The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [13]
“I ain’t a baby,” Martin said.
“I’m walking with the baby,” Frances said.
The Lonigans promenaded along Michigan Avenue, looking like Sunday.
CHAPTER TWO
I
Father Gilhooley floridly faced his audience. He pursed his fat lips, rubbed his fat paws together and suavely caressed his bay front. A fly buzzed momentarily above him, and almost settled on his gray-fringed dome. He stood forward on the crowded little stage, pausing to create a dramatic effect. To his left, and a trifle out of line with him, Father Doneggan and Father Roney, the two parish assistants, stood, their faces expressionless. Back of him the graduating class was phalanxed; the blue-suited boys fidgeted on the left; the white girls stood, like wax models, on the right. All clutched their diplomas, while many also held green-bowed Irish history diplomas and Palmer method certificates.
Every atom of the June heat seemed to be compressed in little cubes that dripped wet discomfort over the heads of the packed audience. Heads constantly turned and switched to gaze at the cool patches of blue sky that were framed in the windows lining the two side walls. The audience had enjoyed the entertainment; at least, it had heartily applauded each number from the very cute little group piece the first-grade girls had spoken to the group dancing of Fritzie’s fourth-grade class, the elocution recitation of the sixth-grade girls, the special numbers by prodigies like little Roslyn Hayes and Dorothy Gorman, and the adaptation of a play from Little Women that the seventh- and eighth-grade girls had presented. And now the good priest was going to conclude the entertainment with a brief talk... at least many hoped that it would be brief.
The good priest blandly commenced:
“This is a joyous evening for all of us here at St. Patrick’s. We have all enjoyed the skillful and well-acted entertainment to the utmost, just as we enjoyed the similarly well-presented entertainment of the boys of this parish school last May. We could ask nothing more of our children, or of the good sisters who trained them. It has been, and I utter these words without the least iota of doubt in my own mind, an entertainment as amusing and as entertaining as many a professional show. It has also been, my dear friends, an evening which we will carry with us through the years as a golden treasure. And it will be an especially sacred and hallowed memory to you who are the fathers and mothers of the boys and girls in St. Patrick’s banner class of 1916. It is you parents who have made this grand evening possible, who have suffered and worried and fretted, sacrificed, stinted yourselves luxuries, in order to send your children off daily to the good sisters where they might receive Catholic training. You have had your fears and your worries sending these sturdy, well-behaved, beloved, and, yes, handsome children to school. But now these fears and worries must be scattering like the fog dissipating before the warming rays of Gawd’s golden morning sunlight. Your little ones have been safely steered beyond all the early rocks and shoals and sands in their voyage on the sea of life. The distribution of diplomas, which you have just witnessed on this small stage, symbolizes the arrival of your little ones in the first safe haven on their journey across the stormy and wave-tossed sea of life. It symbolizes the victory and achievement which is the result of eight hard years of patience and care; a triumph whose ultimate crown of success will be forged at the very throne of Gawd Almighty.”
He talked on, his language fat with superlatives. Then, becoming as skittish as a portly and dignified pastor from the old sod can be, he said that while he was opposed to gambling, he was still willing to bet that there was not a parish in the great city of Chicago that could have put on a finer display or have turned out a more stalwart graduating class than St. Patrick’s had on this June evening. He was interrupted by loud clapping, and he smiled…. magnificently.
He continued his talk, reminding his dear friends that in this,