A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: Chapter 9 Summary & Analysis

After their marriage, Johnny and Katie go to live on Bogart Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Johnny chooses the street because he likes its “thrilling dark sound.” The couple is happy in their first year of marriage. Katie persuades Johnny to give up the singing-waiter business. They start a job together taking care of a public school and they both love it. Their day starts in the evening. The school that they look after is “old and small and warm.” They walk there together, arm-in-arm. Sometimes, they even skip. They play games while they work. Katie likes to pretend to be a teacher. They especially enjoy cleaning the assembly room, where there’s a piano that Johnny can play. At 2:00 AM, they go into the teacher’s room and make coffee and eat sandwiches, then they lie in each other’s arms on the sofa. They empty the wastebaskets but save pencils and chalk that are “not too stubby.” When Francie is growing up, they’ll feel “rich” for having so many pencils and so much chalk.

At the public school job, Katie and Johnny each earn fifty dollars a month, which is a good salary for people of their class at this time. In a few months, they are surprised to find out that Katie is pregnant. She continues working, but it becomes too difficult for her to dust under desks. Johnny takes over all of the tasks. The couple is still happy, but Johnny is becoming increasingly worried.

Katie is screaming in pain when Johnny and Mrs. Gindler, the midwife, finally arrive. The apartment is filled with women from the neighborhood who reminisce about their own birthing experiences. They shoo Johnny away and attend to Katie, who is in labor all day. He goes to see his mother, but Ruthie uses the occasion to complain about how Johnny will never return to her with a child to look after. He then goes to drink with his brother, Georgie, who is working on a dance. The brothers go to a saloon and Johnny forgets that he is supposed to be at the school working. Towards dawn, Johnny goes back to Ruthie’s house and falls into “a troubled sleep.” Though he does not yet know it, that night, after twenty-four hours of labor, Katie gives “bloody birth to a fragile baby girl.” The infant is born with a caul, which is an indication that she will do great things in the world.

Aunt Evy comes over soon after Mrs. Gindler leaves. She brings along some sweet butter and a package of soda crackers and makes tea. Evy looks at the baby and thinks that the child doesn’t look very well, but she says nothing to Katie. When Johnny arrives home, Evy thinks about lecturing him but, seeing his pale and frightened face, she thinks better of it and chooses to kiss him and make him fresh coffee.

Johnny looks at the baby. He is holding some avocadoes that he bought, then he collapses and cries beside Katie’s bed. Katie cries, too. She is weak from delivering the baby, but she is the one to comfort Johnny and assure him that she will take care of him. Johnny begins to feel better. He then suggests that they name their daughter after Francie Melaney. They think that it will mend her broken heart if she can be the baby’s godmother. The child will also have the name that Andy’s fiancée would have had: Francie Nolan.

While Johnny is in the kitchen, drinking coffee, a boy comes from the school with a note from the principal saying that Johnny is fired due to neglect. Johnny is to come to the school and collect his last pay. Johnny destroys the note and says nothing to Katie. It turns out that some pipes burst while Johnny was away from the job. The principal says that the Board of Education will pay for the damage. He then pays Johnny out of his own pocket after Johnny signs a voucher turning over the coming paycheck to the principal. Though Johnny tries to explain his circumstances, the principal says that he should have been more careful about his job, knowing that he had a baby on the way.

After Johnny takes Mary Rommely to see Katie, he goes out to look for another job. Katie confesses that she knows that she can’t count on Johnny and will have to look after him. Katie wishes for no more children. Mary says that she and Thomas had little in the old country, but, in some ways, life in America has been harder. Katie asks why her mother emigrated from Austria. Mary says that, in the old country, a man can be no more than his father. He is beholden to the past. In the new country, “he belongs to the future.” Mary insists that things are getting better for the next generations because Francie was born to parents who can read and write. 

Katie insists that she doesn’t want Francie to work as hard as Katie does. Mary says that the secret lies in reading and writing. She encourages Katie to teach her daughter language through Shakespeare and the Protestant Bible. Mary prefers the Protestant Bible because it “contains more of the loveliness of the greatest story on this earth and beyond it.” She says that Katie must tell Francie the legends and fairy tales “of the old country.” Mary also points out that Katie should encourage Francie to believe in angels, ghosts, and even Santa Claus to bestow her with imagination. Mary thinks that it’s good to believe in something and then not believe. It’s important, she says, for Francie to learn suffering; it builds character.

Mary’s next bit of advice is that Katie must own land. Ironically, Katie finds this most absurd, given that she can barely afford to pay her rent. Mary tells Katie how to make a bank out of an empty can of condensed milk. She is to put five cents per day into the can. Mary says that she can do it in small ways, such as bargaining on groceries or suffering cold for an extra hour instead of starting another fire in the stove with a bushel of coal. Katie initially does not believe that this will work, but Mary says that she once saved enough money for a house but was swindled out of it because she could not read or write.

Mary then saved again, though it was harder with all of the children. Then, when the Rommelys moved, Thomas found the money and bought a rooster and many hens. He said that they would profit from the eggs. On the first night, “twenty starving cats” killed some of the chickens, Mary says that some Italians stole more, and the police then came and told Thomas that it was illegal to keep chickens in the yard. The cop demanded five dollars not to take Thomas to the station. There, alas, went the last of Mary’s savings. Still, she is saving again.

Sissy goes to Katie’s apartment after work. She declares Francie “the most beautiful baby in the world,” though Johnny is skeptical, given how “blue and wizened” she is. Sissy then goes out and buys deli treats on credit. She brings the supper of sliced cow’s tongue, smoked salmon, smoked sturgeon, and crisp rolls for she, Katie, and Johnny to share. Sissy announces that she is going to stay overnight, which worries Katie because there is only one bed. Sissy then says that she should sleep with Johnny so that she could get “a fine baby like Francie.” Katie frowns. Though her sister is joking, there is “something true and direct about Sissy.” Katie begins to lecture her, but Johnny announces that he needs to go over to the school. He cannot yet tell Katie that he lost his job there.

Johnny’s brother, Georgie, tells him that they need another man at his restaurant to sing and wait on tables. As a result, he drifts back into the singing-waiting business and never takes another job. Katie tells Sissy about her fears and worries regarding the future. She also tells her older sister about the talk she had earlier with their mother. The idea of the bank interests Sissy so much that she gets out of the bed she is sharing with Katie and makes the bank right away out of a can of condensed milk.

Sissy starts the bank off by putting a nickel in. She then gets back into bed and gets excited again when Katie tells her about the two books for Francie. Sissy promises that she will get the books and that they will be the baby’s christening present. That night, Francie sleeps snugly between her mother and Aunt Sissy.

Sissy gets “a worn-out copy” of Shakespeare from the files at the library. The librarian gives it to her for a quarter because they were about to discard it. However, they cannot help her with getting a Bible. A few days after buying the volume of Shakespeare, Sissy wakes up one morning “in a quiet family hotel” beside her latest “John” (a man named Charlie) and points to a book on the dresser. He confirms that it’s a Protestant Bible. Sissy says that she’s going to take it and he says that would be fine; that’s why they put it there. Sissy is pleasantly surprised to learn this.

Charlie worries that Sissy is taking the Bible to reform him, in which case he’ll have to go back to his wife. Sissy says that she has no intention of doing this. Firstly, she can’t read. Secondly, she has no interest in what others think. She learns good from bad through how she feels about things. Charlie says that he wishes he could marry Sissy, but he’s Catholic and can’t get divorced. Sissy doesn’t mind. She doesn’t believe in divorce either.