The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [14]
“After all, we are made to love, to serve, and to obey Gawd in this world, and to be happy with Him in the next, just as the catechism teaches us,” he said profoundly.
And it was the religious training, the daily example and inspiration provided by the modest, self-sacrificing, holy virgins who had pointed out the path of salvation for the children of St. Patrick’s parish. The graduates of St. Patrick’s parish all walked in the ways of Gawd, grew up into sterling-silver specimens of Catholic manhood and womanhood, because of the teaching, the kind nurturing in goodness that they met with in the classrooms of St. Patrick’s school. The entire parish owed a heartfelt tribute to these white-souled women.
In the rear of the hall, left-hand side, were three ex-little ones of St. Patrick’s who had worn out the patience of the holy women, three naughty little boys who had been canned from school and who might even end on the gallows. They were kids of Studs’ age, Paulie Haggerty and Tommy Doyle, who were famous not only because they were hard guys but also because they had such fat butts, and tough Red Kelly,-whose old man was a police sergeant. Hook-nosed, bow-legged Davey Cohen and Three-Star Hennessey, fourteen, small and considered nothing but a tricky punk, were also with them. They had all snuck in and were having a good time, making trouble. Davey suddenly whistled to Red, Tommy and Paulie. They whispered, and laughed quietly, and Red told Davey to go ahead. Davey goosed Hennessey. Hennessey was goosey anyway, and he jumped; his writhings disturbed a surrounding semi-circle of dignity. But Three-Star suddenly saved himself; he pointed out Vinc Curley. Vinc was better goose meat.
The priest spoke on, and the boys on the stage grew more restless. Weary Reilley told Jim Clayburn that he wished old Gilly would pipe down, but Jim didn’t answer, because Jim knew how to act in public, and anyway he was almost like a boy scout. TB McCarthy told Gunboats Reardon that it was all a lot of hot air, and Reardon nodded as he shifted his weight from the right to the left gunboat. Father Doneggan heard TB, and gave him a couple of dirty looks. Studs wiped the sweat from his face and fidgeted less than the others. He told himself that he wished Gilly would choke his bull and let it die. Gilly spoke of Catholic education, praising the parents who bad possessed the courage, the conscience and the faith to give their children a Catholic schooling. He contrasted them with those careless, miserly and irreligious fathers and mothers who dealt so lightly with the souls of the little ones Gawd had entrusted in their care that they sent them to public schools, where the word of Gawd is not uttered from the beginning to the end of the livelong day. Such parents, he warned, were running grave risks, not only of losing the souls of their children but also their own immortal souls. Of such parents, the good priest said:
“Woe! Woe! Woe!”
And many of the boys and girls on the stage were going on in their schooling. To the parents of these boys and girls he felt it his duty to give warning. The shoals would become more dangerous, the rocks larger. If their souls were to navigate successfully on the stormier seas of life, he commended them to the Catholic high schools of Chicago, where the boys would be trained by holy brothers and consecrated priests and the girls by holy nuns. No sacrifice would be too great to see these fine boys and girls continue in Catholic hands. Let not the parents, after such a fine beginning, fall into the class of those about whom he must monotone:
“Woe! Woe! Woe!”
And his verbal thickets grew thicker and thicker with fat polysyllables. They wallowed off his tongue like luxurious jungle growths as he repeated everything he had said.
II
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