A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

by Betty Smith

As she read, at peace with the world and happy as only a little girl could be with a fine book and a little bowl of candy, and all alone in the house,

He did not expect her to understand. He just wanted someone to listen to him.

Maybe that decision was her great mistake. She should have waited until some man came along who felt that way about her.

Everything struggles to live. Look at that tree growing up there out of that grating. It gets no sun, and water only when it rains. It’s growing out of sour earth. And it’s strong because its hard

struggle to live is making it strong. My children will be strong that way.”

“If there was only one tree like that in the world, you would think it was beautiful,” said Katie. “But because there are so many, you just can’t see how beautiful it really is.

Sissy had two great failings. She was a great lover and a great mother. She had so much of tenderness in her, so much of wanting to give of herself to whoever needed what she had, whether it was her money, her time, the clothes off her back, her pity, her understanding, her friendship or her companionship and love. She was mother to everything that came her way. She loved men, yes. She loved women too, and old people and especially children. How she loved children! She loved the down-and-outers. She wanted to make everybody happy. She had tried to seduce the good priest who heard her infrequent confessions because she felt sorry for him. She

They learned no compassion from their own anguish. Thus their suffering was wasted.

She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood. There was poetry for quiet companionship. There was adventure when she tired of quiet hours. There would be love stories when she came into adolescence and when she wanted to

“There are very few bad people. There are just a lot of people that are unlucky.”

People looking up at her—at her smooth pretty vivacious face—had no way of knowing about the painfully articulated resolves formulating in her mind.

“Of course, there’ll be the waitin’. How many years? Two? Five? Ah, well, I’ve waited a long time without hope of happiness. Sure and I can wait a bit longer, now.”

“This could be a whole life,” she thought. “You work eight hours a day covering wires to earn money to buy food and to pay for a place to sleep so that you can keep living to come back to cover

more wires. Some people are born and kept living just to come to this. Of course, some of these girls will marry; marry men who have the same kind of life. What will they gain? They’ll gain someone to hold conversations within the few hours at night between work and sleep.” But she knew the gain wouldn’t last. She had seen too many working couples who, after the children came and the bills piled up, rarely communicated with each other except in bitter snarls. “These people are caught,” she thought. “And why? Because” (remembering her grandmother’s repeated convictions), “they haven’t got enough education.”

When Francie came in off the cold street she thought that the warmth was like a lover’s arms around her drawing her into the room. She wondered, incidentally, exactly what a lover’s arms felt like.

“I need someone,” thought Francie desperately. “I need someone. I need to hold somebody close. And I need more than this holding. I need someone to understand how I feel at a time like now. And the understading must be part of the holding.

“People always think that happiness is a faraway thing,” thought Francie, “something complicated and hard to get. Yet, what little things can make it up; a place of shelter when it rains—a cup of strong hot coffee when you’re blue; for a man, a cigarette for contentment; a book to read when you’re alone—just to be with someone you love. Those things make happiness.”