A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

Though most of Brooklyn in the summer of 1912 could be described as “somber,” the word “serene” more appropriately applies to Williamsburg. There is one tree in Francie Nolan’s yard. It looks like “a lot of opened green umbrellas.” It grows lushly but struggles to reach the sky. Some call it the Tree of Heaven. It grows in “boarded up lots” and out of trash heaps. It is the only tree that seems to grow out of cement. It seems to like poor people.

It is Saturday in Brooklyn, which is when most people get paid. People eat well, make love, and enjoy their lives before crowding in to mass on Sunday morning. They then sleep for the rest of the day with free consciences. On Saturdays, Francie and her brother, Neeley, go to the junkie. Like many other Brooklyn kids, they collect rags, paper, metal, and other bits of trash during the week, then they haul it in to Carney’s. Other kids taunt them for being rag-pickers, though those children also pick around in trash to earn much needed money for their families.

Carney’s junk business is located in a former stable that is in disrepair. He always gives Francie an extra penny if she does not shrink away from him when he pinches her cheek. He gives her sixteen cents for the junk, which Neeley divides. Francie allows Neeley to handle the money because he is the boy. He puts eight cents in the bank, according to their rule, and splits the remaining eight cents between them.  

Francie and Neeley then head to Cheap Charlie’s candy store. It is a penny candy store that caters particularly to children who have just turned in junk for cash. It is, however, “a boy’s store,” so Francie only stands in the doorway while Neeley picks penny candy over a penny prize. Francie has never heard of anyone winning one of the nice prizes behind the counter, including roller skates, a catcher’s mitt, and a doll with real hair. Francie decides that, one day, when she has fifty cents she will buy all of the picks on the board and win all of the prizes.

Francie then goes across the street to Gimpy’s candy store. Gimpy was long regarded as a gentle man who was kind to children, until he lured a little girl into the back room of his store to molest her. Francie thinks about spending one of her pennies for a Gimpy Special—a prize bag. She stands in line behind Maudie Donovan. Maudie chooses a large bag and gets a few pieces of candy and “a coarse cambric handkerchief.” Once, Francie got “a small bottle of strong scent.” Francie decides not to spend her penny at Gimpy’s.

Francie walks up Manhattan Avenue to Broadway, which is the location of the finest nickel-and-dime store in Brooklyn. With the addition of Carney’s penny, Francie has a nickel to spend in the store. She enjoys touching all of the things, with the possibility that she can buy something. After “an orgy of touching things,” she settles on a nickel’s worth of pink-and-white peppermint wafers. She walks back home down Graham Avenue, which is a Jewish ghetto. She remembers how her mother told her that Jesus was Jewish, though Francie thought he was Catholic. 

It is noon when Francie arrives home. Her mother, Katie, comes in soon after her with her broom and pail. She works as “a janitress” and keeps three tenement houses clean. Looking at her mother’s pretty face and well-formed hands, Francie thinks that people would find it difficult to believe that she scrubs floors to support a family of four. People in the neighborhood, however, know her situation: she is married to Johnny Nolan, a loveable and handsome drunk.

After Francie puts the eight cents from junk-collecting into the family bank, Katie instructs her on how to buy lunch. Francie is to take eight cents for “a quarter loaf of Jew rye bread” and is to ensure that it is fresh. Katie then tells her to go to Sauerwein’s delicatessen and ask for “the end-of-the-tongue for a nickel.” When she gets to Sauerwein’s, he tells Francie that he has saved this part of the cow for Katie because he likes her and he tells Francie to share this information with Katie. Francie does not like Mr. Sauerwein and will not tell her mother what he said.

At the baker’s, Francie picks out four buns with the most sugar on them. Johnny does not come home for dinner. Usually, he spends Saturdays at the Union Headquarters, waiting for a job. Francie, Neeley, and Katie have a nice dinner without him. They slice up the rye bread and each eat two pieces with butter and thick slices of the cow’s tongue. They each have a sugar bun with hot coffee. Katie always makes a pot in the morning, then reheats it as the day goes on, adding chicory to make it taste stronger. Everyone in the household gets three cups a day with milk. Even when one is alone in the flat with nothing to do, a cup of hot, bitter, black coffee makes you feel like you have something.

After having her coffee, Francie goes to Losher’s bread factory to buy the family’s semi-weekly supply of stale bread. Francie waits for the double doors to open, which will release the bread. In the meantime, she plays one of her favorite games: creating stories for the other customers. She watches an old man with no teeth and battered shoes. She imagines what he must have been like as a baby and as a young man. Suddenly, the double doors open and the bread truck backs up. Francie intensely calls out for “six loaves and a pie not too crushed.” The counterman is impressed by her intensity, gives her what she asks for, and takes her two dimes. She pushes her way out of the crowd and drops a loaf, which she is unable to pick up; there is no room to bend over in the massive crowd. 

When Francie returns home, she finds out that Katie has gone out with Aunt Sissy to see a matinee, and Neeley is heading to the lots to play baseball. Francie follows him there, though Neeley does not want her around. She has nothing to do until the library opens at 2:00. Three of Neeley’s friends are waiting for him. They bully a Jewish boy on their way to the lot. They chase another boy who sells pretzels, until his mother yells at them to leave her son alone and get off of their block. When the boys finally arrive at the lot, they start a four-man baseball game. They play furiously, sweating, cursing, and punching each other. Francie tires of watching them. She walks to the library.