A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [142]
Sissy was there when the picture arrived. Katie held it and they all examined it over her shoulder. Francie had never been photographed before. For the first time, she saw herself as others saw her. She was standing stiff and straight on the edge of the curb, her back to the gutter and her dress blowing sidewise in the wind. Neeley stood close to her, was a head taller, and looked very wealthy and handsome in his freshly pressed black suit. The sun had slanted over the roofs in such a way that Neeley was in the sun and his face was clear and bright, while Francie looked dark and angry in the shadow. Behind both, was the blurred trolley going by.
Sissy said, “I bet that’s the only confirmation picture in the world with a trolley car in it.”
“It’s a good picture,” said Katie. “They look more natural standing on the street than in front of the picture-man’s cardboard church window.” She hung it up over the mantelpiece.
“What name did you take, Neeley?” Sissy asked.
“Papa’s. Now I’m Cornelius John Nolan.”
“That’s a good name for a surgeon,” commented Katie.
“I took Mama’s name,” said Francie importantly. “Now my full name is Mary Frances Katherine Nolan.” Francie waited. Mama did not say that was a good name for a writer.
“Katie, have you any pictures of Johnny?” Sissy asked.
“No. Just the one of both of us taken on our wedding day. Why?”
“Nothing. Only time passes so, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” sighed Katie. “That’s one of the few things we can be sure of.”
Confirmation was over and Francie didn’t have to go to instruction any more. She had an extra hour daily which she was devoting to the novel she was writing to prove to Miss Garnder, the new English teacher, that she did know about beauty.
Since her father’s death, Francie had stopped writing about birds and trees and My Impressions. Because she missed him so, she had taken to writing little stories about him. She tried to show that, in spite of his shortcomings, he had been a good father and a kindly man. She had written three such stories which were marked “C” instead of the usual “A.” The fourth came back with a line telling her to remain after school.
All the children had gone home. Miss Garnder and Francie were alone in the room with the big dictionary in it. Francie’s last four compositions lay on Miss Garnder’s desk.
“What’s happened to your writing, Frances?” asked Miss Garnder.
“I don’t know.”
“You were one of my best pupils. You wrote so prettily. I enjoyed your compositions. But these last ones…” she flicked at them contemptuously.
“I looked up the spelling and took pains with my penmanship and…”
“I’m referring to your subject matter.”
“You said we could choose our own subjects.”
“But poverty, starvation and drunkenness are ugly subjects to choose. We all admit these things exist. But one doesn’t write about them.”
“What does one write about?” Unconsciously, Francie picked up the teacher’s phraseology.
“One delves into the imagination and finds beauty there. The writer, like the artist, must strive for beauty always.”
“What is beauty?” asked the child.
“I can think of no better definition than Keats’: ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty.’”
Francie took her courage into her two hands and said, “Those stories are the truth.”
“Nonsense!” exploded Miss Garnder. Then, softening her tone, she continued: “By truth, we mean things like the stars always being there and the sun always rising and the true nobility of man and mother-love and love for one’s country,” she ended anti-climactically.
“I see,” said Francie.
As Miss Garnder continued talking, Francie answered her bitterly in her mind.
“Drunkenness is neither truth nor beauty. It’s a vice. Drunkards belong in jail, not in stories. And poverty. There is no excuse for that. There’s work