A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

by Betty Smith

home, sick. And Bayonne isn’t the same. It’s mysterious here in Brooklyn. It’s like—yes—like a dream. The houses and streets don’t seem real. Neither do the people.” “They’re real enough—the way they fight and holler at each other and the way they’re poor, and dirty, too.”

Neeley! So much like Mama, so much like Papa; the best of each in Neeley. She loved her brother. She wanted to put her arms around him and kiss him. But he was like Mama. He hated people to be demonstrative. If she tried to kiss him, he’d get mad and push her away. So, she held out her hand instead. “Happy New Year, Neeley.” “The same to you.” They shook

girl—in spite of bright-red lipstick and grown-up clothes and a lot of knowledge picked up here and there—who was yet tremulously innocent; a girl who had come face to face with some of the evil of the world and most of its hardships, and yet had remained curiously untouched by the world. Yes, she could understand her appeal for him.

The way Laurie seemed to come out of a dream—born the living child of a father five months dead. Brooklyn was a dream. All the things that happened there just couldn’t happen. It was all dream