A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [55]
Sissy had a chop suey date at five and she got ready to leave. Francie clung to her and begged her not to go. Sissy hated to leave, yet she didn’t want to miss her date. She searched in her purse for something to amuse them in her absence. They stood at her knee helping her look. Francie spied a cigarette box and pulled it out. On the cover was a picture of a man lying on a couch, knees crossed, one foot dangling in the air and smoking a cigarette which made a big smoke ring over his head. In the ring was a picture of a girl with her hair in her eyes and her bust popping out of her dress. The name on the box was American Dreams. It was out of the stock at Sissy’s factory.
The children clamored for the box. Sissy reluctantly let them have it after explaining that the box contained cigarettes and was only to hold and to look at and not under any circumstances to be opened. They must not touch the seals, she said.
After she left, the children amused themselves for a time by staring at the picture. They shook the box. A dull swishing mysterious sound resulted.
“They is snakes in there and not zingarettes,” decided Neeley.
“No,” corrected Francie. “Worms are in there. Live ones.”
They argued, Francie saying the box was too small for snakes and Neeley insisting that they were rolled-up snakes like herring in a glass jar. Curiosity grew to such a pitch that Sissy’s instructions were forgotten. The seals were so lightly pasted, it was a simple matter to pull them off. Francie opened the box. There was a sheet of soft dulled tin foil over the contents. Francie lifted the foil carefully. Neeley prepared to crawl under the table if the snakes became active. But there were neither snakes, worms nor cigarettes in the box and its contents were very uninteresting. After trying to devise some simple games, Francie and Neeley lost interest, clumsily tied the contents of the box to a string, trailed the string out of the window and finally secured the string by shutting the window on it. They then took turns jumping on the denuded box and became so absorbed in breaking it into bits that they forgot all about the string hanging out of the window.
Consequently, there was a great surprise waiting for Johnny when he sauntered home to get a fresh dicky and collar for his evening’s job. He took one look and his face burned with shame. He told Katie when she came home.
Katie questioned Francie closely and found out everything. Sissy was condemned. That night after the children had been put to bed and Johnny was away working, Katie sat in her dark kitchen with blushes coming and going. Johnny went about his work with a dull feeling that the world had come to an end.
Evy came over later in the evening and she and Katie discussed Sissy.
“That’s the end, Katie,” said Evy, “the very end. What Sissy does is her own business until her own business makes a thing like this happen. I’ve got a growing girl, so have you, we mustn’t let Sissy come into our homes again. She’s bad and there’s no getting around it.”
“She’s good in many ways,” temporized Katie.
“You say that after what she did to you today?”
“Well…I guess you’re right. Only don’t tell Mother. She doesn’t know how Sissy lives and Sissy is her eye-apple.”
When Johnny came home, Katie told him that Sissy was never to come to their house again. Johnny sighed and said he guessed that was the only thing to do. Johnny and Katie talked away the night, and in the morning they had their plans all made for moving when the end of the month came.
Katie found a janitor place on Grand Street in Williamsburg. She took up the tin-can bank when they moved. There was a little over eight dollars in it. Two had to go to the movers, the rest was put back when the can was nailed down in the new home. Again Mary Rommely came and sprinkled the flat with