A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [115]
Katie let him in. When he saw Francie lying on the couch, he bawled louder. Now Francie started to bawl. “Stop it! Stop it!” Katie screamed. She shook Neeley until he didn’t have a sob left in him.
“Run and get your father. Look all over until you find him.”
Neeley found Papa in McGarrity’s saloon. Johnny was just about to settle down to a long afternoon of slow drinking. When he heard Neeley’s story, he dropped his glass and ran out with him. They couldn’t get back into the house. The ambulance was at the door and four policemen were fighting a way through the crowd trying to get the ambulance doctor in.
Johnny and Neeley went through the next-door cellar into the yard, helped each other over the board fence into their own yard and climbed up on the fire escape. When Katie saw Johnny’s derby looming up outside the window, she screamed and ran around frantically looking for the gun. Fortunately for Johnny, she had forgotten where she had thrown it.
Johnny ran to Francie, and, big as she was, he picked her up in his arms as though she were a baby. He rocked her and told her to go to sleep. Francie kept insisting that she wanted her leg cut off.
“Did he get her?” asked Johnny.
“No, but I got him,” Katie said grimly.
“Did you shoot him with the pistol?”
“With what else?” She showed him the hole in her apron.
“Did you shoot him good?”
“As good as I could. But she keeps talking about her leg. His…” her eyes slid towards Neeley, “…well, you know, touched her leg.” She pointed to the spot. Johnny looked but he saw nothing. “That’s too bad it had to happen to her,” Katie said. “She’s such a one for remembering. She might never get married, remembering.”
“We’ll fix that leg,” promised Papa.
He put Francie back on the couch, got the carbolic acid and swabbed the spot with the strong raw stuff. Francie welcomed the burning pain of the acid. She felt that the evil of the man’s touch was being seared away.
Someone pounded at the door. They remained quiet and unanswering. They wanted no outsiders in their home at this time. A strong Irish voice called.
“Open up the door. ’Tis the law, now.”
Katie opened the door. A policeman walked in followed by an ambulance intern carrying a bag. The cop pointed to Francie.
“This the kid he tried to get?”
“Yes.”
“Doc, here, has to make an examination.”
“I won’t allow it,” protested Katie.
“It’s the law,” he answered quietly.
So Katie and the intern took Francie into the bedroom and the terrified child had to submit to the indignity of an examination. The jaunty intern made a quick and careful examination. He straightened up and started to put his instruments back into the bag. He said,
“She’s okay. He never got near her.” He took her swollen wrist in his hand. “How did this happen?”
“I had to hit her with the gun to make her let go of the banister,” Katie explained. He noticed her bruised knee.
“What’s this?”
“That’s where I had to drag her along the hall.” Then he got to the angry burn just above her ankle. “And what in the name of God is this?”
“That’s where her father washed her leg with carbolic acid where that man touched her.”
“My God!” exploded the intern. “You trying to give her third-degree burns?” He opened the bag again, put cooling salve on the burn and bandaged it neatly. “My God!” he said again, “between the two of you, you did more damage than the criminal.” He smoothed down Francie’s dress, patted her cheek and said, “You’ll be all right, girlie. I’m going to give you something to put you to sleep. When you wake up, just remember that you had a bad dream. That’s all it was; a bad dream. Hear?”
“Yes, sir,” said Francie gratefully. Again she saw a poised needle. She remembered something from a long time ago. She worried. Was her arm clean? Would he say…
“That’s a brave girl,” he said as the needle jabbed.
“Why, he’s on my side,” thought Francie hazily. She went to sleep immediately after the hypodermic.
Katie and the doctor came out into the kitchen. Johnny and the cop were sitting at the