Nothing to Fear (11 page)

"And I told yer Uncle Tomas," Mama was saying, "'Don't take yer eyes from him, not for a minute, and I'll run get the spade.' I ran like the banshee was chasin' me, but when I got back the leprechaun was gone just the same, and there was yer Uncle Tomas, sleepin' like a babe."

I laughed. "So the leprechaun tricked you out of the gold again?"

"Aye, that he did."

Mama sat back a little and her eyes grew dreamy. "That night," she said, "as we were lyin' on our pallets in the byre, your Uncle Tomas turned to me. 'Molly,' he said, 'if we'da got that pot o' gold, and ya could have anything in the world, what would ya choose?'"

Mama looked at me and her eyes sparkled. "Can ya guess what I said?"

"No, Mama, what?"

"A pitcher of cream." She tossed her head and laughed at herself. "How's that," she said, "for a child's wildest dream? A pitcher of cream..."

"Danny? What're ya doin' on the floor, lad? Did ya fall out of bed?"

Mama's voice startled me awake, and I sat up, trying to figure out where I was.

"Danny?" she said again. "Did ya fall out of bed?"

"Uh ... no, Mama. I was saying my prayers.... I guess I fell asleep on my knees."

"Poor dear," she said. "Such a good boy. You'll have to hurry now, though, or we'll be late for Mass."

"Okay, Ma."

I didn't tell her that the prayers I was saying were my penance for sassing Sister at catechism yesterday. As a matter of fact, I'd forgotten all about them in the excitement of last night. Then I had this dream that Sister was chasing me through the sewers, throwing flowers at me. I woke up in a cold sweat, sure it must be some kind of bad omen or something.
So I got down on my knees and started in, only I was so tired that I kept falling face forward into the sheets. The next thing I knew, Ma was waking me up. I still didn't know if I was done or not, so I said the rosary to myself the whole time I was getting dressed and all during breakfast and all the way to church, just to be safe.

We saw the Rileys at Mass. Maggie and her mother both had on those kind of hats with the little veils that come down over your face. Ma invited them all over for Sunday dinner and Mrs. Riley nodded. After Mass, Ma gave me a quarter and sent me to the bakery to buy buns for supper.

"Spend the whole quarter," she said.

I stared at her. "The whole quarter, on buns?"

"Aye," she said. "The Rileys will be stayin' the afternoon, I'm sure."

"But ... the whole quarter?"

"Aye," Mama repeated. "I'm thinkin' we all deserve a bit of a treat. Go along with you now."

"Okay, Ma."

The bakery was crowded, but I didn't mind the wait. Standing there, surrounded by all those good things to eat, breathing in that sweet, buttery air was about as close as you could get to heaven without dying. When my turn came I looked over the buns. There were cheese, raspberry, apple, lemon, cinnamon ... ten kinds in all. "I'll have two of each," I said, feeling very rich as I pushed the quarter across the counter.

It started to rain on the way home and I tucked
the buns under my jacket to keep them dry. Their warmth felt good against my chest. Mama was bustling around the kitchen when I came in. A huge pot of chicken soup boiled on the stove.

"Run up and tell poor old Mrs. Mahoney to join us," Mama said. She always calls Mrs. Mahoney "poor old Mrs. Mahoney." I'm not really sure why. She doesn't seem that poor or that old. I think it's got something to do with her wooden leg or her being a widow or maybe both.

"No sense in her spending the day alone up there," Mama went on, "when one more or less down here won't make a bit o' difference."

Mrs. Mahoney was delighted. She asked me to carry her box of beadwork down for her, and she followed with a pot of "tea" tucked under her arm. Mrs. Mahoney supports herself by doing piecework, making beaded pocketbooks at home. I don't know how much she makes, but she pays us kids two cents a pocketbook to help out, and we're always glad to get it. Whenever we have some free time we go up and sit in her kitchen and string beads, and she tells us tales of when she was young and her husband was alive. Her husband was a merchant marine, and when they were first married Mrs. Mahoney used to sail all around the world with him. She says that's how she lost her leg. It was bitten off by a shark one time when she was washed overboard in a gale. Mama winks and says Mrs. Mahoney is just giving us a bit of the blarney.

When we came down, the Rileys were marching
across the hall like a little line of ducks, all carrying chairs and dishes and glasses and such. Maggie and Kitty brought up the rear, struggling with their extra table. I put the beadwork down and gave them a hand. We pushed their table and ours together and soon the meal was set—steaming bowls of chicken soup, thick with vegetables; loaves of good, chewy bread; butter; and fresh milk—a real feast.

I've always loved Sunday afternoons. Sunday is the one day of the week that we have all we can eat. Even if there's nothing but oatmeal for the rest of the week, Ma always manages to put together a big meal for Sunday dinner, followed later in the evening by a supper of sweet buns and hot chocolate. It's a day for resting and visiting, too. One or more of the neighbor families always drop by, and the women sit in the front room knitting or doing piecework, talking and sipping "tea," while the men sit in the kitchen playing cards and drinking homemade beer. The smaller kids roll and tumble in the bedrooms, and us older ones drift from front to back, keeping peace, sneaking sips, and listening in on all the gossip and laughter. It's really keen, and even though we're poor, I can't imagine that rich people are any happier than we are on Sunday afternoons.

Today there were no men playing cards, so we all stayed in the kitchen where it was warm.

"No sense lighting the kerosene heater in the front room," Mama said.

It felt strangely quiet at first, in spite of the crowd, and we all seemed to be talking extra loud and
laughing extra hard to fill up the room. By the end of dinner, though, everyone had relaxed and things seemed almost normal. The dishes were cleared away, Maureen and Marion put down for their naps, and the smaller kids sent across the hall to play where their noise wouldn't wake the babies.

Ma made hot chocolate for Maggie, Kitty, and me and poured more tea for herself and the ladies. Then we all set to work on the pocketbooks. I was glad Mickey wasn't around. He won't make pocketbooks anymore. He says it's sissy work. If you ask me, two cents is two cents. And anyway, what else are you gonna do on a rainy Sunday afternoon? Besides, it's a good excuse to sit there and listen to the grown-ups talk. They can say some pretty funny things when they get to laughing and passing that teapot around.

Today the talk was full of politics, with the election just a couple of weeks away.

"They say it's going to be a rout," said Mrs. Mahoney.

"Aye, and well it should," said Mama, her cheeks flushing with anger. "That man has no right in the White House. It's out on the streets he belongs, in one of his own Hoovervilles, and then see how he feels about the depression!"

Hoovervilles are what they call the little shantytowns that have sprung up all over the country since the depression began; makeshift towns thrown together by homeless, out-of-work folks. I haven't seen any, 'cause Ma won't let me go near, but there's sup
posed to be one in Central Park and another over between Riverside Drive and the river. Folks are living in shacks made out of just about anything they can find, I guess.

"Him that was supposed to be such a great humanitarian," said Mrs. Mahoney with a huff, "feeding all the hungry in Europe after the war. How can he turn his back on his own people now?"

"Daniel says Hoover's for government staying out of business," Mama said, "for lettin' the economy straighten out by itself. But I say, how long can we wait?"

"How long, indeed?" said Mrs. Mahoney. "Does he want to see every man, woman, and child out on the streets?"

Mrs. Riley, who had been very quiet, shook her head. "It's time for new ideas," she said. "Roosevelt is for the ordinary man, for helping the farmers and putting folks back to work. We need a down-to-earth man like him in the White House."

"Aye," Mama agreed. "Hoover's got his head in the clouds."

There was a sudden ruckus across the hall, and a pile of little Rileys came bursting into the room, shouting and swatting each other and waking up Marion and Maureen.

"All right, all right," said Mrs. Riley when the three women had gotten things calmed down some. "Now tell me what's the matter."

"Johnny won't be the daddy," yelled seven-year-old Alice. "He wants to be the mommy."

Johnny stood with a doll under his arm and his bottom lip stuck out.

"I always have to be the daddy," he said. "I don't want to be the daddy anymore. The daddy always gets drunk and goes to jail."

Mrs. Riley put her hand to her mouth. Her eyes filled with tears, and she looked away. Mama and Mrs. Mahoney glanced awkwardly at one another.

I looked at Johnny, standing there clutching the doll. Poor kid. Bad enough he had all them sisters to put up with. Now he didn't even have a pa to set him straight.

"C'mon, Johnny," I said, putting my pocketbook aside. "I want to show you something." I took his hand and led him into my room.

"Look, goofy," I said, hoisting him up onto my bed. "You're not cut out to be a mommy, take it from me." I pulled the doll out from under his arm. "Haven't you got any boy toys?"

"Sure," he said, bristling up. "I got a fire engine."

"Well, that's good," I said. "That's real good. But you know what? I got something better than that. I got a Jack Armstrong whistle ring."

His eyes opened wide. "No foolin'?"

I went over to my bureau and pulled my cigar box full of treasures out of the top drawer. I slipped the ring onto my finger and blew. A shrill whistle sounded. I had sent away for it a few years ago for a couple of Wheaties boxtops. Jack Armstrong was my hero back then. I put the ring into Johnny's hand.

"You want it?" I asked.

"No foolin'?" he repeated.

"No foolin'."

"Wowwee! Sure." He sprang from the bed and was about to charge out of the room.

"Hold on ... hold on there just a minute," I said, grabbing his sleeve and pulling him back. "There's a few conditions, you know."

He turned his big blue eyes slowly up to mine, fearful, I guess, that I wasn't really gonna give it to him.

I smiled. "If you're gonna wear a ring like that," I said, "you gotta live up to it. You gotta promise to be an all-American boy, like Jack—brave and honest and strong."

"I promise," he said, eyes shining.

"And no more sissy talk."

"You bet."

"Okay," I said, handing him back the doll. "Now go give this to your sister."

"You bet," he shouted again. "Hey Ma, look what Danny gave me!"

I looked up to see Maggie standing in the doorway as he charged by. She smiled.

"Thanks," she said. It was the first word either of us had spoken to each other since last night.

I shrugged. "Just didn't want him growing up to be no sissy, that's all," I said. I didn't tell her what I'd really been thinking. Maybe little Johnny wasn't half wrong. Why should he want to be a man when
all the men he saw were useless? The way things were going, men would probably be extinct, like dinosaurs, by the time we grew up.

Maggie came over and bent to look into my treasure box. She picked out a small rubber stamp.

"A Tom Mix branding iron," she said, laughing and holding it up. "I wanted one of these so bad, but Ma wouldn't let us buy the Ralston unless we promised to eat it all." She made a face.

"Yeah," I told her. "Ma made me eat it, too—two whole boxes!" I stuck my tongue out and shivered at the memory.

We both laughed.

Maggie bent and put the stamp back into the box, then straightened up slowly and looked around the room. "Remember how we used to play Wild Bill Hickok in here with our rubber-band guns?"

"Sure I do, you low-down sidewinder you."

Maggie laughed again, then her smile faded. She ran her hand along the iron bed rail. "Seems like a long time ago," she said.

I looked at her and knew what she was thinking.

"I'm sorry," I said, "about your pa."

She turned toward me, but her eyes seemed to look beyond me, at something sad and faraway. "Yeah," she said softly.

Over two weeks have gone by with no further word from Pa.

"He could send a postcard at least," I told Mama at breakfast. "It'd only cost a penny."

"A penny's a penny," said Mama. "If you haven't got one, ya can no more buy a postcard than a T-bone steak."

I looked down at my oatmeal. I didn't like to think of Pa wandering around without a penny in his pocket.

"C'mon now," said Mama gently. "Eat yer breakfast. Sure an' we'll be hearin' any day now."

"Aren't you gonna eat?" I asked. Mama was feeding Maureen from a bowl of oatmeal, but there was nothing in front of her place but a cup of tea.

"I haven't much of an appetite this mornin'."

"Nor yesterday? Nor the day before?" I looked at her closely. She seemed paler than usual, and there
were dark circles under her eyes. "Are you feelin' all right, Ma?"

She laughed nervously. "Of course I am."

A vague fear crept into my belly, but it was too scary to think about. Not now. Not with Pa gone. "Are you sure?"

"Sure an' I'm sure. Just got me a little touch of the flu is all. Mrs. Mahoney had it last week, if you recall."

I breathed a little sigh of relief. "Oh yeah. Well, why don't you go back to bed then? With school closed today I can watch Maureen."

Mama huffed. "I've no intention of spending election day in bed. I'm doin' just fine, thank you, but as soon as you finish your breakfast you
can
watch Maureen while I go cast my vote."

"Votin' for Hoover, are you?" I asked, just to get her goat.

"Aye," she said, "when pigs fly."