Maggie Cassidy Read Online Free Page B

Iddyboy, d’javer see him walk home from school weekdays—”
    â€œHey Mouse no kiddin hear what Jack’s sayin? The first guy out of high school every day, the cellar doors open, the bell’s just rung, everybody went back to home room, here comes Iddyboy, man number one, just like a dream he flies out walking long and with big lumberjack steps he cuts over the grass, the sidewalk, the canal bridge, right by the lunchcart, the tracks, the city hall, now here comes the first high school regular kid out the cellar door, Jimmy McFee, Joe Rigas, me, the fast ones, out we come a hundred yards behind Iddyboy—”
    â€œIddyboy’s already halfway up Moody Street, he not only wants to get to his homework as soon as possible because it takes him six hours to get it—”
    â€œâ€”flying on fast feet he strides past the Silver Star saloon, the big tree in front the girls’ school, the statue, the—”
    â€œâ€”here he is”—(Lauzon and Zagg now vying to scream these informations to G.J. and all the others)—“six hours to get it done his homework but he has to eat his three hamburgers before supper and play six games of pish nut with Terry his sister—”
    â€œâ€”no time for any old Iddyboy to hang around and have a smoke and talk in front of high school and let Joe Maple see him and report him to the headmaster, Iddyboy the most honest hardworking never-played-hooky-in-his-life student in United States of America is leading the parade home up Moody . . . Long after him come the girls with their ga-dam bandanas and bananas. . . .”
    â€œâ€”Whattaguy that Iddyboy! There he goes in the snow.” G.J. had taken up and was pointing him out. “See the snow hides his ass now. . . . Eeedy-bye oo You Babe OObloo is the salt of the earth, the top of the soup, the—no shit the finest kid that ever walked this God’s green if we’re gonna be ever saved . . . A little peace before we die, dear Lord,” said G.J., concluding, making the sign of the cross, as everybody looked at him out of the corners of their eyes for the next laugh.
    And the bright and merry corner was all theirs for a fifteen-minute interlude standing and talking in the youth of their hometown days. “Whattaya say there Zagg,” said G.J., suddenly and roughly he grabbed Zagg and pulled him down into a headlock and rubbed his hair and laughed. “Good old Zagg, all the time he’s standin there with a big smile on his face . . . what a good kid you are Zaggo—Scotty never had more gold in his teeth with his Kid Faro dealings than you in your cracky cock-eyed always down in the mouth eyes shine to show Zagg, that’s no kidding Zagg . . . In the interests of which, burp, brup,” lifting his leg several times in a lewd meaning, “I shall have to apply the headlock to you several vises tighter till you cry for mercy from Turko G.J. the Masked Ga-dam Marvel of Lowell decides to ease up and hand his mercy—back, gentlemen, while I bring Zaggo Dejesus Dulouz to his ga-dam knees once and mighty for all—”
    â€œLook, six thousand little kids in Destouches’ store buying up all the licorice and caramels—chewing stones in ‘em—Comics . . . What a life when you think of it—All the little kids lined up at Boisvert’s waitin for beans on Saturday night, in the cold wind, hey Mouse take it easy,” Zagg said from the headlock below. They stood, all six, Zaza the funny furious rage of a cat; Vinny suddenly laughing and slapping Lousy and yelling in his rich throatbroken voice “Good old Belgium Kid Louso you sen-e-ve-bitch!”; Scotty thinking “You think they’ll lend me the money and sign on the dotted line so I can get that car next summer, never”; Jack Dulouz beaming, aureating the universe in his head, eyes blazing; Mouse