A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [62]
When Francie brought a ticket and a dime back and pushed them across the counter, he gave her the wrapped shirt and two lichee nuts in exchange. Francie loved these lichee nuts. There was a crisp easily broken shell and the soft sweet meat inside. Inside the meat was a hard stone that no child had ever been able to break open. It was said that this stone contained a smaller stone and that the smaller stone contained a smaller stone which contained a yet smaller stone and so on. It was said that soon the stones got so small you could only see them with a magnifying glass and those smaller ones got still smaller until you couldn’t see them with anything but they were always there and would never stop coming. It was Francie’s first experience with infinity.
The best times were when he had to make change. He brought out a small wooden frame strung with thin rods on which were blue, red, yellow and green balls. He slid the balls up the brass rods, pondered swiftly, clicked them all back into place and announced “dirty-nine cent.” The tiny balls told him how much to charge and how much change to give.
Oh, to be a Chinaman, wished Francie, and have such a pretty toy to count on; oh, to eat all the lichee nuts she wanted and to know the mystery of the iron that was ever hot and yet never stood on a stove. Oh, to paint those symbols with a slight brush and a quick turn of the wrist and to make a clear black mark as fragile as a piece of a butterfly wing! That was the mystery of the Orient in Brooklyn.
17
PIANO LESSONS! MAGIC WORDS! AS SOON AS THE NOLANS WERE SETTLED, Katie called on the lady whose card announced piano lessons. There were two Miss Tynmores. Miss Lizzie taught piano and Miss Maggie cultivated the voice. The charge was twenty-five cents per lesson. Katie proposed a bargain. She’d do one hour’s cleaning work for the Tynmores in exchange for a lesson each week. Miss Lizzie demurred, claiming her time had more value than Katie’s time. Katie argued that time was time. Finally she got Miss Lizzie to agree that time was time, and arrangements were made.
The history-making day of the first lesson arrived. Francie and Neeley were instructed to sit in the front room during the lesson and to keep their eyes and ears open. A chair was placed for the teacher. The children sat side by side on the other side of the piano, Katie nervously adjusted and readjusted the seat and the three sat waiting.
Miss Tynmore arrived on the dot of five. Although she only came from downstairs, she was formally attired in street clothes. A taut spotted veil was stretched over her face. Her hat was the breast and wing of a red bird tormentingly pierced by two hatpins. Francie stared at the cruel hat. Mama took her into the bedroom and whispered that the bird wasn’t a bird at all just some feathers glued together and that she mustn’t stare. She believed Mama, yet her eyes kept going back to the tormented effigy.
Miss Tynmore brought everything with her but the piano. She had a nickel alarm clock and a battered metronome. The clock said five o’clock. She set it for six and stood it on the piano. She took the privilege of using up part of the precious hour. She removed her pearl-gray, skin-tight kid gloves, blew into each finger, smoothed and folded them and placed them on the piano. She undid her veil and threw it back over her hat. She limbered up her fingers, glanced at the clock, was satisfied she had taken enough minutes, started the metronome, took her seat and the lesson began.
Francie was so fascinated by the metronome that she found it hard to listen to