Children of the Ghetto

Hannah bit her lip, instead of her bread and butter, for she felt she had brought the talk on herself. She had heard the same grumblings from her mother for two years. Mrs. Jacobs's maternal anxiety had begun when her daughter was seventeen. 'When I was seventeen,' she went on, 'I was a married woman. Now-a-days the girls don't begin to get a Chosan till they're twenty.'

'We are not living in Poland,' the Reb reminded her.

'What's that to do with it? It's the Jewish young men who want to marry gold.'

'Why blame them? A Jewish young man can marry several pieces of gold, but since Rabbenu Gershom he can only marry one woman,' said the Reb, laughing feebly and forcing his humor for his daughter's sake.

'One woman is more than thou canst support,' said the Rebbitzin, irritated into Yiddish, 'giving away the flesh from off thy children's bones. If thou hadst been a proper father thou wouldst have saved thy money for Hannah's dowry, instead of wasting it on a parcel of vagabond Schnorrers. Even so I can give her a good stock of bedding and under-linen. It's a reproach and a shame that thou hast not yet found her a husband. Thou canst find husbands quick enough for other men's daughters!'

'I found a husband for thy father's daughter,' said the Reb, with a roguish gleam in his brown eyes.

'Don't throw that up to me! I could have got plenty better. And my daughter wouldn't have known the shame of finding nobody to marry her. In Poland at least the youths would have flocked to marry her because she was a Rabbi's daughter, and they'd think It an honor to be a son-in-law of a Son of the Law. But in this godless country! Why in my village the Chief Rabbi's daughter, who was so ugly as to make one spit out, carried off the finest man in the district.'

'But thou, my Simcha, hadst no need to be connected with Rabbonim!'

'Oh, yes; make mockery of me.'

'I mean it. Thou art as a lily of Sharon.'

'Wilt thou have another cup of coffee, Shemuel?'

'Yes, my life. Wait but a little and thou shalt see our Hannah under the Chuppah.'

'Hast thou any one in thine eye?'

The Reb nodded his head mysteriously and winked the eye, as if nudging the person in it.

'Who is it, father?' said Levi. 'I do hope it's a real swell who talks English properly.'

'And mind you make yourself agreeable to him, Hannah,' said the Rebbitzin. 'You spoil all the matches I've tried to make for you by your stupid, stiff manner.'

'Look here, mother!' cried Hannah, pushing aside her cup violently. 'Am I going to have my breakfast in peace? I don't want to be married at all. I don't want any of your Jewish men coming round to examine me as if! were a horse, and wanting to know how much money you'll give them as a set-off. Let me be! Let me be single! It's my business, not yours.'

The Rebbitzin bent eyes of angry reproach on the Reb.

'What did I tell thee, Shemuel? She's meshugga-quite mad! Healthy and fresh and mad!'

'Yes, you'll drive me mad,' said Hannah savagely. 'Let me be! I'm too old now to get a Chosan, so let me be as I am. I can always earn my own living.'

'Thou seest, Shemuel?' said Simcha. 'Thou seest my sorrows? Thou seest how impious our children wax in this godless country.'

'Let her be, Simcha, let her be,' said the Reb. 'She is young yet. If she hasn't any inclination thereto-!'

'And what is her inclination? A pretty thing, forsooth! Is she going to make her mother a laughing-stock! Are Mrs. Jewell and Mrs. Abrahams to dandle grandchildren in my face, to gouge out my eyes with them! It isn't that she can't get young men. Only she is so high-blown. One would think she had a father who earned five hundred a year, instead of a man who scrambles half his salary among dirty Schnorrers.'

'Talk not like an Epicurean,' said the Reb. 'What are we all but Schnorrers, dependent on the charity of the Holy One, blessed be He? What! Have we made ourselves? Rather fall prostrate and thank Him that His bounties to us are so great that they include the privilege of giving charity to others.'

'But we work for our living!' said the Rebbitzin. 'I wear my knees away scrubbing.' External evidence pointed rather to the defrication of the nose.

'But, mother,' said Hannah. 'You know we have a servant to do the rough work.'

'Yes, servants!' said the Rebbitzin, contemptuously. 'If you don't stand over them as the Egyptian taskmasters over our forefathers, they don't do a stroke of work except breaking the crockery. I'd much rather sweep a room myself than see a Shiksah pottering about for an hour and end by leaving all the dust on the window-ledges and the corners of the mantelpiece. As for beds, I don't believe Shiksahs ever shake them! If I had my way I'd wring all their necks.'

'What's the use of always complaining?' said Hannah, impatiently. 'You know we must keep a Shiksah to attend to the Shabbos fire. The women or the little boys you pick up in the street are so unsatisfactory. When you call in a little barefoot street Arab and ask him to poke the fire, he looks at you as if you must be an imbecile not to be able to do it yourself. And then you can't always get hold of one.'

The Sabbath fire was one of the great difficulties of the Ghetto. The Rabbis had modified the Biblical prohibition against having any fire whatever, and allowed it to be kindled by non-Jews. Poor women, frequently Irish, and known as Shabbos-goyahs or fire-goyahs, acted as stokers to the Ghetto at twopence a hearth. No Jew ever touched a match or a candle or burnt a piece of paper, or even opened a letter. The Goyah, which is literally heathen female, did everything required on the Sabbath. His grandmother once called Solomon Ansell a Sabbath-female merely for fingering the shovel when there was nothing in the grate.

The Reb liked his fire. When it sank on the Sabbath he could not give orders to the Shiksah to replenish it, but he would rub his hands and remark casually (in her hearing), 'Ah, how cold it is!'

'Yes,' he said now, 'I always freeze on Shabbos when thou hast dismissed thy Shiksah. Thou makest me catch one cold a month.'

'I make thee catch cold!' said the Rebbitzin. 'When thou comest through the air of winter in thy shirt-sleeves! Thou'lt fall back upon me for poultices and mustard plasters. And then thou expectest me to have enough money to pay a Shiksah into the bargain! If I have any more of thy Schnorrers coming here I shall bundle them out neck and crop.'

This was the moment selected by Fate and Melchitsedek Pinchas for the latter's entry.

CHAPTER VII. THE NEO-HEBREW POET.

He came through the open street door, knocked perfunctorily at the door of the room, opened it and then kissed the Mezuzah outside the door. Then he advanced, snatched the Rebbitzin's hand away from the handle of the coffee-pot and kissed it with equal devotion. He then seized upon Hannah's hand and pressed his grimy lips to that, murmuring in German:

'Thou lookest so charming this morning, like the roses of Carmel.' Next he bent down and pressed his lips to the Reb's coat-tail. Finally he said: 'Good morning, sir,' to Levi, who replied very affably, 'Good morning, Mr. Pinchas,' 'Peace be unto you, Pinchas,' said the Reb. 'I did not see you in Shool this morning, though it was the New Moon.'

'No, I went to the Great Shool,' said Pinchas in German. 'If you do not see me at your place you may be sure I'm somewhere else. Any one who has lived so long as I in the Land of Israel cannot bear to pray without a quorum. In the Holy Land I used to learn for an hour in the Shool every morning before the service began. But I am not here to talk about myself. I come to ask you to do me the honor to accept a copy of my new volume of poems: Metatoron's Flames. Is it not a