Properties
- end_line
- 2886
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-27T17:16:46.102Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 2841
- text
- 2720 16
2721 After I had my breakfast, it was only around noon, and I wasn't meeting old Sally
2722 till two o'clock, so I started taking this long walk. I couldn't stop thinking about those two
2723 nuns. I kept thinking about that beatup old straw basket they went around collecting
2724 money with when they weren't teaching school. I kept trying to picture my mother or
2725 somebody, or my aunt, or Sally Hayes's crazy mother, standing outside some department
2726 store and collecting dough for poor people in a beat-up old straw basket. It was hard to
2727 picture. Not so much my mother, but those other two. My aunt's pretty charitable--she
2728 does a lot of Red Cross work and all--but she's very well-dressed and all, and when she
2729 does anything charitable she's always very well-dressed and has lipstick on and all that
2730 crap. I couldn't picture her doing anything for charity if she had to wear black clothes and
2731 no lipstick while she was doing it. And old Sally Hayes's mother. Jesus Christ. The only
<!-- [Page 62](arke:01KFYTAC8RJY0VCZ4TDHK83S62) -->
2732 way she could go around with a basket collecting dough would be if everybody kissed
2733 her ass for her when they made a contribution. If they just dropped their dough in her
2734 basket, then walked away without saying anything to her, ignoring her and all, she'd quit
2735 in about an hour. She'd get bored. She'd hand in her basket and then go someplace
2736 swanky for lunch. That's what I liked about those nuns. You could tell, for one thing, that
2737 they never went anywhere swanky for lunch. It made me so damn sad when I thought
2738 about it, their never going anywhere swanky for lunch or anything. I knew it wasn't too
2739 important, but it made me sad anyway.
2740 I started walking over toward Broadway, just for the hell of it, because I hadn't
2741 been over there in years. Besides, I wanted to find a record store that was open on
2742 Sunday. There was this record I wanted to get for Phoebe, called "Little Shirley Beans."
2743 It was a very hard record to get. It was about a little kid that wouldn't go out of the house
2744 because two of her front teeth were out and she was ashamed to. I heard it at Pencey. A
2745 boy that lived on the next floor had it, and I tried to buy it off him because I knew it
2746 would knock old Phoebe out, but he wouldn't sell it. It was a very old, terrific record that
2747 this colored girl singer, Estelle Fletcher, made about twenty years ago. She sings it very
2748 Dixieland and whorehouse, and it doesn't sound at all mushy. If a white girl was singing
2749 it, she'd make it sound cute as hell, but old Estelle Fletcher knew what the hell she was
2750 doing, and it was one of the best records I ever heard. I figured I'd buy it in some store
2751 that was open on Sunday and then I'd take it up to the park with me. It was Sunday and
2752 Phoebe goes rollerskating in the park on Sundays quite frequently. I knew where she
2753 hung out mostly.
2754 It wasn't as cold as it was the day before, but the sun still wasn't out, and it wasn't
2755 too nice for walking. But there was one nice thing. This family that you could tell just
2756 came out of some church were walking right in front of me--a father, a mother, and a
2757 little kid about six years old. They looked sort of poor. The father had on one of those
2758 pearl-gray hats that poor guys wear a lot when they want to look sharp. He and his wife
2759 were just walking along, talking, not paying any attention to their kid. The kid was swell.
2760 He was walking in the street, instead of on the sidewalk, but right next to the curb. He
2761 was making out like he was walking a very straight line, the way kids do, and the whole
2762 time he kept singing and humming. I got up closer so I could hear what he was singing.
2763 He was singing that song, "If a body catch a body coming through the rye." He had a
- title
- Chunk 1