Cecilia’s Reviews > A Tree Grows in Brooklyn > Status Update

"God rest her soul," echoed the Nolans.
"I have been waitin' many years and now the time has come when 'tis no longer disrespect to the dead to speak out.
"Katherine Nolan, I'm askin' to keep company with you. Object, a weddin' in the fall."
Katie looked quickly at Francie and frowned. What was the matter with Mother anyhow? Francie wasn't even thinking of laughing.

Katie held the coffeepot in one hand and the saucepan of hot milk in the other and poured both into the cups simultaneously. "I remember," she said, "when there was no milk in the house. Your father would put a lump of butter in his coffee—if we had butter. He said that butter was cream in the first place and just as good in coffee."
Papa...!

Then a thunderous thought came to her.
"My grandparents never knew how to read or write. Those who came before them couldn't read or write. My mother's sister can't read or write. My parents never even graduated from grade school. I never went to high school. But I, M. Frances K. Nolan, am now in college. Do you hear that, Francie? You're in college!
"Oh gosh, I feel sick."

"Don't say that!" said Sissy sharply. "We're not living in adultery. We're living in bigamy."
"And it's got to stop right now, see? You're widowed from the first one and you're going to get a divorce from the second, and then you're going to marry me again, see?"
"Yes, John," she said meekly.
"And my name ain't John!" he roared. "It's Steve! Steve! Steve!”

"Jesus Christ died on the cross for people like you," he announced passionately, "and now you won't show a new girl where the terlet is." Francie stared at him, astonished. Then she couldn't help it—it had sounded so funny—she burst out laughing. Everything changed then. A murmur ran round the table.
"She laughed!"
"Hey! The new girl laughed!"

She picked up the flowers-two dozen dark red roses on a sheaf of ferns. She cradled them in her arm, the way the other girls did, and pretended for a moment that they were hers. She looked for the owner's name on the card. But her own name was on the card! Her name! The card said: For Francie on graduation day. Love from Papa. Papa!
The writing was in his fine careful hand . . .

"Why, Katie? Why?" demanded Evy patiently.
"A song that Johnny sang once," explained Katie.
As Francie wrote the name, she heard the chords; she heard her father singing, "And "twas there that Annie Laurie."... a song, he said, that belonged to a better world," Katie went on.
"He would have liked the child named after one of his songs."
"Laurie is a pretty name," said Francie.
And Laurie became the baby's name.

"You said we could choose our own subjects."
"But poverty, starvation and drunkenness are ugly subjects to choose. We all admit these things exist. But one doesn't write about them."
"What does one write about?" Unconsciously, Francie picked up the teacher's phraseology.
"One delves into the imagination and finds beauty there. The writer, like the artist, must strive for beauty always."
"What is beauty?"

"Well," Francie decided, "I guess the thing that is giving me this headache is life and nothing else but."
"Don't be silly," said Mama quietly, still leaning back with her eyes closed. "Aunt Sissy's kitchen was too hot. I have a headache, myself." Francie jumped. Was it getting so that Mama could look right into her mind even with her eyes closed?

"You just can't do it, Sissy. There's no way," said Katie.
"There's only one thing to do," said Evy. "Take Francie out of school and let her get working papers."
"But I want her to graduate. My children will be the first ones in the Nolan family to get diplomas."
"You can't eat a diploma," said Evy.