Page 18 of Maggie Now

her outspread right hand under his little backside.

  "Why he Its, Mama," said l~laggie-Now in surprise. "He

  fits to me just right!"

  "lIarparet: Rose!" Mary tried to smile. "You're such a

  good girl, Maggie-Now," she whispered. Then she was

  quiet for so long that Maggie-Now thought she was

  sleeping. Maggie-Now started to croon to the badly. Mary

  opened her eyes then.

  "I.isten," she whispered. "Do what I say. His bottle . . .

  the doctor will tell you. Wash eyes, boric acid. Warm

  sweet oil on head till soft: place closes. I(eep band on till

  cord drops off. Boil diapers so no rash . . . Thillgs you

  don't know, ask . . . ask Lottie or neighbor with children.

  Ask . . ."

  Maggie-Now started to cry. Mary drew on some last

  strength. Her voice was almost normal. "Don't cry," she

  said. "I might have to stay here a few weeks. Then I'll be

  home. Until then . . ."

  The lie was the last sin of her life.

  A nurse appeared with Patrick Dennis. "Only one visitor

  at a time," she said cheerfully,

  "await for me downstairs, would you' Ma;.gie-Now," said

  list. "I don't want to go home alone."

  The girl ptlt the baby back in her mother's arms. She

  kissed her mother and went downstairs to wait for her

  father.

  Pat looked strange. He'd had his hair cut, his suit

  pressed, his shoes shined and he smelled of bay rum. He

  too had been told to act natural. Pie tried to act natural

  and succeeded in acting like a stranger. He sat next to her

  bed.

  Dear God, he prayed, ~ ire me another chance. Don't let

  her die. I'll do letter. I'll he good to her. ] swear it!

  Her lips moved. She was trying to say "Patrick."

  'Well, Mary," he said heartily. "I see we got a boy. Now

  I'll leave somebody to go hunting and fishing with." (He'd

  never fished or hunted in his life but he thought men were

  supposed to say that when they had a new son.)

  ~ 74/ 1

 

  She her face to him. He looked away because the deep

  caverns ha her cheeks and the black 110ll0NVS under her

  eves frightened him. He talked:

  "Me vacation's coming up all-out the time IN OU get

  Otlt of here. And I tell you what! We never went

  nowheres before on me vacation but this time v, e'll go to

  the country. You Icnow. The Catskills? Good count y

  air sure and 'twill put you on your feet again. And then1

  fresh eggs off the chickens every day and them vegetables

  . . ."

  She looked at him with a fixed stare and her eyes

  flooded with rears which ran down either side of her face.

  He put his hand on hers but withdrew it N itilout rile

  jilill~' to when he felt hoNv hot and dry her hand was.

  "Oh, Patrick," she NS hispc] ('3 ht~arst'l!r. "In all Muir

  N ears N t,U never told me . . ."

  "No, I never told yo i, ilary. But I do."

  No, he had never told her that he loved her and now he

  knew he did love her. l to felt he should say the word

  "love" now. It was a simple word, easily sail, but he

  couldn't say it. In some obscure vay, he felt it would make

  him a stranger to her.

  "But I djo' friary, and you know it. I don't have to say

  it. Ale arid you . . . we yeas no ver ones to sat,,- things

  like that to each other because we never started out that

  Nvay. But I do. I do."

  "It's too late," she Nv,lispered, weeping.

  "That's no way to t.t'k," he said witl1 false heartiness.

  "Wl1N-, you'll burls us all."

  It wasn't- the right thinly to salt but that's the wav he

  was used to talking,. If I talk difli.~7e!t, he tilOUgllt,

  si.7e'11 knob. that I kno-.: she's going to die.

  Mother Ursula, the hi ad of all nurses, lay nurses and

  nursing, sisters, came in. She put her h:lnil on Pat's

  shoulder and pressed it. I-le stood up.

  "Was the child christe led'" he aslcecl.

  "This rnorningr," said I~lother Urs771a. "Right after

  he Nom. horn. He Noms named Dennis Patricl;."

  "My Nvife?" he asked.

  'Father Flyrln will stay witl1 her."

  lest undc~rstood. He ~ ot his hat from under the

  chair and leaned over Mary. ~ le pro ssed his cool chee];

  to her drN- cheel;.

  ~ ~ 1

 

  "I love you, Mary," he whispered.

  He bumped into the screen as he Event. Mother Ursula

  straightened it.

  A very young nun came in with a basin of water and a

  towel. She washed,YIary's face and hands and feet.

  Another nun brought in a small table covered with a linen

  napkin and set up two beeswax candles on it. She placed

  a crucifix between the candles. She arranged a tumbler of

  water and a saucer of fine salt on the table. She added a

  cruet of oil and a piece of cotton. Mother Ursula lit the

  candles.

  Father Flynn came inside the screen carrying the Host.

  The three nuns genuflected and withdrew. Father Flynn

  knelt down by the bed with his ear to i,lary's lips and she

  made her last confession. He absolved her from her sins

  and gave her Extreme Unction. When all was over, she

  made a harsh sound of fear. He understood. He took her

  hand.

  "My child," he said, "my friend. Have no fear. I'll stay

  with you. I'll stay with you all the time that's left."

  But the terror grew in her. She didn't want to die! She

  didn't want to die! Her hand clutched the sheet and she

  made little moans. A nurse looked in and flew down to

  the office to get Doctor Scal.mi. He came .ifter a while

  with a hypodermic needle poised in his hand.

  Father Flynn shook his head. "No," he said.

  "Obviously, she's suffering," said the doctor. "This 7ill

  help.'

  "As long as one can suffer, one is living. Let her live

  and suffer until life is gone."

  The doctor could have said what he had said to the

  nurse: "I am the doctor on the case." But he knew Father

  Flynn would say: "I am the priest." The priest took

  precedence at death. To show he was in accord with the

  priest, the doctor pressed the plunger of his needle and

  let the liquid squirt out on the floor.

  She vitas past talking now and her terror grew. Her face

  seemed like a grotesque mask with a twisted mouth.

  Father Flynn spoke quietly to her but he couldn't get to

  her. He prayed.

  Then the baby cried. Concern mixed with her terror.

  The baby was Iying in the crook of her arm and she tried

  to tighten her arm to bring the baby nearer. Her other

  hand plucked futilely at the drawstring of her nightdress.

  She stared at the priest and her

  1 14.,1

 

  face went into distortions as she tried to communicate with

  him. He guessed what she wanted to say. "You want me

  to turn my head away?" Her face straightened out and she

  waited. "I'll help VOU, my child, and I'll
keep my eyes

  shut."

  He felt for her arm with his eyes shut, and folded it

  around the baby. Gently, he pushed the baby toward its

  mother's breast. He put her other arm across the child,

  placing the palm of her hand at the back of the baby's

  head. He pulled the sheet up over her exposed breast.

  When he opened his eyes, he saNv that the terror had

  left her face and her distorted mouth had relaxed. The

  peace was bcginning to come. He sat down to stay with

  her to the end as he had assured her. He waited and he

  prayed while he waited.

  And soon his waiting was ended. He undid her arms and

  took the child from them.

  He walked down th' hospital corridor carrying the child.

  A nurse with briskly tapping heels walked past him and

  smiled back over her shoulder.

  "Nursery's down the corridor, Father,' she said. 'First

  turn to the right."

  "I know," he said.

  ~ CHAPTER 7'TI7ENTY-ONE ~

  .~10LLY MOIIIARrrY had been unable to come to the

  funeral. She had nursed Aunt Henrietta through her final

  illness. Molly herself was frail and failing and the news of

  her only child's death had prostrated her. Cousin Robbie

  came down from Boston to represent hiary's kin.

  Mary had been insured for enough to provide a simple

  burial and to bun a grave. Cousin Robbie had instructions

  from The .Uissus; Mary could be buried with her father

  provided the money Pat saved on the grave would be used

  to pay off the balance of the loan on the house. Pat

  agreed. So the little house was freed.

  Before he left, Glusin Robbie said: "Aunt Molly said she'd

  ~ ~44 1

 

  be glad to take the children but on account of her poor

  health . . . and she's too old . . . But my girl, Sheila, said

  she'd be tickled tO death to have them. With six of her

  own, she said, two more won't make much difference.

  Maggie-Now would be a help and you could send so much

  a week for board...."

  "I'll keep me children w ith me," said Pat. "Maggie-Now

  knows how to run the house and she'll look after the boy."

  "She's young. She shouldn't be tied down with a baby.

  Maybe she wants to live her own life."

  "Me mother was tied down with two children when she

  was Maggie-Now's age and it didn't harm her. The girl is

  strong and healthy."

  "The responsibility . . "

  "It will keep her out of trouble. She'll know the work of

  a home and a baby. She won't be so anxious to marry the

  first clown what comes along.'

  "She's not going to have much fun."

  "And is that any of your business?"

  "No, Patrick," said Cousin Robbie slowly. "It's none of

  mv business."

  Maggie-Now had to leave school, of course.

  She didn't mind at all. She was not the studious or

  bookish type. She missed her school friends and the nuns

  who were her teachers. Otherwise she was glad to be done

  with school. When she dropped school her girl friends

  tried to continue to include her in their activities but it

  couldn't work out because MaggieNow was tied down with

  a house and a baby.

  The few boys she knew, had taken walks with and joked

  around with, drifted away. Maggie-Now seemed a woman

  all of a sudden and it made a boy feel "funny" to see a girl

  with whom he had romped in Cooper's Park just weeks

  ago now trundling a baby carriage through that same park.

  Her friends now were more mature: Lottie, of course,

  and a neighbor or two who had helped her out with the

  baby at first.

  The shopkeepers, for the most part, liked her. They

  admired her courage and wished her well. Mr. Van Clees,

  the Dutch cigar maker, whom Maggie-Now saw twice a

  week when she bought her father's clay pipes and tobacco,

  became her friend. He took

  [ ~4; 1

 

  almost a paternal interest in the baby boy. And later she

  was friends with the Vernachts, a German couple whom

  she met through Mr. Van Clees.

  She cared for the baby and ran the house for her father.

  Her arrangements with him were simple. He gave her two

  dollars to buy groceries. When the money was gone, she

  asked for more. He always said: "What 'd you do with the

  last two dollars I gave you>" She always answered: "I

  spent it." Then he gave her another two dollars.

  She collected the rent and put the money in the bank.

  Once a year she went down so Borough Hall to pay the

  taxes. She had expected her father to handle that but he

  had said: "Since you're going to be the owner someday,

  you learn to handle property." Sometimes there was a

  little surplus in the bank after taxes. Other times the

  surplus melted away when the rooms were tenantless.

  Maggie-Now was a natural-born mother. She washed the

  baby and fed him and changed his diapers and had him

  out in the air for a couple of hours each day. When he

  started to walk and was knowing enough to get into

  mischief, she took a true mother's privilege and spanked

  him but always with a kiss as Sheila had done with her

  children

  Like a mother, she thought Denny was exceptionally

  handsome and she enjoyed the admiring looks given him

  when she took him out in his buggy. She wanted nice

  clothes for him, but when she asked her father's

  permission to use some of the surplus rent money to buy

  them, he refused, saying the money must be saved for

  hard times for his old age. "When you're married to a

  man in business for himself you'll have everything you

  need, while me, who slaved me life away for me children,

  will be sitting and starving in a ballroom in me old age."

  Because she wanted pin money of her own and because

  time sometimes hung heavy on her hands, she, as the

  expression went in the neighborhood, "tool; in piecework."

  She "turned" kid gloves. They were made in a factory in

  Greenpoint and sewn wrong side Otlt on machines. She

  took bundles of them home to turn right side out. She got

  twenty cents a hundred pair and made two or three

  dollars a week in her odd hours.

  When she got bored with the gloves, she went to a shoe

  factory and got bundles of bronze leather slipper vamps

  and

  ~ i46 ]

 

  sewed cut bronze beads on a design stamped on the vamp.

  She liked the work and got satisfaction out of her neat

  stitches.

  Bronze slippers went out of style and she "made beads."

  These were necklaces of tiny white beads with yellow or

  blue daisies at intervals much like Indian beadvork. She

  worked with five threaded needles simultaneously and

  enjoyed the emergence of the daisy design.

  She considered herself fortunate to be able to earn a few

  dollars a week without 1` aving her home. She used the

/>   money to buy nice things for the baby and, once in a

  while, an item of clothing for herself.

  Each time she bought a neN boiltlet for L)enny or a

  new pair of rompers, she brought him over to llr. N:an

  Clees's store to show him off.

  "Hello, liddle Rudder," vas his :,reethlg. 'Ho~v goes it,

  hem

  "Fine."

  Then he'd ask questions about the baby how much did

  he vveigh now, did he cry a lot and did he eat good. He

  was astonished at each answer He weighs all that? My!

  Never cries and eats everything? My! ~ wonder of a boy!

  A wonder!

  "And do you miss you! school, Miss lla~gie?"

  "Yes. The sisters and the girls. But I sure don't miss all

  that homework."

  He gave Denny a little blue candle on his first birthday.

  ("in case'n you have a birthday cake for him, Miss

  Maggie.") He gave him two on his second birthday and

  started a tradition.

  Once Maggie-Nov, thanking him, said: "oh, Mr. Van

  Clees. you should be Denny's godfather."

  "That I could not be, Bliss Maggie. 1 ain't a Catholic.'

  "But I see you at Mass every Sunday. Used to, anyhow."

  "I go by the Catholic churcl1 because it's nearer as my

  church. But I ain't a Catholic."

  "I see ' said Maggic-Now. 13ut she didn't see at all.

  .lr. Sian Glees, a bachelor, was a chubliy Jittle man

  NNho hati come from Elolland when he svas quite Young.

  He had a little money and he bought a little building with

  a one-windoNv store and living quarters above it. He was

  a cigar maker and he set up his work table in the store

  `;indow. He worked at a long table

  1~14'1

 

  there with hands of tobacco and a pile of new cigar boxes.

  He sat there all day, except when waiting on customers,

  and rolled cigars by hand, moistening the edge of the last

  wrapping with his tongue to make it stick. He worked in

  the window because the light was better there and because

  people stopped to watch him work. He loved an audience.

  He prospered in a small way. Lots of men liked

  hand-rolled cigars. He also carried a stock of fine smoking

  tobacco. As a third-generation cigar maker, he hated

  cigarettes and refused to stock them.

  He had a wooden Indian in front of his store with war

  bonnet and a short skirt made of feathers and thongs

  around his legs. The Indian, which he painted each spring,

  had a get-on-your-mark stance and held up a hand of

  wooden tobacco as though it were a torch. The Icids said

  that Van Clees's great grandfather had bought the land for

  the cigar store from a chief for two dollars. And he had

  "skinned" the chief, who fought with him and was killed by

  the great grandfather, and the chief's body was put inside

  the wooden Indian. Anyhow, that's the story the kids told.

  Mr. Van Clees was a Lutheran but there was no

  Lutheran church within walking distance of his home. So

  he held his own Protestant service in Father Flynn's

  church which was two blocks away.

  He brought his own prayer book and hymnal. He read

  the Gospel of the day sonorously in his mind; he sang the

  hymns rousingly in Dutch in a deep, mumbling bass also

  in his mind. He sat quietly with folded hands listening to

  an imaginary sermon. The sermons suited him fine. When

  he didn't want to wait, the sermon was short. When he

  had time and liked to sit a while, he let the sermon go on

  as long as he wished. Most of the imaginary sermons were

  long because he liked to sit in the church. It was dim and

  cool in summer and warm and bright in winter and where

  else did he have to go on a Sunday?

  He went to church at three in the afternoon to hold his

  own services. He started out by going to morning Mass but

  he got tired of the dirty looks the congregation gave him

  when his ritual didn't coincide with the ritual of the Mass.

  For instance, when the little silver bell tinkled out of the

  scented silence and people were on their knees, hand over

  heart

  ~ 145 ~

 

  and tapping the breast gtntly each time the bell sounded,