Read A Mother's Spirit for Free Online

had told him that on Thanksgiving Day most people got together with their families if they had any close by.
    As he entered the tenement door, his nostrils were immediately assailed by a pungent smell that came, he supposed, from so many people crowded in together and he was glad that the smell got fainter when he reached the third floor where Patrick’s rooms were.
    Patrick was delighted to see him and Joe noted his friend seemed taller somehow, and certainly broader than the man he remembered leaving Ireland’s shores.
    ‘Well, the American life seems to suit you well enough,’ he said as Patrick drew him inside. ‘You’re looking grand.’
    ‘Never mind me, you old codger,’ Patrick said. ‘Sit you down there and I will rustle us up some tea and then maybe you will tell me what has happened to you because all I have had so far is cryptic messages.’
    Joe sat down on the battered sofa and in no time was nursing a cup of hot strong tea and regaling Patrick with his adventures since the incident at the docks.
    Patrick listened flabbergasted. ‘You are one lucky sod,’ he remarked good-naturedly when Joe had finished. ‘Tom always used to say if you fell in a dung heap, you would come up smelling of roses and he is damned right.’
    ‘I can’t help being in the right place at the right time.’
    ‘Where was the imperilled heiress when I was ready to disembark?’ Patrick asked. ‘That’s what I want to know.’
    ‘If there wasn’t one, then there wasn’t one,’ Joe replied with a grin. ‘I’d say that heiresses, imperilled or otherwise, are in pretty short supply, and you can’t lay the blame for that at my door either.’
    Patrick shrugged. ‘I suppose not,’ he conceded. ‘And I haven’t done that badly myself either.’ He caught sight of Joe’s disbelieving eyes and said, ‘I know what you are thinking and you are right – it isn’t that damned pretty aplace and not one half as good as where you are living. But it is a good deal better than some, and better than when I first came when I was lodging with another family. Talk about cramped.’
    ‘How many rooms have you?’
    ‘Three,’ Patrick said. ‘If you have finished your tea I’ll show you.’
    ‘Well, this is the living room, I suppose?’ Joe said.
    ‘Yeah, and the only room with windows,’ Patrick said. ‘Though the view is not one to write home about, so I am not really bothered about that anyway. Next door to it is the kitchen.’ And as Patrick led the way to it Joe caught sight of a few cupboards and a sort of stove with a couple of gas rings. ‘Fairly new innovation, the gas,’ Patrick said. ‘These tenements were thrown up with no form of lighting, heating, no running water, nothing, but now we have gas lights, gas rings to cook on, and a toilet just down the corridor. ‘And this,’ he said, opening the door off the kitchen, ‘is where I sleep. You see there would have been plenty of room for you too.’
    There would have been, Joe saw, for Patrick had a sizeable double bed, but Joe thought of his own little room and bed for him and him alone – his little oasis of calm where he could hide away in his off-duty moments – and he knew he would never change places with Patrick. He didn’t say this, however, because he had no wish to alienate his friend.
    ‘At least you are almost right in the city,’ he said, ‘and I bet there is fine entertainment to be had in New York on Thanksgiving Day?’
    ‘Entertainment?’ Patrick cried. ‘Man, there is everything here. Catch up your coat and we’ll hit the town and you’ll see for yourself.’
    Joe never forgot his first foray into New York at night and he wrote in all down in a letter to Tom the following day.

    Dear Tom,
    Last night I was out with Patrick Lacey, who wanted to show me what New York is like at night and we went in on an underground train that they call a subway. We went into what looked like a large metal box on the street to find hundreds of steps