Maggie Now Read online

than him and he goes and! says they made my birth

  certificate out wrong in City Hall that I'm too young for

  him! I got a beautiful home and I got Widdy from him.

  Timrny will never let me want. No. I love this man. If he

  goes away and never comes back, I'll still be lucky because

  I already got a thousand times more then I would-a had if I

  never got married to him.

  "No, Timmy," she said. "You got to go. What kind a man

  are you anyway, when your mother needs you and all, to

  even think about not going?"

  She knew he'd say he'd go only if she went along, so like

  a kind and thoughtful person she made things easy for

  him.

  "I wish I could go with you, Timmy, but I can't. I can't

  take Widdy out of school."

  "He could stay with your mother."

  "There's the money . . ."

  "I could borrow on me insurance . . . maybe.''

  "Why do you always argue all the time? Go and go

  alone. And come back the same way. Hear?"

  What have I ever done, he mused, to have all this luck? A

  fine good wife like her! I don't deserve her a dope like me.

  A tear ran down his face. He took the towel from her

  and wiped it away. He looked ashamed.

  ~ '7 ]

 

  "Gee! The wav you sweat!" she said tactfully-.

  "Well, don't just stand there," he said. "Get the can and

  I'll get the beer and v.7e'11 eat."

  ~ (.'HA P TER THREE ~

  THE tavern was smoky, crowded and smelled of warm,

  spilled beer. Rory-Boy's fiddle was squealing wildly and

  Patsy Denn was jigging his heart OUt. It was a noisy

  Saturday night. The door opened and a big, red-headed

  stranger came in. He wasn't exactly red-headed, being

  almost bald, but there was a rusty glow where his hair had

  been. A clot of ale-drinking men at the bar opened up to

  let the stranger in md then closed about him; absorbing

  him, as it were.

  Rory-Boy saw the stranger come in and his Irish

  intuition told him that the stranger was Maggie Rose's big

  brother come all the w ay from Brooklyn to beat the hell

  out of Patrick Dennis. He was too scared to warn Patsy.

  He forgot the notes of "The Irish Washerwoman" as his

  fingers froze on his fiddle strings. His desperately sawing

  bow brought out a continuous one-note, high wail. Patsy

  thought the tune was ending and he went into the frenzied

  leap into the air where he usually clicked his heels to-

  gether in a finale.

  "Never have I le'ppe.l so hitrh! he called to his friend as

  he went up.

  Indeed his leap was prodigious. He went up . . . up

  without the volition of his legs and he stayed suspended in

  the air. For a second, he felt like an ;mgel with wings,

  then he wondered what made his pants so tight. He found

  out.

  Timothy (Big Red) Shawn had slipped out of the knot

  of men, and at the moment of Patsy's leap he had, like a

  trained acrobat, gotten a purchase on the seat of Patsy's

  pants and on the scruff of his neck and had given Patsv's

  leap a grand fillip. As Bertie, the Broomlllaker, who

  happened to be there, later wrote 1: /lY :1

  in a letter for a gossiping cl ent: All corlviviality ceased and

  silence reigned.

  Big Red held Patsy in the air and shook him as though

  he w ere a rag puppet. Big Red had rehearsed a speech

  coming over in the steerage. He had planned to give it as

  a prelude to a thrashing, but he forgot it entirely and had

  to ad-lib.

  "You durtee, wee, little black'ard you!" he said loud for

  all to hear. "I'll learn youse to break the only heart of me

  only mother and . . ." (Shake! Shake!) ". . . scandalize the

  name of me baby sister. You jiggin' monkey! You durtee

  bog trotter, you!"

  "What do you mean, bog trotter?" gasped Patsy, scared

  but insulted. "I never cut peat in all of me life."

  Finally Big Red set him down and gave him one of those

  oldtime licking,. When he had finished, he threw Patsy in

  the gen

  eral direction of the exit and dusted off his hands.

  "And don't forget, fancy man," he said, "there's more

  where that come from."

  Patrick Dennis backed out of the tavern. He wasn't

  taking any chances of being kicked in the behind.

  Patsy's mother clucked over his bruises. He told her his

  bicycle had hit a rock and that he had been thrown into

  the brambles.

  As often happens, those most concerned in an incident

  are the last to know of the motivating forces behind it. For

  instance all the village knew that the Widow Shawn had

  sent for her son, Big Red. Yes, all knew except Lizzie

  Moore and Patsy. An hour after the beating, all knew of

  Patsy's humiliation except his mother. Yes, Patsy was the

  last to know of Big Red's arrival and his mother was next

  to the last. Someone had told her just after Patsy had left

  for the tavern. It was news to her and she assumed it

  would be news to her son.

  "Ah, the grand power of writing," she said, as she raved

  homemade salve on her eye apple's bruises. "Only half a

  shilling he charged to write the letter. Bertie, the

  Broommaker. And the words on the letter spoke out so

  clear that he was back in the shanty where he was born a

  month to the day when the letter left here. Timmy Shawn,

  I mean. Big Red they call him."

  "Shawn? Shawn?" asked Patsy, beginning to understand.

  1' I9 1

 

  "The same. And a fine strapping man Brooklyn made of

  him. 'Tis said he's the head constable and his wages is a

  forchune."

  "Tell me plain, Mother: Is it Maggie Rose's brother you

  tell of 2"

  "The same."

  "And she sent for him to come-"

  "May God strike me flown dead! She did. 'Twas Nora

  O'Dell told me."

  "I could nor see it ahead. I could not see it ahead,"

  mourned Patsy

  "What, son?"

  "The big rock in the road that chucked me off me wheel

  when I was coming home to you this night."

  The next day, Sunday, a scared, chastened Patsy went to

  Mass with his mother. He saw his girl wedged in between

  her simpering mother and her burly brother. Patsy started

  to feel sick as he stared at Big Red's broad back.

  Father Rowley came down from the altar and stepped

  to one side of it before the railing to make the routine

  announcements of the week. Patsy hardly listened to the

  rise and fall of the voice until, as in a nightmare from

  which there is no awakening, he heard the sound of his

  name.

  ". . . weekly meeting of the girls' Sodality." The priest

  cleared his throat. "The banns of marriage are read for

  the first time between Margaret Rose Shawn and Patrick

  Dennis Moore. Your prayers are requested for the repose

  of the soul of . . ."

  Lizzie Moore gave a hoarse honk like
a wild goose

  calling the flock in for a landing. There was a stir like a

  great sigh as the congregation turned to stare at Patsy and

  his mother. Big Red turned around and gave Patsy a grin

  of victory. His lips silently formed the words: There's more

  where that came from.

  Patsy was caught and he knew it. Trapped, he moaned

  to himself. And by what thrickery did he get me name up for

  marrying and me the one should have the say of it? Caught!

  Before two veeks is out I'll be married forever.

  His mother wept foggily into the hem of her top

  petticoat. He kept it front me, she mourned. Me Iyin' 5071.

  He went to the priest with the girl and gave himself up. And

  Big Timmy was sent for to give the girl away and she having

  no father to do so.

  1 ' 1

 

  Oh, for me son to treat me so, and he me last baby and the

  hardest to bring into God's world with his head the size of a

  hard, green cabbage at the time.

  She wept and Patsy was ashamed. He left during the

  final prayer. Maggie Rose, kneeling, turned as he got up

  and made an instinctive movement to follow him but Big

  Red pulled her back down.

  Outside, Patsy hid behind a tree to wait for his mother.

  He saw Rory-Boy come out surrounded by most of the

  young men of the village. He tried to catch Rory-Boy's eye

  but his friend was too busy.

  To Patsy's horror, he saw Rory-Boy entertain the boys

  by pantomiming the thrashing of the night before. First,

  he was Big Red, chest stuck out, fists clenched, entering

  the tavern. Then he was Big Red holding up an invisible

  Patsy and shaking him as a bulldog shakes a rat. Then the

  rat or Patsy was set down and Rory-Boy gave his

  impression of the thrashing.

  He was Big Red slapping Patsy on either side of the

  face. Then he was PatsNr with his head going back and

  forth like a pendulum under the impact of the slaps and

  blows and so on. The fellers around clapped their hands

  noiselessly in rhythm and tapped their feet.

  Although suffering, Patsy viewed the pantomime with a

  professional eye. A little music along with it, a ballad made

  up by Henny, the Hermit . . . Not bad, he thought with

  professional detachment.

  Rory-Bov was going into the ending of the act. He was

  Patsy backing out of the door with his hands protecting his

  buttocks. Here, Rory-Boy ad-libbed. He acted out Patsy

  being kicked in the backside and, in reaction, leaping

  awkwardly into the air with his face distorted in fright.

  A lie! A black lie! Patsy wanted to call out. It was not

  that way. And then he was crying tears in his heart. Ah, he

  decided, RoryBoy no longer seems like a friend to me.

  Maggie Rose came OUt with her mother and brother

  and the girls surrolmded her an I smiled and gushed and

  hugged her. Maggie Rose turned away and pulled her

  shawl lower over her face. The Widow Shawn accepted

  the congratulations of her friends complacently and the

  men greeted Big Red heartily and

  [21 1

 

  pumped his hand. It was like a vedding reception.

  Patsy saw his mother come out supported by two crones

  who patted her arm and gave her spurious sympathy the

  while they leered with delight at her comeuppance. When

  Lizzie Moore saNv Maggie Rose, she braille loose from

  her crones, made her hands into claws and went for the

  girl. She was pulled off by the crones.

  She went down the road supported by them and from

  time to time her knees buckled and she slumped down

  like a drunken woman and had to be pulled up again. The

  young girls looked after her and her escorts; whispering,

  giggling, laughing aloud and being silenced, laughingly, bv

  each other.

  Father C'rowley came out and stood on the steps of the

  church. He frowned and clapped his hands sharply. The

  talk and giggling and horseplay stopped at once. The

  crovds broke up into little groups and the congregation

  went home.

  Patsy felt friendless and disgraced. He was sure that by

  now all the village knew he had been licked by his girl's

  brother. Before night the whole village would know

  whatever trick Big Red had used to get the bawls read

  and he, Patsy Denny, would be the laughingstock of the

  county.

  Sure, he fmust have promised leather a crate of Hennessy's

  l: our Star to make hint read th. bimns, thol'`,ht Patsy.

  Rory-Boy: That hurt! I hey were through. Rory-Boy no

  longer had need of a part-per nor of his fiddle. NO He

  could perform in the taverns as a single giving his

  pantomime of "The Thrashing of Patrick I tennis Moore."

  Oh, they'd laugh and throw coppers at him. A!ld after

  he'd play ed out the village pubs. he could go on to the

  next village; the next county to all of Ireland. And he

  was sure Rory-Boy would do exactly that because that's

  what he, Patsy, would do were he in Rory-Boy's shoes.

  And Rory-Boy would never want for anything because

  the Irish dearly loved an entertainer and they'd clothe him

  and feed him and house him the \~ay they did witl1

  idiots whom some believed to be God's pets.

  It came too late to Patsy too late- the knowledge that

  he loved .laggie Rose and would never love any other

  woman. Why, oh, vlly hadn't he married her when their

  love was fresh and new before it had been dirtied by

  scandals and beatings and public disgrace?

  1

  We could' have gotten along smite way, he thought. '4/:,

  but leer mother! And me own mother, too. The sin is theirs

  Jor is there any law in the world that ways I must not marry

  if me mother says so and I must marry if the girl's mother

  says so? No.

  Could eve not have lived with me another? No! he

  answered himself. She'd never have the girl in the house.

  But the Widder Shawn! She would. If she wouldn't we'd go

  to live there anyhow counting on. her getting used to it in

  time. And maybe I could have gone to work. Would not the

  Clooney give me the job of drawing ale in his tavern, me

  who could dance a jig or two between servings? Could ~

  not go to the TVidder Sharon and Big Red with me hat in

  one hand and me pride in the dust and say: I'm willing?

  No, I could not. And I cannot stay here because Herlny,

  tee Hermit, is starting to work on me the while l'n, standing

  here. And when he's done with me there will be no place in

  all of Irelan.l where I can hide me head.

  Henny, the Hermit, was a one-eyed, dirty old man who

  lived in a hovel in the hills with a she goat. He had a

  zither and he made up ballads about everything that went

  on in the village. On holidays and saints' days he sat in

  the village commons with his goat tethered to his leg and

  his zither in his lap. There he sang his interminable

  ballads in a high, cracked
whine that he called his voice,

  accompanying himself on the zither with one, monotonous

  note because the zither had but one string. The dirty man

  lived off the halfpennies they threw hi and the milk of his

  goat.

  "The Ballad of Patsy 1). I~loorc! " The dreary drivel of

  untalented Helmy distorting facts and making Patsy the

  butt and burden of the narrative! Children would sing it

  along the road walking home from school. Drunkards

  would bawl it out beating time on the bar with their

  pewter mugs. Even as an old man, the ballad would haunt

  Patsy and shame his children.

  'Tis not to be endured, decided Patsy. OF, better to be

  dead to go to America . . .

  America!

  He'd heard that the steamship company paid your as ay

  and got you a job in America. And there as a little office

  in a illage not

  ~ ~ 1

 

  ten miles away where the steamship man from Liverpool

  arranged everything. He almost whistled as he sneaked

  home in a roundabout way.

  His mother wouldn't spear. to him wlletl he got home.

  She had her good, black dress and a pair of black

  stockings she'd been hoarding for twenty years laid out on

  the bed. She was polishing her black shoes from a tin of

  caked blacking. He chattered, trying to get her to speak to

  him. But she had nothing to say until he asked politely:

  "Are you going a-visiting, ~~lother~"

  "And who would I go see, the way I'm 'shamed to show

  me face in the village? No, I'm getting me good black

  clothes ready the clothes I'm wishin or to be laid GUt

  in."

  "Not for many a year vet, God willing."

  "Soon. Soon. The day you marry is the day you'll see me

  in me casket."

  "Don't die on me," he bcggetl.

  "You marry on me and I'll die on you." She buffed the

  shoe which gloved her hand.

  "I'll never marry the ~ bile you live."

  "Ah, so. Never rnarry~ he says, after having the banns

  read and all! "

  It took him an hour to convince her that the banns were

  said without his consent or knowledge. She refused to

  believe him until he told her of the beatinr' he'd had from

  Big Red.

  "And so he licked you me poor boy, and you saying you

  fell off your wheel."

  "'Twas shame made me say it."

  "And he'll lick you many a time till you say, 'I do.'"

  "I'll die first!"

  "You won't die first on last. You'll be made to marry the

  girl."

  "I can't be made if I go to America."

  "And you'd be leavin,, me like me other chilthren did?"

  "Only for a uThile. I'll send for vou before the year is

  crone."

  "You'll not be sanding for anyorle. You'll bide here with

  me. Die if you have the uish. But you'll not marry and

  you'll not leave me."

  "'Tis hard to die'" lie said. and our Lord forgive me for

  ~ 7' 1

 

  saying I would and me not meaning it a-tall. I will stay,

  Mother dear, and marry Maggie Rose, and I will be

  shamed in the county all the days of me living and I'll not

  be caring, because I love Maggie Rose."

  "You say so."

  "I would do so."

  She put the lid on the tin of blacking. "In a year you

  say? You'll send for me?"

  "I swear it."

  " 'Tis for the best." She put the blacking away. "Go,

  then, to America and make a place for me and I will

  come to you."

  The next morning, he cycled ten miles to the next

  village. The Liverpool sport who represented a steamship

  company made things easy for Patrick Dennis Moore.

  Passage was arranged and everything was free free for

  the time being.

  Yes, Patsy would have tO pay for the ticket in time, but

  that was easy, too. There was a job waiting for him in

  America. One Michael Moriarity and, oh, he was Lord

  Mayor of Brooklyn or something near as grand, was the

  sport's opinion would pay Patsy all of five dollars a w

  eek and give him room and board. And all for what? For

  nothing. For taking care of two darling carriage horses.