As Long As One Can

Yes, When I Get Big And Have My Own Home, No Plush Chairs And Lace Curtains For Me. And No Rubber Plants. I'll Have A Desk Like This In My Parlor And White Walls And A Clean Green Blotter Every Saturday Night And A Row Of Shining Yellow Pencils Always Sharpened For Writing And A Golden-brown Bowl With A Flower Or Some Leaves Or Berries Always In It And Books . . . Books . . . Books. . . .

You Took A Walk On A Sunday Afternoon And Came To A Nice Neighborhood, Very Refined. You Saw A Small One Of These Trees Through The Iron Gate Leading To Someone's Yard And You Knew That Soon That Section Of Brooklyn Would Get To Be A Tenement District. The Tree Knew. It Came There First. Afterwards, Poor Foreigners Seeped In And The Quiet Old Brownstone Houses Were Hacked Up Into Flats, Feather Beds Were Pushed Out On The Window Sills To Air And The Tree Of Heaven Flourished. That Was The Kind Of Tree It Was. It Liked Poor People.

Katie Had A Fierce Desire For Survival Which Made Her A Fighter. Johnny Had A Hankering After Immortality Which Made Him A Useless Dreamer. And That Was The Great Difference Between These Two Who Loved Each Other So Well.

From That Moment On, The World Was Hers For The Reading. She Would Never Be Lonely Again.

Everything, Decided Francie After That First Lecture, Was Vibrant With Life And There Was No Death In Chemistry. She Was Puzzled As To Why Learned People Didn't Adopt Chemistry As A Religion.