Calvary Alley
Copyright© 2024 by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice
Chapter 23: Calvary Cathedral
“I don’t take no stock in heaven havin’ streets of gold,” said Mrs. Snawdor. “It’ll be just my luck to have to polish ‘em. You needn’t tell me if there’s all that finery in heaven, they won’t keep special angels to do the dirty work!”
She and Mrs. Smelts were scrubbing down the stairs of Number One, not as a matter of cleanliness, but for the social benefit to be derived therefrom. It was a Sunday morning institution with them, and served quite the same purpose that church-going does for certain ladies in a more exalted sphere.
“I hope the Bible’s true,” said Mrs. Smelts, with a sigh. “Where it says there ain’t no marryin’ nor givin’ in marriage.”
“Oh, husbands ain’t so worse if you pick ‘em right,” Mrs. Snawdor said with the conviction of experience. “As fer me, I ain’t hesitatin’ to say I like the second-handed ones best.”
“I suppose they are better broke in. But no other woman but me would ‘a’ looked at Mr. Smelts.”
“You can’t tell,” said Mrs. Snawdor. “Think of me takin’ Snawdor after bein’ used to Yager an’ Molloy! Why, if you’ll believe me, Mr. Burks, lyin’ there in bed fer four months now, takes more of a hand in helpin’ with the childern than Snawdor, who’s up an’ around.”
“Kin he handle hisself any better? Mr. Burks, I mean.”
“Improvin’ right along. Nance has got him to workin’ on a patent now. It’s got somethin’ to do with a engine switch. Wisht you could see the railroad yards she’s rigged up on his bed. The childern are plumb crazy ‘bout it.”
“Nance is gittin’ awful pretty,” Mrs. Smelts said. “I kinder ‘lowed Dan
Lewis an’ her’d be makin’ a match before this.”
Mrs. Snawdor gathered her skirts higher about her ankles and transferred her base of operations to a lower step.
“You can’t tell nothin’ at all ‘bout that girl. She was born with the bit ‘tween her teeth, an’ she keeps it there. No more ‘n you git her goin’ in one direction than she turns up a alley on you. It’s night school now. There ain’t a spare minute she ain’t peckin’ on that ole piece of a type-writer Ike Lavinski loaned her.”
“She’s got a awful lot of energy,” sighed Mrs. Smelts.
“Energy! Why it’s somethin’ fierce! She ain’t content to let nothin’ stay the way it is. Wears the childern plumb out washin’ ‘em an’ learnin’ ‘em lessons, an’ harpin’ on their manners. If you believe me, she’s got William J. that hacked he goes behind the door to blow his nose!”
“It’s a blessin’ she didn’t go off with them ‘Follies,’” said Mrs. Smelts. “Birdie lost her job over two months ago, an’ the Lord knows what she’s livin’ on. The last I heard of her she was sick an’ stranded up in Cincinnati, an’ me without so much as a dollar bill to send her!” And Mrs. Smelts sat down in a puddle of soap-suds and gave herself up to the luxury of tears.
At this moment a door on the third floor banged, and Nance Molloy, a white figure against her grimy surroundings, picked her way gingerly down the slippery steps. Her cheap, cotton skirt had exactly the proper flare, and her tailor-made shirtwaist was worn with the proud distinction of one who conforms in line, if not in material, to the mode of the day.
“Ain’t she the daisy?” exclaimed Mrs. Snawdor, gaily, and even Mrs.
Smelts dried her eyes, the better to appreciate Nance’s gala attire.
“We’re too swell to be Methodist any longer!” went on Mrs. Snawdor, teasingly. “We’re turned ‘Piscopal!”
“You ain’t ever got the nerve to be goin’ over to the cathedral,” Mrs.
Smelts asked incredulously.
“Sure, why not?” said Nance, giving her hat a more sophisticated tilt.
“Salvation’s as free there as it is anywhere.”
It was not salvation, however, that was concerning Nance Molloy as she took her way jauntily out of the alley and, circling the square, joined the throng of well-dressed men and women ascending the broad steps of the cathedral.
From that day when she had found herself back in the alley, like a bit of driftwood that for a brief space is whirled out of its stagnant pool, only to be cast back again, she had planned ceaselessly for a means of escape. During the first terrible weeks of Uncle Jed’s illness, her thoughts flew for relief sometimes to Dan, sometimes to Mac. And Dan answered her silent appeal in person, coming daily with his clumsy hands full of necessities, his strong arms ready to lift, his slow speech quickened to words of hope and cheer. Mac came only in dreams, with gay, careless eyes and empty, useless hands, and lips that asked more than they gave. Yet it was around Mac’s shining head that the halo of romance oftenest hovered.
It was not until Uncle Jed grew better, and Dan’s visits ceased, that Nance realized what they had meant to her. To be sure her efforts to restore things to their old familiar footing had been fruitless, for Dan refused stubbornly to overlook the secret that stood between them, and Nance, for reasons best known to herself, refused to explain matters.
But youth reckons time by heart-throbs, and during Uncle Jed’s convalescence Nance found the clock of life running ridiculously slow. Through Ike Lavinski, whose favor she had won by introducing him to Dr. Adair, she learned of a night school where a business course could be taken without expense. She lost no time in enrolling and, owing to her thorough grounding of the year before, was soon making rapid progress. Every night on her way to school, she walked three squares out of her way on the chance of meeting Dan coming from the factory, and coming and going, she watched the cathedral, wondering if Mac still sang there.
One Sunday, toward the close of summer, she followed a daring impulse, and went to the morning service. She sat in one of the rear pews and held her breath as the procession of white-robed men and boys filed into the choir. Mac Clarke was not among them, and she gave a little sigh of disappointment, and wondered if she could slip out again.
On second thought she decided to stay. Even in the old days when she had stolen into the cathedral to look for nickels under the seats, she had been acutely aware of “the pretties.” But she had never attended a service, or seen the tapers lighted, and the vast, cool building, with its flickering lights and disturbing music, impressed her profoundly.
Presently she began to make discoveries: the meek apologetic person tip-toeing about lowering windows was no other than the pompous and lordly Mason who had so often loomed over her as an avenging deity. In the bishop, clad in stately robes, performing mysterious rites before the altar, she recognized “the funny old guy” with the bald head, with whom she had compared breakfast menus on a historical day at the graded school.
So absorbed was she in these revelations that she did not notice that she was sitting down while everybody else was standing up, until a small black book was thrust over her shoulder and a white-gloved finger pointed to the top of the page. She rose hastily and tried to follow the service. It seemed that the bishop was reading something which the people all around her were beseeching the Lord to hear. She didn’t wonder that the Lord had to be begged to listen. She wasn’t going to listen; that was one thing certain.
Then the organ pealed forth, and voices caught up the murmuring words and lifted them and her with them to the great arched ceiling. As long as the music lasted, she sat spell-bound, but when the bishop began to read again, this time from a book resting on the out-stretched wings of a big brass bird, her attention wandered to the great stained glass window above the altar. The reverse side of it was as familiar to her as the sign over Slap Jack’s saloon. From the alley it presented opaque blocks of glass above the legend that had been one of the mysteries of her childhood. Now as she looked, the queer figures became shining angels with lilies in their hands, and she made the amazing discovery that “Evol si dog,” seen from the inside, spelled “God is Love.”
She sat quite still, pondering the matter. The bishop and the music and even Mac were for the time completely forgotten. Was the world full of things like that, puzzling and confused from the outside, and simple and easy from within? Within what? Her mind groped uncertainly along a strange path. So God was love? Why hadn’t the spectacled lady told her so that time in the juvenile court instead of writing down her foolish answer? But love had to do with sweethearts and dime novels and plays on the stage. How could God be that? Maybe it meant the kind of love Mr. Demry had for his little daughter, or the love that Dan had for his mother, or the love she had for the Snawdor baby that died. Maybe the love that was good was God, and the love that was bad was the devil, maybe—
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