25
MRS. O'FLAHERTY AND L1ZZ*
James T. Farrell
MRS.
O'FLAHERTYand her daughter, Lizz, sat together in the
disordered kitchen of the O'Neill household. They had large cups of
tea before them.
"I'm so glad you came today, Mother," Lizz said.
"Ah Lizz, you're a good thing, my best daughter," the old lady
said reflectively.
"But, Mother, I tell you, Peg will rue the day she took to the
scarlet road of sin," Lizz said, frowning as she pointed and waved her
right index finger for added emphasis.
"Me mother in the old country always said, 'Sup with the devil
and you need a long spoon'," Mrs. O'Flaherty said.
"It's the truth, Mother. There is no way out. You got to be good
or bad. Holy or sinful. Sin, and you are punished. If you are pure
and holy and live in the fear of God, all the joys of Heaven will be
waiting for you when you die," Lizz said, while her mother sipped tea.
"You say the truth," Mrs. O'Flaherty said, wagging her head
up and down.
"Jim and I are poor. But we are good. We live in the fear of
God. We won't be poor up there in the next world," Lizz said en-
thusiastically, pointing her hand at the cracked ceiling as she spoke.
"Glory be, 'tis so," Mrs. O'Flaherty said.
"Mother, you say he gave her the gate?" Lizz said, frowning and
leaning forward.
"Indeed he did," Mrs. O'Flaherty said, wagging her pointed face
up and down almost dramatically.
"So he tied a tin can to her," Lizz said; her lips were closed and
pushed outward in an expression of knowingness; she nodded her
head.
"And small loss, he is," Mrs. O'Flaherty said.
"I always said that no good would come of her running after
him," Lizz said, sipping tea.
*
The following section is from a novel in progress, continuing
A World I Never Made.
Mrs. O'Flaherty has come down to see her
daughter Lizz after her other living daughter, Margaret, has come home
in an upset condition. Margaret has seen her millionaire paramour, Lorry
Robinson,on the streets of the Loop with a young girl. This chapter
describesthe reaction of Mrs. O'Flaherty and Lizz to such an event.
