A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [48]
She found a house where she would get rent free in return for keeping it clean. Johnny swore that he wouldn’t have his wife a janitress. Katie told him in her new crisp hard way that it was janitor or no home, as it was harder and harder each month to get the rent money together. Johnny finally gave in after promising that he would do all the janitor work until he got a steady job when they would move again.
Katie packed their few belongings: a double bed, the babies’ crib, a busted-down baby buggy, a green plush parlor suite, a carpet with pink roses, a pair of parlor lace curtains, a rubber plant and a rose geranium, a yellow canary in a gilt cage, a plush picture album, a kitchen table and some chairs, a box of dishes and pots and pans, a gilt crucifix with a music box in its base that played “Ave Maria” when you wound it up, a plain wooden crucifix that her mother had given her, a wash basket full of clothes, a roll of bedding, a pile of Johnny’s sheet music and two books, the Bible and the Complete Works of Wm. Shakespeare.
There was such a little bit of stuff that the ice man could load it all on his wagon and his one shaggy horse could pull it. The four Nolans rode along on the ice wagon to their new home.
The last thing Katie did in their old home after it had been stripped bare and had that look of a near-sighted man with his glasses off, was to rip up the tin-can bank. It had three dollars and eighty cents in it. Out of that, she knew regretfully, she would have to give the ice man a dollar for moving them.
The first thing she did in the new home, while Johnny was helping the ice man carry in the furniture, was to nail down the bank in a closet. She put two dollars and eighty cents back in it. She added a dime from the few pennies in her worn purse. That was the dime she wasn’t going to give to the ice man.
In Williamsburg, it was the custom to treat the movers to a pint of beer when they had completed their job. But Katie reasoned: “We’ll never see him again. Besides, the dollar is enough. Think of all the ice he’d have to sell to make a dollar.”
While Katie was putting up the lace curtains, Mary Rommely came over and sprinkled the rooms with holy water to drive out any devils that might be lurking in the corners. Who knows? Protestants might have been living there before. A Catholic might have died in the rooms without the last absolution of the church. The holy water would purify the home again so that God might come in if He chose.
The baby Francie crowed with delight as her grandmother held up the cruet and the sun shone through it and made a small fat rainbow on the opposite wall. Mary smiled with the child and made the rainbow dance.
“Schoen! Schoen!” she said.
“Shame! Shame!” repeated Francie and held out her two hands.
Mary let her hold the half-filled cruet while she went to help Katie. Francie was disappointed because the rainbow went away. She thought it must be hidden in the bottle. She poured the holy water out into her lap expecting a rainbow to come slithering from the bottle. Later Katie noticed that she was wet and paddled her softly telling her that she was too big to wet her pants. Mary explained about the holy water.
“Ai, the child has but blessed herself and a spanking comes from the blessing.”
Katie laughed then. Francie laughed because her mama wasn’t mad anymore. Neeley exposed his three teeth in a baby laugh. Mary smiled at them all and said it was good luck to start life in a new home with laughter.
They were settled by supper time. Johnny stayed with the children while Katie went to the grocery store to establish credit. She told the grocer she had just moved into the neighborhood and would