A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

by Betty Smith

Sometimes his happiness was so overflowing that he couldn’t hold it and he’d cut a dance caper to spill some of it out.

She’d take a block of paper and a stick of charcoal and sketch the poorest, meanest kid in the room. And when the picture was finished, you didn’t see the dirt or the meanness; you saw the glory of innocence and the poignancy of a baby growing up too soon. Oh, Miss Bernstone was grand.