Бетти Смит - Maggie-Now

Maggie-Now saw Annie and stood behind a stool waiting to catch her eye. Annie was making a hot roast-beef sandwich. She took a slice of bread from a drawer, a thin slice of cold meat from an agate tray, placed the meat on the bread, a scoopful of gravy, mashed potato next the bread and a dipperful of warmish, tan gravy over all. She set the plate down before the customer and looked up for a second. Maggie-Now started to smile. Annie gave her a harried look.

"I'll get to you in a second, Miss," said Annie.

So she didn't recognizc me, thought Maggie-Now. That's that. I did the best I could to be friends with her.

~ /62]

MAGG7.E-Now brought Denny up the way she'd been brought up. It was the only way she knew. She took him to Coney Island once or twice in the summer instead of Rockaway, because the fare was cheaper. He loved the sea and the sand as much as she had as a child. Unlike her, however, Denny always sought out a group of children. He couldn't enjoy jiggling up and down in the waves by himself. He had to show off to other kids.

He wouldn't eat the shoebox lunch she brought from home. He wanted an apple-on-a-stick, a hot dog, or a water-logged ear of sweet corn with melted butter painted on. She wondered why he didn't like the tilings she'd liked as a child. The only way she could explain it was that boys were different.

"When I take him somewhere," she told her father, "he costs." "That's because he's a boy," said Pat.

When they went to the cemetery on Decoration Day, Denny, like his sister, wanted to sit on the front seat. Only he wouldn't sit. He kept jumping up to stand next the motorman. The trip was made to the rhythm of the motorman's monotonous chant: "Down, boy, sit down."

alloys are so much more active than girls," she explained to a grumpy lady on the san.e seat.

"I'll let you pick out the flower to plant on the grave,"

she offered. Unlike his sister, he was not interested in geraniums no matter what colors they were.

"I want to plant a flag on the grave," he said.

"Flags are for soldier's graves only."

"Grandpa was a soldier " "No, he wasn't, Denny.' "He told me so hisself."

"But you never saw your grandfather.'' "He told me all the same to plant a flag on his grave."

~ /6, 1 "Well, I'm not going to buy you a flag. And that's all."

But it wasn't all. He threw himself down on the sidewalk, full length, and announced he wouldn't get up until she bought him a flag. She was embarrassed.

"Denny! Get up! See all the people looking at v out" "Yeah," he said with sleep satisfaction.

She bought him the flag. Boys want their 0~7~ may Blare than girls do, she decided.

At the cemetery, Mr, Schondle, wearing the same dress and veils, or a painful reproduction of the same, hobbled over to exchange greetings.

"Denny, say hello to \Irs. Scll~yndle.'' suggested A: laggie-Now.

"I want a penny," he countered.

"Say hello, now," persisted his sister.

"I want a penny."

Mrs. Schondle dived into her pocl;ethook and came up witl a penny for him.

"What do you say, I)ennv?" nudged l\laggie-No~v.

"Hello,', he said.

Boys aren't as polite as girls, she added to her list of hov-isms.

"He's only four," she apologized to Mrs. Schondle.

"That's all right," said Mrs. Schondle graciously.

But she thought: If he's tint.;,ay at four, he'll be in reform school when he's fo~/rte`7z.

They were leaving. Denilv pulled up the flag. "You're supposed to leave it there, I)enny," said,!\Iaggie-Now.

"Grandpa said he don t want it."

She sighed but let it go. Denny lagged behind as his sister and Mrs. Schondle made their slow way to the exit.

Near the gates, Denny caught up with them. I le had half a dozen flags clutched in his fist.

"Denny! " she said hol rifled.

"A man give 'cm to m.," he said.

Just then a little boy ran up o it of breath. "He stole

'em. lady! He took 'em off-a graves."

Denny fixed the little boy with his eye. "The man," he said slowly, "told me to give you one. Here!"

"Yeah," said the boy. ''A man give 'em to him." Me ran off with the flag.

~ ~1 Maggie-Now could think of no boy-ism for that. Mrs.

Schondle supplied one.

"Well, that's a boy for you," she said.

Yet. .

The next year, Mrs. Schondle did not walk over to greet them. The Schondle grave looked raw and was mounded.

Maggie-Now walked over to the grave. Yes. Fresh carving

. . a winter date. . Elsie Schondle, beloved wife. .

Maggie-Now sat on the ground next the grave and wept.

It wasn't that she had been so close to Mrs. Schondle. It was because while Mrs. Schondle was alive, a little bit of Maggie-Now's mother had still lived.

The boy, Denny, came to her, knelt down by her side and put his arms around her neck.

"Don't cry, my mama,' he said. "Don't cry, my sister.

Don't cry, my Maggie-Now. I dove you."

Then Maggie-Now got the definitive boy-ism.

Tenderness is scarce in boys, she thought. But when a boy is tender, he's more tender than a girl could ever be.

It was an evening after supper. Denny was on the floor shooting marbles. Maggie-Nou was reading Laddie, a book that had just come into the library. Patrick Dennis had read the evening paper. Now he was digesting the news.

We'll never get in it, he thought. Wilson will keep us out of war. If we did get in, though, I wouldn't have to go a man of fortysix with two children to support without a mother. I

say let them kill each other over ~here. They're all a bunch of foreigners anyhow. Why should we butt in?

He looked at his son. Bv the time he gets big, he decided, war will be a thing of the past. Maggie-Now. If she was a boy, she'd have to go if there was a war. But there won't be.

The worst thing that could happen to her is some no-good man will come along. .

He looked at his daughter. She had put aside her book and vitas on the floor helping Denny with his houses. She was twentyone now and well formed.

She's a woman, now, he thought, and it's just a question of time when she'll marry and leave the home. The boy will start school

~ 'AS]

soon and he'll grow up.luick, arid before you know it he'll be out of the house, too, a…d I'll be left all alone in me old days.

He sat there and wondered what life would have been like were he friends with his children. He had to admit he had his lonely times. He would have liked to be one with them instead of the outsider who, came home every night and lived there, yet had no part in their secret lives. He wished now that he had started to gain Maggie-Now's love and friendship when she was a little girl. Encouraged her to confide in him; brought her home little surprises and made her laugh in delight in the way,f children.

In the warm, c'~,mforttble room with his children nearby, he was cold and lonely. ~\Iaybe it w asn't too late. Maybe he could y et make friends with them.

I've,,never mistreated t,.,e,n, he thought. I've given them a honze and they have plenty or food and I match that nothing had 1.~appe7is to them, But why then does the boy stop laughing 07' talking or whatever he's doing where I cone home nights?

"Denny," said Maggie-Now. "It's time for bed."

"Maggie-Now," said Pat, "after the boy goes to Ted, sit down with your father and we'll talk things over."