Pride by William Wharton

scrambled eggs and bacon on Sunday morning. It’s the only time we have bacon because it’s so expensive. We each get two slices.
    â€œAnd after that Father Lanshee threw you out of the altar boys, is that right?”
    â€œThat’s right. I think he doesn’t want to take a chance of letting someone who might have a devil inside him get on the altar.”
    That’s when Dad starts laughing and I know it’s going to be all right.
    â€œDon’t you worry, Dickie; you don’t have any devils in you. Don’t you worry about it.
    â€œYou know, your grandfather, my father, has the same trouble with nails in his mouth. They’d get so wet they’d almost be rusty before he could drive them into the wood, and there would be a little puddle of spit around the top of each nail when it was pounded in.”
    I stare at him, hoping he’ll go on. I love to hear stories about my grandfather.
    â€œYou eat your egg and bacon now, Dickie. I guess there isn’t much chance of your going to communion anyhow. But you’d better get to that eleven-o’clock mass. It’s going to be a high mass and could last almost two hours. I guess that’ll pay off to God for you missing the nine-o’clock today.”
    He pushes the last of his egg into his mouth, takes the final crust of his bread and scoops out his plate; pushes the bread into the side of his mouth.
    â€œOne thing, Dickie. Don’t ever let anyone, I don’t care who it is, throw any erasers or anything at you again. You just walk out of there and when I come home, you tell me . I’ll take care of it. In fact I’m half tempted to go in and talk to that Sister Anastasia and Father Lanshee myself right now, but I’ve already got enough trouble to think about.”
    Over the next week I go every day to see the kittens. I never see the mother again. The third day I go, there are only four kittens; the black-and-white one is gone. All that’s left is one ear, the little paws with tiny claws and most of the tail.
    I figure a tomcat came in and ate it. Or maybe it could even be the mother. Jimmy Malony told me once how when cats are born in May the mother will eat them sometimes, but this is September. I can’t think of a way to keep tomcats out without keeping the mother away too.
    I start sitting across the alley in the areaway to see if I can catch the mother going in or out so I’ll know she’s feeding them, but she must only go in at night or during the day, when I’m at school. Or maybe she sees me hiding across the way and won’t go in while I’m there.
    Two days later, one of the striped cats is gone, all except two paws. The other kittens are starting to get their eyes open. This is the day Dad came home beaten up by goons the second time.
    He’d had to work overtime and they were waiting for him. Luckily he had his monkey wrench because he broke away, ran, got on a trolley car, where they couldn’t get to him.
    This time my mom is really crying. She wants Dad to stop being shop steward, to just do his job.
    Dad’s white and his hands shake while he’s reading the newspaper. He keeps making knots in his jaw, tight, the way he does when he chews, but he isn’t eating.
    I want to ask about the kittens disappearing and what I can do, but I’m afraid. He looks so strange. I don’t think of my father as somebody who gets scared, and it scares me seeing him this way.
    It’s Thursday of the second week after I found my kittens, when I go in and there’s only one left, the little brown one without a tail. I watch all the weekend, even eating lunch out there in the alley, but I never do see the mother cat go through that broken window; no other cat climbs through either.
    When I go in the garage he’s nuzzling in the mess at the bottom of the nest. By now, all the cloths are blood-soaked and there are pieces of kitten smashed into the cloth. As