A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [72]
It might be that the infected child would be given a clean bill next examination. In that case, she, in turn, would torment those found guilty, forgetting her own hurt at being tormented. They learned no compassion from their own anguish. Thus their suffering was wasted.
There was no room in Katie’s crowded life for additional trouble and worry. She wouldn’t accept it. The first day that Francie came home from school and reported that she sat next to a girl who had bugs walking up and down the lanes of her hair, Katie went into action. She scrubbed Francie’s head with a cake of her coarse strong yellow scrubwoman’s soap until her scalp tingled with rawness. The next morning, she dipped the hair brush into a bowl of kerosene oil, brushed Francie’s hair vigorously, braided it into braids so tight that the veins on Francie’s temples stuck out, instructed her to keep away from lighted gas jets and sent her off to school.
Francie smelled up the whole classroom. Her seat sharer edged as far away from her as possible. Teacher sent a note home forbidding Katie to use kerosene on Francie’s head. Katie remarked that it was a free country and ignored the note. Once a week she scrubbed Francie’s head with the yellow soap. Every day she anointed it with the kerosene.
When an epidemic of mumps broke out in the school, Katie went into action against communicable diseases. She made two flannel bags, sewed a bud of garlic in each one, attached a clean corset string and made the children wear them around their necks under their shirts.
Francie attended school stinking of garlic and kerosene oil. Everyone avoided her. In the crowded yard, there was always a cleared space around her. In crowded trolley cars, people huddled away from those Nolan children.
And it worked! Now whether there was a witch’s charm in the garlic, whether the strong fumes killed the germs or whether Francie escaped contracting anything because infected children gave her a wide berth, or whether she and Neeley had naturally strong constitutions, is not known. However, it was a fact that not once in all the years of school were Katie’s children ever sick. They never so much as came down with a cold. And they never had lice.
Francie, of course, became an outsider shunned by all because of her stench. But she had become accustomed to being lonely. She was used to walking alone and to being considered “different.” She did not suffer too much.
21
FRANCIE LIKED SCHOOL IN SPITE OF ALL THE MEANNESS, CRUELTY, and unhappiness. The regimented routine of many children, all doing the same thing at once, gave her a feeling of safety. She felt that she was a definite part of something, part of a community gathered under a leader for the one purpose. The Nolans were individualists. They conformed to nothing except what was essential to their being able to live in their world. They followed their own standards of living. They were part of no set social group. This was fine for the making of individualists but sometimes bewildering to a small child. So Francie felt a certain safety and security in school. Although it was a cruel and ugly routine, it had a purpose and a progression.
School was not all unrelieved grimness. There was a great golden glory lasting a half hour each week when Mr. Morton came to Francie’s room to teach music. He was a specialized teacher who went around to all the schools in that area. It was holiday time when he appeared. He wore a swallow-tailed coat and a puffed-up tie. He was so vibrant, gay and jolly—so intoxicated with living—that he was like a god come from the clouds. He was homely in a gallant vital way. He understood and loved children and they worshipped him. The teachers adored him. There was a carnival spirit in the room on the day of his visit. Teacher wore her best dress and wasn’t quite so mean. Sometimes she curled her hair and wore perfume. That’s what Mr. Morton did to those ladies.
He arrived like a tornado. The door burst open and he flew in with his coattails streaming behind him. He leaped to