Yekl, by Abraham Cahan, 1896
A Tale of the New York Ghetto
D. Appleton and Company
Jake and Yekl
operatives of the cloak shop in which Jake
was employed had been idle all the morning.
was after twelve o'clock and the &boss&
had not yet returned from Broadway, whither he had
betaken himself two or three hours before in quest
The little sweltering assemblage--for it
was an oppressive day in midsummer--beguiled their
suspense variously.
A rabbinical-looking man of
thirty, who sat with the back of his chair tilted
against his sewing machine, was intent upon an
English newspaper.
Every little while he would
remove it from his eyes--showing a dyspeptic face
fringed with a thin growth of dark beard--to
consult the cumbrous dictionary on his knees.
young lads, one seated on the frame of the next
machine and the other standing, were boasting to
one another of their respective intimacies with
the leading actors of the Jewish stage.
of a third machine, in a corner of the same wall,
supported an open copy of a socialist magazine in
Yiddish, over which a cadaverous young man
absorbedly swayed to and fro droning in the
Talmudical intonation.
A middle-aged operative,
with huge red side whiskers, who was perched on
the presser's table in the corner opposite, was
mending his own coat.
While the thick-set presser
and all the three women of the shop, occupying the
three machines ranged against an adjoining wall,
formed an attentive audience to an impromptu
lecture upon the comparative merits of Boston and
New York by Jake.
He had been speaking for some time.
in the middle of the overcrowded stuffy room with
his long but well-shaped legs wide apart, his
bulky round head aslant, and one of his bared
mighty arms akimbo.
He spoke in Boston Yiddish,
that is to say, in Yiddish more copiously spiced
with mutilated English than is the language of the
metropolitan Ghetto in which our story lies.
had a deep and rather harsh voice, and his r's
could do credit to the thickest Irish brogue.
&When I was in Boston,& he went on,
with a contemptuous mien intended for the American
metropolis, &I knew a feller,
was a preticly
friend of John Shullivan's.
a Christian, that feller is, and yet the two of us
lived like brothers.
May I be unable to move from
this spot if we did not.
How, then, would you
have it? Like here, in New York, where the Jews are
of greenhornsh
and can not speak a word of
English? Over there every Jew speaks English like a
English words incorporated in the
Yiddish of the characters of this narrative are
given in italics.
&Say, Dzake,& the presser broke in,
&John Sullivan is tzampion
no longer, is
Not always is it holiday!&
Jake responded, with what he considered a Yankee
jerk of his head.
&Why, don't you know
Jimmie Corbett leaked
him, and Jimmie leaked
Cholly Meetchel, too.
You can betch you' bootsh!
Johnnie could not leak Chollie, becaush
big bluffer, Chollie is,& he pursued, his
clean-shaven florid face beaming with enthusiasm
for his subject, and with pride in the
diminutive proper nouns he flaunted.
Jimmie pundished
Oh, didn't he knock him out
off shight!
He came near making a meat ball of
him&--with a chuckle.
&He tzettled
in three roynds.
I knew a feller who had seen the
&What is a rawnd, Dzake?& the
presser inquired.
Jake's answer to the question carried him into
a minute exposition of
&right-handers,&
&left-handers,& &sending to
sleep,& &first blood,& and other
commodities of the fistic business.
He must have
treated the subject rather too scientifically,
however, for his female listeners obviously
paid more attention to what he did in the course
of the boxing match, which he had now and then, by
way of illustration, with the thick air of the
room, than to the verbal part of his lecture.
Nay, even the performances of his brawny arms and
magnificent form did not charm them as much as he
thought they did.
For a display of manly force,
when connected--even though in a purely imaginary
way--with acts of violence, has little attraction
for a &daughter of the Ghetto.& Much
more interest did those arms and form command on
their own merits.
Nor was his chubby high-colored
face neglected.
True, there was a suggestion of
the bu but this effect was
lost upon the feminine portion of Jake's audience,
for his features, illuminated by a pair of eager
eyes of a hazel hue, and shaded by a thick crop of
dark hair, were, after all, rather pleasing than
otherwise.
Strongly Semitic naturally, they
became still more so each time they were
brightened up by his good-natured boyish smile.
Indeed, Jake's very nose, which was fleshy and
pear-shaped and decidedly not Jewish (although not
decidedly anything else), seemed to join the
Mosaic faith, and even his shaven upper lip looked
penitent, as soon as that smile of his made its
appearance.
&Nice fun that!& observed the
side-whiskered man, who had stopped sewing to
follow Jake's exhibition.
&Fighting--like
drunken moujiks in Russia!&
&Tarrarra-boom-de-ay!& was Jake's
and for an exclamation mark he
puffed up his cheeks into a balloon, and exploded
it by a &pawnch & of his formidable fist.
&Look, I beg you, look at his dog's
tricks!& the other said in disgust.
&Horse's head that you are!& Jake
rejoined good-humoredly.
&Do you mean to
tell me that a moujik understands how to fight?
disease he does!
He only knows how to strike like
a bear [Jake adapted his voice and gesticulation
to the idea of clumsiness], an' dot'sh ull!
does he care where his paw will land, so he
here one must observe
[rules].& At this point Meester
Bernstein--for so the rabbinical-looking man was
usually addressed by his shopmates--looked up from
his dictionary.
&Can't you see?& he interposed, with
an air of assumed gravity as he turned to Jake's
opponent, &America is an educated country, so
they won't even break bones without grammar.
tear each other's sides according to 'right and
you know.& This was a thrust at
Jake's right-handers and left handers, which had
interfered with Bernstein's reading.
&Nevertheless,& the latter proceeded,
when the outburst of laughter which greeted his
witticism had subsided, &I do think that a
burly Russian peasant would, without a bit of
grammar, crunch the bones of C and
he would not charge
him a cent for it,
A term relating to the Hebrew
equivalent of the letter s,
pronunciation depends upon the right or left
position of a mark over it.
&Is dot sho?&
Jake retorted,
somewhat nonplussed.
&I betch you
would not.
The peasant would lie bleeding like a
hog before he had time to turn around.&
they might kill each other in
that way, ain't it,
Jake?& asked a
comely, milk-faced blonde whose name was Fanny.
She was celebrated for her lengthy tirades, mostly
in a plaintive, nagging strain, and delivered in
her quiet, piping voice, and had accordingly been
dubbed &The Preacher.&
&Oh, that will happen but very
seldom,& Jake returned rather glumly.
The theatrical pair broke off their boasting
match to join in the debate, which soon included
the former two, together
with the two girls and the presser, espousing the
American cause, while Malke the widow and &De
Viskes& sided with Bernstein.
&Let it be as you say,& said the
leader of the minority, withdrawing from the
contest to resume his newspaper.
grandma's last care it is who can fight
&Nice pleasure, anyhull,&
remarked the widow.
we shall see
how it will lie in his head when he has a wife and
children to support.&
Jake colored.
&What does a chicken
know about these things?& he said
irascibly.
Bernstein again could not help intervening.
&And you, Jake, can not do without 'these
things,' can you?
Indeed, I do not see how you
manage to live without them.&
&Don't you like it?
I do,& Jake
declared tartly.
&Once I live in
America,& he pursued, on the defensive,
&I want to know that I live in America.
Dot'sh a' kin' a man I am!
One must not
be a greenhorn.
Here a Jew is as good as
a Gentile.
How, then, would you have it?
it is in Russia, where a Jew is afraid to stand
within four ells of a Christian?&
&Are there no other Christians than
in America?& Bernstein
objected with an amused smile.
&Why don't
you look for the educated ones?&
&Do you mean to say the fighters
are not ejecate?
Better than you,
Jake said with a Yankee wink,
followed by his Semitic smile.
read the papers, and yet I'll betch you
don't know that Corbett findished
&I never read about fighters,&
Bernstein replied with a bored gesture, and turned
to his paper.
&Then say that you don't know, and
dot'sh ull!&
Bernstein made no reply.
In his heart Jake
respected him, and was now anxious to vindicate
his tastes in the judgment of his scholarly
shopmate and in his own.
&Alla right,
the fighters
are not ejecate.
not a bit?& he said ironically, continuing to
address himself to Bernstein.
&But what will
you say to baseball?
All college boys
and tony peoplesh
play it,& he
concluded triumphantly.
Bernstein remained
silent, his eyes riveted to his newspaper.
&Ah, you don't answer, shee?&
said Jake, feeling put out.
The awkward pause which followed was relieved
by one of the playgoers who wanted to know whether
it was true that to pitch a ball required more
skill than to catch one.
You must know how to
Jake rejoined with the cloud
lingering on his brow, as he lukewarmly delivered
an imaginary ball.
&And I, for my part, don't see what
wisdom there is to it,& said the presser with
&I think I could throw,
&He can do everything!& laughingly
remarked a girl named Pess&.
&How hard can you hit?& Jake
demanded sarcastically, somewhat warming up to the
&As hard as you at any time.&
&I betch you a dullar to you' ten
you can not,& Jake answered, and at
the same moment he fished out a handful of coin
from his trousers pocket and challengingly
presented it close to his interlocutor's nose.
&There he goes!--betting!& the
presser exclaimed, drawing slightly back.
&For my part, your pitzers
may all lie in the earth.
entertainment, indeed!
Just like little
children--playing ball!
And yet people say
America is a smart
I don't see
you don't, becaush
you are a bedraggled greenhorn,
to budge out of Heshter Shtreet.& As Jake thus
vented his bad humor on his adversary, he cast a
glance at Bernstein, as if anxious to attract his
attention and to re-engage him in the
discussion.
&Look at the Yankee!& the presser
shot back.
&More of a one than you,
&He thinks that shaving
mustache makes a Yankee!&
Jake turned white with rage.
&'Pon my vord,
I'll ride into his
mug and give such a shaving
and planing to
his pig's snout that he will have to pick up his
&That's all you are good for.&
&Better don't answer him, Jake,&
said Fanny, intimately.
&Oh, I came near forgetting that he has
somebody to take his part!& snapped the
The girl's milky face became a fiery red, and
she retorted in vituperative Yiddish from that
vocabulary which is the undivided possession of
The presser jerked out an innuendo still
more far-reaching than his first.
Jake, with
bloodshot eyes, leaped at the offender, and
catching him by the front of his waistcoat, was
aiming one of those bearlike blows which but a
short while ago he had decried in the moujik, when
Bernstein sprang to his side and tore him away,
Pess& placing herself between the two
&Don't get excited,& Bernstein
coaxed him
&Better don't soil your hands,&
Fanny added.
After a slight pause Bernstein could not
forbear a remark which he had stubbornly repressed
while Jake was challenging him to a debate on the
education of baseball players: &Look here,
J since fighters and baseball men are all
educated, then why don't you try to become so?
Instead of spending
your money on fights,
dancing, and things like that, would it not be
better if you paid it to a teacher?&
Jake flew into a fresh passion.
&Never min'
what I do with my
money,& &I don't steal it from
you, do I?
Rejoice that you keep tormenting your
Much does he know!
Learning, learning,
and learning, and still he can not speak English.
I don't learn and yet I speak quicker than
A deep blush of wounded vanity mounted to
Bernstein's sallow cheek.
&Ull right, ull
he cut the conversation short,
and took up the newspaper.
Another nervous silence fell upon the group.
Jake felt wretched.
He uttered an English oath,
which in his heart he directed against himself as
much as against his sedate companion, and fell to
frowning upon the leg of a machine.
&Vill you go by Joe tonight?& asked
Fanny in English, speaking in an undertone.
was a dancing master.
She was sure Jake intended
to call at his &academy& that evening,
and she put the question only in order to help him
out of his sour mood.
&No,& said Jake, morosely.
&Vy, today is Vensday.&
&And without you I don't know it!&
he snarled in Yiddish.
The finisher girl blushed
deeply and refrained from any response.
&He does look like a regely
Yankee, doesn't he?& Pess& whispered
to her after a little.
&Go and ask him!&
&Go and hang yourself together with him!
Such a nasty preacher!
Did you ever hear--one
dares not say a word to the noblewoman!&
At this juncture the boss, a dwarfish little
Jew, with a vivid pair of eyes and a shaggy black
beard, darted into the chamber.
&It is no used!&
he said with
a gesture of despair.
&There is not a stitch
of work, if only for a cure.
Look, look how they
have lowered their noses!& he then added with
a triumphant grin.
I shall not
be teasing you.
'Pity living things!' The
expressman is darn stess.
I would not go
till I saw him start,
and then I caught a
No other boss
could get a single
jacket even if he fell upon his knees.
do you appreciate it at least?
much, ay?&
The presser rushed out of the room and
presently came back laden with bundles of cut
cloth which he threw down on the table.
scramble ensued.
The presser looked on
indifferently.
The three finisher women, who had
awaited the advent of the bundles as eagerly as
the men, now calmly put on their hats.
that their part of the work wouldn't come before
three o'clock, and so, overjoyed by the certainty
of employment for at least another day or two,
they departed till that hour.
&Look at the rush they are making!
like the locusts of Egypt!& the boss cried
half sternly and half with self-complacent humor,
as he shielded the treasure with both his arms
from all except &De Viskes& and
Jake--the two being what is called in sweatshop
parlance, &chance-mentshen,&
i.e., favorites.
&Don't be snatching and
catching like that,& the boss went on.
&You may burn your fingers.
Go to your
machines, I say!
The soup will be served in
separate plates.
Never fear, it won't get
The hands at last desisted gingerly, Jake and
the whiskered operator carrying off two of the
largest bundles.
The others went to their
machines empty-handed and remained seated, their
hungry glances riveted to the booty, until they,
too, were provided.
The little boss distributed the bundles with
dignified deliberation.
In point of fact, he was
no less impatient to have the work started than
any of his employees.
But in him the feeling was
overriden by a kind of malicious pleasure which he
took in their eagerness and in the demonstration
of his power over the men, some of whom he knew to
have enjoyed a more comfortable past than himself.
The machines of Jake and &De Viskes& led
off in a duet, which presently became a trio, and
in another few minutes the floor was fairly
dancing to the ear-piercing discords of the whole
frantic sextet.
In the excitement of the scene called forth by
the appearance of the bundles, Jake's gloomy mood
had melted away.
Nevertheless, while his machine
was delivering its first shrill staccatos, his
heart recited a vow: &As soon as I get my pay
I shall call on the installment man and give him a
deposit for a ticket.& The prospective ticket
was to be for a passage across the Atlantic from
Hamburg to New York.
And as the notion of it
passed through Jake's mind it evoked there the
image of a dark-eyed young woman with a babe in
However, as the sewing machine throbbed
and writhed under Jake's lusty kicks, it seemed to
be swiftly carrying him away from the apparition
which had the effect of receding, as a wayside
object does from the passenger of a flying train,
until it lost itself in a misty distance, other
visions emerging in its place.
It was some three years before the opening of
this story that Jake had last beheld that very
image in the flesh.
But then at that period of
his life he had not even suspected the existence
of a name like Jake, being known to himself and to
all Povodye--a town in northwestern Russia--as
Yekl or Yekel&.
It was not as a deserter from military service
that he had shaken off the dust of that town where
he had passed the first twenty-two years of his
As the only son of aged parents he had been
exempt from the duty of bearing arms.
have forgotten it, but his mother still frequently
recurs to the day when he came rushing home,
panting for breath, with the &red
certificate& assuring his immunity in his
She nearly fainted for happiness.
when, stroking his dishevelled sidelocks with her
bony hand and feasting her eye on his chubby face,
she whispered, &My recovered child!
blessed for his mercy!& there was a joyous
tear in his eye as well as in hers.
Well does she
remember how she gently spat on his forehead three
times to avert the effect of a possible evil eye
on her &flourishing tree of a boy,& and
how his father standing by made merry over what he
called her crazy womanish tricks, and said she had
better fetch some brandy in honor of the glad
But if Yekl was averse to wearing a soldier's
uniform on his own person he was none the less
fond of seeing it on others.
His ruling passion,
even after he had become a husband and a father,
was to watch the soldiers drilling on the square
in front of the whitewashed barracks near which
stood his father's smithy.
From a cheder
boy he showed a knack at placing himself on terms
of familiarity with the Jewish members of the
local regiment, whose uniforms struck terror into
the hearts of his schoolmates.
He would often
play truant to atte no lad in
town knew so many Russian words or was as well
versed in army terminology as Yekel&
&Beril the blacksmith's;& and after he
had left cheder, while working his father's
bellows, Yekl would vary synagogue airs with
martial song.
A school where Jewish children
are instructed in the Old Testament or the
Three years had passed since Yekl had for the
last time set his eyes on the whitewashed barracks
and on his father's rickety smithy, which, for
reasons indirectly connected with the Government's
redoubled discrimination against the sons of
Israel, had become inadequate to support two
three years since that beautiful summer
morning when he had mounted the spacious
which was to carry him to the
frontier- since, hurried by the
driver, he had leaned out of the wagon to kiss his
half-year-old son good-bye amid the heart-rending
lamentations of his wife, the tremulous &Go
in good health!& of his father, and the
startled screams of the neighbors who rushed to
the relief of his fainting mother.
The broken
Russian learned among the Povodye soldiers he had
exchanged for English of a corresponding quality,
and the bellows for a sewing machine--a change of
weapons in the battle of life which had been
brought about both by Yekl's tender religious
feelings and robust legs.
He had been shocked by
the very notion of seeking employment at his old
trade in a city where it is in the hands of
Christians, and consequently involves a violation
of the Mosaic Sabbath.
On the other hand, his
legs had been thought by his early American
advisers eminently fitted for the treadle.
New York, the Jewish sweatshops of Boston keep in
line, as a rule, with the Christian factories in
observing Sunday as the only day of rest.
is, however, even in Boston a lingering minority
of bosses--more particularly in the
&pants&-making branch--who abide by the Sabbath of
their fathers.
Accordingly, it was under one of
these that Yekl had first been initiated into the
sweatshop world.
Subsequently Jake, following numerous
examples, had given up &pants& for the
more remunerative cloaks, and having rapidly
attained skill in his new trade he had moved to
New York, the center of the cloak-making
Soon after his arrival in Boston his religious
scruples had followed in the wake of his former
and if he was still free from work on
Saturdays he found many another way of
&desecrating the Sabbath.&
Three years had intervened since he had first
set foot on American soil, and the thought of ever
having been a Yekl would bring to Jake's lips a
smile of patronizing commiseration for his former
As to his Russian family name, which was
Podkovnik, Jake's friends had such rare use for it
that by mere negligence it had been left
The New York Ghetto
was after seven in the evening when Jake
finished his last jacket.
Some of the operators
had laid down their work before, while others cast
an envious glance on him as he was dressing to
leave, and fell to their machines with reluctantly
redoubled energy.
Fanny was a week worker and her
but on this occasion
her toilet had taken an uncommonly long time, and
she was not ready until Jake got up from his
Then she left the room rather suddenly and
with a demonstrative &Good-night
When Jake reached the street he found her on
the sidewalk, making a pretense of brushing one of
her sleeves with the cuff of the other.
&So kvick?& she asked, raising her
head in feigned surprise.
&You cull dot kvick?& he returned
&Good-bye!&
&Say, ain't you goin' to dance tonight,
really?& she queried shamefacedly.
&I tol' you I vouldn't.&
&What does she want of me?&
he complained to himself proceeding on his way.
He grew conscious of his low spirits, and, tracing
them with some effort to their source, he became
gloomier still.
&No more fun
for me!& he decided.
&I shall get them
over here and begin a new life.&
After supper, which he had taken, as usual, at
his lodgings, he went out for a walk.
firmly determined to keep himself from visiting
Joe Peltner's dancing academy, and accordingly he
took a direction opposite to Suffolk Street, where
that establishment was situated.
Having passed a
few blocks, however, his feet, contrary to his
will, turned into a side street and thence into
one leading to Suffolk.
&I shall only drop
in to tell Joe that I can not sell any of his ball
tickets, and return them,& he attempted to
deceive his own conscience.
Hailing this pretext
with delight he quickened his pace as much as the
overcrowded sidewalks would allow.
He had to pick and nudge his way through dense
swarms of bedraggled half- past
garbage barrels rearing their overflowing contents
in sickening piles, and lining the streets in
malicious suggest underneath
tiers and tiers of fire escapes, barricaded and
festooned with mattresses, pillows, and
featherbeds not yet gathered in for the night.
The pent-in sultry atmosphere was laden with
nausea and pierced with a discordant and, as it
were, plaintive buzz.
Supper had been despatched
in a hurry, and the teeming populations of the
cyclopic tenement houses were out in full force
&for fresh air,& as even these people
will say in mental quotation marks.
Suffolk Street is in the very thick of the
battle for breath.
For it lies in the heart of
that part of the East Side which has within the
last two or three decades become the Ghetto of the
American metropolis, and, indeed, the metropolis
of the Ghettos of the world.
It is one of the
most densely populated spots on the face of the
earth--a seething human sea fed by streams,
streamlets, and rills of immigration flowing from
all the Yiddish-speaking centers of Europe.
Hardly a block but shelters Jews from every nook
and corner of Russia, Poland, Galicia, Hungary,
R Lithuanian Jews, Volhynian Jews,
south Russian Jews, Bessarabian J
Jews crowded out of the &pale of Jewish
settlement&; Russified Jews expelled from
Moscow, St.
Petersburg, Kieff, or S
Jewish r Jewish refugees
from crying political and e
people torn from a hard-gained foothold in life
and from deep-rooted attachments by the caprice
of intolerance or the wiles of
demagoguery--innocent scapegoats of a guilty
Government for its outraged populace to misspend
students shut out of the
Russian universities, and come to these shores in
artisans, merchants, teachers,
rabbis, artists, beggars--all come in search of
Nor is there a tenement house but
harbors in its bosom specimens of all the
whimsical metamorphoses wrought upon the children
of Israel of the great modern exodus by the
vicissitudes of life in this their Promised Land
You find there Jews born to plenty,
whom the new conditions have delivered up to the
Jews reared in the straits of
need, who have here good
people morally degraded in the struggle for
success amid an
outcasts lifted from the mire, purified, and
imbued with self- educated men and women
with their intellectual polish tarnished in the
ignorant sons of
toil grown enlightened--in fine, people with all
sorts of antecedents, tastes, habits,
inclinations, and speaking all sorts of
subdialects of the same jargon, thrown pellmell
into one social caldron--a human hodgepodge with
its component parts changed but not yet fused into
one homogeneous whole.
And so the &stoops,& sidewalks, and
pavements of Suffolk Street were thronged with
panting, chattering, or frisking multitudes.
one spot the scene received a kind of weird
picturesqueness from children dancing on the
pavement to the strident music hurled out into the
tumultuous din from a row of the open and brightly
illuminated windows of what appeared to be a new
tenement house.
Some of the young women on the
sidewalk opposite raised a longing eye to these
windows, for
floating by through the dazzling light within
were young women like themselves with masculine
arms round their waists.
As the spectacle caught Jake's eye his heart
gave a leap.
He violently pushed his way through
the waltzing swarm, and dived into the half-dark
corridor of the house whence the music issued.
Presently he found himself on the threshold and in
the overpowering air of a spacious oblong chamber,
alive with a damp-haired, dishevelled, reeking
crowd--an uproarious human vortex, whirling to
the squeaky notes of a violin and the thumping of
The room was, judging by its untidy,
once-whitewashed walls and the uncouth wooden
pillars supporting its bare ceiling, more
accustomed to the whir of sewing machines than to
the noises which filled it at the present moment.
It took up the whole of the first floor of a
five-story house built for large sweatshops, and
until recently it had served its original purpose
as faithfully as the four upper floors, which were
still the daily scenes of feverish industry.
the further end of the room there was now a marble
soda fountain in charge of an unkempt boy.
stocky young man with a black entanglement of
coarse curly hair was bustling about among the
Now and then he would pause with his
eyes bent upon some two pairs of feet, and fall to
clapping time and drawling out in a preoccupied
sing-song: &Von, two, tree!
Leeft you' feet!
Don' so kvick--sloy, sloy!
Von, two, tree, von,
two, tree!& This was Professor Peltner
himself, whose curly hair, by the way, had more to
do with the success of his institution than his
stumpy legs, which, according to the unanimous
dictum of his male pupils, moved about &like
pair of bears.&
The throng showed but a very scant sprinkling
of plump cheeks and shapely figures in a multitude
of haggard faces and flacid forms.
Nearly all
were in their workaday clothes, very few of the
men sporting a wilted white shirt front.
while the general effect of the kaleidoscope was
one of boisterous hilarity, many of the individual
couples somehow had the air
of being engaged in hard toil rather than as
if they were dancing for amusement.
The faces of
some of these bore a wondering martyrlike
expression, as who should say, &What have we
done to be knocked about in this manner?& For
the rest, there were all sorts of attitudes and
miens in the whirling crowd.
One young fellow,
for example, seemed to be threatening vengeance
to the ceiling, while his partner was all but
exultantly exclaiming: &Lord of the universe!
What a world this be!& Another maiden looked
as if she kept murmuring, &You don't
say!& whereas her cavalier mutely ejaculated,
&Glad to try my best, your noble
birth!&--after the fashion of a Russian
The prevailing stature of the assemblage was
rather below medium.
This does not include the
dozen or two of undergrown lasses of fourteen or
thirteen who had come surreptitiously,
and--to allay the suspicion of their mothers--in
their white aprons.
They accordingly had only
these articles to check at the hat box, and hence
the nickname of &apron-check ladies,& by
which this truant contingent was known at Joe's
So that as Jake now stood in the doorway
with an orphaned collar button glistening out of
the band of his collarless shirt front and an
affected expression of ennui
overshadowing
his face, his strapping figure towered over the
circling throng before him.
He was immediately
noticed and became the target for hellos, smiles,
winks, and all manner of pleasantry: &Vot you
stand like dot?
You vont to loin dantz?
&You a detectiff?& or &You vont a
job?& or, again, &Is it hot anawfffor
you?& To all of which Jake returned an
invariable &Yep!& each time resuming
his bored mien.
As he thus gazed at the dancers, a feeling of
envy came over him.
&Look at them!& he
said to himself begrudgingly.
&How merry
Such shnoozes,
they can hardly
set a foot well, and yet they are free, while I am
a married man.
But wait till you get married,
too,& he prospectively avenged himself on
Joe' &we shall see how you will then
dance and jump!&
Presently a wave of Joe's hand brought the
music and the
trampling to a pause.
The girls at once took
their seats on the &ladies' bench,&
while the bulk of the men retired to the side
reserved for &gents only.& Several
apparent post-graduates nonchalantly overstepped
the boundary line, and, nothing daunted by the
professor's repeated &Zents to de right an'
ladess to the left!& unrestrainedly kept
their girls chuckling.
At all events, Joe soon
desisted, his attention being diverted by the soda
department of his business.
he sang out.
&Ull kin's!
Sam, you ought
ashamed you' vy don'tz you treat you
In the meantime Jake was the center of a
growing bevy of both sexes.
He refused to unbend
and to enter into their facetious mood, and his
morose air became the topic of their
persiflage.
By-and-by Joe came scuttling up to his side.
&Goot-evenig, Dzake!&
&I didn't seen you at ull!
Say, Dzake, I'll
take care dis site an' you take care dot site--ull
&Alla right!& Jake responded
&Gentsh, getch you partnesh, hawrry
up!& he commanded in another instant.
The sentence was echoed by the dancing master,
who then blew on his whistle a prolonged shrill
warble, and once again the floor was set straining
under some two hundred pounding, gliding, or
scraping feet.
&Don' bee 'fraid.
Gu right aheat an'
getch you partner!& Jake went on yelling
right and left.
&Don' be 'shamed, Mish
Dansh mit dot gentlemarn!& he said,
as he unceremoniously encircled Miss Cohen's
waist with &dot gentlemarn's& arm.
vot's de madder mitch you? You
do hop like a Cossack, as true as I am a
Jew,& he added, indulging in a momentary
lapse into Yiddish.
English was the official
language of the academy, where it was broken and
mispronounced in as many different ways as there
were Yiddish dialects represented in that
institution.
&Dot'sh de vay, look!&
With which Jake seized from Charley a lanky
fourteen-year-old Miss Jacobs, and proceeded to
set an example of correct waltzing,
much to the unconcealed delight of the girl,
who let her head rest on his breast with an air of
reverential gratitude and bliss, and to the
embarrassment of her cavalier, who looked at the
evolutions of Jake's feet without seeing.
Presently Jake was beckoned away to a corner
by Joe, where upon Miss Jacobs, looking daggers at
the little professor, sulked off to a distant
&Dzake, hask Mamie to gib
dot feller a couple a dantzes,& Joe said
imploringly, pointing to an ungainly young man who
was timidly viewing the pandemonium-like
spectacle from the further end of the &gent's
bench.& &I hasked 'er myself, but se
don' vonted.
He's a beesness man, you 'destan',
an' he kan a lot o' fellers an' I vonted make him
satetzfiet.&
&Dot monkey?& said Jake.
you talkin' aboyt!
She vouldn't lishn to me
neider, honesht.&
&Say dot you don' vonted and dot's
&A I'm goin' to ashk her, but I
know it vouldn't be of naw used.&
&Never mm, you hask 'er foist.
se vouldn't refuse you!& Joe urged,
with a knowing grin.
&Hoy much vill you bet she will refushe
shaw?& Jake rejoined with insincere
vehemence, as he whipped out a handful of
&Vot kin' foon a man you are!
like to bet!& said Joe, deprecatingly.
&'F cuss it depend mit vot kin' a mout' you
vill hask, you 'destan'?&
&By gum, Jaw!
Vot you take me for?
I shay I ashk, I ashk.
You knaw I don' like no
monkey beeshnesh.
Ven I promish anytink I do it
shquare, dot'sh a kin' a man I
And once more protesting his firm conviction that
Mamie would disregard his request, he started to
prove that she would not.
He had to traverse nearly the entire length of
the hall, and, notwithstanding that he was
compelled to steer clear of the dancers, he
contrived to effect the passage at the swellest of
his gaits, which means that he jauntily bobbed and
lurched, after the manner of a blacksmith tugging
at the bellows, and held up his enormous bullet
head as if he were bidding defiance to the whole
Finally he paused in front of a girl with
a superabundance of pitch-black side bangs and
with a pert, ill-natured, pretty face of the
most strikingly Semitic cast in the whole
gathering.
She looked twenty-three or more, was
inclined to plumpness, and her shrewd deep dark
eyes gleamed out of a warm gipsy complexion.
found her seated in a fatigued attitude on a chair
near the piano.
&Good-evenig, Mamie!& he said,
bowing with mock gallantry.
&Shay, Mamie, give dot feller a tvisht,
vill you?&
&Dot slob again?
Joe must tink if you
ask me I'll get scared, ain't it?
tell him he is too fresh,& she said with a
contemptuous grimace.
Like the majority of the
girls of the academy, Mamie's English was a much
nearer approach to a justification of its name
than the gibberish spoken by the men.
J but he put a bold face on it
and broke out with studied resentment:
&Vot you kickin' aboyt, anyhoy?
mean notin' at ull.
If you don' vonted never
min', an' dot'sh ull.
It don' cut a figger,
shee?& And he feignedly turned to go.
&Look how kvick he gets excited!&
she said, surrenderingly.
&I ain't get
but vot'sh de used a makin'
monkey beesnesh?& he retorted with triumphant
&You are a monkey you'self,& she
returned with a playful pout.
The compliment was acknowledged by one of
Jake's blandest grins.
&An' you are a monkey from
monkeyland,& he said.
&Vill you dansh
mit dot feller?&
Vot vill you give me?&
&Vot should I give you?& he asked
impatiently.
&Vill you treat?&
Ger--rr oyt!& he replied
with a sweeping kick at space.
&Den I von't dance.&
&Alla right.
I'll treat you mit a coupel
a waltch.&
&Is dot so?
You must really tink I am
swooning to dance vit you,& she said,
dividing the remark between both jargons.
&Look at her, look!
one must take off one's cap
to speak to her.
Don't you always say you like to
with me becush
I am a good
A crucifix.
&You must tink you are a peach of a
dancer, am' it?
Bennie can dance a sight
better dan you,& she recurred to her
&Alla right!& he said tartly.
&So you don' vonted?&
He is gettin' mad again.
Vell, who is de getzke, me or you?
All right,
I'll dance vid de slob.
But it's only becuss you
ask me, mind you!& she added fawningly.
&Dot'sh alla right!& he rejoined,
with an affectation of gravity, concealing his
&But you makin' too much fush.
like to shpeak plain, shee?
Dot'sh a kin' a man I
The next two waltzes Mamie danced with the
ungainly novice, taking exaggerated pains with
Then came a lancers, Joe calling out the
successive movements huckster fashion.
command was followed by less than half of the
class, however, for the greater part preferred to
avail themselves of the same music for waltzing.
Jake was bent upon giving Mamie what he called a
&sholid good time&; and, as she shared
his view that a square or fancy dance was as
flimsy an affair as a stick of candy, they joined
or, rather, led the seceding majority.
along with all- every little while
he lifted her on his powerful arm and gave her a
&mill,& he yelping and she squeaking for
sheer ecstasy, and through out the
performance his face and his whole figure seemed
to be exclaiming, &Dot'sh a kin' a man I
Several waifs stood in a cluster admiring or
begrudging the antics of the star couple.
these was lanky Miss Jacobs and Fanny the
Preacher, who had shortly before made her
appearance in the hall, and now stood pale and
forlorn by the &apron-check& girl's side.
&Look at the way she is stickin' to
him!& the little girl observed with envious
venom, her gaze riveted to Mamie, whose shapely
head was at this moment reclining on Jake's
shoulders, with her eyes half shut, as if melting
in a transport of bliss.
Fanny felt cut to the quick.
&You are jealous, ain't you?& she
jerked out.
Vy should I be jealous?&
Miss Jacobs protested, coloring.
&On my part
let them both go to.
must be jealous.
Here, here!
See how your eyes are creeping out
Here, here!& she teased her
offender in Yiddish, poking her little finger at
her as she spoke.
&Will you shut your scurvy mouth, little
piece of ugliness, you?
Such a piggish apron
check!& poor Fanny burst out under breath,
tears starting to her eyes.
&Such a nasty little runt!& another
girl chimed in.
&Such a little cricket already knows what
'jealous' is!& a third of the bystanders put
&You had better go home or your mamma
will give you a spanking.& Whereat the little
cricket made a retort, which had better be left
unrecorded.
&To think of a bit of a flea like that
having so much cheek!
Here is America for
&America for a country and 'dod'll do'
[that'll do] for a language!& observed
one of the young men of the group, indulging one
of the stereotype jokes of the Ghetto.
The passage at arms drew Jake's attention to
the little knot of spectators, and his eye fell on
Whereupon he summarily relinquished his
partner on the floor, and advanced toward his
shopmate, who, seeing him approach, hastened to
retreat to the girls' bench, where she remained
seated with a dropping head.
&Hello, Fanny!& he shouted briskly,
coming up in front of her.
&Hello!& she returned rigidly, her
eyes fixed on the dirty floor.
&Come, give ush a tvisht, vill
&But you ain't goin' by Joe
tonight!& she answered, with a withering curl
of her lip, her glance still on the ground.
&Go to your lady, she'll be mad atch
&I didn't vonted to gu here, honesht,
I o'ly come to tell Jaw shometin', an'
dot'sh ull,& he said guiltily.
&Why should you apologize?& she
addressed the tip of her shoe in her mother
&As if he was obliged to apologize
For my part
you can dance
with her day and night.
Vot do I care?
As if I cared!
I have only come to see
what a bluffer
Do you think I am
as your Mamie,
As if I had not known he wanted
to make me stay at home!
What are you afraid of?
Am I in your way then?
As if I was in his way!
What business have I to be in your way?
your way?&
While she was thus speaking in her voluble,
querulous, harassing manner, Jake stood with his
hands in his trousers' pockets, in an attitude of
mock attention.
Then, suddenly losing patience,
&Dot'sh alla right!
finish your sermon afterward.
And in the meantime
lesh have a valtz
from the land of
With which he forcibly
dragged her off her seat, catching her round the
&But I don't need it, I don't wish it!
Go to your Mamie!& she protested, struggling.
&I tell you I don't need it, I don't --&
The rest of the sentence was choked off
by h for by this time she was
spinning with Jake like a top.
After another
moment's pretense at struggling to free her self
she succumbed, and presently clung to her partner,
the picture of triumph and beatitude.
Meanwhile Mamie had walked up to Joe's side,
and without
much difficulty caused him to abandon the
lancers party to themselves, and to resume with
her the waltz which Jake had so abruptly broken
In the course of the following intermission
she diplomatically seated herself beside her
rival, and paraded her tranquillity of mind by
accosting her with a question on shop matters.
Fanny was not blind to the maneuver, but her
exultation was all the greater for it, and she
participated in the ensuing conversation with
exuberant geniality.
By-and-by they were joined by Jake.
&Vell, vill you treat, Jake?& said
&Vot you vant, a kish?& he replied,
putting his offer in action as well as in
Mamie slapped his arm.
&May the Angel of Death kiss you!&
said her lips in Yiddish.
&Try again!&
her glowing face overruled them in a dialect of
Fanny laughed.
&Once I am treating,
must be treated
alike, ain'
it?& remarked the gallant, and again he
proved himself as good as his word, although Fanny
struggled with greater energy and ostensibly with
more real indignation.
&But vy don't you treat, you stingy
loafer you?&
&Vot elsh you vant?
A peench?& He
was again on the point of suiting the action to
the word, but Mamie contrived to repay the pinch
before she had received it, and added a generous
piece of profanity into the bargain.
there ensued a scuffle of a character which defies
description in more senses than one.
Nevertheless Jake marched his two
&ladas& up to the marble fountain, and
regaled them with two cents' worth of soda
An hour or so later, when Jake got out into
the street, his breast pocket was loaded with a
fresh batch of &Professor Peltner's Grand
Annual Ball& tickets, and his two arms--with
Mamie and Fanny respectively.
&As soon as I get my wages I'll call on
the installment agent
and give him a deposit for a steamship
ticket,& presently glimmered through his
mind, as he adjusted his hold upon the two girls,
snugly gathering them to his sides.
In the Grip of His Past
had never even vaguely abandoned the idea
of supplying his wife and child with the means of
coming to join him.
He was more or less prompt in
remitting her monthly allowance of ten rubles, and
the visit to the draft and passage office had be
come part of the routine of his life.
It had the
invariable effect of arousing his dormant
scruples, and he hardly ever left the office
without ascertaining the price of a steerage
voyage from Hamburg to New York.
But no sooner
did he emerge from the dingy basement into the
noisy scenes of Essex Street, than he would
consciously let his mind wander off to other
Formerly, during the early part of his sojourn
in Boston, his landing place, where some of his
townsfolk resided and where he had passed his
first two years in America, he used to mention his
Gitl and his Yossel& so frequently and so
enthusiastically, that some wags among the Hanover
Street tailors would sing &Yekl and wife and
the baby& to the tune of &Molly and I
and the Baby.& In the natural course of
things, however, these retrospective effusions
gradually became far between, and since he had
shifted his abode to New York he carefully avoided
all reference to his antecedents.
The Jewish
quarter of the metropolis, which is a vast and
compact city within a city, offers its denizens
incomparably fewer chances of contact with the
English-speaking portion of the population than
any of the three separate Ghettos of Boston.
consequence, since Jake's advent to New York his
passion for American sport had considerably
cooled off.
And, to make up for this, his
enthusiastic nature before long found vent in dancing and
in a general life of gallantry.
His proved knack
with the gentle sex had turned his head and now
cost him all his leisure time.
Still, he would
occasionally attend some variety show in which
boxing was the main drawing card, and somehow
managed to keep track of the salient events of the
sporting world generally.
Judging from his
unstaid habits and happy-go-lucky abandon to the
pleasures of life, his present associates took it
for granted that he was single, and instead of
twitting him with the feigned assumption that he
had deserted a family--a piece of burlesque as old
as the Ghetto--they would quiz him as to which of
his girls he was &dead struck& on, and
as to the day fixed for the wedding.
On more than
one such occasion he had on the tip of his tongue
the seemingly jocular question, &How do you
know I am not married already?& But he never
let the sentence cross his lips, and would,
instead, observe facetiously that he was not
&shtruck on nu goil,& and that he was
dead struck on all of them in
&whulshale.& &I hate retail
beesnesh, shee?
Dot'sh a' kin' a man I
am!& One day, in the course of an
intimate conversation with.
Joe, Jake, dropping
into a philosophical mood, remarked:
&It's something like a baker, ain't
The more cakes
he has the
less he likes them.
You and I have a lot
that's why we don't care
one of them.&
But if his attachment for the girls of his
acquaintance collectively was not coupled with a
quivering of his heart for any individual Mamie,
or Fanny, or Sarah, it did not, on the other hand,
preclude a certain lingering tenderness for his
But then his wife had long since ceased to
be what she had been of yore.
From a reality she
had gradually become transmuted into a fancy.
During the three years since he had set foot on
the soil, where a &shister
mister and a mister a shister,& he had
lived so much more than three years--so much more,
in fact, than in all the twenty-two years of his
previous life--that his Russian past appeared
to him a dream and his wife and child, together
with his former self, fellow characters in a
charming tale, which he was neither willing to banish
from his memory nor able to reconcile with the
actualities of his American present.
The question
of how to effect this reconciliation, and of
causing Gitl and little Yosse& to step out
of the thickening haze of reminiscence and to take
their stand by his side as living parts of his
daily life, was a fretful subject from the
consideration of which he cowardly shrank.
wished he could both import his family and
continue his present mode of life.
At the bottom
of his soul he wondered why this should not be
But he knew that it was not, and his
heart would sink at the notion of forfeiting the
lion's share of attentions for which he came in at
the hands of those who lionized him.
how will he look people in the face in view of the
lie he has been acting?
He longed for an
interminable respite.
But as sooner or later the
minds of his acquaintances were bound to become
disabused, and he would have to face it all out
anyway, he was many a time on the point of making
a clean breast of it, and failed to do so for a
mere lack of nerve, each time letting himself off
on the plea that a week or two before his wife's
arrival would be a more auspicious occasion for
the disclosure.
Yiddish for shoemaker.
Neither Jake nor his wife nor his parents
could write even Yiddish, although both he and his
old father read fluently the punctuated Hebrew of
the Old Testament or the Prayer Book.
correspondence had therefore to be carried on by
proxy, and, as a consequence, at longer intervals
than would have been the case otherwise.
missives which he received differed materially in
length, style, and degree of illiteracy as well as
in but they all agreed in
containing glowing encomiums of little
Yosse& exhorting Yekl not to stray from the
path of righteousness, and reproachfully asking
whether he ever meant to send the ticket.
latter point had an exasperating effect on Jake.
There were times, however, when it would touch his
heart and elicit from him his threadbare vow to
send the ticket at once.
But then he never had
money enough to redeem it.
And, to tell the
truth, at the bottom of his heart he was at such
moments rather glad of his poverty.
events, the man who wrote Jake's letters had a
standing order to reply in the sharpest terms at
his command that Yekl did not spend his money on
that America was not the land they took it
for, where one could &scoop gold by the
skirtful&; that Gitl need not fear lest he
meant to desert her, and that as soon as he had
saved enough to pay her way and to set up a decent
establishment she would be sure to get the
Jake's scribe was an old Jew who kept a little
stand on Pitt Street, which is one of the
thoroughfares and market places of the Galician
quarter of the Ghetto, and where Jake was unlikely
to come upon any people of his acquaintance.
old man scraped together his livelihood by selling
Yiddish newspapers and cigarettes, and writing
letters for a charge varying, according to the
length of the epistle, from five to ten cents.
Each time Jake received a letter he would take it
to the Galician, who would first read it to him
(for an extra remuneration of one cent) and then
proceed to pen five cents' worth of rhetoric,
which might have been printed and forwarded one
copy at a time for all the additions or
alterations Jake ever caused to be made in it.
&What else shall I write?& the old
man would ask his patron, after having written and
read aloud the first dozen lines, which Jake had
come to know by heart.
&How do I know?& Jake would respond.
so you ought to
understand what else to write.&
And the scribe would go on to write what he
had written on almost every previous occasion.
Jake would keep the letter in his pocket until he
had spare United States money enough to convert
into ten rubles, and then he would betake himself
to the draft office and have the amount, together
with the well-crumpled epistle, forwarded to
And so it went month in and month out.
The first letter which reached Jake after the
scene at Joe Peltner's dancing academy came so
unusually close upon its predecessor that he
received it from his landlady's hand with a throb
of misgiving.
He had always labored under the
presentiment that some unknown enemies--for he
had none that he could name--would some day
discover his wife's address and anonymously
represent him to her as contemplating another
marriage, in order to bring Gitl down upon him
His first thought accordingly was that
this letter was the outcome of such a conspiracy.
&Or maybe there is some death in the
family?& he next reflected, half with terror
and half with a feeling almost amounting to
reassurance.
When the cigarette vender unfolded the letter
he found it to be of such unusual length that he
stipulated an additional cent for the reading of
&Alla right,
hurry up now!&
Jake said, grinding his teeth on a mumbled English
&Righd evay!
Righd evay!&
old fellow returned jubilantly, as he
hastily adjusted his spectacles and addressed
himself to his task.
The letter had evidently been penned by some
one laying claim to Hebrew scholarship and
ambitious to impress the New W for it
was quite replete with poetic digressions,
strained and twisted to suit some quotation from
the Bible.
And what with this unstinted
verbosity, which was Greek to Jake, one or two
interruptions by the old man's customers, and
interpretations necessitated by difference of
dialect, a quarter of an hour had elapsed before
the scribe realized the trend of what he was
Then he suddenly gave a start, as if
&Vot'sh a madder?
&Vot's der madder? What should be
the madder?
Wait--a--I don't know
what I can do&--he halted in perplexity.
&Any bad news?& Jake inquired,
turning pale.
&Speak out!&
&Speak out!
It is all very well for you
to say 'speak out.'
You forget that one is a piece
of Jew,& he faltered, hinting at the orthodox
custom which enjoins a child of Israel from being
the messenger of sad tidings.
&Don't bodder a head!& Jake
shouted savagely.
&I have paid you, haven't
&Say, young man, you need not be so
angry,& the other said, resentfully.
&Half of the letter I have read, have I not?
so I shall refund you one cent and leave me in
peace.& He took to fumbling in his pockets
for the coin, with apparent reluctance.
&Tell me what is the matter,& Jake
entreated, with clinched fists.
&Is anybody
Do tell me now.&
since you know it already,
I may as well tell you, said the scribe cunningly,
glad to retain the cent and Jake's patronage.
&It is your fathe may he
have a bright paradise.&
&Ha?& Jake asked aghast, with a wide
The Galician resumed the reading in solemn,
doleful accents.
The melancholy passage was
followed by a jeremiade upon the penniless
condition of the family and Jake's duty to send
the ticket without further procrastination.
his mother, she preferred the Povodye graveyard to
a watery sepulcher, and hoped that her beloved and
only son, the apple of her eye, whom she had been
awake nights to bring up to manhood, and so forth,
would not forget her.
&So now they will be here for sure, and
there can be no more delay!& was Jake's first
distinct thought.
&Poor father!& he
inwardly exclaimed the next moment, with deep
His native home came back to him with a
vividness which it had not had in his mind for a
long time.
&Was he an old man?& the scribe
queried sympathetically.
&About seventy,& Jake
answered, bursting into tears.
Then he had lived to a good
May no one depart younger,& the old
man observed, by way of &consoling the
bereaved.&
As Jake's tears instantly ran dry he fell to
wringing his hands and moaning.
&Good-night!& he presently said,
taking leave.
&I'll see you tomorrow, if God
be pleased.&
&Good-night!& the scribe returned
with heartfelt condolence.
As he was directing
his steps to his lodgings Jake wondered why he did
He felt that this was the proper thing
for a man in his situation to do, and he
endeavored to inspire himself with emotions
befitting the occasion.
But his thoughts
teasingly gambolled about among the people and things
of the street.
By-and-by, however, he
became sensible of his mental eye being fixed upon
the big fleshy mole on his father's scantily
bearded face.
He recalled the old man's carriage,
the melancholy nod of his head, his deep sigh upon
taking snuff from the time-honored birch bark
which Jake had know and his
heart writhed with pity and with the acutest pangs
of homesickness.
&And it was evening and it
was morning, the sixth day.
And the heavens and
the earth were finished.& As the Hebrew words
of the Sanctification of the Sabbath resounded in
Jake's ears, in his father's senile treble, he
could see his gaunt figure swaying over a pair of
Sabbath loaves.
It is Friday night.
The little
room, made tidy for the day of rest and faintly
illuminated by the mysterious light of two tallow
candles rising from freshly burnished
candlesticks, is pervaded by a benign, reposeful
warmth and a general air of peace and solemnity.
There, seated by the side of the head of the
little family and within easy reach of the huge
brick oven, is his old mother, flushed with
fatigue, and with an effort keeping her drowsy
eyes open to attend, with a devout mien, her
husband's prayer.
Opposite to her, by the window,
is Yekl, the present Jake, awaiting his turn to
chant the same words in the holy tongue, and
impatiently thinking of the repast to come after
Besides the three of them there is no one
else in the chamber, for Jake visioned the
fascinating scene as he had known it for almost
twenty years, and not as it had appeared during
the short period
since the family had been joined by Gitl and
subsequently by Yossel&.
Suddenly he felt himself a child, the only and
pampered son of a doting mother.
He was overcome
with a heart-wringing consciousness of being an
orphan, and his soul was filled with a keen sense
of desolation and self-pity.
And thereupon every
thing around him--the rows of gigantic tenement
houses, the hum and buzz of the scurrying
pedestrians, the jingling horse cars--all suddenly
grew alien and incomprehensible to Jake.
he could return to his old home and old days, and
have his father recite Sanctification again, and
sit by his side, oppo site to mother, and receive
from her hand a plate of reeking tzimess,
as of yore!
Poor mother!
not forget her-- But what is the
Italian playing on that organ, anyhow?
the new waltz!
By the way, this is Monday and
they are dancing at Joe's now and he is not there.
&I shall not go there tonight, nor any other
night,& he commiserated himself, his reveries
for the first time since he had left the Pitt
Street cigarette stand passing to his wife and
Her image now stood out in high relief
with the multitudinous noisy scene at Joe's
academy for a discordant, disquieting background,
amid which there vaguely defined itself the
reproachful saintlike visage of the deceased.
&I will begin a new life!& he vowed to
A kind of dessert made of
carrots or turnips.
He strove to remember the child's features,
but could only muster the faintest
recollection--scarcely anything beyond a general
symbol--a red little thing smiling, as he, Jake,
tickles it under its tiny chin.
Yet Jake's finger
at this moment seemed to feel the soft touch of
that little chin, and it sent through him a thrill
of fatherly affection to which he had long been a
Gitl, on the other hand, loomed up in
all the individual sweetness of her rustic face.
He beheld her kindly mouth opening wide--rather
too wide, but all the lovelier for it--as she
her prominent red gums, her little black
He could distinctly hear her voice with her
peculiar lisp, as one
summer morning she had burst into the house
and, clapping her hands in despair, she had cried,
&A weeping to me!
The yellow rooster is
gone!& or, as coming into the smithy she
would say: &Father--in-law,
mother-in-law calls you to dinner.
up, Yekl, dinner is ready.& And although this
was all he could recall her saying, Jake thought
himself retentive of every word she had ever
uttered in his presence.
His heart went out to
Gitl and her environment, and he was seized with a
yearning tenderness that made him feel like
&I would not exchange her little
finger for all the American ladas,&
soliloquized, comparing Gitl in his mind with the
dancing-school girls of his circle.
It now filled
him with disgust to think of the morals of some of
them, although it was from his own sinful
experience that he knew them to be of a rather
loose character.
He reached his lodgings in a devout mood, and
before going to bed he was about to say his
Not having said them for nearly three
years, however, he found, to his dismay, that he
could no longer do it by heart.
His landlady had
a prayer book, but, unfortunately, she kept it
locked in the bureau, and she was now asleep, as
was everybody else in the house.
Jake reluctantly
undressed and went to bed on the kitchen lounge,
where he usually slept.
When a boy his mother had taught him to
believe that to go to sleep at night without
having recited the bed prayer rendered one liable
to be visited and choked in bed by some ghost.
Later, when he had grown up, and yet before he had
left his birthplace, he had come to set down this
earnest belief of his good old mother as a piece
of womanish superstition, while since he had
settled in America he had hardly ever had an
occasion to so much as think of bed prayers.
Nevertheless, as he now lay vaguely listening to
the weird ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece
over the stove, and at the same time desultorily
brooding upon his father's death, the old belief
suddenly uprose in his mind and filled him with
mortal terror.
He tried to persuade himself that
it was a silly notion worthy of
womenfolk, and even affected to laugh at it
But all in vain.
&Cho-king!
Cho-king!& went the clock, and the
form of a man in white burial clothes never ceased
gleaming in his face.
He resolutely turned to the
wall, and, pulling the blanket over his head, he
huddled himself snugly up for instantaneous
But presently he felt the cold grip of a
pair of hands about his throat, and he even
mentally stuck out his tongue, as one does while
being strangled.
With a fast-beating heart Jake finally jumped
off the lounge, and gently knocked at the door of
his landlady's bedroom.
&Eshcoosh me, mishesh,
be so kind
as to lend me your prayer book.
I want to say the
night prayer,& he addressed her
imploringly.
The old woman took it for a cruel practical
joke, and flew into a passion.
&Are you crazy or drunk?
A nice time to
make fun!&
And it was not until he had said with
suppliant vehemence, &May I as surely be
alive as my father is dead!& and she had
subjected him to a cross-examination, that she
expressed sympathy and went to produce the
The Meeting
few weeks later, on a Saturday morning,
Jake, with an unfolded telegram in his hand, stood
in front of one of the desks at the Immigration
Bureau of Ellis Island.
He was freshly shaven and
clipped, smartly dressed in his best clothes and
ball shoes, and, in spite of the sickly expression
of shamefacedness and anxiety which distorted his
features, he looked younger than usual.
All the way to the island he had been in a
flurry of joyous anticipation.
The prospect of
meeting his dear wife and child, and,
incidentally, of showing off his swell attire to
thrown him into a fever of impatience.
entering the big shed he had caught a distant
glimpse of Gitl and Yossel& through the
railing separating the detained immigrants from
their visitors, and his heart had sunk at the
sight of his wife's uncouth and un-American
appearance.
She was slovenly dressed in a brown
jacket and skirt of grotesque cut, and her hair
was concealed under a voluminous wig of a
pitch-black hue.
This she had put on just before
leaving the steamer, both &in honor of the
Sabbath& and by way of sprucing herself up
for the great event.
Since Yekl had left home she
had gained considerably in the measurement of her
The wig, however, made her seem stouter
and shorter than she would have appeared without
It also added at least five years to her
But she was aware neither of this nor of
the fact that in New York even a Jewess of her
station and orthodox breeding is accustomed to
blink at the wickedness of displaying her natural
hair, and that none but an elderly matron may wear
a wig without being the occasional target for
snowballs or stones.
She was naturally dark of
complexion, and the nine or ten days spent at sea
had covered her face with a deep bronze, which
combined with her prominent cheek bones, inky
little eyes, and, above all, the smooth black wig,
to lend her resemblance to a squaw.
Jake had no sooner caught sight of her than he
had averted his face, as if loth to rest his eyes
on her, in the presence of the surging crowd
around him, before it was inevitable.
not even survey that crowd to see whether it
contained any acquaintance of his, and he vaguely
wished that her release were delayed
indefinitely.
Presently the officer behind the desk took the
telegram from him, and in another little while
Gitl, hugging Yossel& with one arm and a
bulging parcel with the other, emerged from a side
&Yekl!& she screamed
out in a piteous high key, as if crying for
&Dot'sh alla right!& he returned in
English, with a wan
smile and unconscious of what he was saying.
His wandering eyes and dazed mind were striving to
fix themselves upon the stern functionary and the
questions he bethought himself of asking before
finally releasing his prisoners.
The contrast
between Gitl and Jake was so striking that the
officer wanted to make sure--partly as a matter of
official duty and partly for the fun of the
thing--that the two were actually man and
&Oi a lamentation upon me!
He shaves his
beard!& Giti ejaculated to herself as she
scrutinized her husband.
Here is tat&!&
But Yossel& did not care to look at
Instead, he turned his frightened
little eyes--precise copies of Jake's--and buried
them in his mother's cheek.
When Gitl was finally discharged she made to
fling herself on Jake.
But he checked her by
seizing both loads from her arms.
He started for
a distant and deserted corner of the room, bidding
her follow.
For a moment the boy looked stunned,
then he burst out crying and fell to kicking his
father's chest with might and main, his reddened
little face appealingly turn ed to Gitl.
continuing his way tried to kiss his son into
toleration, but the little fellow proved too
nimble for him.
It was in vain that Gitl,
scurrying behind, kept expostulating with
Yossele: &Why, it is tat&!&
Tat& was forced to capitulate before the
march was brought to its end.
At length, when the secluded corner had been
reached, and Jake and Gitl had set down their
burdens, husband and wife flew into mutual embrace
and fell to kissing each other.
The performance
had an effect of something done to order, which,
it must be owned, was far from being belied by the
state of their minds at the moment.
Their kisses
imparted the taste of mutual estrangement to both.
In Jake's case the sensation was quickened by the
strong steerage odors which were emitted by Gitl's
person, and he involuntarily recoiled.
&You look like a poritz,&
said shyly.
Yiddish for nobleman.
&How are you?
How is mother?&
&How should she be?
you her love,& Gitl mumbled out.
&How long was father ill?&
&Maybe a month.
He cost us health
He proceeded to make advances to
Yossel&, she appealing to the child in his
For a moment the sight of her, as they
were both crouching before the boy, precipitated a
wave of thrilling memories on Jake and made him
feel in his own environment.
Presently, however,
the illusion took wing and here he was, Jake the
Yankee, with this bonnetless, wigged,}