A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [19]
She walked with him to the trolley car. Women smiled at him until they noticed the little girl clinging to his hand. Johnny looked like a handsome, devil-may-care Irish boy instead of the husband of a scrubwoman and the father of two children who were always hungry.
They passed Gabriel’s Hardware Store and stopped to look at the skates in the window. Mama never had time to do this. Papa talked as though he would buy Francie a pair someday. They walked to the corner. When a Graham Avenue trolley came along, he swung up on to the platform suiting his rhythm to the car’s slowing down. As the car started up again, he stood on the back platform holding on to the bar while he leaned way out to wave to Francie. No man had ever looked so gallant as her father, she thought.
4
AFTER SHE HAD SEEN PAPA OFF, FRANCIE WENT UP TO SEE WHAT KIND of costume Floss Gaddis had for the dance that night.
Flossie supported her mother and brother by working as a turner in a kid-glove factory. The gloves were stitched on the wrong side and it was her job to turn them right side out. Often she brought work home to do at night. They needed every cent they could get on account of her brother not being able to work. He had consumption.
Francie had been told that Henny Gaddis was dying but she didn’t believe it. He didn’t look it. In fact, he looked wonderful. He had clear skin with a beautiful pink color in his cheeks. His eyes were large and dark and burned steadily like a lamp protected from the wind. But he knew. He was nineteen and avid for life and he couldn’t understand why he was doomed. Mrs. Gaddis was glad to see Francie. Company took Henny’s thoughts off himself.
“Henny, here’s Francie,” she called out cheerfully.
“Hello, Francie.”
“Hello, Henny.”
“Don’t you think Henny’s looking good, Francie? Tell him that he’s looking good.”
“You’re looking good, Henny.”
Henny addressed an unseen companion. “She tells a dying man that he’s looking good.”
“I mean it.”
“No, you don’t. You’re just saying that.”
“How you talk, Henny. Look at me—how skinny I am and I never think about dying.”
“You won’t die, Francie. You were born to lick this rotten life.”
“Still and all, I wish I had nice red cheeks like you.”
“No, you don’t. Not if you know where they come from.”
“Henny, you should sit on the roof more,” said his mother.
“She tells a dying man he should sit on the roof,” reported Henny to his invisible companion.
“Fresh air is what you need, and sunshine.”
“Leave me alone, Mama.”
“For your own good.”
“Mama, Mama, leave me alone! Leave me alone!”
Suddenly he put his head down on his arms and pulled tormented coughing sobs out of his body. Flossie and her mother looked at each other and silently agreed to let him alone. They left him coughing and sobbing in the kitchen and went into the front room to show Francie the costumes.
Flossie did three things each week. She worked on the gloves, she worked on her costumes, and she worked on Frank. She went to a masquerade ball every Saturday night, wearing a different costume each time. The costumes were especially designed to hide her disfigured right arm. As a child, she had fallen into a wash boiler of scalding hot water carelessly left standing on the kitchen floor. Her right arm had been horribly burned and she grew up with its skin withered and purple. She always wore long sleeves.
Since it was essential that a masquerade costume be décolleté, she had devised a backless costume, the front cut to display her over-full bust and with one long sleeve to cover that right arm. The judges thought that the one flowing sleeve symbolized something. Invariably, she won first prize.
Flossie got into the costume she was going