Бетти Смит: Maggie-Now

"Have you had the doctor, AIargaret? "

"Papa wouldn't let me send for the doctor."

"When was he taken like this?"

"After supper. And he ate such a good supper, too. He asked for a clean nightshirt and went to bed. He asked me to shave him. He said he was too weak. Then he said to send for you because he knew he was dying."

"Like he did last year, ' said Father F lynx.

"Like last year and all the other years when it starts to snow. I'm afraid not to take him seriously because every time I think it is real." She rubbed a tear from the corner of her eve.

~ Joy 1 "When do you expect your husband back? "

"Any night, now."

They talked some more Maggie-Now told him little anecdotes about the children and made him smile. After a while, Father Francis came down from upstairs.

"He rests quietly," reported Father Francis.

"I'll go up and look at him," said Father Flynn.

"I\Iargaret, why don't you show Father Francis your children?"

She took the young priest into the bedroom where two of the children slept. Then she took him into Denny's old room, where the newest baby had his crib. The children smelled fresh and clean and wore freshly washed and ironed nightgowns. The rooms were bare but immaculately clean.

Back in the kitchen, she called his attention to the shelf which ran the length of the room. On it was a row of heavy white china bowls three of them three spoons, three mugs and three bananas. There was a large pot of oatmeal simmering on the back of the stove. She explained that, in the morning, the bowls would be filled with the hot oatmeal, sugar and milk added and a banana sliced on top of each bowlful, and that and three mugs of warmed milk would be breakfast for three babies.

"Is it all right, Father?" she asked anxiously. "The way I

do for the boys from the home?"

Father Francis had a flash of prescience. He knew that often in the years to come a picture would come to him unbidden: a picture of three mugs and spoons and bowls and bananas. And prescience told him that he would have that same impulse to weep as he had now. But he spoke in a detached and judicial way.

"You do well with our orphaned children, Margaret.

They are safe, warm, well-fed and well-loved."

"Thank you, Father. I am pleased and rewarded."

Pat lay very still, scarcely breathing, until he saw it was Father Flynn who came in not the other priest. Then Pat sat up and began to talk indignantly.

"Ah, Father, the curse of ungrateful chiltllrcn!'' What now? thought Father Flynn.

"I speak of me only son, Dennis Patthrick. He was sent for. but do you think he comes to see his only father and he at death's door? "

1 4~y 1 "Dennis might think, possibly, that you're crying wolf again."

"Wolf? "

"I told you the story often enough."

"It slips me mind."

The priest told him the fable again, concluding: "And someday, you'll really need help and no one will come."

"Is it becoming," asked Pat, "for a holy father to frighten a poor soul who has no one in the world a-tall. . but his priest and his chilthren?" He sighed piteously. "But 'tis true. No one cares for a man that is old."

"True, you are old, my son. True."

"I ain't so old, Father," said Pat indignantly.

"Too old," continued Father Flynn, "to act the foolish way you do."

Pat felt the sudden need to mend his fences. "I am no good atall. But I will do better from this day on."

"You can," said the priest patiently. "You can do better if you try."

"And I All do better, Father. Yes, I will! Providing," he bargained, "our Lord lets me live a long, long time."

"You will start doing better tomorrow morning."

"Yes, yes," agreed Pat. "I'll get me a good night's sleep first and. ."

"You will be at the church at six tomorrow morning prepared to make a good confession."

"But I did! I did! This very night!"

"You will confess that, after receiving Extreme Unction, you started sinning all over again in word and in thought."

"Could you not make it nine o'clock, Father?"

"Six o'clock."

Denny and Tessie didn't get over until eight that night.

Tessie made hi m eat his supper first. They had to wrap up Mary Lorraine in a blanket and carry her with them because there was nobody to stay with the` baby.

Denny was on edge from worrying about his father. He never believed his father was faking in spite of the fact that Pat always put on the dying act when he wanted attention. Yes, dike Shakespeare's coward, Pat died many times before his death.

~ 410 1 "He's fooled you and Maggie-Now before," said Tessie.

"What makes you think it's real this time?"

Denny pushed his plate away. ''I'm not hungry," he said.

What that man does to his children, thought Tessie in exasperation. Always feeding off their lives. And when I

think of my mother! If she was really dying, she'd deny it so's eve wouldn't be vorried.

Denny seemed to know what she was thinking. He said, "Now, Tess, you don't have to go if you don't want to. The drizzle's turning into snow and no one would blame you."

"Oh, I'll go with you, Denn. Maybe he is real sick this time. And I couldn't live with myself if I was mean and didn't go and he really died."

When they got to Maggie-Now's house, Tessie w as fussing because the baby's blanket was wet and she was worried about her taking cold. Maggie-~'ow hung the wet blanket on a chair in front of the stove and placed Mary Lorraine in the middle of her own bed.

"How's Papa?" asked Denny.

"Father Flynn and Father Francis just left."

"Do you think I can see Papa?" asked Denny.

"Now, Dennis," said Tessie. "What do you think he sent for you for?"

Denny smoothed his hair and pulled his tie knot closer and examined his fingernails. He was very nervous. When he came into the room, Pat pretended to be asleep. He tried to throttle down his breathing. He almost laughed aloud when Denny cautiously placed a hand over his, Pat's, heart, to check on his father's breathing.

Let him worry his head off about me, thought Pat. It will do him good.

"Papa?" Denny sounded worried. "Can you hear me?"

I've got him going, thought Pat.

Denny tried his best to get through to Pat. Finally the boy gave up. He tiptoed out of the room and closed the door carefully.

I hope he's good and Cared, thought Pat. That'll learn him to neglect his father.

Back again downstairs, Denny said to his sister, "I'm sort of worried about Papa."

17/11 "He'll be all right," said Maggie-Now.

"Why did you send for the priest then?" asked Tessie.

"After all! "

"Because I always gel: the priest when he asks. I

wouldn't want the responsibility of not getting him. In case something happened."

"That's all right, Maggie-No\v, as far as you're concerned. But what about us? Denn works hard all day and then he can't eat his supper he's so worried."

"Now, Tess," said Denny soothingly.

"And then we had to drag the baby out in the snow."

"Tessie, I told you! You didn't have to come."

"I'm sorry I did. I should have thought first of my baby, who has her whole life before her, than of some old man who has to die anyhow sometime."

"Denny has some obligation to his father," said Maggie-Now evenly.