A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

by Betty Smith

  Johnny said nothing. A nameless fear had grown within Francie while she listened to her mother talking. Now she got up and went over to Papa, took his hand and pressed it hard. In the moonlight, Johnny's eyes flew open in startled surprise. He pulled the child to him and held her tightly. But all he said was,

  "Look how the moon walks on the water."

  Soon after the picnic, the organization began to prepare for Election Day. They distributed shiny white buttons with Mattie's mug on them to the neighborhood kids. Francie got some and stared long at the face. Mattie had grown so mysterious to her, that he took the place of someone like the Holy Ghost--he was never seen but his presence was felt. The picture was of a bland-faced man with roached hair and handlebar mustache. It looked like the face of any small-time politician. Francie wished she could see him--just once in the flesh.

  There was a lot of excitement about these buttons. The children used them for trading purposes, for games and coin of the realm. Neeley sold his top to a boy for ten buttons. Gimpy, the candy-store man, redeemed fifteen of Francie's buttons for a penny's worth of candy. (He had an arrangement with the Organization whereby he got the money back for the buttons.) Francie went around looking for Mattie and found him all over. She found boys playing pitch games with his face. She found him flattened out on a car track to make a miniature potsy. He was in the debris of Neeley's pocket. She peered down the sewer and saw him floating face upward. She found him in the sour soil at the bottoms of gratings. She saw Punky Perkins, next to her in church, drop two buttons in the plate in lieu of the two pennies his mother had given him. She saw him go into the candy store and buy four Sweet Caporal cigarettes with the two cents after mass. She saw Mattie's face everywhere but she never saw Mattie.

  The week before Election she went around with Neeley and the boys gathering "lection" which was what they called the lumber for the big bonfires which would be lighted Election night. She helped store the lection in the cellar.

  She was up early on Election Day and saw the man who came and knocked on the door. When Johnny answered, the man said,

  "Nolan?"

  "Yes," admitted Johnny.

  "At the polls, eleven o'clock." He checked Johnny's name on his list. He handed Johnny a cigar. "Compliments of Mattie Mahony." He went on to the next Democrat.

  "Wouldn't you go anyhow without being told?" Francie asked.

  "Yes, but they give us each a time so that the voting is staggered...you know, not everyone coming in a bunch."

  "Why?" persisted Francie.

  " 'Cause," Johnny evaded.

  "I'll tell you why," broke in Mama. "They want to keep tabs on who's voting and how. They know when each man's due at the polls and God help him if he doesn't show up to vote for Mattie."

  "Women don't know anything about politics," said Johnny, lighting up Mattie's cigar.

  Francie helped Neeley drag their wood out on Election night. They contributed it to the biggest bonfire on the block. Francie got in line with the other children and danced around the fire Indian-fashion, singing "Tammany." When the fire had burned down to embers, the boys raided the pushcarts of the Jewish merchants and stole potatoes which they roasted in the ashes. So cooked, they were called "mickies." There weren't enough to go around and Francie didn't get any.

  She stood on the street watching the returns come in on a bed sheet stretched from window to window of a house on the corner. A magic lantern across the street threw the figures on the sheet. Each time new returns came in, Francie shouted with the other kids,

  "Another country heard from!"

  Mattie's picture appeared on the screen from time to time and the crowd cheered itself hoarse. A Democratic president was elected that year and the Democratic governor of the state was re-elected, but all that Francie knew was that Mattie Mahony got in again.

  After Election, the politicians forgot their promises and enjoyed an earned rest until New Year, when they started work on the next Election. January second was Ladies' Day at Democratic Headquarters. On that day and no other, ladies were received into this strictly masculine precinct and treated to sherry wine and little seeded cakes. All day, the ladies kept calling and were received gallantly by Mattie's henchmen. Mattie himself never showed up. As the ladies went out, they left their little decorated cards with their names written on them in the cut-glass dish on the hall table.

  Katie's contempt for the politicians did not interfere with her making her yearly call. She put on her brushed and pressed gray suit with all the braid on it and tilted her jade-green velvet hat over her right eye. She even gave the penman, who set up temporary shop outside headquarters, a dime to make a card for her. He wrote Mrs. John Nolan with flowers and angels crawling out of the capitals. It was a dime that should have gone into the bank, but Katie figured she could be extravagant once a year.

  The family awaited her homecoming. They wanted to hear all about the call.

  "How was it this year?" asked Johnny.

  "The same as always. The same old push was there. A lot of women had new clothes which I bet they bought on time. Of course, the prostitutes were the best dressed," said Katie in her forthright way, "and like always, they outnumbered the decent women two to one."

  25

  JOHNNY WAS ONE FOR TAKING NOTIONS. HE'D TAKE A NOTION THAT life was too much for him and start drinking heavier to forget it. Francie got to know when he was drinking more than usual. He walked straighter coming home. He walked carefully and slightly sidewise. When he was drunk, he was a quiet man. He didn't brawl, he didn't sing, he didn't grow sentimental. He grew thoughtful. People who didn't know him thought that he was drunk when he was sober, because sober, he was full of song and excitement. When he was drunk, strangers looked on him as a quiet, thoughtful man who minded his own business.

  Francie dreaded the drinking periods--not on moral grounds but because Papa wasn't a man she knew then. He wouldn't talk to her or to anybody. He looked at her with the eyes of a stranger. When Mama spoke to him, he turned his head away from her.

  When he got over a drinking time, he'd take a notion that he had to be a better father to his children. He felt that he had to teach them things. He'd stop drinking for a while, take a notion to work hard and devote all his spare time to Francie and Neeley. He had the same idea that Katie's mother, Mary Rommely, had about education. He wanted to teach his children all that he knew so that at fourteen or fifteen, they would know as much as he knew at thirty. He figured they could go on from there picking up their own knowledge and, according to his calculations, when they reached thirty, they would be twice as smart as he had been at thirty.

  He felt that they needed lessons in--for what passed in his mind--geography, civics and sociology. So he took them over to Bushwick Avenue.

  Bushwick Avenue was the high-toned boulevard of old Brooklyn. It was a wide, tree-shaded avenue and the houses were rich and impressively built of large granite blocks with long stone stoops. Here lived the big-time politicians, the monied brewery families, the well-to-do immigrants who had been able to come over first-class instead of steerage. They had taken their money, their statuary and their gloomy oil paintings and had come to America and settled in Brooklyn.

  Automobiles were coming into use but most of these families still clung to their handsome horses and magnificent carriages. Papa pointed out and described the various equipages to Francie. She watched in awe as they rolled by.

  There were small lacquered dainty ones lined with tufted white satin, with a large fringed umbrella that was used by fine and delicate ladies. There were adorable wicker ones with a bench along each side on which lucky children sat while they were pulled along by a Shetland pony. She stared at the capable-looking governesses who accompanied these children--women from another world, in capes and starch-stringed bonnets who sat sideways on the seat to drive the pony.

  Francie saw practical black two-seaters drawn by a single high-stepping horse controlled by dandified young men in kid gloves with edges t
urned back to look like inverted cuffs.

  She saw staid family vehicles drawn by dependable-looking teams. These coaches did not impress Francie very much because every undertaker in Williamsburg had a string of them.

  Francie liked the hansom cabs best. How magic they were with only two wheels and that funny door that closed by itself when a passenger sat back in the seat! (Francie thought in her innocence that the doors were meant to protect the passenger from flying horse manure.) If I were a man, thought Francie, that's the job I'd like to have, driving one of them. Oh, to sit high up in the back with a brave whip in a socket close to hand. Oh, to wear such a great coat with large buttons and a velvet collar and a squashed-down high hat with a ribbon cockade in the band! Oh, to have such an expensive-looking blanket folded over her knees! Francie imitated the drivers' cry under her breath.

  "Kerridge, sir? Kerridge?"

  "Anybody," said Johnny, carried away by his personal dream of Democracy, "can ride in one of those hansom cabs, provided," he qualified, "they got the money. So you can see what a free country we got here."

  "What's free about it if you have to pay?" asked Francie.

  "It's free in this way: If you have the money you're allowed to ride in them no matter who you are. In the old countries, certain people aren't free to ride in them, even if they have the money."

  "Wouldn't it be more of a free country," persisted Francie, "if we could ride in them free?"

  "No."

  "Why?"

  "Because that would be Socialism," concluded Johnny triumphantly, "and we don't want that over here."

  "Why?"

  "Because we got Democracy and that's the best thing there is," clinched Johnny.

  There were rumors that New York City's next Mayor would come from Bushwick Avenue, Brooklyn. The idea stirred Johnny. "Look up and down this block, Francie, and show me where our future Mayor lives."

  Francie looked, then had to hang her head and say, "I don't know, Papa."

  "There!" announced Johnny as though he were blowing a trumpet fanfare. "Someday that house over there will have two lamp posts at the bottom of the stoop. And no matter where you roam in this great city," he orated, "and you come across a house with two lamp posts, you'll know that the Mayor of the greatest City in the world lives there."

  "What will he need two lamp posts for?" Francie wanted to know.

  "Because this is America and in a country where such things are," concluded Johnny vaguely but very patriotically, "you know that the government is by the people, for the people, of the people and shall not perish from the face of the earth the way it does in the old countries." He began to sing under his breath. Soon he was carried away by his feeling and started to sing louder. Francie joined in. Johnny sang:

  You're a grand old flag,

  You're a high-flying flag,

  And forever in peace may you wave...*

  People stared at Johnny curiously and one kind lady threw him a penny.

  Francie had another memory about Bushwick Avenue. It was tied up with the scent of roses. There were roses...roses...Bushwick Avenue. Streets emptied of traffic. Crowds on the sidewalk, the police holding them back. Always the scent of roses. Then came the cavalcade: mounted policemen and a large open motorcar in which was seated a genial, kindly-looking man with a wreath of roses around his neck. Some people were weeping with joy as they looked at him. Francie clung to Papa's hand. She heard people around her talking:

  "Just think! He was a Brooklyn boy, too."

  "Was? You dope, he still lives in Brooklyn."

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah. And he lives right here on Bushwick Avenue."

  "Look at him! Look at him!" a woman cried out. "He did such a great thing and he's still an ordinary man like my husband only better looking."

  "It musta been cold up there," said a man. "It wonders me he didn't freeze his whatzis off," said a bawdy boy.

  A cadaverous-looking man tapped Johnny on the shoulder. "Mac," he inquired, "do you actually believe there's a pole up there sticking out on top of the world?"

  "Sure," answered Johnny. "Didn't he go up there and turn around and hang the American flag on it?"

  Just then a small boy hollered out, "Here he comes!"

  "Aw-w-w-w-w!"

  Francie was thrilled by the sound of admiration that swayed the crowd when the car came past where they were standing. Carried away by the excitement, she yelled out shrilly:

  "Hurray for Dr. Cook! Hurray for Brooklyn!"

  26

  MOST CHILDREN BROUGHT UP IN BROOKLYN BEFORE THE FIRST World War remember Thanksgiving Day there with a peculiar tenderness. It was the day children went around "ragamuffin" or "slamming gates," wearing costumes topped off by a penny mask.

  Francie chose her mask with great care. She bought a yellow Chinaman one with sleazy rope mandarin mustache. Neeley bought a chalk-white death head with grinning black teeth. Papa came through at the last minute with a penny tin horn for each, red for Francie, green for Neeley.

  What a time Francie had getting Neeley into his costume! He wore one of mama's discarded dresses hacked off ankle-length in the front to enable him to walk. The uncut back made a dirty dragging train. He stuffed wadded newspapers in the front to make an enormous bust. His broken-out brass-tipped shoes stuck out in front of the dress. Lest he freeze, he wore a ragged sweater over the ensemble. With this costume, he wore the death mask and one of papa's discarded derbies cocked on his head. Only it was too big and wouldn't cock, and rested on his ears.

  Francie wore one of Mama's yellow waists, a bright blue skirt and a red sash. She held the Chinaman mask on by a red bandana over her head and tied under her chin. Mama made her wear her zitful cap (Katie's own name for a wool stocking cap) over her headgear because it was a cold day. Francie put two walnuts for decoys in her last year's Easter basket and the children set out.

  The street was jammed with masked and costumed children making a deafening din with their penny tin horns. Some kids were too poor to buy a penny mask. They had blackened their faces with burnt cork. Other children with more prosperous parents had store costumes: sleazy Indian suits, cowboy suits and cheesecloth Dutch maiden dresses. A few indifferent ones simply draped a dirty sheet over themselves and called it a costume.

  Francie got pushed in with a compact group of children and went the rounds with them. Some storekeepers locked their doors against them but most of them had something for the children. The candy-store man had hoarded all broken bits of candy for weeks and now passed it out in little bags for all who came begging. He had to do this because he lived on the pennies of the youngsters and he didn't want to be boycotted. The bakery stores obliged by baking up batches of soft doughy cookies which they gave away. Children were the marketers of the neighborhood and they would only patronize those stores that treated them well. The bakery people were aware of this. The green grocer obliged with decaying bananas and half-rotted apples. Some stores which had nothing to gain from the children neither locked them out nor gave them anything save a profane lecture on the evils of begging. These people were rewarded by terrific and repeated bangings of the front door by the children. Hence the term, slamming gates.

  By noon, it was all over. Francie was tired of her unwieldy costume. Her mask had crumpled. (It was made of cheap gauze, heavily starched and dried in shape over a mold.) A boy had taken her tin horn and broken it in two across his knee. She met Neeley coming along with a bloody nose. He had been in a fight with another boy who wanted to take his basket. Neeley wouldn't say who won but he had the other boy's basket besides his own. They went home to a good Thanksgiving dinner of pot roast and home-made noodles and spent the afternoon listening to Papa reminisce how he had gone around Thanksgiving Day as a boy.

  It was at a Thanksgiving time that Francie told her first organized lie, was found out and determined to become a writer.

  The day before Thanksgiving, there were exercises in Francie's room. Each of four chosen girls recited a Thanksg
iving poem and held in her hand a symbol of the day. One held an ear of dried-up corn, another a turkey's foot, meant to stand for the whole turkey. A third girl held a basket of apples and the fourth held a five-cent pumpkin pie which was the size of a small saucer.

  After the exercises, the turkey foot and corn were thrown into the wastebasket. Teacher set aside the apples to take home. She asked if anyone wanted the little pumpkin pie. Thirty mouths watered; thirty hands itched to go up into the air but no one moved. Some were poor, many were hungry and all were too proud to accept charitable food. When no one responded, Teacher ordered the pie thrown away.

  Francie couldn't stand it; that beautiful pie thrown away and she had never tasted pumpkin pie. To her it was the food of covered wagon people, of Indian fighters. She was dying to taste it. In a flash she invented a lie and up went her hand.

  "I'm glad someone wants it," said Teacher.

  "I don't want it for myself," lied Francie proudly. "I know a very poor family I'd like to give it to."

  "Good," said Teacher. "That's the real Thanksgiving spirit."

  Francie ate the pie while walking home that afternoon. Whether it was her conscience or the unfamiliar flavor, she didn't enjoy the pie. It tasted like soap. The Monday following, Teacher saw her in the hall before class and asked her how the poor family had enjoyed the pie.

  "They liked it a whole lot," Francie told her. Then when she saw Teacher there looking so interested, she embellished the story. "This family has two little girls with golden curls and big blue eyes."

  "And?" prompted Teacher.

  "And...and...they're twins."

  "How interesting."

  Francie was inspired. "One of them has the name Pamela and the other Camilla." (These were names that Francie had once chosen for her non-existent dolls.)

  "And they are very, very poor," suggested Teacher.

  "Oh, very poor. They didn't have anything to eat for three days and just would have died, the doctor said, if I didn't bring them that pie."