Galway Bay (46 page)

“Others?” Tim John asked.

“Surely you’re buying a round of drink for all of us ladies.”

“I . . . I . . . ,” Tim John sputtered.

Lizzie let out a snort of laughter, and then we were all roaring.

“Good on you, Máire,” an older woman said. And then to Tim John, “We’ll wait; have a glass on you at Christmas.”

He shrugged his big shoulders and walked back to the bar.

“Now,” the woman, a Mrs. Flanigan, said, “it’s me for the stove. Twenty boarders will be looking for their Sunday dinner.”

The other women stood up and called to their children. I got up, too, and went with them to the corner, where all the little ones sat on the plank floor, watching two older boys throw a short-handled knife into a target drawn on the wood. These children, like those in New Orleans, had pulled our ones into their circle. Bridget kept Stephen close to her on one side, with Gracie on the other. My helper.

“The children here are well behaved,” I said to Lizzie, who came up next to me.

“They’d better be, or their mothers would give them a good whack. The Hardscrabble lads can be wild enough, though, given the chance. Especially that Hickory Gang. Good you have a swarm to stand together.” She pointed to Paddy. “Able to land a punch or two, I’d say.”

As the other mothers collected their children, only our ones remained.

“Where are we going to sleep, Mam?” Jamesy asked me.

I turned to Lizzie. “We do have some money.”

“How much, if you don’t mind my asking?

“Seventeen dollars.”

“Warm clothes and two weeks’ room and board will take that, I’d say. We’d better find you somewhere.”

“Couldn’t we just stay here tonight? In the morning . . .”

But Lizzie was shaking her head. “McKenna and I live behind the tavern, but children shouldn’t really . . .” She shrugged.

Since the families had left, the atmosphere in McKenna’s had changed. More men crowded the bar, louder voices, even a shoving match McKenna ended by whacking a great stick on the bar. Were Máire and I the only women in the place?

I started toward Máire, then stopped. She wasn’t alone. Four fellows sat on the low stools near her, talking away.

“Missus.” I turned. James McKenna stood next to me. “Feeling well again?” he asked me.

“I am,” I said, “and very grateful to you.”

McKenna cleared his throat. “Your sister’s in good form,” he said.

Not drinking, though. No glass in her hand. Máire said something, and the men sitting with her laughed.

“We don’t—” James McKenna started. “That is, women aren’t . . .” He stopped. “You explain,” he said to Lizzie, and went back to the bar.

Lizzie led me to a quiet spot. “You see, Honora, calling Hardscrabble ‘Bridgeport’ doesn’t change the facts. We’re still a separate village outside the city limits, and the muckety-mucks in Chicago want to keep the wild Irish out.”

From the Fury of the O’Flahertys deliver us, I thought.

“Now,” Lizzie went on, “McKenna wants Bridgeport incorporated into Chicago so he can run for alderman, be on the city council. The tavern needs to be respectable, and there’s a certain type of woman . . .”

“My sister’s not a certain type of woman.”

“I’m sure not, and she put Tim John in his place, no bother. I’m not judging. Sometimes girls, to stay alive, or mothers, to save their children, have to sell what they can. There’s places for that. Ma Conley’s at the Sands for one, and—”

“We’re going, Mrs. McKenna. Now. I don’t know where, but you can’t— My sister Máire’s a good woman and a great strength to me.” I started to walk away.

“Easy now, Honora,” Lizzie said. “I know that. It’s only McKenna.” She sighed. “No one sees sin like a reformed sinner.” Lizzie leaned close. “When we first came here, oh my, it must be twenty years ago, Chicago was a wild, free, and easy place. We had great times at the old Sauganash Hotel—that’s downtown where the river goes into Lake Michigan. Nobody minded who was who. A Frenchman ran it—Beaubien, a great fiddler. What dances we had! Soldiers came down from Fort Dearborn, fur traders came and, of course, the Potawatomis.”

“The what?”

“Potawatomis . . . the Indians. Thousands of them camped then around the city, trading their furs with the French and later the Americans. And I danced with one and all. The Indian men didn’t like the reels, but they could waltz the feet off you, whirl you high in the air! It was the Indian
women
who were powerful at reels. You should have seen them do ‘The Walls of Limerick’! And McKenna stepping lively with all the rest. We’re Donegal people and fast on our feet. And believe me, we women took a drop, same as the men.

“But Chicago has changed since then. A flood of easterners in charge now, trying to put manners on the place,” she said. “Some of them even wanted to change Chicago’s name! It’s an Indian word—you know what it means?”

“Well . . . ,” I started.

She waved her hand. “We don’t mind. I’d rather be the smelly place than ‘New’ York or ‘New’ Hampshire or ‘New’ Bedford named after English cities, or be saddled with French—Vincennes, Terre Haute . . . Chicago is a good name, and Bridgeport will be part of it whether the Yankees like it or not. Only . . . I’m sorry if I insulted your sister,” Lizzie said. “Now, we need to sort out where you’re staying.”

We walked over to the fire. The fellows sitting with Máire stood up. Lizzie slagged them a bit, then sent them away.

“Now,” she said, “I’m thinking Molly Flanigan might take you in.” Boardinghouses in Bridgeport were for working men, Lizzie said. No women or children. The men didn’t want to have to mind their manners. “But Molly Flanigan owes Patrick Kelly. You met her today—about my age, but looks older. A widow.”

“So are we,” Máire said.

“But not for long, I hope,” Lizzie said. “Best to get husbands. Chicago can be hard on lone women.”

“I will never—” I started, but Máire was up and ready to go.

The wind tore at us as we followed Lizzie down an empty road. No one about, though candlelight showed through the small windows of wooden cottages with peaked roofs and smoke trailed up toward the low sky from the chimneys.

“Not a style of house we have at home,” Máire said to Lizzie.

“Yankees call them shanties, and us the shanty Irish. Supposed to be an insult, but these wee houses can be cozy enough,” she said.

“We’ll be glad for any shelter,” I said as we turned onto another dirt road.

“Hickory Street,” Lizzie said. “Those paths go down to the canal, and see beyond, the open space? The prairie. A Potawatomi family lives right there, at the edge of the prairie.”

“I don’t see—”

“Their huts are near to the ground,” she said. “Rounded. Can you make out the white of the birch bark?”

We walked farther down Hickory Street until we came to a three-story building at the end of the street. The children shivered in their New Orleans clothes.

“Let’s get into Molly’s kitchen,” Lizzie said. “Always warm with that big stove of hers.”

We found Molly Flanigan washing up after the dinner she’d served her boarders, and in minutes she had the children eating near the iron stove, which did give off great heat. Molly was the woman who’d told Máire, “Good on you.” She had soft brown eyes behind her spectacles—doing well to have spectacles. She chatted away to us, Lizzie nodding and adding comments. Molly’s sons were grown and gone, she told us, one out west and the other a sailor on the boats that crossed Lake Michigan going up to Buffalo.

“Good boys, both of them,” Lizzie said, “once they straightened themselves out.”

Molly’s two daughters had married—one lived in St. Patrick’s parish and the other farther north in a neighborhood called Goose Island.

“The Irish have spread out all over Chicago,” Lizzie told us. “Don’t stay jammed together in one place. Kilgubbin and Wolf Point, all those places, are part of Chicago.”

All was friendly until Lizzie said we wanted to move into the boardinghouse. Molly said that she just never took families, and there was no space anyway—twenty boarders and only eight rooms, two and three to a room already. Though she did have an attic she used for storage. . . .

“Honora’s dead husband’s brother is Patrick Kelly,” Lizzie said, jumping into the flow of Molly’s words.

“Is he. Well then . . .” There’d be little enough space, but she’d take us for a month.

I looked at Máire. She nodded. We’d survived that box on the
Superior
.

“The, uhm, cost?”

“Would six dollars a week do you? Meals, too,” she said. “I could make it five if you’d help with the wash.”

“We would, of course.”

“I usually ask for two weeks in advance.”

“But we have to get warm clothes for the children. We’d have no money left,” I said.

“I couldn’t charge you less,” Molly said. “Food and firewood’s shockingly expensive. You could stay a day or two until . . .”

Until what? Patrick Kelly showed up? Couldn’t depend on that. Ten dollars paid in advance and more rent due in two weeks. Clothes to buy.

“Those jobs, Lizzie, at the packinghouse? Could you help our boys get in there?” I asked.

Lizzie looked at the children. “McKenna could fix up the three older boys, surely.”

“But . . .” Máire started, then stopped.

“Well,” Molly said, “if your boys will be working, there’s no worries. We’re sorted. I won’t take the advance.”

Lizzie stayed to help us push the bags and parcels against one wall of the low-ceilinged room. “Fellows leave things with me. A few do come back,” Molly said. The straw mattresses Molly brought out covered most of the floor. I’d sleep with Bridget and Stephen on one with Máire and Gracie on another. Paddy and Jamesy would share, and Johnny Og, Thomas, and Daniel would take the last mattress. The children fell on their beds, clothes and all.

Lizzie said she’d best get back to McKenna. “Thank you, thank you,” we said to her as she left.

Máire and I started to lie down, too, but Molly gestured us out to the kitchen.

“A good time to talk. My boarders are out on Sunday night. Here, sit down,” she said. “I love these wee chairs—brought them from Ireland. I’m from Roscommon, Croghan near Frenchpark.”

“Croghan—but that’s Maeve’s stronghold!”

“Maeve? I don’t mind her,” Molly said.

“Ireland’s queen in ancient times. She—”

“Honora,” Máire interrupted. “Molly was telling us about her chairs.”

“But if Molly lived where Maeve did, she should know . . .” I turned to Molly. “Fadó,” I said.

Molly shook her head. “I’ve lost my Irish. Never had much, really. Landlords very set against the language in our parts. Sore on the people altogether. My Tom couldn’t tug the forelock, so we left. Fortunate, really. Got out before the bad times.” She stroked one of the carved wooden chairs. “Those coming over now arrive with nothing,” she said.

“We’ve our lives,” I said, “and a close thing it was.”

Molly nodded.

“It’s a miracle any of us survived Black ’47,” I said, and would have gone on, but Máire nudged my foot with hers.

“The iron stove gives off great heat,” Máire said.

“A fine house, and only for Patrick Kelly I wouldn’t have it.”

Molly said her husband, Tom, was killed while working on the canal. They’d been buying this house and lot from the canal company, and when Tom died the company tried to put her out and keep the payments she and her husband had made.

“Patrick Kelly forced the company to forgive the mortgage and give me a bit of money,” she said. “He told them the men would take it very badly if the bosses evicted a widow. What if something happened to them? Would their wives be treated badly? If the company wanted the canal finished on time, it better do right by me.” Molly leaned back in her chair. “Now,” she said, “there’s those like James McKenna want us all law-abiding, to show the Yankees taking over Chicago that we’re not the savages they think we are. But I say we need men like Patrick Kelly to keep the Yankees from rolling over us altogether. When Patrick lifts up that golden staff, every Irishman stands straighter! Laboring in the quarry, the docks, the packinghouses—soul-destroying work, all of it, and easy to lose all sense of yourself. We’ve Mass, music, and the tavern, but we need Patrick Kelly. I hope he comes back soon.”

“Jesus Christ, Honora,” Máire whispered to me as we lay down on our straw mats among our sleeping children. “Don’t be going on about Ireland to these people. Why should Molly Flanigan give a fiddler’s fart about Maeve or the Irish language? She’s a snug house and money coming in. That’s what we need.”

“I’m surprised that they don’t ask us more questions about conditions at home,” I said.

“I’m sure their own people write them plenty. We’ve no good news to bring.”

“You entertained the women well enough.”

“Told them tales of the
River Queen
and New Orleans.”

“And those fellows?”

“Told me the way of the place. They might have gotten better jobs for the boys than slaughtering cattle.”

“It’s only until Patrick Kelly—”

“Don’t say Patrick Kelly to me—the fellow sounds a madman.”

“I—”

“Go to sleep, Honora.”

We’re here, Michael. I spoke to him in my mind as I closed my eyes. I can’t feel you near me, but I know you’re pleased that we reached Chicago. And Patrick’s respected here. Send him to us, Michael. Please, a stór.

Two days later, we got our boys ready to join the march of men heading out to work at first light. We dressed them in the used trousers and shirts we’d bought from the rag-and-bone man, Sheehy, and then cut down, with Molly’s help. She’d given us newspapers to stuff into the much too big work boots. We’d spent six dollars outfitting the boys and then another four on the old sweaters and shawls we wrapped around the younger children. Cold in that attic room. Seven dollars left. The boys’ wages would have to pay for our room and board.

I combed Paddy’s hair with Molly’s wide-toothed comb, pulling out the knots and tangles. A month of food’s made his hair grow. “You’ll need a proper haircut soon,” I said to him. Hair on his head, not on his face, thank God.

“Mam, you’re hurting me!” Paddy said.