A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [138]
McGarrity talked for two hours without stopping. Katie listened intently. She was not listening to McGarrity talking. She was listening to McGarrity talking about Johnny. When he stopped for a second, she gave him little transitional replies, such as “Yes?” or “Then what?” or “And then…?” When he fumbled for a word, she offered him one which he accepted gratefully.
And as he talked, a remarkable thing happened. He felt his lost manhood stirring within him. It wasn’t the physical fact of Katie in the room with him. Her body was swollen and distorted and he couldn’t look at her without wincing inwardly. It wasn’t the woman. It was the talking to her that was doing it.
It grew dark in the room. McGarrity stopped talking. He was hoarse and tired. But it was a new peaceful kind of tiredness. He thought, reluctantly, that he had to get back. The saloon would be filling up with men on their way home from work, stopping in for a pre-supper drink. He didn’t like Mae behind the bar when a crowd of men were there. He got to his feet slowly.
“Mrs. Nolan,” he said fumbling with his brown derby, “could I come up here once in a while to talk?” She shook her head slowly. “Just to talk?” he repeated pleadingly.
“No, Mr. McGarrity,” she said as gently as she could.
He sighed and went away.
Francie was glad to be so busy. It kept her from missing Papa too much. She and Neeley got up at six in the morning and helped Mama with the cleaning for two hours before they got ready for school. Mama couldn’t work hard now. Francie polished the brass bell plates in the three vestibules and cleaned each banister spoke with an oiled cloth. Neeley swept out the cellars and swept down the carpeted stairs. Both of them got the filled ash cans up on the curb each day. It had been a problem because the two of them together couldn’t so much as budge the heavy cans. Francie got the idea of tipping over the cans, dumping the ashes on the cellar floor, carrying the empty cans up to the curb and then refilling them with coal buckets. It worked fine, even if it meant a lot of trips up and down the cellar. That left only the linoleum-laid halls for Mama to scrub. Three of the tenants offered to scrub their own hallways until after Katie had had her baby and that helped a whole lot.
After school, the children had to go to church for “instruction” since both were being confirmed that spring. After instruction, they worked for McGarrity. As he had promised, the work was easy. Francie made up four tumbled beds and washed a few breakfast dishes and swept the rooms. It took less than an hour.
Neeley had the same schedule as Francie, except that his paper route was added on. Sometimes he didn’t get home for supper until eight o’clock. He worked in the kitchen back of McGarrity’s saloon. His job was to take the shells off four dozen hard-boiled eggs, cut hard cheese into inch cubes and stick a toothpick in each cube, and slice big pickles lengthwise.
McGarrity waited a few days until the children got used to working for him. Then he decided it was time to have them talk to him the way Johnny had. He went into the kitchen, sat down, and watched Neeley working. “He’s the spitting image of his father,” thought McGarrity. He waited a long time letting the boy get used to him there, then he cleared his throat.
“Make any wooden book ends lately?” he asked.
“No…no, sir,” stammered Neeley, startled at the odd question.
McGarrity waited. Why didn’t the boy start talking? Neeley shelled eggs faster. McGarrity tried again. “Think Wilson will keep us out of the war?”
“I don’t know,” said Neeley.
McGarrity waited a long time. Neeley thought he was checking up on the way he worked. Anxious to please, the boy worked so fast that he was finished ahead of time. He placed the last shelled egg in the glass bowl and looked up. “Ah! Now he’s going to talk to me,” thought McGarrity.
“Is that all you want done?” asked Neeley.