“My, I’m glad I don’t have to work tonight!” Lucy exclaimed.
“Yes, but we must work tomorrow!” exclaimed Jennie. “I just hate going on Sunday. Gee! I don’t want no candy for a Christmas present!”
Through cold, ill-smelling hallways, the girls trooped up the four flights of narrow stairs to Lucy’s home. The gas flame which flickered feebly on each landing revealed the dirty, crumbling walls. It was the social hour of the tenements. Fathers were returning from the day’s toil and the children were welcoming them. Mothers were cooking the evening meal, whose various odors mingled in the passage-way with those of bad plumbing, the common toilets, escaping gas, wet plaster, and garbage. Half-dressed babies crept out to the open doors or rolled on the bare, grimy hall floors, peering with curious eyes through the banisters at the new arrivals. The little knots of neighbors gathered about the doorways hailed Lucy with words of rejoicing. A continuous sound of voices arose, sometimes low and laughing, again, high and excited, but tinged with the varying cadences and the finely shaded meanings with which the Italian language abounds. Accustomed to a life of the greatest intimacy with relatives and neighbors, the Italians will sacrifice any comfort to preserve this condition.
In the Collettis’ flat a stream of smiling friends passed in and out congratulating Mary and touching with warm brown fingers the babies’ cheeks. Each drank two tiny glasses of crème de menthe to the health of mother and children. Four generations lived in that flat—a family of eleven. Mrs. Colletti was seated near her daughter’s bed, nursing her own year-old baby. Mrs. Colletti’s mother, who had been a midwife in Italy, tended her daughter and the newborn babies after the manner in which she had cared years ago for the peasant women of Calabria. The Collettis were prosperous; their fruit stand did a good business. All the family helped. Mrs. Colletti spent every morning at the stand, and the children were there after school and at night. They were able to afford a five-room flat and some pretentious furniture. The front room was particularly splendid with its brilliant green-flowered rug, stiff Nottingham curtains, and equally stiff “parlor set.” Mary’s wedding presents, bright painted vases, imitation cut glass, enormous feather roses, and pink celluloid album, were arranged around the room. Staring likenesses in heavy oil paint of the bride and groom were the crowning glory of the parlor.
Lucy dropped her pay envelope into her mother’s lap. Then she and her friends surrounded the sixteen-year-old mother and told her of the day’s happenings, of meeting Angelina, and how she was soon to be married. Mary was as eager as the others over the idea of a wedding and a dance. Indeed she would be able to go! And she would wear her blue dress, the one she bought when she “stood up” with Flora at her wedding.
Lucy’s friends promised as they said goodnight, to explain to the “boss” why she could not come on Sunday morning for extra work. They ran downstairs out into the street, and as they passed the steam laundry on the block, from which came the dull thump of subsiding machinery, a girl came through the iron gateway. She was a short, stocky peasant type, but her shoulders were stooped, her flesh flabby, and she looked far from strong. She shivered as she came out of the hot, steaming workroom into the chill December air. The girls greeted her.
“You wasn’t at the club last night, Rose, so we came up to see you,” said Jennie.
“No, I never get home till most 9 o’clock on Fridays and on Mondays. It’s awful busy at the laundry these days,” Rose explained. “I wisht I was back at the factory packing peanut brittle. It’s no joke standin’ foldin’ all day long. My side hurts something fierce; it wakes me up at night.” The group walked along arm in arm toward the tenement in which Rose Morelli lived.
“Have you heard from Tony?” Jennie asked as they entered the Morelli flat.
Rose shook her head and glanced at her mother who sat monotonously jigging a dull-looking baby on her lap. At the mention of her son’s name she raised her great, heavy eyes and spoke to Rose in Italian. Then she dropped them again and the tears ran quietly down her face. Tony was the oldest of the family, the only boy, and he had run away to Florida six weeks before. He had been led to do so by another boy—a bad boy. The Morellis always explained that it was not Tony’s fault; he was a good boy but he had got tired of working for the butcher. He had written them a postal from Jacksonville saying that he was having a grand time and was stable boy on the race track. But no further word had come. They did not know where he was. But the mother had not given up hope that he would come back, though each day she grew thinner and the heavy marks under her eyes grew darker. She watched on the fire escape each night, peering down the street for Tony’s familiar figure. Now, as she wept for him, she drew the baby to her and kissed it passionately.