A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [109]
May 12. Papa hasn’t worked for over a month. Neeley wants to get his working papers and leave school. Mama said no.
May 15. Papa worked tonight. He said he’s going to take charge of things from now on. He scolded Neeley about the working papers.
May 17. Papa came home sick. Some kids were following him on the street and making fun of him. I hate kids.
May 20. Neeley has a paper route now. He won’t let me help sell papers.
May 28. Carney did not pinch my cheek today. He pinched something else. I guess I’m getting too big to sell junk.
May 30. Miss Garnder said they are going to publish my winter time composition in the magazine.
June 2. Papa came home sick today. Neeley and I had to help Mama get him upstairs. Papa cried.
June 4. I got A on my composition today. We had to write on My Ambition. I only made one mistake. I wrote play-writer and Miss Garnder said the right word was playwright.
June 7. Two men brought Papa home today. He was sick. Mama was away. I put Papa to bed and gave him black coffee. When Mama came home she said that was the right thing to do.
June 12. Miss Tynmore gave me Schubert’s Serenade today. Mama’s ahead of me. She got Tannhauser’s Evening Star. Neeley says he’s ahead of both of us. He can play Alexander’s Ragtime Band without notes.
June 20. Went to show. Saw The Girl of the Golden West. It was the best show I ever saw, the way the blood dripped through the ceiling.
June 21. Papa was away for two nights. We didn’t know where he was. He came home sick.
June 22. Mama turned my mattress today and found my diary and read it. Everywhere I had the word drunk, she made me cross it out and write sick. It’s lucky I didn’t have anything against Mama written down. If ever I have children I will not read their diaries as I believe that even a child is entitled to some privacy. If Mama finds this again and reads it, I hope she will take the hint.
June 23. Neeley says he has a girl. Mama says he’s too young. I wonder.
June 25. Uncle Willie, Aunt Evy, Sissy and her John over tonight. Uncle Willie drank a lot of beer and cried. He said the new horse he’s got, Bessie, did worse than wet on him. Mama scolded me for laughing.
June 27. We finished the Bible today. Now we got to start all over. We’ve gone through Shakespeare four times already.
July 1. Intolerance….
Francie put her hand over the entry to hide the words. For a moment, she thought the waves would pass over her again. But the feeling went away. She turned the page and read another entry.
July 4. Sergeant McShane brought Papa home today. Papa wasn’t arrested as we thought at first. He was sick. Mr. McShane gave Neeley and me a quarter. Mama made us give it back.
July 5. Papa still sick. Will he ever work again? I wonder.
July 6. We started playing the North Pole game today.
July 7. North Pole.
July 8. North Pole.
July 9. North Pole. Expected rescue did not come.
July 10. We opened the tin-can bank today. There was eight dollars and twenty cents in it. My golden pennies had turned black.
July 20. All the money from the tin-can bank is gone. Mama took some washing to do for Mrs. McGarrity. I helped iron but burnt a hole on Mrs. McGarrity’s drawers. Mama won’t let me iron anymore.
July 23. I got a job at Hendler’s Restaurant just for the summer. I wash dishes during the dinner and supper rush. I use gobs of soft soap out of a barrel. On Monday a man comes and collects three barrels of scraps of fat and brings back one barrel of soft soap on Wednesday. Nothing is wasted in this world. I get two dollars a week and my meals. It isn’t hard work but I don’t like that soap.
July 24. Mama said I’d be a woman before I knew it. I wonder.
July 28. Floss Gaddis and Frank are going to be married as soon as he gets a raise. Frank says that the way President Wilson is running things we’ll be in the war before you know it. He says he’s marrying because he wants a wife and kids so that when war comes he doesn’t have to fight. Flossie says that’s not true; it’s a case of true love. I wonder. I remember how Flossie used