A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [95]
“What is your name?” asked the lady.
“Mary Frances Nolan,” whispered Francie.
“Louder. And look at the audience.”
Miserably, Francie faced the audience and said loudly, “Mary Frances Nolan.” All the faces looked like bloated balloons on thick strings. She thought that if she kept on looking, the faces would float away up to the ceiling.
The beautiful girl came forward and put the doll in Francie’s arms. Francie’s arms took a natural curve around it. It was as if her arms had waited and grown so just for that doll. The beautiful Mary extended her hand for Francie to shake. In spite of embarrassment and confusion, Francie noticed the delicate white hand with the tracery of pale blue veins and the oval nails that glowed like delicate pink seashells.
The lady talked as Francie backed awkwardly to her seat. She said: “You have all seen an example of the true Christmas spirit. Little Mary is a very rich little girl and received many beautiful dolls for Christmas. But she was not selfish. She wanted to make some poor little Mary, who is not as fortunate as herself, happy. So she gave the doll to that poor little girl who is named Mary, too.”
Francie’s eyes smarted with hot tears. “Why can’t they,” she thought bitterly, “just give the doll away without saying I am poor and she is rich? Why couldn’t they just give it away without all the talking about it?”
That was not all of Francie’s shame. As she walked down the aisle, the girls leaned towards her and whispered hissingly, “Beggar, beggar, beggar.”
It was beggar, beggar, beggar, all the way down the aisle. Those girls felt richer than Francie. They were as poor as she but they had something she lacked—pride. And Francie knew it. She had no compunctions about the lie and getting the doll under false pretenses. She was paying for the lie and for the doll by giving up her pride.
She remembered the teacher who had told her to write her lies instead of speaking them. Maybe she shouldn’t have gone up for the doll but should have written a story about it instead. But no! No! Having the doll was better than any story about having a doll. When they stood to sing the “Star-Spangled Banner” in closing, Francie put her face down close to the doll’s face. There was the cool delicate smell of painted china, the wonderful unforgettable smell of a doll’s hair, the heavenly feel of new-gauze doll’s clothes. The doll’s real eyelashes touched her cheek and she trembled in ecstasy. The children were singing:
O’er the land of the free,
And the home of the brave.
Francie held one of the doll’s tiny hands tightly. A nerve in her thumb throbbed and she thought the doll’s hand twitched. She almost believed the doll was real.
She told Mama the doll had been given to her as a prize. She dared not tell the truth. Mama hated anything that smacked of charity and if she knew, she’d throw the doll away. Neeley didn’t snitch on her. Francie now owned the doll but had yet another lie on her soul. That afternoon she wrote a story about a little girl who wanted a doll so much that she was willing to give over her immortal soul to Purgatory for eternity if she could have the doll. It was a strong story but when Francie read it over, she thought, “That’s all right for the girl in the story but it doesn’t make me feel any better.”
She thought of the confession she would have to make the next Saturday. She resolved that no matter what penance Father gave her, she would triple it voluntarily. Still she felt no better.
Then she remembered something! Maybe she could make the lie a truth! She knew that when Catholic children received Confirmation, they were expected to take some saint’s name for a middle name. What a simple solution! She would take the name of Mary when she was confirmed.
That night, after the page from the Bible and the page from Shakespeare had been read, Francie consulted Mama.
“Mama, when I make my Confirmation, can I take Mary for