was a definite part of something, part of a community gathered under a leader for the one purpose. The Nolans were individualists. They conformed to nothing except what was essential to their being able to live in their world. They followed their own standards of living. They were part of no set social group. This was fine for the making of individualists but sometimes bewildering to a small child. So Francie felt a certain safety and security in school. Although it was a cruel and ugly routine, it had a purpose and a progression.

  School was not all unrelieved grimness. There was a great golden glory lasting a half hour each week when Mr. Morton came to Francie's room to teach music. He was a specialized teacher who went around to all the schools in that area. It was holiday time when he appeared. He wore a swallow-tailed coat and a puffed-up tie. He was so vibrant, gay and jolly--so intoxicated with living--that he was like a god come from the clouds. He was homely in a gallant vital way. He understood and loved children and they worshipped him. The teachers adored him. There was a carnival spirit in the room on the day of his visit. Teacher wore her best dress and wasn't quite so mean. Sometimes she curled her hair and wore perfume. That's what Mr. Morton did to those ladies.

  He arrived like a tornado. The door burst open and he flew in with his coattails streaming behind him. He leaped to the platform and looked around smiling and saying, "well-well," in a happy voice. The children sat there and laughed and laughed out of happiness and Teacher smiled and smiled.

  He drew notes on the blackboard; he drew little legs on them to make them look as though they were running out of the scale. He'd make a flat note look like humpty-dumpty. A sharp note would rate a thin beetlike nose zooming off it. All the while he'd burst into singing just as spontaneously as a bird. Sometimes his happiness was so overflowing that he couldn't hold it and he'd cut a dance caper to spill some of it out.

  He taught them good music without letting them know it was good. He set his own words to the great classics and gave them simple names like "Lullaby" and "Serenade" and "Street Song" and "Song for a Sunshine Day." Their baby voices shrilled out in Handel's "Largo" and they knew it merely by the title of "Hymn." Little boys whistled part of Dvorak's New World Symphony as they played marbles. When asked the name of the song, they'd reply "Oh, 'Going Home.'" They played potsy, humming "The Soldiers' Chorus" from Faust which they called "Glory."

  Not as well loved as Mr. Morton, but as
much admired, was Miss Bernstone, the special drawing teacher who also came once a week. Ah, she was from another world, a world of beautiful dresses of muted greens and garnets. Her face was sweet and tender, and, like Mr. Morton, she loved the vast hordes of unwashed and unwanted children more than she loved the cared-for ones. The teachers did not like her. Yes, they fawned on her when she spoke to them and glowered at her when her back was turned. They were jealous of her charm, her sweetness and her lovely appeal to men. She was warm and glowing and richly feminine. They knew that she didn't sleep alone nights as they were forced to do.

  She spoke softly in a clear singing voice. Her hands were beautiful and quick with a bit of chalk or a stick of charcoal. There was magic in the way her wrist turned when she held a crayon. One wrist twist and there was an apple. Two more twists and there was a child's sweet hand holding the apple. On a rainy day, she wouldn't give a lesson. She'd take a block of paper and a stick of charcoal and sketch the poorest, meanest kid in the room. And when the picture was finished, you didn't see the dirt or the meanness; you saw the glory of innocence and the poignancy of a baby growing up too soon. Oh, Miss Bernstone was grand.

  These two visiting teachers were the gold and silver sun-splash in the great muddy river of school days, days made up of dreary hours in which Teacher made her pupils sit rigid with their hands folded behind their back while she read a novel hidden in her lap. If all the teachers had been like Miss Bernstone and Mr. Morton, Francie would have known plain what heaven was. But it was just as well. There had to be the dark and muddy waters so that the sun could have something to background its flashing glory.

  22

  OH, MAGIC HOUR WHEN A CHILD FIRST KNOWS IT CAN READ PRINTED WORDS!

  For quite a while, Francie had been spelling out letters, sounding them and then putting the sounds together to mean a word. But one day, she looked at a page and the word "mouse" had instantaneous meaning. She looked at the word, and the picture of a gray mouse scampered through her mind. She looked further and when she saw "horse," she heard him pawing the ground and saw the sun glint on his glossy coat. The word "running" hit her suddenly and she breathed hard as though running herself. The barrier between the individual sound of each letter and the whole meaning of the word was removed and the printed word meant a thing at one quick glance. She read a few pages rapidly and almost became ill with excitement. She wanted to shout it out. She could read! She could read!