Бетти Смит - Maggie-Now

"I'll keep him company," said Pat.

As soon as Claude took his chair by the wh~do\v, 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-No\v 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.

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.