Children of the Ghetto

Debby's face lit up as with a bonfire of joy. 'To-morrow we'll discuss matters further. And now, dear, can I help you with your sewing?'

'No, Esther, thank you kindly. You see there's only enough for one,' said Debby apologetically. 'To-morrow there may be more. Besides you were never as clever with your needle as your pen. You always used to lose marks for needlework, and don't you remember how you herring-boned the tucks of those petticoats instead of feather- stitching them? Ha, ha, ha! I have often laughed at the recollection.'

'Oh, that was only absence of mind,' said Esther, tossing her head in affected indignation. 'If my work isn't good enough for you, I think I'll go down and help Becky with her machine.' She put on her bonnet, and, not without curiosity, descended a flight, of stairs and knocked at a door which, from the steady whirr going on behind it, she judged to be that of the work-room.

'Art thou a man or a woman?' came in Yiddish the well-remembered tones of the valetudinarian lady.

'A woman!' answered Esther in German. She was glad she learned German; it would be the best substitute for Yiddish in her new-old life.

'Herein!' said Mrs. Belcovitch, with sentry-like brevity.

Esther turned the handle, and her surprise was not diminished when she found herself not in the work-room, but in the invalid's bedroom. She almost stumbled over the pail of fresh water, the supply of which was always kept there. A coarse bouncing full-figured young woman, with frizzly black hair, paused, with her foot on the treadle of her machine, to stare at the newcomer. Mrs. Belcovitch, attired in a skirt and a night-cap, stopped aghast in the act of combing out her wig, which hung over an edge of the back of a chair, that served as a barber's block. Like the apple-woman, she fancied the apparition a lady philanthropist-and though she had long ceased to take charity, the old instincts leaped out under the sudden shock.

'Becky, quick rub my leg with liniment, the thick one,' she whispered in Yiddish.

'It's only me, Esther Ansell!' cried the visitor.

'What! Esther!' cried Mrs. Belcovitch. 'Gott in Himmel!' and, throwing down the comb, she fell in excess of emotion upon Esther's neck. 'I have so often wanted to see you,' cried the sickly-looking little woman who hadn't altered a wrinkle. 'Often have I said to my Becky, where is little Esther?-gold one sees and silver one sees, but Esther sees one not. Is it not so, Becky? Oh, how fine you look! Why, I mistook you for a lady! You are married-not? Ah well, you'll find wooers as thick as the street dogs. And how goes it with the father and the family in America?'

'Excellently,' answered Esther. 'How are you, Becky?'

Becky murmured something, and the two young women shook hands. Esther had an olden awe of Becky, and Becky was now a little impressed by Esther.

'I suppose Mr. Weingott is getting a good living now in Manchester?' Esther remarked cheerfully to Mrs. Belcovitch.

'No, he has a hard struggle,' answered his mother-in-law, 'but I have seven grandchildren, God be thanked, and I expect an eighth. If my poor lambkin had been alive now, she would have been a great-grandmother. My eldest grandchild, Hertzel, has a talent for the fiddle. A gentleman is paying for his lessons, God be thanked. I suppose you have heard I won four pounds on the lotter_ee. You see I have not tried thirty years for nothing! If I only had my health, I should have little to grumble at. Yes, four pounds, and what think you I have bought with it? You shall see it inside. A cupboard with glass doors, such as we left behind in Poland, and we have hung the shelves with pink paper and made loops for silver forks to rest in-it makes me feel as if I had just cut off my tresses. But then I look on my Becky and I remember that-go thou inside, Becky, my life! Thou makest it too hard for him. Give him a word while I speak with Esther.'

Becky made a grimace and shrugged her shoulders, but disappeared through the door that led to the real workshop.

'A fine maid!' said the mother, her eyes following the girl with pride. 'No wonder she is so hard to please. She vexes him so that he eats out his heart. He comes every morning with a bag of cakes or an orange or a fat Dutch herring, and now she has moved her machine to my bedroom, where he can't follow her, the unhappy youth.'

'Who is it now?' inquired Esther in amusement.

'Shosshi Shmendrik.'

'Shosshi Shmendrik! Wasn't that the young man who married the Widow Finkelstein?'

'Yes-a very honorable and seemly youth. But she preferred her first husband,' said Mrs. Belcovitch laughing, 'and followed him only four years after Shosshi's marriage. Shosshi has now all her money-a very seemly and honorable youth.'

'But will it come to anything?'

'It is already settled. Becky gave in two days ago. After all, she will not always be young. The Tanaim will be held next Sunday. Perhaps you would like to come and see the betrothal contract signed. The Kovna Maggid will be here, and there will be rum and cakes to the heart's desire. Becky has Shosshi in great affection; they are just suited. Only she likes to tease, poor little thing. And then she is so shy. Go in and see them, and the cupboard with glass doors.'

Esther pushed open the door, and Mrs. Belcovitch resumed her loving manipulation of the wig.

The Belcovitch workshop was another of the landmarks of the past that had undergone no change, despite the cupboard with glass doors and the slight difference in the shape of the room. The paper roses still bloomed in the corners of the mirror, the cotton-labels still adorned the wall around it. The master's new umbrella still stood unopened in a corner. The 'hands' were other, but then Mr. Belcovitch's hands were always changing. He never employed 'union-men,' and his hirelings never stayed with him longer than they could help. One of the present batch, a bent, middle-aged man, with a deeply-lined face, was Simon Wolf, long since thrown over by the labor party he had created, and fallen lower and lower till he returned to the Belcovitch workshop whence he sprang. Wolf, who had a wife and six children, was grateful to Mr. Belcovitch in a dumb, sullen way, remembering how that capitalist had figured in his red rhetoric, though it was an extra pang of martyrdom to have to listen deferentially to Belcovitch's numerous political and economical fallacies. He would have preferred the curter dogmatism of earlier days. Shosshi Shmendrik was chatting quite gaily with Becky, and held her finger-tips cavalierly in his coarse fist, without obvious objection on her part. His face was still pimply, but it had lost its painful shyness and its readiness to blush without provocation. His bearing, too, was less clumsy and uncouth. Evidently, to love the Widow Finkelstein had been a liberal education to him. Becky had broken the news of Esther's arrival to her father, as was evident from the odor of turpentine emanating from the opened bottle of rum on the central table. Mr. Belcovitch, whose hair was gray now, but who seemed to have as much stamina as ever, held out his left hand (the right was wielding the pressing-iron) without moving another muscle.

'Nu, it gladdens me to see you are better off than of old,' he said gravely in Yiddish.

'Thank you. I am glad to see you looking so fresh and healthy,' replied Esther in German.

'You were taken away to be educated, was it not?'

'Yes.'

'And how many tongues do you know?'

'Four or five,' said Esther, smiling.

'Four or five!' repeated Mr. Belcovitch, so impressed that he stopped pressing. 'Then you can aspire to be a clerk! I know several firms where they have young women now.'

'Don't be ridiculous, father,' interposed Becky. 'Clerks aren't so grand now-a-days as they used to be. Very likely she would turn up her nose at a clerkship.'

'I'm sure I wouldn't,' said Esther.

'There! thou hearest!' said Mr. Belcovitch, with angry satisfaction. 'It is thou who hast too many flies in thy nostrils. Thou wouldst throw over Shosshi if thou hadst thine own way. Thou art the only person in the world who listens not to me. Abroad my word decides great matters. Three times has my name been printed in The Flag of Judah. Little Esther had not such a father as thou, but never did she make mock of him.'

'Of course, everybody's better than me,' said Becky petulantly, as she snatched her fingers away from Shosshi.

'No, thou art better than the whole world,' protested Shosshi Shmendrik, feeling for the fingers.