Living Up to Billy Part 5

After Mrs. Smith's baby died, she wouldn't look at Billy for a long time. Then she got to holding him and rocking him to sleep at night, and after a while she couldn't let him out of her sight. I was awful glad, cause I thought perhaps she would be always glad to have him, and then one day I heard them talk about going to Australia. Mrs. Smith didn't like the house since Paul was gone. She stops and listens as if she expects to hear him round the corner, and she don't want to go in his room, and she acts queer. Mr. Smith thinks that if she got away where everything was different, she would forget sooner, or if she didn't forget she wouldn't remember with so much pain.

His brother wrote from Australia and asked them to come there a long time ago. He is in the sheep business and doing very well. They talked it over and talked it over, and now they have decided to go. It most killed me, cause this is the only home I ever knew, and I didn't know what would become of Billy. I felt I couldn't take him back to the room.

I said to Mrs. Smith one day that it kinda kicked my feet from under me to think of Billy losing his home and the mother and things he has had for two years. She looked at me a long time and then she said, "Nan, Billy don't need to lose his home." I said, "What do you mean?" "I will take him with me," she said. It took my breath away for a minit to think of losing Billy, as he is all I got, and I guess she saw it in my face cause she said quickly, "You can come too." I did not say nothing for a long time. I thought that this was my chance, I would get away from the old crowd, get away from all the things I hate and yet seemed kinda drawed to. I could leave this life that may be will take me down and down, and Billy and I could commence over again in a new country. Then I thought of you, Kate, and how you are coming out soon, and if both Billy and me was gone, you would have nothing to hold to, and I know you, and I know you would go straight to h.e.l.l. There would be no half way place for you, you would keep on sliding. And, Kate, I couldn't leave you.

Billy can get on without me, he won't never know no difference, but you would be all alone, and it's hard enough to try to be decent when once you've been in stir--even with friends to help you, and when you come out, Kate, I am going to be waiting for you at the gate, and you are going to make a fight and win out and live decent.

I thought of all this when I sat there looking at Mrs. Smith and then I said, "No, I can't go, but you can take Billy." She said, "Nannie, I won't take a baby unless I can adopt him and make him really mine. I don't want any father and mother to come and take him when I have grown to love him." I said nothing cause I knew neither you or Jim would give him up unless you saw something in it for yourselves, and these people are poor people and could not afford to pay you nothing. Then Mrs.

Smith moved over close to me and took my hand and said, "Nan, I am going to say something that perhaps will hurt your feelings. Won't you give Billy to me?" I said, "Why, I would love to, but I can't, he ain't my Billy." Then Mrs. Smith said, "Now, don't be angry at me, I have never said anything, but I have never believed that story about Billy being your sister's baby. Isn't he your little boy?" At first I didn't understand her, and then it all come over me what she meant. She thought I had lied to her, thought I had made up that story about you being Billy's mother. At first I was mad, not because she thought Billy was mine, cause that don't make no difference one way or another, but I hated to think she thought I had lied to her. She saw I was hurt and she held my hand a little tighter and said, "Remember, child, I don't blame you, and I don't think none the less of you. I have loved you for two years and I will love you always, but if you want me to take Billy, I must take him as his mother." Then she got up and kissed me and said, "Don't answer me to-night, think it over and tell me to-morrow morning."

They left me alone that evening and I sat before the fire till midnight, and when I went up to my room I stood by the window and looked over the lake till the sun come up. And then it all come to me. I would give Billy his chance. In a few months you were coming out, in a year Jim would be out. You may settle down and be straight, but Jim--never. Billy would grow up with crooks, would live around in little cheap rooms, getting no education, playing on the streets nights, knowing nothing but dirt all his life and quite likely spend most of his time after he grew up in prison, all through no fault of his, but just because he didn't have a chance. If he could go with Mrs. Smith he could live in a great big out-of-doors country, where people have clean thoughts and live clean lives, and instead of eating out of the garbage pails of life, he could eat in a clean dining room with a white cloth on the table.

I went down in the morning and I did not say nothing until after breakfast, then I said to Mrs. Smith, "Yes, you are right, I lied to you. Billy is my baby." She come over and kissed me and said, "I knew it, dear, and I will always like to think of you as his mother." I said to her quick so she would not know how bad I felt, "What must I do to give you Billy?" And she said, "We will go to the lawyer's and he will make out the papers." So we went and I swore that I was his mother and that his father was dead, and I give Billy to Mrs. Smith and when he come back he was her little boy. Oh, Kate, I can't write more, my heart is nearly broke.

_Nan_.

XXIV

_Dear Kate_:

Billy is gone. He sailed away at ten o'clock this morning. I went over to the boat with them and I didn't say nothing. I don't think even Mrs.

Smith knew how bad I felt. It seemed when I saw that boat pulling out that it was taking all the world with it, and as I stood on the dock watching Billy dressed in his little blue suit, his pretty gold curls all around his face, I just wanted to die. The Smiths and Billy are the only good things I ever had in my life, and it seemed at the last I _couldn't_ let them go. Even the morning of the sailing Mrs. Smith wanted me to go with them, and I felt at first I _had_ to go, that I couldn't stay on here and look all the days and nights in the face and keep on living. Then I knew it would not be playing the game. You do need me, don't you, Kate? You won't be dead sore about Billy, will you, and some day you will understand?

I have just walked the streets all day, I didn't want to go up to the room, and I am writing this in Kelly's restaurant. I begin to work to-morrow night at the Cafe Boulevard, and perhaps when I am dancing I won't remember. You will be out in a few weeks and we will be together and happy again. You won't be sore at me, say you won't, Kate?

Oh, Kate, I wish things had been different, so we could have kept him.

It is h.e.l.l to be crooked, ain't it?

Yours, _Nan_.

XXV

_Dear Kate_:

Billy is back! I don't know hardly how I can tell you all about it, it don't seem real to me yet. Two days out from New York the ship that they was on run into another ship in a fog and everybody was saved except eighteen people, and the Smiths was lost. An officer saw Billy and threw him in a boat and the Smiths was put in another boat that was swamped. I read it in the papers first, and it said the Smiths was drowned and of course I thought Billy was with them, and I was near crazy because I thought it was all my fault. If I had not of given him to the Smiths, he would be alive still. I went down to the dock where the people who was brought in by the other boat landed, and one of the first persons I see was Billy, standing with a man and woman, looking just as natural as ever, with his curls around his face and his eyes a laughing just as if nothing had happened. I near went nutty, and made an awful fool of myself, but I was so tickled, I didn't care.

I suppose it is wrong to be so glad as I am to have him back, and I feel so bad about the Smiths, that one minit I am crying about them and the next minit I am hugging the life out of Billy to have him again. I got him up in the room and I will never let him out of my sight a minit if I can help it. I leave him with Myrtle Williams when I am at work and I hurry right home as soon as I am through. He just makes the sun shine in the old room again. He is such a big strong boy, it is all I can do to lift him over to his own side of the bed at night. I take him out in the morning and we have a long walk. We went up to the park the other day and saw the animals. I think I was as tickled with them as much as Billy was, but I guess I made a mistake taking him up there because if he had his way he would board with Miss Murphy and her baby. He seems to take to hippopotamuses and elephants and things big. I bought him all new clothes, and he looks awful cunning. Oh, Kate, he sure is one kid. And talk, why, he has got Bryan beat to a finish. I have to watch him kinda close cause girls have no sense with babies. Myrtle took him out the other afternoon when I was at work and filled him up with ice cream and candy and all kinds of stuff till he nearly died. I gave her a call-down and she said, "Well, he wanted it." I said, "Of course, he wanted it, kids want everything they see, but that is no sign they should have it.

Ain't you got nothing in your head but your rat?" She got sore and then I was sorry cause she has been awful good, and I gave her my best slipper buckles to make up. But I tell you it threw a scare into me.

Billy got all blue and kinda swelled up and I chased her out for a doctor and he said it was all right, and gave him some stuff and the next day Billy was nearly all right. I gave Billy a talking to and told him that if he coaxed aunt Myrtle for everything he saw that I would spank him. It was hot air, and I think he knows it, cause I couldn't bear to spank him. I only did it once and then I was so mad that I did it before I thought. He and Paul had a fight, and he pulled a big handful of Paul's hair out and made Mrs. Smith mad, and I just up and gave him a good fat spanking where it did the most good and it helped a lot. I just can't whip him, but sometimes I set him down with a thud that jars his teeth. I don't know what I will do with him, as it ain't good for him to live in one room, but I am so glad to have him that I ain't worrying much.

Write me a long letter Kate. I have been scared to see a post man come my way since I sent you the letter about Billy going away, but now, you sure can't be sore, and I will give the old man a good fat hug when I see him ambling up my stairway.

Yours, _Nan_.

XXVI

_Dear Kate_:

I have been house furnishing. No, not for myself, but for Charlie Haines who lives across the hall from me. He is an awful nice fellow and is working in the General Electric and doing real good. He told me he is getting seventy five a month now and was going to get married to a little girl he has been engaged to a long time, way off in Vermont where he used to live. We had a heart to heart talk and I asked him all about her and found she was just a nice little girl who goes to Sunday school and teaches the girls and has never been farther away from home than Brattleboro, wherever that is. He thought of taking a bigger room and rooming for a while, but I told him not to be a fool, and not to board neither. Take a little girl from the country that has always had something to do and put her in a room in a rooming house or a boarding house, and she would go crazy or get to chasing around with the lazy women who live in them places and if she was not a fine sort of girl you can't tell where she would land. A woman wants something to do, and then it ain't no life for a man to come home from work and have to chase out to a restaurant for his grub or down to a long table of folks. What he wants is to take off his coat and wash his face in the kitchen sink and put on a pair of straw slippers and set down smelling the beef steak and onions frying in his own kitchen. And they can talk without a lot of people rubbering and after supper he can help her wash the dishes, and water the geranium and then get in the morris chair and put his feet on the radiator or window sill and smoke and sing "Home sweet home." He fell for the stuff and got quite excited, but then he sort of shifted around and I tumbled to the fact that he hadn't saved much money and didn't know how to get the furniture. I said, "Now, you just trust your aunt Nancy, we will buy it on the installment plan." I found out he had only about $25 after he had payed their fare down here, cause her folks are poor, so I said, "Well, we will go look up a flat. Better get out a ways so you will get more for your money", and we found a pretty place at 207th Street for twenty dollars a month. Four rooms and bath on the fifth floor and there ain't no elevator, but they are both strong so it won't hurt them to climb the stairs, and he will be so tickled to get home nights that he won't think about them. He wanted to furnish it and have it all ready when they come back, he is going up to get her and be married at her folks', but I put the nix on that too. I said, "We will furnish the bed room and the kitchen so as you can have a place to stay, but let her pick out the fancy things like the parlor rug and the dining room table. It will make it seem more like her own," and so he done everything I said. They got back about five days ago and say, haven't we been the busy ladies! She is an awful nice little thing, has not got much sense and green--well, Kate. Believe me, we are the funniest looking pair. I guess she makes her own clothes and her hats--they must have been wished on her. But I like her and she is the happiest thing about the flat. She thinks it is the grandest place she ever seen. I was right about letting her pick her own things as it has given her something to do, the first few days when she was kinda lonesome for her mother and little bit afraid of Charlie. We went to a place on 125th Street and picked out the furniture, a real nice dining room table and a little side board that looks like real mahogany, and six chairs. Got a centre table and a nifty rug for the parlor and a morris chair and a rocking chair, and got the bed room furniture all white, and didn't we have fun buying kitchen things! We went to the ten-cent store and bought everything you ever heard of, from frying pans to egg beaters, and we packed them home in the subway looking like immigrants just landed. She got the grandest set of dishes, a hundred pieces for three ninety five.

Each dish has got a wreath of pink roses around the edge and they would make even fried onions smell like Spring. I am going to help her make the curtains, cause lace ones don't look right in such a little place and we bought some white stuff with dots in it for six cents a yard. I can come up mornings once in a while and sew them. They didn't have money enough to pay all down, so I lent Charlie fifteen dollars and they have to pay ten dollars a month. They will get along fine. Alice is going to the market herself and I told them they ought to live for five dollars a week for the two of them, so they will save money.

Gee, it kinda made me feel all in that the flat was not mine. When you come out, Kate, let us hire a flat and you stay home and take care of Billy and do the cooking and I will hustle the dough. Wouldn't I just love to put my door key at night into a little place like they are in, and feel it was ours and go out in the kitchen and eat some Irish stew, and then set down and have a gab fest with you over what we had done all day? Well, maybe we will do it. Just want a thing bad and you will get it and I want a little place of our own some day and you and Billy with me and no fear of the police. I am waiting to hear from you.

Yours, _Nan_.

XXVII

Oh, Kate, but your letter made me happy. I just carry it round with me and take a peep at it every once in a while to make sure it is real. You say when setting alone you have been thinking and you want to go straight when you come out for Billy's sake. I understood how you feel about me giving him away and that it was a rotten trick for me to play you, but I didn't know what else to do then. And then you feel so glad to have him back and know you can see him again, that it has kinda braced you up. Now, perhaps if I had not give him away, and he hadn't been nearly drowned, you wouldn't have had the scare about losing him, and you wouldn't never have known how much you cared for him. Oh, Kate, I just feel it in my bones that we are going to be happy as goats when you get out. We will shake Jim someway, and anyway, it will be a long time before he is out, and we will begin over again and you will keep house for Billy and me and--I just can't talk I am so happy. Heaven's going to have to offer a lot to coax Nancy Lane away from little old New York when all these pipes come true.

Yours, _Nan_.

XXVIII

_Dear Kate_:

I just don't know how I can tell you all about it. Jim is out and it is awful. I suppose you know it by this time in that way that you people seem to get all the news, especially any news that has to do with crooks or prisons. The papers say that him and French Louis. .h.i.t one of the guards over the head with a hammer while coming from work, and got away.

They hit too hard, and the guard is dead.

Well, I didn't think much about it except to be kinda sorry that Jim had made such a fool of himself as he only had a year more, and it nearly knocked my pins out from under me when I come up to my room one night and found Jim setting there. He was all in and in an awful bad way, and I said to him, "For G.o.d's sake, Jim, why did you come to me? The police will sure watch me." He said, "I couldn't help it, Nan, I am sick and broke and I got to have money and I didn't know who else to touch who wouldn't peach."

Well, I just stood with my back against the door and looked at him, with one ear ready to listen if any one come up the stairs. He sure did look tough. The year hasn't done him no good. He couldn't look even me in the face. I asked him if it was so what it said in the papers that he had killed a guard. He all broke down and said, "Honest to G.o.d, Nan, we didn't mean to croak him. We didn't hit hard enough to break a baby's head. It must a been like mush." He got up and walked up and down the room and was all in a tremble and he kept saying, "We didn't mean to croak him."

I asked him how he got in my room cause my door was locked, and he just laughed and said, "Well, if I get so as I can't unlock a crazy lock like this, I better stay in stir the rest of my life."

He talked about half an hour with me and I was scared that he had been seen, and I tried to get him to go away, but it seemed he wanted to talk with some one he was not afraid of. I asked him what he was going to do, and he started to tell me where he was going to hide, but I stopped him and said, "Don't tell me, Jim. Then I won't know if the police get after me." I said, "Here is fifty dollars, all I got now, but I will get you more, only don't let no one come here or don't send no letters nor nothing. The bulls are bound to think of me first thing." Billy was laying in the bed and hadn't waked up cause we talked in whispers, and when he got ready to go, he walked over to the bed and looked down at him, and I really think something come into his rotten little heart. He stood there with his hands in his pockets a long time and then said, "So that is the kid! Well--well--he don't look like me, does he? But he is mine, and if I ever get out of this sc.r.a.pe I'll take him." That made me sick and I nearly said, "Well, I hope you won't get out of this sc.r.a.pe then." I felt for a minit that if I thought he would get Billy that I would peach on him, though that is the lowest trick and ain't done by no one who is white.

I went down stairs first to see all was right, and then he sneaked out.

I come back and sat down in a chair and set there till morning. I was just all in. Now when everything was coming along so nice, why did he have to come and b.u.t.t in and spoil it all? It is just that way all my life. If it ain't father getting in trouble, it is you or Jim. And the nerve of him to say he would take Billy! I suppose he would bring him up to be a swell second story man or something big in the profession, so as he could live off him. Well, he won't get him, I tell you, and I most hope they find him, although that is rotten in me to even think such a thing.

When it come light and nothing happened, I laid down on the bed by Billy and put my face against him and cried till I woke him up, and he was so sweet. He said, "Poor Nanny, somefing hurt her. Let Billy kiss it," and then I broke all up for sure. I got to get some of my money out of the bank so I can have it handy when Jim sends for it.