A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [154]
On the last night in June 1916, Francie walked for the last time to the school she so loved. Sissy, quiet and changed since she got her baby, walked sedately beside her. Two firemen passed and Sissy never so much as noticed and there had been a time when Sissy couldn’t resist a uniform. Francie wished Sissy hadn’t changed. It made her feel lonesome. Her hand crept into Sissy’s and Sissy squeezed it. Francie was comforted. Sissy was still Sissy underneath.
The graduates sat in the front part of the auditorium and the guests in the back. The principal made an earnest speech to the children about how they were going out into a troubled world and about how it would be up to them to build a new world after the war which was sure to come to America. He urged them on to higher education so that they would be better equipped for this world building. Francie was impressed and vowed in her heart that she’d help carry the torch like he said.
Then came the graduation play. Francie’s eyes burned with unshed tears. As the diluted dialogue droned on, she thought, “My play would have been better. I would have taken the ash can out. I would have done whatever Teacher said if she had only let me write the play.”
After the play, they marched up, got their diplomas and were graduates at last. The oath of allegiance to the flag and the singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” clinched it.
And now came the time of Francie’s Gethsemane.
It was the custom to present bouquets to the girl graduates. Since flowers were not allowed in the auditorium, they were delivered to the classrooms where the teachers placed them on the recipient’s desk.
Francie had to go back to her room to get her report card; also her pencil box and autograph book from her desk. She stood outside nerving herself for the ordeal, knowing her desk would be the only one without flowers. She was sure, because she hadn’t told Mama about the custom, knowing there was no money at home for such things.
Deciding to get it over with, she went in and walked straight to the teacher’s desk, not daring to look at her own. The air was thick with flower scents. She heard the girls chattering and squealing with delight over their flowers. She heard the exchange of triumphant admiration.
She got her report card: four “A”s and one “C minus.” The latter was her English mark. She used to be the best writer in school and here she ended up barely passing English. Suddenly, she hated the school and all the teachers, especially Miss Garnder. And she didn’t care about not getting flowers. She didn’t care. It was a silly custom, anyway. “I’ll go to my desk and get my things,” she decided. “And if anyone speaks to me, I’ll tell them to shut up. And then I’ll walk out of this school forever and not say good-bye to anyone.” She raised her eyes. “The desk without flowers on it will be mine.” But there were no empty desks! There were flowers on every single one!
Francie went to her desk, reasoning that a girl had placed one of her bouquets there for a moment. Francie planned to pick it up and hand it to the owner saying coolly, “Do you mind? I have to get something out of my desk.”
She picked up the flowers—two dozen dark red roses on a sheaf of ferns. She cradled them in her arm, the way the other girls did, and pretended for a moment that they were hers. She looked for the owner’s name on the card. But her own name was on the card! Her name! The card said: For Francie on graduation day. Love from Papa.
Papa!
The writing was in his fine careful hand, in the black ink from the bottle in the cupboard at home. Then it was all a dream, a long mixed-up dream. Laurie was a dream, and the working at McGarrity’s, and the graduation play, and the bad mark in English. She was waking up now and everything would be all right. Papa would be waiting out in the hall.
But there was only Sissy in the hall.
“Then Papa is dead,” she said.
“Yes,” said Sissy. “And it’s six