by Betty Smith
Then she heard a word. She heard a word that she had never known. She heard the word "oxygen."
"Quick! Oxygen!" she heard the doctor say.
She watched him work over her baby. She saw a miracle that transcended the miracles of the saints her mother had told her about. She saw the dead blue change to living white. She saw an apparently lifeless child draw a breath. For the first time she heard the cry of a child she had borne.
"Is...is...it alive?" she asked, afraid to believe.
"What else?" The doctor shrugged his shoulders eloquently. "You've got as fine a boy as I've ever seen."
"You're sure he'll live?"
"Why not?" Again the shrug. "Unless you let him fall out of a three-story window."
Sissy took his hands and covered them with kisses. And Dr. Aaron Aaronstein was not embarrassed about her emotionalism the way a Gentile doctor would have been.
She named the baby Stephen Aaron.
"I've never seen it to fail," said Katie. "Let a childless woman adopt a baby and bang! A year or two later she's sure to have one of her own. It's as if God recognized her good intentions at last. It's nice that Sissy has two to bring up because it's no good to bring up one child alone."
"Little Sissy and Stevie are just two years apart," said Francie. "Almost like Neeley and me."
"Yes. They'll be company for each other."
Sissy's living son was the great wonder of the family until Uncle Willie Flittman gave them something else to talk about. Willie tried to enlist in the army and was turned down; whereupon he threw up his job with the milk company, came home, announced that he was a failure, and went to bed. He wouldn't get up next morning or the morning after. He said he was going to stay in bed and never get up as long as he lived. All his life he had lived as a failure and now he was going to die as a failure and the sooner the better, he stated.
Evy sent for her sisters.
Evy, Sissy, Katie, and Francie stood around the big brass bed in which the failure had ensconced himself. Willie took one look at the circle of strong-willed Rommely women and wailed, "I'm a failure." He pulled the blanket up over his head.
Evy turned her husband over to Sissy and Francie watched Sissy go to work on him. She put her arms around him and held the futile little fellow to her breast. Sissy convinced him that not all the brave men were in trenches--that many a hero was risking his life daily for his country in a munitions factory. She talked and talked until Willie got so excited about helping to win the war that he jumped out of bed and made Aunt Evy scurry around getting him his pants and shoes.
Steve was foreman now, at a munitions factory on Morgan Avenue. He got Willie a good paying job there with time and a half for overtime.
It was a tradition in the Rommely family that the men keep for themselves any tips or overtime money that they earned. With his first check for overtime work, Willie bought himself a bass drum and a pair of cymbals. He spent all of his evenings (when he didn't have to work overtime) practicing on the drum and cymbals in the front room. Francie gave him a dollar harmonica for Christmas. He fastened it to a stick and attached the stick to his belt so he could play the harmonica like riding a bicycle no-hands. He tried to manipulate the guitar, harmonica, drums, and cymbals all at once. He was practicing to be a one-man band.
And so he sat in the front room evenings. He blew into the harmonica, strummed the guitar, thumped the great drum, and clashed the brass cymbals. And he grieved because he was a failure.
51
WHEN IT GOT TOO COLD TO GO WALKING, FRANCIE ENROLLED IN two evening classes at the Settlement House--sewing and dancing.
She learned to decode paper patterns and to run a sewing machine. In time she hoped to be able to make her own clothes.
She learned "ballroom" dancing, although neither she nor her partners ever expected to set foot in something called a ballroom. Sometimes her partner was one of the brilliantine-haired neighborhood sheiks who was a snappy dancer and made her watch her steps. Sometimes he was a little old boy of fourteen in knee pants and she made him watch his steps. She loved dancing and took to it instinctively.
And that year began to draw to a close.
"What's that book you're studying, Francie?"
"That's Neeley's geometry book."
"What's geometry?"
"Something you have to pass to get into college, Mama."
"Well, don't sit up too late."
"What news do you bring me of my mother and sisters?" Katie asked the insurance collector.
"Well, for one thing I just insured your sister's babies, Sarah and Stephen."
"But she's had them insured since birth--a nickel a week policy."
"This is a different policy. Endowment."
"What does that mean?"
"They don't have to die to collect. They get a thousand dollars each when they're eighteen. It's insurance to get them through college."
"Oh my! First a doctor and hospital to give birth, then college insurance. What next?"
"Any mail, Mama?" asked Francie as usual when she got home from work.
"No. Just a card from Evy."
"What does she say?"
"Nothing. Except they've got to move again on account of Willie's drumming."
"Where're they moving now?"
"Evy found a one-family house in Cypress Hills. I wonder whether that's in Brooklyn?"
"It's out East New York way--where Brooklyn changes into Queens. It's around Crescent Street, the last stop on the Broadway El. I mean it used to be the last stop until they extended the El to Jamaica."
Mary Rommely lay in her narrow white bed. A crucifix stood out on the bare wall above her head. Her three daughters and Francie, her eldest granddaughter, stood by her bed.
"Ai. I am eighty-five now and I feel that this is my last time of sickness. I wait for death with the courage I gained from living. I will not speak falsely and say to you: 'Do not grieve for me when I go.' I have loved my children and tried to be a good mother and it is right that my children grieve for me. But let your grief be gentle and brief. And let resignation creep into it. Know that I shall be happy. I shall see face to face the great saints I have loved all my life."
Francie showed the snapshots to a group of girls in the recreation room.
"This is Annie Laurie, my baby sister. She's only eighteen months old but she runs all over the place. And you ought to hear her talk!"
"She's cute."
"This is my brother, Cornelius. He's going to be a doctor."
"He's cute."
"This is my mother."
"She's cute. And so young-looking."
"And this is me on the roof."
"The roof's cute."
"I'm cute," said Francie with mock belligerence.
"We're all cute." The girls laughed. "Our supervisor's cute--the old wagon. I hope she chokes."
They laughed and laughed.
"What are we all laughing at?" asked Francie.
"Nothing." They laughed harder.
"Send Francie. The last time I asked for sauerkraut he chased me out of the store," complained Neeley.
"You've got to ask for Liberty Cabbage now, you dope," said Francie.
"Don't call each other names," chided Katie absentmindedly.
"Did you know they changed Hamburg Avenue to Wilson Avenue?" asked Francie.
"War makes people do funny things," sighed Katie.
"You going to tell Mama?" asked Neeley apprehensively.
"No. But you're too young to go out with that kind of a girl. They say she's wild," said Francie.
"Who wants a tame girl?"
"I wouldn't care, only you don't know anything at all about--well--sex."
"I know more than you, anyhow." He put his hand on his hip and squealed in a lisping falsetto: "Oh, Mama! Will I have a baby if a man just kisses me? Will I, Mama? Will I?"
"Neeley! You listened that day!"
"Sure! I was right outside in the hall and heard every word."
"You listen, too. Many's the time I caught you when Mama and Sissy or Aunt Evy were talking and you were supposed to be asleep in bed."
"That's different. I have to find out things."
"Check!"
"Francie! Francie! It's seven o'clock. Get up!"
"What for?"
"You've got to be at work at eight-thirty."
"Tell me something new, Mama."
"You're sixteen years old today."
"Tell me something new. I've been sixteen for two years now."
"You'll have to be sixteen for another year, then."
"I'll probably be sixteen all my life."
"I wouldn't be surprised."
"I wasn't snooping," said Katie indignantly. "I needed another nickel for the gas man and I thought you wouldn't care. You look in my pocketbook for change many a time."
"That's different," said Francie.
Katie held a small violet box in her hand. There were scented gold-tipped cigarettes in it. One was missing from the full box.
"Well, now you know the worst," said Francie. "I smoked a Milo cigarette."
"They smell nice anyway," said Katie.
"Go ahead, Mama. Give me the lecture and get it over with."
"With so many soldiers dying in France and all, the world's not going to fall apart if you smoke a cigarette once in a while."
"Gee, Mama, you take all the fun out of things--like not objecting to my black lace pants last year. Well, throw the cigarettes away."
"I'll do no such thing! I'll scatter them in my bureau drawer. They'll make my nightgowns smell nice."
"I was thinking," said Katie, "that instead of buying each other Christmas presents this year, that we put all the money together and buy a roasting chicken and a big cake from the bakery and a pound of good coffee and..."
"We have enough money for food," protested Francie. "We don't have to use our Christmas money."
"I mean to give to the Tynmore girls for Christmas. No one takes lessons from them now--people say they're behind the times. They don't have enough to eat and Miss Lizzie's been so good to us."
"Well, all right," consented Francie not very enthusiastically.
"Gee!" Neeley kicked the table leg viciously.
"Don't worry, Neeley," laughed Francie. "You'll get a present. I'll buy you fawn-colored spats this year."
"Aw, shut up!"
"Don't say 'shut up' to each other," chided Katie absentmindedly.
"I want to ask your advice, Mama. There was this boy I met in summer school. He said he might write but he never has. I want to know would it look forward if I sent him a Christmas card?"
"Forward? Nonsense! Send the card if you feel like it. I hate all those flirty-birty games that women make up. Life's too short. If you ever find a man you love, don't waste time hanging your head and simpering. Go right up to him and say, 'I love you. How about getting married?' That is," she added hastily with an apprehensive look at her daughter, "when you're old enough to know your own mind."
"I'll send the card," decided Francie.
"Mama, we decided, Neeley and I, that we'd like coffee instead of milk punch."
"All right." Katie put the brandy bottle back in the cupboard.
"And make the coffee very strong and hot and fill the cups with half coffee and half hot milk and we'll toast 1918 in cafe au lait."
"S'il vous plait," put in Neeley.
"Wee-wee-wee," said Mama. "I know some French words, too."
Katie held the coffeepot in one hand and the saucepan of hot milk in the other and poured both into the cups simultaneously. "I remember," she said, "when there was no milk in the house. Your father would put a lump of butter in his coffee--if we had butter. He said that butter was cream in the first place and just as good in coffee."
Papa...!
52
ONE SUNNY DAY IN THE SPRING WHEN FRANCIE WAS SIXTEEN, SHE walked out of the office at five o'clock and saw Anita, a girl who operated a machine in her row, standing in the doorway of the Communications Building with two soldiers. One, short, stubby, and beaming, held Anita's arm possessively. The other, tall and gangling, stood there awkwardly. Anita detached herself from the soldiers and drew Francie aside.
"Francie, you've got to help me out. Joey's on his last leave before his unit goes overseas and we're engaged."
"If you're engaged already you're doing all right and don't need anybody's help," said Francie jokingly.
"I mean help with that other fellow. Joey just had to bring him along, darn it. Seems like they're buddies and where one goes the other goes. This other fellow comes from some hick town in Pennsylvania and doesn't know a soul in New York and I know he'll stick around and I'll never get to be alone with Joey. You've got to help me out, Francie. Three girls turned me down already."
Francie took a speculative look at the Pennsylvania fellow standing ten feet away. He didn't look like much. No wonder the other three girls refused to help out Anita. Then his eyes met hers and he smiled a slow shy smile and somehow, while he wasn't good-looking, he was nicer than good-looking. The shy smile decided Francie.
"Look," she said to Anita, "if I can catch my brother where he works, I'll give him a message for my mother. If he's left, I'll have to go home because my mother will worry if I don't turn up for supper."
"Hurry up, then. Phone him," urged Anita. "Here!" She fished in her pocketbook. "I'll give you the nickel for the call."
Francie phoned from the corner cigar store. It just happened that Neeley was still at McGarrity's. She gave him the message. When she got back, she found that Anita and her Joey had gone. The soldier with the shy smile was all alone.
"Where's 'Nita?" she asked.
"I reckon she's run out on you. She went off with Joe."
Francie was dismayed. She had expected it to be a double date. What in the world was she to do with this tall stranger now?
"I don't blame them," he was saying, "wanting to be alone. I'm an engaged man myself. I know how it is. The last leave--the only girl."
"Engaged, hm?" thought Francie. "At least he wouldn't try any romancing."
"But that's no reason why you should be stuck with me," he went on. "If you'll show me where to get the subway to Thirty-fourth Street--I'm a stranger in this city--I'll go back to the hotel room. A person can always write letters, I guess, when there's nothing else to do." He smiled his lonely shy smile.
"I've already phoned my folks that I won't be home. So if you'd like...."
"Like? Gosh! This is my lucky day. Well, gee, thanks, Miss...."
"Nolan. Frances Nolan."
"My name's Lee Rhynor. It's really Leo but everybody says 'Lee.' I'm sure pleased to meet you, Miss Nolan." He held out his hand.
"And I'm pleased to meet you, Corporal Rhynor." They shook hands.
"Oh, you noticed the stripes." He smiled happily. "I suppose you're hungry after working all day. Any special place you'd like to go for supper...I mean dinner?"
"Supper's okay. No. No place special. You?"
"I'd like to try some of this here chop suey I heard about."
"There's a nice place up around Forty-second Street. With music."
"Let's go!"
On the way to the subway he said, "Miss Nolan, do you care if I call you Frances?"
"I don't care. Everyone calls me Francie, though."
"Francie!" He repeated the name. "Francie, another thing: Would you mind if I sort of made believe that you were my best girl--just for this evening?"
"Hm," thought Francie, "fast worker."
He took the thought out of her mind. "I guess you think I'm a fast worker but it's this way: I haven't been out with a girl in nearly a year and a few days from now I'll be on a boat heading for France and after that, I don't know what may be. So for these few hours--if you don't mind--I'd consider it a great favor."
"I don't mind."
"Thanks," he indicated his arm. "Hang on, best girl." As the
y were about to enter the subway, he paused. "Say 'Lee,'" he ordered.
"Lee," she said.
"Say, 'Hello, Lee. It's so good to see you again, dear.'"
"Hello, Lee. It's so good to see you again..." she said shyly. He tightened his arm.
The waiter at Ruby's put two bowls of chop suey and a fat pot of tea between them.
"You pour out my tea so it's more homelike," said Lee.
"How much sugar?"
"I don't take sugar."
"Me either."
"Say! We have exactly the same tastes, don't we?" he said.
Both were very hungry and they stopped talking in order to concentrate on the slippery wet food. Every time Francie looked up at him he smiled. Every time he looked down at her she grinned happily. After the chop suey, rice, and tea were all gone, he leaned back and took out a pack of cigarettes.
"Smoke?"
She shook her head. "I tried it once and didn't seem to like it."
"Good. I don't like a girl who smokes."
Then he started to talk. He told her all that he could remember about himself. He told her of his boyhood in a Pennsylvania town. (She remembered the town from reading its weekly newspaper in the press clipping bureau.) He told her about his parents and his brothers and sisters. He spoke of his school days--parties he had gone to--jobs he had worked at--he told her he was twenty-two--how he had come to enlist at twenty-one. He told her about his life at the army camp--how he got to be a corporal. He told her every single thing about himself. Excepting the girl he was engaged to, back home.
And Francie told him of her life. She told only of the happy things--how handsome Papa had been--how wise Mama was--what a swell brother Neeley was, and how cute her baby sister was. She told him about the brown bowl on the library desk--about the New Year's night she and Neeley had talked on the roof. She didn't mention Ben Blake because he never entered her thoughts. After she had finished, he said: "All my life I've been so lonely. I've been lonely at crowded parties. I've been lonely in the middle of kissing a girl and I've been lonely at camp with hundreds of fellows around. But now I'm not lonely any more." He smiled his special slow shy smile.
