what he snide "
"No.''
"He said, 'You never asked me.'" She smiled a tender
smile of memory and said fondly: "That Timmy!"
"But would you have married him if he wasn't a Catholic?"
"But I told you he was."
"But for the sake of argument . . ."
"No argument. He was."
"But your mother was w illing to let you marry a
Protestant."
"Oh, she was just talking ',
Maggie-Now sighed. She doesn't even know what I'm
talking about, thought Maggie-Now.
But Lottie knew. "That's too bad that you had to fall in
love with him," she said.
"I know," said Maggie-Now.
"How long did you know him, Maggie-Now?"
"Just a week, Aunt Lottie."
"Only a week? You'll forget him."
"If I only could!"
"Don't worry. You will in time."
"Do you really think so, Aunt Lottie?"
"No, I don't. That's just something to say because there's
nothing else to say."
1 241 ]
A. CHA P T FIR THI R T Y- THRE E ~
APRIL went into llav and the lilac bush in, Father
Flynn's yard came into bloom and it was Decoration Day
again. Then it divas June. And all the da's of that spring,
Maggie-Novv sat by the window each evening after
supper, and waited. But he never came by. She stood at
the w indow watching for the letter carrier, but there was
never a letter from Claude.
She lived on hope; pi rsuaded herself that he w as in the
army and overseas in a trench and unable to get a letter
out. As the weeks passed, she assured herself that there
had been no differences betvv-een them; that the
discussion of religion had been merely a friendly debate
and she had been Prong to get so serious about the whole
thing.
I shouldn't have said that about the woman, the convert
and about her hair washing. Maybe he was thinking of
becoming a convert and he thought I made fun of converts.
And that silly talk about asl ing a baby whether he wanted
beer or milk. Men don't like women to be too serious but
they don't like them to be silly either.
She lived on nope and became a little thin and
drawn-looking on this diet. She took little pleasure in
shopping for and preparing food and less in eating it. She
had to work very hard (for instance, painting and papering
the upstairs apartment after the Heah]ys moved out) so
she'd be tired enough to sleep at night.
She stopped in at the church every other day or so and
lit a candle at the altar of the Blessed Mother, beseeching
her to intercede with her Son to keep Claude safe
wherever he was.
She no longer enjoyed conversations with the
storekeepers. It wasn't enough for one to sell a bag of
salt. He had to explain how necessary salt was. (Or.`e had
said: "If you have nothing but salt,
l 712 ]
bread and water, still you can live.") In a dim, inarticulate
way, she had realized that the selling of stuff was the all
of most storekeepers' lives and they had to round out their
lives by giving background and interest to everything they
sold. Before Claude left, she had enjoyed their
home-made philosophy, but now it irritated her.
7'alk, talk, talk, she thought. ~11 about nothing. What do
I care? I don't want to know how it is with them and l don't
want anybody to kno w how it is with me.
But they knew; more than she thought they did. Van
Clees knew. He had seen her pass his store arm in arm
with Claude and had noticed the way they looked at each
other when they spoke. When she came into the store, he
sometimes adroitly inserted Claude's name into the
conversation to see her expression.
"And your friend Mr. Bassett, how does he do?"
Her face fell into sad lines as she said: "I never hear
from him. He's in the war, I guess."
"Ah, so?" he said. He waited, hoping she would confide
in him. But she didn't.
AInd so he left her, he thought. And she's in love with
him and he's a no-good with a fancy name what smokes
cigarettes. She is a good girl and she should find some good
man to take care of her. Bzzt she would not know how to let
anybody take care of her because she is so that she must take
care of others and she wants that man because she wants to
"Gott damn!" he said aloud. Interested in analysing
MaggieNov, he had ruined a cigar in the making.
Her father knew how it was with her; that is, he knew
according to his way. So she lost the man what she thinks
she loves. I lost the girl what I knew I loved. I got over it. I
didn't die. She'll get over it and she won't die. She'll meet
another man someday and f orget that first one.
Did you forget? he asked himself.
What has that got to do with it? he answered himself. I'm
stzlbborn and she ain't.
Father Flynn knew how it was with Maggie-Now. In the
dark confessional, she had told her sins to him; the sin of
carnal pleasure she'd known when a man pressed her arm
against his side; the sin of almost hating her father;
defying him and Iying to him be
~ 241 1
cause he was against her happiness; the sin of thinking for
a second of giving up her faith. She had confessed and
had done penance.
Theoretically, a sinner kneeling in the dark confessional
Noms anonymous, only a soul seeking expiation of sin.
But Father Flynn knew the timbre of her voice; the clean
smell of soap and water and starched clothes that he
associated with her. He knew she suffered. He knew she
needed comfort.
He felt, however, that he could not approach her and
say in effect: "Considering the confessions you've made to
me in recent weeks . . ." No. But he waited for her to
come to him for guidance.
Weeks passed. Finally Father Flynn requested
Maggie-Now to come to the parish house. Father Flynn
was in his garden when Maggie-Now called, and Mrs.
Harrigan, his aged and bitter houseI;eeper, took her
through the house into the yard.
Maggie-Now admired the lilac bush. The only other
groping thing in the "garden" was a piece of ivy climbing
the board fence.
"That's from a roved slip your mother gave me many
years ago," he told Maggie-Now. "I had hoped it would
cover the whole fence in time but it grows slowly."
"You'd get more ivy and quicker if you made slips."
She explained. He went into the house for a paring
knife and they cut off a dozen shoots and lIaggie-Now
said she'd take them home and keel, them hi water and
when they formed roots she'd plant them back in his yard.
He seemed pleased. Mrs. Harrigan c ame out with two
glasse
s of iced tea on a tray.
"Because it's a warm day," explained the priest.
They sat on a castoff park bench half under the lilac
inrush. breather Flynn had salvaged it from the junk pile,
repaired it and given it a fresh coat of green paint each
spring. Ilaggie-Now said it was a very nice bench. Father
Flvnn agreed but added that it was rather uncomfortable.
They sipped the tea.
"Tell me, Margaret," he said, chow are things with you?"
"Fhle," she said.
'Wllat about your future?"
She looked startled. "I'd like to get a job but I have to
wait until fall, when Denny goes back to school."
"Life goes on, Margaret. Perhaps you think there is little
of interest in life for you now. That is wrong. You are
needed by
~ 244 1
more than one person in the world, you know."
He waited, giving her an opportunity to speak of her
unhappiness. She said, "That's all right, Father," meaning:
Do not trouble yourself about me.
"I asked you here, Margaret, because I need your help."
"Yes, Father."
"I've fixed up the basement of the church as a sort of
recreation room. Someone was kind enough to donate a
pianola, and Mr. Rummel, the undertaker, donated a
dozen folding chairs. I thought we could have
Thursday-night socials. So many of our boys are going into
the services, and a little send-off party . . . Young people
getting together to sing talk. Some modest refreshment.
I want you tc, take charge of this for me," he said.
"I will be pleased to," she answered.
When they had finished the tea, he took the two wedges
of squeezed lemon and buried them at the base of the lilac
bush. He knelt in the dirt and gestured with his trowel.
"That's to make the soil acid. I heard lilacs like an acid
soil. But I bury my breakfast eggshells here, too. Just in
case they like a calcium soil." He got up and brushed the
soil from his knees. "Ah, Margaret," he said, "1 had hoped
She knew he meant talk about Claude and her
unhappiness. '~1 know," she said. "But there s nothing to
talk about . . . now."
Maggie now canvassed the neighborhood and found
three Uilmarried Catholic girls who said they'd be tickled
to death to do their bit for their country by entertaining
young men about to he drafted. By agreement, the girls
were at the place first in order to welcome the young men.
The church basement was warm, tidy and softly lighted.
Church supplies were stored on shelves: tins of French
incense, grosses of beeswax votive candles; pads of
marriage certificates and birth certificates. There was a
brand-new iron for baking communion wafers.
(Nuns frc,m a nearby convent baked the communion
wafers and delivered them each Saturday. But at the time
of the great blizzard the nuns hadn't been able to get
through the drifts and Father Flynn had had to use stale
wafers for the few commun;cants who fought their way t()
Mass. He had, after that, obtained
1 ~) 1
the iron and the recipe so that in case of another blizzard
he could bake the wafers himself.)
There -were many garden implements: spade, hoe,
shovel and rake too many for one lilac bush, thought
Maggie-Now critically--and, looking lost and out of place,
a pair of skis standing in the corner.
The four young men came together to give each other
nerve, one of them explained. The girls tittered. They
introduced themselves. One of the young men was the son
of Pheid, the plumber. He was introduced as Son Pheid.
"Call me And Son for short," he said.
This called for some merriment which the young people
prolonged as long as possible because they didn't know
v`7hat to do next. Father Flynn heard the laughter in his
house next to the church, and was pleased. It keeps them
off the street, thought the kindly priest. (Although they
were all too old to hang out on the streets now.)
Father Flynn was in :~ quandary. If he wells over to
the basement to greet them, he might cast a pall over the
evening. If he didn't go, they might think he wasn't
interested, or worse, might feel they were without
supervision and free to carouse.
He went over, said good evening, announced that coffee
and doughnuts would be served at nine o'clock, gravely
instructed everyone to have a good time, and left.
The donor of the pianola had donated but one roll with
it: "The Oceana Roll." They played it four times because
each feller wanted a turn at pumping the piano. They
were sick of that song and were at a loss about what to do
next when one of the boys, named Charlie, which they
pronounced Cholly, said he could play by ear.
"Give us a tune, Cholly. Give us a tune," they urged.
He was willing. "They laughed at me when I sat down to
play,' he said. Everybody thought that was a very comical
remark.
Ele threw the lever that changed the plano]a into a
piano. Ele sounded a few mellow chords and played the
chorus of "When You Were Sweet Sixteen." When he
played the chords preliminary to going into the verse, the
other three fellers put their heads together and sang in
fairly close harmony.
[ '46 1
And even though we're drifting down life's stream apart,
Your face I still can see in dream's domain.
The tender little song put everybody in a misty mood.
After it had been repeated several times, the boys urged
the girls to sing. They sang "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her
Now." They refused to be coaxed into an encore and the
party started to die away.
Cholly, the piano player, who had evolved into the social
leader of the evening, said: "What's the idear standing
around like a bunch of deadheads? Let's get some life in
the party." He struclc up the ragtime rhythm tune of the
day: "F.verybodNT's l~oing It!"
"Sh-h-h!" hissed the girls in horror.
"Listen, Cholly," said Son Pheid, "don't you think that
tune's a little out of place here with the church right
upstairs?"
"Just as you say," said Cholly agreeably. "How about a
little reminiscing, then?" All agreed that that would be
grand.
He played a medley of sentimental songs, old and new,
and the girls stood in a loose semicircle with their arms
about each other's waists and swayed in time to the music
and hummed or sang the tunes, and the boys stood with
their heads touching and sounded "bum, bum," from time
to time for accent, and finally Cholly went into "There s
Egypt in Your Dreamy Eves," and Maggie-Now sang the
song in her heart:
And you stole my llearr, with your cunning err . . .
She
closed her eyes and swayed and hummed and
thought of Claude. She was filled with a delicious sadness
and the sadness pleased her and she thought it was almost
better than being happy. When she opened her eyes, she
saNv that Son Pheid was staring at her.
Why, that's the girl, he vvas remembering. Ho c,r~ne
over to the shop that night with that feller....
Maggie-Now pretended he was Claude and gave Son
Pheid a big smile. Eve smiled baclc and one girl whispered
to another: "Oh-oh! "
After a while, Cholly rail out of reminiscing and they
pumped out "The C)ceana Roll" again. At nine, there was
a tactful tap at the door. Father Flynn gave Maggie-Nov
a tray Oll which
~ ,1~ 1
were mugs of coffee and a plate of doughnuts. He handed
it over as though it Nvere contraband and backed away
into the night.
They stood around nibbling daintily on the doughnuts
and sipping the coffee until Cholly said: "Look, folks, I'm
just an ordinary, everyday slob with no manners so I'm
going to dunk my sinker."
That broke the ice. Everybody laughed and dunked and
agreed that that was the only NNTay to eat a doughnut.
One of the girls, bolder than the others, said: "Cholly,
you're a regular card."
"My mother thanks you," said Cholly. "My father thanks
,,
you . . .
"He's a whole deck," said Son Pheid in an aside to
Maggie-Now. She smiled at him and he smiled back.
They washed the mugs and the plate in the washtub.
There Noms no towel to dry the dishes so Son Pheid gave
up his clean handkerchief, which was carefully planted in
his breast pocket and folded into a miniature three-picket
fence, to do the job. Maggie-NoN said, "Who wants to
take the tray back to the priest's house?" and Son Pheid
said he would. But, he said, he didn't know the way and
Miss Moore would have to go with him. The other fellers
winked at each other and the girls giggled.
The two hurried across the yard, talking in whispers.
Since the house was dark, they decided to leave tray and
dishes on the back stoop. Maggie-Now whispered that
they ought to say thanks, at least. Son Pheid took one of
his printed cards from his pocket: Pheid ~ Son. Plumbers.
Day ~ Night, and wrote "Thanks" on the back of it while
lIaggie-Now held a lighted match. He put the card on the
tray.
When they got back. the other fellers leered and said:
"Ahhah!" in a certain way and Cholly said: "We thought
you two went to China."
"Go fly a Icite," said lion Pheid in an exaggerated, bored
tone of voice.
They folded the undertaker's chairs and stacked them
against the wall. Ilaggie-Now took the key from her
pocketbook to loci; the door. As a matter of course, Son
Pheid took the key from her. locked the door, and, as he
returned the key, he asked could he walk her home. She
said he could.
~ ~8'1
They grouped on the sidewalk to make their farewells.
All agreed they had had a wonderful time and all the girls
thanked Cholly for his wonderful piano playing.
"Any time," said Cholly graciously. "And listen," he went
on, "being's that us fellers just been drafted . . ."
"Maybe you were drafted," said Son Pheid, "but I was
selected."
"Greetings!" said one of the other fellers and the girls
laughed.
"Anyways," continued Cholly, "being's we might get
killed or something, it's only right that we get kissed
good-by."
Well, what could good, patriotic girls do in a situation
like that? They did it. Each boy received a kiss on the
cheek from each girl. Now it happened that Father Flynn
was sitting at the window in his dark living room and
telling his beads. He had heard the talk and seen the boys
getting kissed. He worried.
Was I too liberal, he asked himself, leaving them alone in
the cellar for two hours?
Walking home, Son Pheid said: "I expect to get sent to