A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [67]
“What are you doing up so late, Prima Donna?” he asked. “It’s not Saturday night, you know.”
“I was sitting at the window,” she whispered, “waiting for my arm to drop off.”
He choked back a laugh. She explained about the arm. He closed the door leading into the bedrooms and turned up the gas. He removed the bandage and his stomach turned over at the sight of the swollen festering arm. But he never let her know. He never let her know.
“Why, Baby, that’s nothing at all. Just nothing at all. You should have seen my arm when I was vaccinated. It was twice as swollen and red, white and blue instead of green and yellow and now look how hard and strong it is.” He lied gallantly for he had never been vaccinated.
He poured warm water into a basin and added a few drops of carbolic acid. He washed the ugly sore over and over again. She winced when it stung but Johnny said that stinging meant curing. He sang a foolish sentimental song in a whisper as he washed it.
He never cares to wander from his own fireside.
He never cares to ramble or to roam…
He looked around for a clean bit of cloth to serve as a bandage. Finding none, he took off his coat and shirt dicky, pulled his undershirt off over his head and dramatically ripped a strip of cloth from it.
“Your good undershirt,” she protested.
“Aw, it was all full of holes anyhow.”
He bandaged the arm. The cloth smelled of Johnny, warm and cigarish. But it was a comforting thing to the child. It smelled of protection and love.
“There! You’re all fixed up, Prima Donna. Whatever gave you the idea your arm was going to drop off?”
“Mama said it would if I scratched it. I didn’t mean to scratch it but I guess I did while I was sleeping.”
“Maybe.” He kissed her thin cheek. “Now go back to bed.” She went and slept peacefully the rest of the night. In the morning, the throbbing had stopped and in a few days the arm was normal again.
After Francie had gone to bed, Johnny smoked another cigar. Then he undressed slowly and got into Katie’s bed. She was sleepily aware of his presence and in one of her rare impulses of affection, she threw her arm across his chest. He removed it gently and edged as far away from her as he could. He lay close to the wall. He folded his hands under his head and lay staring into the darkness all the rest of that night.
19
FRANCIE EXPECTED GREAT THINGS FROM SCHOOL. SINCE VACCINATION taught her instantly the difference between left and right, she thought that school would bring forth even greater miracles. She thought she’d come home from school that first day knowing how to read and write. But all she came home with was a bloody nose gained by an older child slamming her head down on the stone rim of the water trough when she had tried to drink from the faucets that did not gush forth soda water after all.
Francie was disappointed because she had to share a seat and desk (meant only for one) with another girl. She had wanted a desk to herself. She accepted with pride the pencil the monitor passed out to her in the morning and reluctantly surrendered it to another monitor at three o’clock.
She had been in school but half a day when she knew that she would never be a teacher’s pet. That privilege was reserved for a small group of girls…girls with freshly curled hair, crisp clean pinafores and new silk hairbows. They were the children of the prosperous storekeepers of the neighborhood. Francie noticed how Miss Briggs, the teacher, beamed on them and seated them in the choicest places in the front row. These darlings were not made to share seats. Miss Briggs’s voice was gentle when she spoke to