A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [207]
Katie insisted on working as usual that last Saturday morning. They laughed when mother set out with her broom and pail. McShane had given her a checking account with a thousand dollars in it as a wedding present. According to Nolan standards, Katie was rich now and didn’t have to do another lick of work. Yet, she insisted on working that last day. Francie suspected that she had a sentimental feeling about the houses and wanted to give them a last good cleaning before she left.
Shamelessly, Francie searched for the checkbook in her mother’s purse and examined the only stub in the fabulous folder.
No: 1
Date: 9-20-18
To: Eva Flittman
For: Because she’s my sister
Total: 1000.00
Amt this ck: 200.00
Bal fwd: 800.00
Francie wondered why that amount? Why not fifty dollars or five hundred? Why two hundred? Then she understood. Two hundred was the amount Uncle Willie was insured for; what Evy would have collected had he died. No doubt Katie considered Willie as good as dead.
No check had been made out for Katie’s wedding dress. She explained that she didn’t want to use any of that money for herself until after she had married the giver. In order to buy the dress, she had borrowed the money she had saved for Francie, promising to give her a check for it as soon as the ceremony was over.
On that last Saturday morning, Francie strapped Laurie into her two-wheeled sulky and took her down on the street. She stood on the corner for a long time watching the kids lug their junk up Manhattan Avenue to Carney’s junk shop. Then she walked up that way and went into Cheap Charlie’s during a lull in business. She put a fifty-cent piece down on the counter and announced that she wanted to take all the picks.
“Aw, now, Francie! Gee, Francie,” he said.
“I don’t have to bother picking. Just give me all the stuff on the board.”
“Aw, lissen!”
“Then there aren’t any prize numbers in that box, are there, Charlie?”
“Christ, Francie, a feller is got to make a living and it comes slow in this business—a penny at a time.”
“I always thought those prizes were fake. You ought to be ashamed—fooling little kids that way.”
“Don’t say that. I give them a penny’s worth of candy for each cent they spend here. The pick is just so’s it’s more interesting.”
“And it makes them keep coming back—hoping.”
“If they don’t go here, they go across to Gimpy’s, see? And it’s better they come here because I’m a married man,” he said virtuously, “and I don’t take girls in my back room, see?”
“Oh, well. I guess there’s something in what you say. Look! Have you got a fifty-cent doll?”
He dredged up an ugly-faced doll from under the counter. “I only got a sixty-nine-cent doll but I’ll let you have it for fifty cents.”
“I’ll pay for it if you’ll hang it up as a prize and let some kid win it.”
“But look, Francie: A kid wins it. All the kids expect to win then, see? It’s a bad example.”
“O, for sweet Christ’s sake,” she said, not profanely but prayerfully, “let somebody win something just once!”
“All right! All right! Don’t get excited, now.”
“I just want one little kid to get something for nothing.”
“I’ll put it up and I won’t take the number out of the box, either, after you go. Satisfied?”
“Thanks, Charlie.”
“And I’ll tell the winner the doll’s name’s Francie, see?”
“Oh no, you don’t! Not with the face that doll’s got.”
“You know what, Francie?”
“What?”
“You’re getting to be quite a girl. How old are you now?”
“I’ll be seventeen in a couple of months.”
“I remember you used to be a skinny long-legged kid. Well, I think you’ll make a nice-looking woman some day—not pretty, but something.”
“Thanks for nothing.” She laughed.
“Your kid sister?” he nodded at Laurie.
“Uh-huh.”
“First thing you know she’ll be lugging junk and coming in here with her pennies. One day they’re babies in buggies and the next day they’re in here taking picks. Kids grow up quick in this neighborhood.