Бетти Смит - Maggie-Now

" 'Tis the style in Amtrica," said Mick Mack, "to say you don't want no presents, it being a hint that means don't forget to give me a present."

"Someday," said Patsy, grinding his teeth, "you're going to get

[so 1 Bucked right in the nose because YOU think YOU know so much." "And you, me friend, will be at me side to lick hell out of the man what tries it."

It was June and school was over. Patsy escorted Miss McCarthy home to avoid walking with Mick Mack. He knew the little man would get sentimental, want to exchange addresses, to plan other meetings, and Patsy wanted none of that.

Patsy missed the classes. He was sorry he hadn't obtained Mick Mack's address. Not that he liked the man.

Oh, no! It was just that Patsy had a couple ol things to say to him that he, Mick Mack, wouldn't like at all. He felt he hadn't put Mick Mack in his place. He still had a thing or two he'd like to tell him.

PATSY had been in Armerica a year. His steamship passage was paid in full and he owed nothing more on his clothes. He had about thirty dollars saved. He'd heard from his mother twice in the year. Both letters told him his had been received and hoped more would follow. She wrote no news of Maggie Rose or of the people he knew;

of the village or of herself. Both letters were copied from Bertie's book with no personal interpolations.

Patsy felt he ought to leave Moriarity and get a better job but he didn't know how to go about it. Then he reasoned that a nev. job might be worse than the old.

Eventually, he decided it was better to put up with the drawbacks he had become used to than to take on unknown ones. Besides, in a Ray, he would have missed Mary. He was not at all in love with her but he had come to depend on her kindness and her understanding ways.

Each time he thought of Biddy, however, he thought a new job couldn't be worse than the one he had. She was a nuisance. He suffered many indignities from her. She made him run trivial errands and help with the dishes. She made him listen to her tire

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some views on life, love, drinking, religion and w hat not. When he showed his lack of interest, she had a way of getting close to him and nudging him with her big, hard bust until she had him backed into a corner. There she held him with her barrier bust and made him listen to her homilies. Jessie, one of the mares, had the same trick of nudging him into a corner and leaning against him when he tried to curry her.

Biddy was also getting what he called forward. She was the kind that, had he made advances to her, she'd have cracked his head open. But she was also the type who would crack his head open if he intimated that she wasn't worth making advances to.

She had him nudged into a corner one afternoon, trying to get him to agree with her that Teddy Roosevelt had false teeth. He thought otherwise but was on the point of agreeing with her in order to get away, when she suddenly dropped the argument and, in plain earthy words, made him a point-blank proposition.

Now Patrick Dennis was not one to refuse any bounty that came his way, but he liked his bounty young and fresh and softly yielding and not ~ron-bound like Biddy.

"I could not do so," he blurted out, ''witll you."

"So you think you could do better, eh?" she said ominously.

" 'Tis not that," he said placatingly, "but 'twould have to be with marrying."

God forgive the lie, he thought, but what a grand, good way to get out of this sitchee,~sh?~n.

"I got to marry you for that?" she gasped. "Why you're the last man I'd think of marrying."

"Who was asking you?" he said. "If I couldn't do better. ."

"What'd you say?" she growled.

"Nothing," he said hastily. "And take me apology for it if I did. Sure and you'd make me a fine wife, the way you work hard and the way you're healthy…."

"Oh, Paddy, dear!" She fluttered her eyes.

"Only," he continued, "I would want a younger woman. . not too young,"

he added hastily, afraid of insulting her again.

"Someone about Miss Mary's age?" she asked.

"I do not think about her that way-as me wife," he said.

"You think right," she said. "She'd never marry a stable boy."

[S'] "She could go farther and do worse," said Patsy, stung.

"Why, she wouldn't even spit on the likes of you!"

"She would so," cried Patsy indignantly.

The argument went on.

Because of Biddy's forever saying that Mary wouldn't spit Oil him and that he wasn't fit to clean her shoes and because MoriaritNwas always warning him not to get

"idears" about his daughter, Patsy gave more and more thought to Mary.

I don't want her, he thought, and the Lord knows she don t want me and not because I'm a stable boy either. This is not the old country where the stable boy does not marry the lord's daughter. This is America, where 'tis the style, like Mick Mack would say, f or the poor working man to marry the boss's daughter. Then, books she gives me to read: All about poor boys what marries the rich boss's daughter and the poor boy then owns the factory when the old man croaks. A thought struck him. Did she ask me to read that book thinking that I'd get the hint, marry her and. . ah, no, he decided; she ain't tricky the way women is.

Is she far above me like Biddy says? Sure, she has the grand education sitting in school till she was twenty studying to be a teacher. and meself? Six years of schooling I had.

But did I not learn Latin good the way Father hit me on me head with his shillelagh (at ter Mass, to give him his due) when I didn't say it right when I was his altar boy?

She plays the piano to be sure. But do l not have the ear for music the way I can. . the way I could, keep time to any tune was played the while I Jigged?

She's rich and I'm poor. And that's the God's truth. But all her father's money couldn't buy for her what I do have for nothing: me youth. I'm twenty-one and she's twenty-seven. And that's old old for a woman not yet married.

When I go walking, I could walk with a girl on each arm fat the asking. But poor Miss.lIary! Sure and she's never had a man make up to her. Then there is looks. She is sweet?

but ah, she's plain in her face. So plain. And where is her shape? And me? I'd be Iying to meself did I not tell meself I'm good looking and I'll say an Act of Contrition for I've pride in me looks before I sleep this night.

1, 1 SO, Patsy came to his conclusion. She wouldn't lie so lead oJJ marrying me. But I will not think of it for do I not love Maggie Rose and I could never love another. And does she not wait for me with love? 'Tis a lie she has another feller. She could love no one else after me. And when I get ore thousand dollars saved up, I'll go flack. I'll tell her the plaiting time is over and. .

And so he dreamed.

It was September of his second year in America. After supper now, Patsy sat on the stone bench in the paved areaway onto which the iron-grilled door of the basement dining room opened. He'd sit there and smoke an after-supper pipe, trying to put off the time when he'd have to go back to his miserable little room.

He watched the comings and goings of the people on the street and stared at the folk who climbed the step to ring Moriarity's bell. He wasn't at all interested. He was curious.

On Friday nights, many policemen, in and out of uniform, came to the door. The procedure was always the same. A cop rang the bell. Moriarity appeared and put out his hand. Instead of shaking it, the cop put something in it. The Boss put some of it back into the cop's hand and the cop went down the stoop, saluting another cop who was on the way up.