A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [41]
“And you never saved again, Mother?”
“I did. All over again. The second time it was harder because there were the many children. I saved, but when we moved your father found the bank and took the money. He would not buy land with it. He was always one for birds so he bought a rooster and many hens with the money and put them in the back yard.”
“I seem to remember those chickens,” said Katie, “a long, long time ago.”
“He said the eggs would bring much money in the neighborhood. Ah, what dreams men have! The first night twenty starving cats came over the fence and killed and ate many chickens. The second night, the Italians climbed the fence and stole more. The third day the policeman came and said it was against the law to keep chickens in a yard in Brooklyn. We had to pay him five dollars not to take your father to the station house. Your father sold the few chickens that were left and bought canary birds which he could own without fear. Thus I lost the second savings. But I am saving again. Maybe sometime…” She sat in silence for a while. Then she got up and put on her shawl.
“It grows dark. Your father will be coming home from his work. Holy Mary watch over thee and the child.”
Sissy came over right from work. She didn’t even take time to brush the gray rubber powder from her hair bow. She went into choking hysterics over the baby, pronouncing it the most beautiful baby in the world. Johnny looked skeptical. The baby looked blue and wizened to him and he felt that there must be something wrong with it. Sissy washed the baby. (It must have been bathed a dozen times the first day.) She rushed out to the delicatessen store and beguiled the man into letting her open a charge account until Saturday payday. She bought two dollars’ worth of delicacies: sliced tongue, smoked salmon, creamy-white slices of smoked sturgeon and crisp rolls. She bought a sack of charcoal and made the fire roar. She brought a tray of supper in to Katie, then she and Johnny sat in the kitchen and ate together. The house smelled of warmth, good food, sweet powder and a stronger candylike smell that came from a hard chalkish disc that Sissy wore in an imitation-silver filigree heart on a chain around her neck.
Johnny studied Sissy as he smoked an after-supper cigar. He wondered what criterion people used when they applied the tags “good” and “bad” to their fellowmen. Take Sissy. She was bad. But she was good. She was bad where the men were concerned. But she was good because wherever she was, there was life, good, tender, overwhelming, fun-loving and strong-scented life. He hoped that his newly born daughter would be a little like Sissy.
When Sissy announced that she was going to stay the night, Katie looked worried and said there was but the one bed which she and Johnny shared. Sissy declared that she was willing to sleep with Johnny if he could guarantee her a fine baby like Francie. Katie frowned. She knew Sissy was joking of course. Yet there was something true and direct about Sissy. She started to give her a lecture. Johnny cut the whole thing short by saying he had to get over to the school.
He couldn’t bring himself to tell Katie that he had lost their job. He hunted up his brother, Georgie, who was working that night. Fortunately, they needed another man to wait on table and sing in-between. Johnny got the job and was promised another for the following week. He drifted back into the singing-waiter business and from that time on never worked at any other job.
Sissy got into bed with Katie and they talked most of the night away. Katie told of her worry about Johnny and her fears of the future. They talked about Mary Rommely; what a good mother she was to Evy and Sissy and Katie. They spoke of their father, Thomas Rommely. Sissy said he was an old rip and Katie said Sissy ought to show more respect. Sissy said, “Oh, fudge!” and Katie laughed.
Katie told Sissy of the talk she had had with their mother that day. The idea of the bank so fascinated Sissy, that she got up