A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [14]
Francie saw young girls making preparations to go out with their fellers. Since none of the flats had bathrooms, the girls stood before the kitchen sinks in their camisoles and petticoats, and the line the arm made, curved over the head while they washed under the arm, was very beautiful. There were so many girls in so many windows washing this way that it seemed a kind of hushed and expectant ritual.
She stopped reading when Fraber’s horse and wagon came into the yard next door because watching the beautiful horse was almost as good as reading. The next-door yard was cobblestoned and had a good-looking stable at the end of it. A wrought-iron double gate separated the yard from the street. At the edge of the cobblestones was a bit of well-manured earth where a lovely rose bush grew and a row of bright red geraniums. The stable was finer than any house in the neighborhood and the yard was the prettiest in Williamsburg.
Francie heard the gate click shut. The horse, a shining brown gelding with a black mane and tail, came into view first. He pulled a small maroon wagon that had Dr. Fraber, Dentist and the address painted on the sides in golden letters. This trim wagon delivered nothing and carried nothing. It was driven slowly through the streets all day as an advertisement. It was a dreamily moving billboard.
Frank, a nice young man with rosy cheeks—like the fabulous youth in the children’s song—took the wagon out every morning and brought it back every afternoon. He had a fine life and all the girls flirted with him. All he had to do was to drive the wagon around slowly so that people could read the name and address on it. When it came to a set of plates or the pulling of a tooth, the people would remember the address on the wagon and come to Dr. Fraber.
Frank leisurely removed his coat and donned a leather apron while Bob, the horse, patiently shifted from one foot to the other. Frank then unharnessed him, wiped off the leather and hung the harness up in the stable. Next he washed the horse with a great wet yellow sponge. The horse enjoyed it. He stood there with the sunshine dappling him over and sometimes his hooves struck a spark from the stones as he pawed the ground. Frank squeezed water out on to the brown back and rubbed it down talking to the big horse all the while.
“Steady now, Bob. That’s a good boy. Back up there. Whoa now!”
Bob was not the only horse in Francie’s life. Her Aunt Evy’s husband, Uncle Willie Flittman, also drove a horse. His horse was named Drummer and pulled a milk wagon. Willie and Drummer were not friends the way Frank and his horse were friends. Willie and Drummer lay in wait for each other figuring out injuries to do the other. Uncle Willie reviled Drummer by the hour. To hear him talk, you would think that the horse never slept at night but stood awake in the milk company stable figuring out new torments for his driver.
Francie liked to play a game in which she imagined that people looked like their pets and vice versa. Little white poodles were favorite pets in Brooklyn. The woman who owned a poodle was usually small, plump, white, soiled and with rheumy eyes just like a poodle. Miss Tynmore, the tiny, bright chirping old maid who gave Mama music lessons, was just like the canary whose cage hung in her kitchen. If Frank could turn into a horse, he’d look like Bob. Francie had never seen Uncle Willie’s horse but she knew what he looked like. Drummer, like Willie, would be small and thin and dark with nervous eyes which showed too much white. He’d be whimpery too, like Aunt Evy’s husband. She let her thought go away from Uncle Flittman.
Out on the street, a dozen small