gave his wife a book. It was a beautiful book bound in
smooth and supple blue leather, the pages were
gold-edged and there was a fringed, blue satin page
marker. The book was Sonnets from the Portuguese. Inside,
in his fine hand, he had inscribed: Sonnets for my little
Chinee and Love and Claude. At the bottom of the flyleaf
he had w ritten:
How do I love thee? Let one count the ways.
Then Denny and Claude went out to buy the Christmas
tree and Maggie-Now got out the ornaments. Denny was
allowed to stay up and help trim the Christmas tree
inasmuch as now he was too big to believe in Santa Claus.
Pat sat in the kitchen with the boxed pipe in his hands. I
le was very angry because the pipe was too cheap to pawn.
It was as if the cardboard box was magic, because every
time he opened the lid the word "bastid" came out of Pat's
mouth. He promised himself that he'd find some way to
get back at his son-in-law.
Maggie-Now called bedtime on Denny and Pat followed
his son into the boy's bedroom. "I'll swap you this new
pipe for that old fountain pen Claude gave you."
"I don't know what to do with a pipe," said Denny.
[ 324 ]
"Blow bubbles."
"I'm too big to blow bubbles."
"You can take this pipe on the street and swap it for
something . . . marbles or a Daisy air rifle. It's a dear
pipe."
"I'll go out and ask Maggie-Nov should I," said Denny
hesitantly.
"Never mind! Never mind!" said Pat hastily. He went up
to his room.
As they were preparing for bed, Claude told her casually
that he was out of a job; it had been merely a Christmas
job. She said that was all right and he said he'd get
another job and she said she knew he would.
Claude didn't bother looking for another job. He again
took to sitting at the window and at ten o'clock asking for
a quarter for cigarettes and the paper. Maggie-Now didn't
care. He'll be gone from me long eno?`g,'', she thought. I
want him here with rile all day the f ew weeks he's home.
One Monday morning early in February when
Maggie-Now went up to wake her father, Pat said he
wasn't going to work that day and not any day for two
weeks.
"I'm on me vacation," he announced.
"Vacation?" she said aghast. "But you always take it in
July."
"What do I do when I take it in July? I just sit by the
winder in me stocking feet. If I got to sit through me
vacation, I might as well sit in winter when it's cold outside
anyhow."
"But . . . but Claude's Income."
"I'll keep him company," said Pat.
As soon as Claude took his chair by the wh~dov, Pat
took the one at the opposite window. The pipe Claude had
given him for Christmas was prominently displayed sticking
out of Pat's shirt pocket, while Pat smoked his stubbed
clay pipe. Pat said nothing. He sat there staring at Claude.
Claude stared at Pat's left ear lobe, meaning to disconcert
bin,. But Pat knew that trick too. He stared at Claude's
right ear lobe.
At ten o'clock, Claude signaled Maggie-Now to follow
him into their bedroom. He asked for the usual quarter,
explaining that he didn't like to ask her in front of her
father.
While Claude was outs Maggie-Now said: "Why don't
you sit in your own nice room upstairs, Papa? "
~ ]21 ]
"It's cold up there."
"I'll put the little oil stove up there for you."
"I like it down here better."
Claude came back and resumed his seat. Pat resumed
his staring. Claude got up and, without a word, went into
the bedroom. When Maggie-Now went in t`, tell him lunch
was ready, she found him lying on the bed, hands clasped
under his head, staring up at the ceiling. He refused
lunch. She sat on the side of the bed and patted his cheek.
"Mister, did you know that two weeks ago eve had been
married two years?"
"I forgot again."
"I forgot. Let's go out tonight and celebrate."
"Fine!" He swung his feet over onto the floor and sat up.
"Let's go to that chop suey place you took me to, when
you were still Mister Bassett to me. We had so much fun!
I did anyhow. Remember how it rained? "
"Ho, hum." He tucked back a pretended yawn. "That
was way back in my past. I can hardly remember."
"I'll make Papa cook his own supper, just because he's
such a pest. And Denny's supper, too."
They had a wonderful time. After the chop suey dinner,
they went to see the vaudeville show at The Bushwick.
When they got out, it was nearly midnight.
"Let's end the celebration with our usual champagne or
its equivalent. "
"You mad at me?" skit asked.
"Why?''
"Then don't use those dictionary words on me, hear?"
They went into a cider store. To prove that it was a
cider store and not a speakeasy, there were a jug of cider
and a bowl of apples in the window. They went through
the empty store to the back room and each had a glass of
needle beer. It cost thirty cents a glass and Maggie-Nov
thought that was a terrible price to pay and she liked
champagne better, anyhow. And she wondered whether
her father paid thirty cents for his weekly glass of beer,
because he wasn't a person to throw his money around.
Claude said Pat drank near beer and he drank it only
when his little friend Mick Mack paid for it. Then they
started to laugh about
~ ]~r 1
Pat staring at Claude all morning the Christmas pipe in his
pocket.
"He was hinting," said iaggie-Now, "that he hadn't
wanted a pipe for Christmas."
"It was a nice, quiet hint, though," said Claude. And they
laughed and laughed....
But the next morning it was the same thing: Pat, pipe in
pocket, smoking his blackened clay one, and staring silently
at Claude's ear. At ten o'clock, Claude went out as usual
for cigarettes and paper. An hour passed and he had not
returned. Denny came home for hmch, ate, went back to
school and still no Claude. Maggie-Now started to tremble
inwardly. At two o'clock, she went in to her father. She
addressed him with cold self-control.
"All right, Papa. You did it! You drove him away with
your mean, spiteful ways. A big, grown-up man like you!
Sulking for two months nearly because you didn't like your
Christmas present! Shame! Shame! If you weren't my
father, I'd horsewhip you! If he doesn't come back, ['m
going to get my money out of the bank and leave here and
go all over the United States looking for him...."
Then she broke down and burst into sobs. "I love him so
much; I love him so much. And 1 have him for just these
few weeks
and you have to drive him rut.... I just can't go
on living this way," she sobbed. "I wish I was dead!"
Pat was ashamed and a little frightened, too. "Aw, I was
only fooling, girl, dear. I ain't on me vacation. I took
meself two days' sick leave. I'm going back to me work
tomorrow."
She throttled oflf her sobs. "You have my vote for the
meanest man in the world. And Denny takes after you.
He's growing up mean, too. Just like you. (give me that
pipe!" she shouted. Before he could hand it to her, she
grabbed it out of his shirt, tearing the pocket. She pulled
his clay pipe out of his mouth and smashed it on the floor.
"Another word out of you," she said, "and I'll break this
new pipe over your head!"
Good girl! Good girl! he exulted to himself. Oh, the
beautiful temper of her . . .
He got dressed and went out looking for Claude. He
found him right away in Brockman's store. Claude was
sitting at the counter on a stool, a glass of seltzer water at
his elbow. Brockman was
1'27]
leaning over the counter. His voice was hoarse. He had
been telling the story of his life since ten o'clock that
morning.
"So . . ." he was saying as Pat walked in, "my old gent
never did learn to speak English. So he had this farm in
Hicksville out on the Island. Land was dirt cheap in those
days and . . ."
Claude saw Pat and polled out a stool for him. "Mr.
Brockman," he said, "I'd like you to meet my father, Mr.
Moore. Old sir, this is Mr. Brockman."
Brockman and Pat clasped hands. "Seltzer water for all!"
proclaimed Pat. "I'll treat." The seltzer water was served.
Brockman resumed his saga.
". . . so my old gent use' to get up at four in the
morning and wash the lettuce . . ."
"Take a rest, me good man," said Pat. Pat settled
himself on the stool, cleared his throat and began: "I was
a boy in County Kilkenny . . ."
They got home in time for supper. They walked in,
mentally arm-in-arm. Maggie-Now had a grand supper
ready for them.
The house u as at peat e.
~ CHAPTER FORTY-FT VE ~
THEN came that day in March, the day of false spring.
While Claude sat in the kitchen eating breakfast in hi;
pajamas, she slipped into their bedroom and pinned the
gold piece in its cloth bag in his coat breast pot ket, and
laid out a clean shirt and underwear and socks for him.
I mustn't let him see me cry. I robust act as though it
revere any other day.
He dressed, all but his coat, and went in to sit by the
window. Maggie-Now finished her kitchen chores quickly,
took a piece of sewing and went in to sit with him as she
did every once in a while. She spoke to him from time to
time in a low, quiet voice and he answered with a look or
a smile.
He opened the window and leaned out. She leaned out
next to
~ 328 1
him and the south wind lifted a tendril of her hair and she
put her cheek next to his.
"It's a chinook wind," he whispered as though he didn't
want her to hear.
"Yes," she whispered bat k. He didn't seem to know she
was there.
She went out into the kitchen and came back walking
heavily. He started at the sound of her steps and closed
the window.
"If you'll let me have a quarter . . ." he said.
"Of course." She gave him the quarter and went in and
got his coat. She helped him on with it and turned him
around and buttoned it.
"Come right back, hear? ' she said brightly.
"I will." He kissed her and was gone.
And this became the pattern of their lives.
He'd come home with the first snow and bring her
something and he'd work a week or two and then not
work and she'd be happy treasuring each day of his being
there, and he was always so tender toward her and so kind
to Denny and so patient with her father. And it was all so
u onderful because she knew it was for such a very little
time.
Then would come that day in March a day like no
other day. The next day, there might be a blizzard, but on
this day there would be that sweet south wind. And
people would walk along the street with their coats
hanging open and a newspaper on somebody's stoop
would unfold itself and its sheets would swoop into the air
like kites.
And Claude would be restless and open the window and
lean out and feel the wind on his face and close his eyes
as though in ecstasy and listen as though he heard a
faraway and well-beloved voice calling him. He'd whisper:
Chinook, and bow his head as though making a promise.
I-hat was the day he'd leave her.
As he sat by the window in the winter, looking out on
the street and UK, at the grey skies, was he waiting . . .
waiting . . . for that day and that feeling he'd get that told
him there was a chinook wind blowing over the mountains
of Montana and that it was time for him to leave? And as
he sat there, silent, waiting, watching, what was in his
mind?
[ 329 ]
Did he dream great dreams of prairies with the wheat like
bowing gold in the winds? Or how, where the great Rockies
pierced the sky, you hall to believe in God because the world
was so grand? Did he get lo the old Southwest and believe
that he had walked into Spain? Did he think of a time he
had followed a river to find out where it began or where it
ended? Did he recall standing on a beach somewhere in
southern Florida and looking out over the wide Atlantic
Ocean and thinking that it was the same ocean that he
mzelled in Brooklyn just before it rained? And if he started
wall ing north along the beach, in time he'd come to
Rockaway just an hour away from his dear love?
Did he go because those great dreams led him on? Or
was it, as Father Flynn had deduced when he first spoke
to Claude, that he roamed the country trying to find a
name, a place or a human soul who would tell him who
he was, what he was, where he had come from? Was he
looking . . . searching for his birthright? Did he think of
that in his hours by the window in the winter?
Or did he sit there all winter with no such thoughts, no
such dreams waiting only for cogs within him to mesh
and put into motion that slow, patient walk that would
propel him across the country for no reason at all except
that that was his destiny?
No one knew. He told no one what his thoughts were.
When her father lashed out as he did from tone to time
and called Claude unspeakable names, Maggie-Now
defended her love and tried to explain to her father that
he roamed away because he was in love with the country,
/> "Its rocks and rills," she quoted from a song she used to
sing in school; because he was in love with rivers and
mountains and cities....
But Pat had his own version of where Claude spent his
wandering months. He told no one but Mick black.
"He's got me poor daughter fooled," said Pat. "The
bastid! The innocent girl thinks he goes away to look at
the sky and smell the flowers. But I knov. better. You see,
I'm the one what knows what men is. I'm a man meself."
He waited.
"You are that!" said Mick Mack emphatically.
"So I wouldn't be surprised a-tall if he had another
woman over in Jersey or somewheres. And he lives with
her until cold weather comes when he has to put coal in
the furnace and carry out the
~ 33 ]
ashes. Then he comes back to me ~laggie-Now and stays
with her till it gets warm again and the furnace is out in
Jersey. And I wouldn't be surprised either if he ain't got
three or four kids by this here woman."
"Ah, poor, poor Maggie- Now," said Mick Mack.
"Me daughter don't want none of your sympathy," said
Pat coldly.
~ ClIAPTI,R FORTY-SIX ~
SHE missed him, as she would always miss him. But
missing him had become part of her life now and she was
able to stand it more or less . . . if she kept busy and
didn't think about it too much. But she never adjusted
herself to not going to bed with him. As far as sex went,
her time with him was very wonderful. For a few months
each year, she had a fulfilling and contented love life. The
lack of it anguished her terribly physically, emotionally
and mentally.
She tried to fill her life with substitutes. The sewing
class again; the bimonthly visits to Lottie and Annie;
stopping in at his store to exchange gossip with Van Clees;
scrubbing and polishing up her home; shopping carefully
and economically for family food and necessities;
preparing meals carefully; going to Mass every day; getting
Denny ready for his Confirmation; seeing to it that Denny
served as altar bov at half a dozen Masses because she
thought every Catholic boy should have the high and
humble honor of serving as an acolyte sometime during
his youth.
(Of course, Pat had something to say about that. "Don't
try to make a priest out of the boy," he said.)
Maggie-Now ran into Cdna on the street. Gina was
pushing a beautiful white perambulator. Gina's baby was
dressed like a valuable doll in lace and ribbons. The
blanket, of fine angora wool, had been knitted on needles
as thin as hatpins. The blanket cover was shell-pink silk
topped with a pink satin bow. A pink rattle, with
hand-painted blue forget-me-nots, hung by a pink
[ ill' 1
ribbon from a strut of ~ he perambulator hood.
"How beautiful she is," said Maggie-Now, "and how
beautifully you keep her."
"You only have yot r first baby once in your life," said
Gina. "My mother says wait ll I have three or four. I won't
be so particular."
"What's her name?"
"Regina. After me. But Cholly you know how Cholly
is? He calls her Reggie. Honest! My mother has fits!
Reggie! And, oh! Ev's expecting in Octcber."
"Ev? "
"Evelyn. You know. Sonny's wife?"
"Oh! "
"You better catch up. Maggie. When you got married,
I thought you'd have a baby every year, the way you're so
religious and the way you're built for having children."
"Yes. Well . . ." Maggie-Now could think of nothing to say.
"Come see us sometime, Maggie. We often speak of you."
"Thanks, I will." (But she knew she wouldn't.)
Soon after that, she went to see Father Flynn about
taking in some orphans to live w ith her.
". . . and it's been a year, Father, since I asked you."
"The home has strict rules, Margaret. It will not give
children to a family living in a flat or apartment. It has to
be a house and yard. Of course you have that. And the
child or children must occupy a separate room in the