A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

by Betty Smith

  Francie loved that school. It meant that she had to walk forty-eight blocks each day but she loved the walk, too. She had to leave earlier in the morning than Neeley and she got home much later. She didn't mind except that it was a little hard at lunchtime. There were twelve blocks to come home and twelve to go back--all in the hour. It left little time for eating. Mama wouldn't let her carry a lunch. Her reason was:

  "She'll be weaned away from her home and family soon enough the way she's growing up. But while she's still a child she has to act like a child and come home and eat the way children should. Is it my fault that she has to go so far to school? Didn't she pick it out herself?"

  "But Katie," argued Papa, "it's such a good school."

  "Then let her take the bad along with this good."

  The lunch question was settled. Francie had about five minutes for lunch--just time enough to report home for a sandwich which she ate walking back to school. She never considered herself put upon. She was so happy in the new school that she was anxious to pay in some way for this joy.

  It was a good thing that she got herself into this other school. It showed her that there were other worlds beside the world she had been born into and that these other worlds were not unattainable.

  24

  FRANCIE COUNTED THE YEAR'S PASSING NOT BY THE DAYS OR THE months but by the holidays that came along. Her year started with the Fourth of July because it was the first holiday that came along after school closed. A week before the day, she began accumulating firecrackers. Every available penny went for packets of small crackers. She hoarded them in a box under the bed. At least ten times a day, she'd take the box out, re-arrange the fireworks and look long at the pale red tissue and white corded stem and wonder about how they were made. She smelled the thick bit of punk which was given gratis with each purchase and which, when lit, smoldered for hours and was used to set off the firecrackers.

  When the great day came, she was reluctant to set them off. It was better to have them than to use them. One year when times were harder than usual and pennies could not be had, Francie and Neeley hoarded paper bags and on the day, filled them with water, twisted the tops shut and dropped them from the roof on to the street below. They made a nice plop which was almost like a firecracker. Passers-by were irritated and looked up angrily when a bag just missed them but they did nothing about it, accepting the fact that poor children had a custom of celebrating the Fourth that way.

  The next holiday was Halloween. Neeley blackened his face with soot, wore his cap backwards and his coat inside out. He filled one of his mother's long black stockings with ashes and roamed the streets with his gang swinging his homely blackjack and crying out raucously from time to time.

  Francie, in company with other little girls, roamed the streets carrying a bit of white chalk. She went about drawing a large quick cross on the back of each coated figure that came by. The children performed the ritual without meaning. The symbol was remembered but the reason forgotten. It may have been something that had survived from the middle ages when houses and probably individuals were so marked to indicate where plague had struck. Probably the ruffians of that time so marked innocent people as a cruel joke and the practice had persisted down through the centuries to be distorted into a meaningless Halloween prank.

  Election Day seemed the greatest holiday of all to Francie. It, more than any other time, belonged to the whole neighborhood. Maybe people voted in other parts of the country too, but it couldn't be the way it was in Brooklyn, thought Francie.

  Johnny showed Francie an Oyster House on Scholes Street. It was housed in a building that had been standing there more than a hundred years before when Big Chief Tammany himself skulked around with his braves. Its oyster fries were known throughout the state. But there was something else that made this place famous. It was the secret meeting place of the great City Hall politicians. The party sachems met here in secret pow-wow in a private dining room and, over succulent oysters, they decided who'd be elected and who mowed down.

  Francie often passed by the store, looked at it and was thrilled. It had no name over its door and its window was empty save for a potted fern and a half curtain of brown linen run on brass rods along the back of it. Once Francie saw the door open to admit someone. She had a glimpse of a low room dimly lit with dulled red-shaded lamps and thick with the smoke of cigars.

  Francie, along with the other neighborhood children, went through some of the Election rites without knowing their meaning or reason. On Election night, she got in line, her hands on the shoulders of the child in front, and snake-danced through the streets singing,

  Tammany, Tammany,

  Big Chief sits in his teepee,

  Cheering braves to victory,

  Tamma-nee, Tamma-nee.

  She was an interested listener at the debates between Mama and Papa on the merits and faults of the party. Papa was an ardent Democrat but mama just didn't care. Mama criticized the party and told Johnny he was throwing his vote away.

  "Don't say that, Katie," he protested. "By and large the party does a lot of good for the people."

  "I can just imagine," sniffed Mama.

  "All they want is a vote from the man of the family and look what they give in exchange."

  "Name one thing they give."

  "Well, you need advice on a legal matter. You don't need a lawyer. Just ask your Assemblyman."

  "The blind leading the blind."

  "Don't you believe it. They may be dumb in many ways but they know the City's statutes backward and forward."

  "Sue the City for something and see how far Tammany will help you."

  "Take Civil Service," said Johnny starting on another angle. "They know when the examinations for cops, firemen or letter carriers are coming up. They'll always put a voter wise if he's interested."

  "Mrs. Lavey's husband took the examination for letter carrier three years ago. He's still working on a truck."

  "Ah! That's because he's a Republican. If he was a Democrat, they'd take his name and put it on the top of the list. I heard about a teacher who wanted to be transferred to another school. Tammany fixed it up."

  "Why? Unless she was pretty."

  "That's not the point. It was a shrewd move. Teachers are educating future voters. This teacher, for instance, will always say a good word for Tammany to her pupils whenever she can. Every boy has to grow up to vote, you know."

  "Why?"

  "Because it's a privilege."

  "Privilege! Humpf!" sneered Katie.

  "Now, for instance, if you had a poodle and it died, what would you do?"

  "What would I do with a poodle in the first place?"

  "Can't you make out like you have a dead poodle just for the sake of conversation?"

  "All right. My poodle's dead. Now what?"

  "You go around to Headquarters and the boys will take it away for you. Suppose Francie wanted to get working papers but was too young."

  "They'd get them, I suppose."

  "Certainly."

  "Do you think that's right to fix it so little children can work in factories?"

  "Well, supposing you had a bad boy who played hooky from school and was getting to be a loafer hanging around street corners but the law wouldn't let him work. Wouldn't it be better if he got faked working papers?"

  "In that case, yes," conceded Katie.

  "Look at all the jobs they get for voters."

  "You know how they get them, don't you? They inspect a factory and overlook the fact that they're violating the factory laws. Naturally, the boss pays back by letting them know when they need men and Tammany gets all the credit for finding jobs."

  "Here's another case. A man has relatives in the old country but he can't get them over here on account of a lot of red tape. Well, Tammany can fix that up."

  "Sure, they get them foreigners over here and see to it that they start in on their citizenship papers and then tell them they must vote the Democratic ticket or go back where they cam
e from."

  "No matter what you say, Tammany's good to the poor people. Say a man's been sick and can't pay his rent. Do you think the organization would let the landlord dispossess him? No sir. Not if he's a Democrat."

  "I suppose the landlords are all Republicans, then," Katie said.

  "No. The system works both ways. Suppose the landlord has a bum for a tenant who gives him a punch in the nose instead of the rent. What happens? The organization dispossesses him for the landlord."

  "For what Tammany gives to the people, it takes from them double. You wait until us women vote." Johnny's laugh interrupted her. "You don't believe we will? That day will come. Mark my words. We'll put all those crooked politicians where they belong--behind iron bars."

  "If that day ever comes when women vote, you'll go along to the polls with me--arm in arm--and vote the way I do." He put his arm around her and gave her a quick hug.

  Katie smiled up at him. Francie couldn't help noticing that Mama was smiling sidewise, the way the lady did in the picture in the school auditorium, the one they called Mona Lisa.

  Tammany owed much of its power to the fact that it got the children young and educated them in the party ways. The dumbest ward heeler was smart enough to know that time, no matter what else it did, passed, and that the school boy of today was the voter of tomorrow. They got the boys on their side and the girls, too. A woman couldn't vote in those days but the politicians knew that the women of Brooklyn had a great influence on their men. Bring a little girl up in the party way and when she married, she'd see to it that her man voted the straight Democratic ticket. To woo the children, the Mattie Mahony Association ran an excursion for them and their parents each summer. Although Katie had nothing but contempt for the Organization, she saw no reason why they shouldn't take advantage of the good time. When Francie heard that they were going, she was as excited as only a ten-year-old, who had never been on a boat before, could be.

  Johnny refused to go and couldn't see why Katie wanted to go.

  "I'm going because I like life," was her strange reason.

  "If that racket's life, I wouldn't take it with coupons," he said.

  But he went anyhow. He figured the boat trip might be educational and he wanted to be on hand to educate the children. It was a hot sweltering day. The decks teemed with kids, wild with excitement, racing up and down and trying to fall into the Hudson River. Francie stared and stared at the moving water until she worked up the first headache of her life. Johnny told his children how Hendrick Hudson had sailed up that same river so long ago. Francie wondered whether Mr. Hudson got sick to his stomach like she did. Mama sat on deck looking very pretty in her jade-green straw hat and a yellow dotted-swiss dress that she had borrowed from Aunt Evy. People around her were laughing. Mama was a vivid conversationalist and people liked to hear her talk.

  Soon after noon, the boat docked at a wooded glen upstate and the Democrats got off the boat and took over. The kids ran around spending their tickets. The week before, each child had been given a strip of ten tickets labeled "hot dog," "soda water," "merry-go-round" and so on. Francie and Neeley had each been given a strip but Francie had been tempted by some shrewd boys into gambling her tickets in a marble game. They had told her how she might possibly win fifty strips and have a grand day on the excursion. Francie was a poor marble player and quickly lost her tickets. Neeley, on the other hand, had three strips. He had been lucky. Francie asked Mama could she have one of Neeley's tickets. Mama seized the opportunity to give her a lecture on gambling.

  "You had tickets but you thought you could be smart and get something you weren't entitled to. When people gamble, they think only of winning. They never think of losing. Remember this: Someone has to lose and it's just as apt to be you as the other fellow. If you learn this lesson by giving up a strip of tickets, you're paying cheap for the education."

  Mama was right. Francie knew she was right. But it didn't make her happy at all. She wanted to go on the merry-go-round like the other kids. She wanted a drink of soda. She was standing disconsolately near the hot dog stand watching other children stuff themselves when a man paused to speak to her. He wore a policeman's uniform only with more gold on it.

  "No tickets, little girl?" he asked.

  "I forgot them," lied Francie.

  "Sure and I was no good at marbles meself as a boy." He pulled three strips from his pocket. "We count on makin' up a certain number of losses each year. But it's seldom the girls are the losin' ones. They hang on to what they have be it ever so little." Francie took the tickets, thanked him and was backing off when he asked, "Would that be your mother sittin' over there in the green hat?"

  "Yes." She waited. He said nothing. Finally she asked, "Why?"

  "Do you be sayin' your prayers to the Little Flower each night askin' that you grow up half as pretty as your mother. Do that now."

  "And that's my papa next to my mama." Francie waited to hear him say that Papa was good-looking, too. He stared at Johnny and said nothing. Francie ran off.

  Francie was instructed to report back to her mother at half hour intervals during the day. At the next interval when Francie came back, Johnny was over at the free-beer keg. Mama teased her.

  "You're like Aunt Sissy--always talking to men in uniform."

  "He gave me extra tickets."

  "I saw." Katie's next words were casual enough. "What did he ask you?"

  "He asked was you my mama." Francie did not tell her what he said about Mama being pretty.

  "Yes, I thought he was asking that." Katie stared at her hands. They were rough and red and cut into with cleansing fluids. She took a pair of mended cotton gloves from her purse. Although it was a hot day, she pulled them on. She sighed. "I work so hard, sometimes I forget that I'm a woman."

  Francie was startled. It was the nearest thing to a complaint she had ever heard from Mama. She wondered why Mama was ashamed of her hands all of a sudden. As she skipped away, she heard Mama ask the lady next to her,

  "Who's that man over there--the one in the uniform looking this way?"

  "That would be Sergeant Michael McShane. It's funny you don't know who he is seein' that it's from your own precinct he is."

  The day of joy went on. There was a keg of beer set up at the end of each long table and it was free to all good Democrats. Francie was caught up in the excitement and tore around, screamed and fought like the other children. Beer flowed like a Brooklyn gutter after a rainstorm. A brass band played doggedly. It played "The Kerry Dancers" and "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" and "Harrigan, That's Me." It played "The River Shannon" and New York's own folk song, "The Sidewalks of New York."

  The conductor announced each selection: "Mattie Mahony's Band will now play...." Each song ended with the band members shouting in unison, "Hurray for Mattie Mahony." With each glass of beer drawn, the attendants said, "Compliments of Mattie Mahony." Each event was labeled, "The Mattie Mahony Foot Race," "The Mahony Peanut Race" and so on. Before the day was over, Francie was convinced that Mattie Mahony was a very great man indeed.

  Late in the afternoon, Francie got the idea that she ought to find Mr. Mahony and thank him personally for a very nice time. She searched and searched, and asked and asked and a strange thing happened. No one knew Mattie Mahony; no one had ever seen him. Certainly he was not at the picnic. His presence was felt everywhere but the man was invisible. Some man told her that maybe there was no Mattie Mahony; it was just the name they gave to whatever man was head of the organization.

  "I been votin' the straight ticket for forty years," he said. "Seems like the candidate was always the same man, Mattie Mahony; or else it was a different man but with the same name. I don't know who he is, girlie. All I know is that I vote the straight Democratic ticket."

  The trip home down the moonlit Hudson was notable only for the many fights that broke out among the men. Most of the children were sick and sunburnt and fretful. Neeley fell asleep on Mama's lap. Francie sat on the deck and listened to Mama and Pa
pa talking.

  "Do you happen to know Sergeant McShane?" Katie asked.

  "I know who he is. They call him the Honest Cop. The party has its eye on him. It wouldn't surprise me if he was put up for Assemblyman."

  A man sitting nearby leaned forward and touched Johnny's arm. "Police Commissioner is more like it, Mac," he said.

  "What about his life?" Katie asked.

  "It's like one of those Alger stories. He came from Ireland twenty-five years ago with nothing but a trunk small enough to be carried on his back. He worked as a dock walloper, studied nights and got on the force. He kept on studying and taking examinations and finally got to be Sergeant," said Johnny.

  "I suppose he's married to an educated woman who helped him?"

  "Matter of fact, no. When he first came over, an Irish family took him in and kept him till he got on his feet. The daughter of the family married a bum who ran out on her after the honeymoon and got himself killed in a brawl. Well, the girl was going to have a baby and you couldn't make the neighbors believe she had ever been married. Seems like the family would be disgraced but McShane married her and gave the child his name to kind of repay the family. It wasn't a love marriage, exactly, but he's been very good to her, I hear."

  "Did they have children together?"

  "Fourteen, I heard."

  "Fourteen!"

  "But he only raised four. Seemed like they all died before they grew up. They were all born with consumption, you know, inherited it from their mother who had it from a girl."

  "He's had more than his share of trouble," mused Johnny. "And he's a good man."

  "She's still alive, I suppose."

  "But very sick. They say she hasn't long to live."

  "Oh, those kind hang on."

  "Katie!" Johnny was startled by his wife's remark.

  "I don't care! I don't blame her for marrying a bum and having a child by him. That's her privilege. But I do blame her for not taking her medicine when the time came due. Why did she put her troubles off on to a good man?"

  "That's no way to talk."

  "I hope she dies and dies soon."

  "Hush, Katie."

  "Yes, I do. So that he can marry again--marry a cheerful healthy woman who'll give him children that can live. That's every good man's right."