The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [276]
Melodious bell-like chimes rang out.
“And now, folks of Radioland, we have back with us the Midget Singers. Through the courtesy of the Soskimo Old Woolen Company, manufacturers of all lines of high-class woolen fabrics with their main manufacturing plant at Soskimo Falls, Massachusetts, we will hear the Midget Singers in an old-times song festival. Miss Marjorie Maginnis, Miss Florence Turtleback, and Miss Helen Ashencourt, the famous Midget Singers, will entertain us with those dear old songs of the days that are gone but not forgotten, when you and I were young, Maggie, and after the ball was over, you hitched old Dobbin to the sleigh and rode home on a bicycle built for two to pledge your troths in the shade of the old apple tree. Folks of Radioland, the Midget Singers.”
Lonigan’s face became alive. He smiled at his wife. Martin frowned, bored, and sank himself again in the newspaper.
Dear old girl, the robin sings above you,
Dear old girl, it speaks of how I love you.
Studs noticed the tender way his father looked at his mother. They loved each other, and he thought of how it would be terrible when one of them died. He figured, too, that they both must be thinking of the good times they had when they were young, remembering rich good things, and he asked himself would he and Catherine sometimes sit, still in love, looking back the same way, and also remembering rich good things?
After the ball is over,
After they all have parted...
That beaming smile on the old man’s face. He had once courted her, taken her out on dates, just as he took Catherine out, thought the same things of her that he thought of Catherine and had once thought of Lucy, kissed her in the same way as he kissed Catherine down by the lake the night they had become engaged. Once his mother, she had been young, like a flower to the old man, warm and hot and panting for breath in his arms, just like himself and Catherine.
He tried to visualize his parents when they were young, kissing, and the image would not stay fixed in his mind. To him, they were something different. He could not see them as sweethearts together. But it had once been. And now they were old, and he, himself, was nearly thirty, and he was going to be old, too, some day.
Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer true...
Martin yawned.
And in those days things had been a lot different, with bicycles all over the street, and almost no automobiles, and the women dressed so differently. He wished he could have known what those days had been like, what kind of a fellow the old man had really been. He watched him, too, nodding his head from side to side, looking at his mother still, his lips moving as he quietly sang the songs.
But you’ll look sweet, upon the seat
Of a bicycle built for two.
Lonigan sighed deeply, wistfully.
By the lakes of Killarney, my home o’er the sea...
Studs guessed that this one must be making the old man think of Ireland that he had left as such a small kid. If the stock would go up enough, they could take that trip to Ireland, maybe with himself and Catherine going along, and that would be just jake. He wanted, now, very much, to be able to do something for the two of them. He was glad, too, to see them happy while these songs were sung, only he knew it was a sad kind of happiness, making them think of how they were once young and were now old.
It’s a long way to Tipperary,
It’s a long way to go...
He remembered this one from his own days as a kid. If he had been able to go to war! He looked at his father, listening, remembering, at his mother, listening, remembering, and he was listening, and remembering, too, and he was remembering Lucy as a girl.
IV
“I’ll walk down with you, Martin. I want to get the paper,” Studs said as Martin stood in the parlor doorway with his coat and hat on.
“You won’t be staying out late, boys?” his mother said, her expression one of concern.
“I’ll be home early,” Martin said, checking the disgust that almost broke into his voice, while Studs put on his hat and coat.
“Boys, don’t be staying out late,” she said.
“Try and get back by ten when Amos and Andy come on,