Children of the Ghetto

steps forwards and commenced the silent delivery of the Amidah. Usually he gabbled off the 'Eighteen Blessings' in five minutes. To-day they were prolonged till he heard the footsteps of the returning parents. Then he scurried through the relics of the service at lightning speed. When Mr. and Mrs. Belcovitch re- entered the room they saw by his happy face that all was well and made no opposition to his instant departure.

He came again the next Sunday and was rejoiced to find that Becky was out, though he had hoped to find her in. The courtship made great strides that afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Belcovitch being more amiable than ever to compensate for Becky's private refusal to entertain the addresses of such a Schmuck. There had been sharp domestic discussions during the week, and Becky had only sniffed at her parents' commendations of Shosshi as a 'very worthy youth.' She declared that it was 'remission of sins merely to look at him.'

Next Sabbath Mr. and Mrs. Belcovitch paid a formal visit to Shosshi's parents to make their acquaintance, and partook of tea and cake. Becky was not with them; moreover she defiantly declared she would never be at home on a Sunday till Shosshi was married. They circumvented her by getting him up on a weekday. The image of Becky had been so often in his thoughts now that by the time he saw her the second time he was quite habituated to her appearance. He had even imagined his arm round her waist, but in practice he found he could go no further as yet than ordinary conversation.

Becky was sitting sewing buttonholes when Shosshi arrived. Everybody was there-Mr. Belcovitch pressing coats with hot irons; Fanny shaking the room with her heavy machine; Pesach Weingott cutting a piece of chalk- marked cloth; Mrs. Belcovitch carefully pouring out tablespoonfuls of medicine. There were even some outside 'hands,' work being unusually plentiful, as from the manifestos of Simon Wolf, the labor-leader, the slop manufacturers anticipated a strike.

Sustained by their presence, Shosshi felt a bold and gallant wooer. He determined that this time he would not go without having addressed at least one remark to the object of his affections. Grinning amiably at the company generally, by way of salutation, he made straight for Becky's corner. The terribly fine lady snorted at the sight of him, divining that she had been out-manoeuvred. Belcovitch surveyed the situation out of the corners of his eyes, not pausing a moment in his task.

'Nu, how goes it, Becky?' Shosshi murmured.

Becky said, 'All right, how are you?'

'God be thanked, I have nothing to complain of,' said Shosshi, encouraged by the warmth of his welcome. 'My eyes are rather weak, still, though much better than last year.'

Becky made no reply, so Shosshi continued: 'But my mother is always a sick person. She has to swallow bucketsful of cod liver oil. She cannot be long for this world.'

'Nonsense, nonsense,' put in Mrs. Belcovitch, appearing suddenly behind the lovers. 'My children's children shall never be any worse; it's all fancy with her, she coddles herself too much.'

'Oh, no, she says she's much worse than you,' Shosshi blurted out, turning round to face his future mother- in-law.

'Oh, indeed!' said Chayah angrily. 'My enemies shall have my maladies! If your mother had my health, she would be lying in bed with it. But I go about in a sick condition. I can hardly crawl around. Look at my legs-has your mother got such legs? One a thick one and one a thin one.'

Shosshi grew scarlet; he felt he had blundered. It was the first real shadow on his courtship-perhaps the little rift within the lute. He turned back to Becky for sympathy. There was no Becky. She had taken advantage of the conversation to slip away. He found her again in a moment though, at the other end of the room. She was seated before a machine. He crossed the room boldly and bent over her.

'Don't you feel cold, working?'

Br-r-r-r-r-r-h!

It was the machine turning. Becky had set the treadle going madly and was pushing a piece of cloth under the needle. When she paused, Shosshi said:

'Have you heard Reb Shemuel preach? He told a very amusing allegory last-'

Br-r-r-r-r-r-r-h!

Undaunted, Shosshi recounted the amusing allegory at length, and as the noise of her machine prevented Becky hearing a word she found his conversation endurable. After several more monologues, accompanied on the machine by Becky, Shosshi took his departure in high feather, promising to bring up specimens of his handiwork for her edification.

On his next visit he arrived with his arms laden with choice morsels of carpentry. He laid them on the table for her admiration.

They were odd knobs and rockers for Polish cradles! The pink of Becky's cheeks spread all over her face like a blot of red ink on a piece of porous paper. Shosshi's face reflected the color in even more ensanguined dyes. Becky rushed from the room and Shosshi heard her giggling madly on the staircase. It dawned upon him that he had displayed bad taste in his selection.

'What have you done to my child?' Mrs. Belcovitch inquired.

'N-n-othing,' he stammered; 'I only brought her some of my work to see.'

'And is this what one shows to a young girl?' demanded the mother indignantly.

'They are only bits of cradles,' said Shosshi deprecatingly. 'I thought she would like to see what nice workmanly things I turned out. See how smoothly these rockers are carved! There is a thick one, and there is a thin one!'

'Ah! Shameless droll! dost thou make mock of my legs, too?' said Mrs. Belcovitch. 'Out, impudent face, out with thee!'

Shosshi gathered up his specimens in his arms and fled through the door. Becky was still in hilarious eruption outside. The sight of her made confusion worse confounded. The knobs and rockers rolled thunderously down the stairs; Shosshi stumbled after them, picking them up on his course and wishing himself dead.

All Sugarman's strenuous efforts to patch up the affair failed. Shosshi went about broken-hearted for several days. To have been so near the goal-and then not to arrive after all! What made failure more bitter was that he had boasted of his conquest to his acquaintances, especially to the two who kept the stalls to the right and left of him on Sundays in Petticoat Lane. They made a butt of him as it was; he felt he could never stand between them for a whole morning now, and have Attic salt put upon his wounds. He shifted his position, arranging to pay sixpence a time for the privilege of fixing himself outside Widow Finkelstein's shop, which stood at the corner of a street, and might be presumed to intercept two streams of pedestrians. Widow Finkelstein's shop was a chandler's, and she did a large business in farthing-worths of boiling water. There was thus no possible rivalry between her ware and Shosshi's, which consisted of wooden candlesticks, little rocking chairs, stools, ash-trays, etc., piled up artistically on a barrow.

But Shosshi's luck had gone with the change of locus. His clientele went to the old spot but did not find him. He did not even make a hansel. At two o'clock he tied his articles to the barrow with a complicated arrangement of cords. Widow Finkelstein waddled out and demanded her sixpence. Shosshi replied that he had not taken sixpence, that the coign was not one of vantage. Widow Finkelstein stood up for her rights, and even hung on to the barrow for them. There was a short, sharp argument, a simultaneous jabbering, as of a pair of monkeys. Shosshi Shmendrik's pimply face worked with excited expostulation, Widow Finkelstein's cushion-like countenance was agitated by waves of righteous indignation. Suddenly Shosshi darted between the shafts and made a dash off with the barrow down the side street. But Widow Finkelstein pressed it down with all her force, arresting the motion like a drag. Incensed by the laughter of the spectators, Shosshi put forth all his strength at the shafts, jerked the widow off her feet and see-sawed her sky- wards, huddled up spherically like a balloon, but clinging as grimly as ever to the defalcating barrow. Then Shosshi started off at a run, the carpentry rattling, and the dead weight of his living burden making his muscles ache.

Right to the end of the street he dragged her, pursued by a hooting crowd. Then he stopped, worn out.

'Will you give me that sixpence, you Ganef!'

'No, I haven't got it. You'd better go back to your shop, else you'll suffer from worse thieves.'

It was true. Widow Finkelstein smote her wig in horror and hurried back to purvey treacle.

But that night when she shut up the shutters, she hurried off to Shosshi's address, which she had learned in the interim. His little brother opened the door and said Shosshi was in the shed.