SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER
 
 SARAH AND HER 
 DAUGHTER 
 
 BY 
 
 BERTHA PEARL 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THOMAS SELTZER 
 1920
 
 Copyright, 1920, by 
 THOMAS SELTZER, Imc. 
 
 First printing April, 1920 
 Second printing April, 1920 
 
 Printed In the United States of America 
 All rights reserved
 
 BOOK I 
 SARAH 
 
 PART PAGE 
 
 I ELIAS 7 
 
 II THE CELLAR 133 
 
 III BANDS . 187 
 
 BOOK II 
 
 MINNIE 
 
 I INDEPENDENCE 223 
 
 II SARAH'S DAUGHTER 329 
 
 2137621 *
 
 Dedicated to 
 Henrietta Szold and her Sister Adele
 
 BOOK I 
 SARAH
 
 PART I 
 ELIAS
 
 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 PART I 
 ELIAS 
 
 FROM the back door of a front tenement in New York's 
 East Side a little girl came skipping into the contracted 
 square courtyard separating it from the rear tenement. 
 A small mongrel was worrying the end of a rag in her 
 hand, and, for a while, the two played tug-of-war in 
 the offal-littered yard. Presently a boy, somewhat older 
 than the girl, emerged from the rear tenement. 
 
 "Hello, Minn!" 
 
 "Hello, Abie!" 
 
 Abie, the helmet of his cap sitting rakishly over his 
 left ear, his hands in his pockets, walked leisurely to 
 the middle of the yard. Minnie gave Abie a measur- 
 ing look, like a player in a game awaiting a decisive move 
 from his opponent, then, somewhat self-consciously, 
 went on pretending to tear the rag away from Foxy, 
 who worried it with short, make-believe vicious snarls. 
 
 Abie watched the sport. 
 
 "Minn," he said. 
 
 She held Foxy off. "Wha' do you wan'?" 
 
 "You wanna play grocery?" 
 
 Minnie looked at Abie shyly. 
 
 "You wanna?" 
 
 "Yeh." 
 
 "Aw right." 
 
 Minnie skipped to a corner of the yard where she 
 
 7
 
 8 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 busied herself with housekeeping details. Once or twice 
 she ordered Foxy to get out of her way, muttering aloud 
 to herself : "Childrens are such a bother in a house 
 when you got a lot a work to do." 
 
 From his many pockets Abie assembled marbles to 
 be sold as potatoes, placed one piece of wood see-saw 
 over another for scales, and scraping up some of the 
 plenteous dirt put it aside to be sold as flour, sugar, or 
 salt. When all was ready, he called to Minnie: 
 
 "Now you dass come." 
 
 Minnie heaved a "mama's" breath, a breath closely 
 related to a sigh. "Here, Foxy!" she called, and locked 
 an imaginary door. Next she hung an imaginary bas- 
 ket on her arm and proceeded on a shopping expedition 
 as Mrs. Mira Cohen, a friend of her mother's. 
 
 "Good morning," said the groceryman. 
 
 "Good morning," Mrs. Cohen replied tartly. Mrs. 
 Mira Cohen was known to be a crank. '"You got 
 sugar ?" 
 
 "Yeh, fresh sugar. You wan' a pound?" the grocery- 
 man inquired. 
 
 "No, a paper," replied Mrs. Cohen. A "paper," in 
 the linguistic mysteries of the East Side, differentiates 
 a bag of three and a half pounds from a bag of one 
 pound. 
 
 The groceryman proceeded to weigh the sugar. As 
 the pieces of wood were too narrow, the scales proved 
 provokingly incompetent. After several efforts he felt 
 justified in assuming he had weighed a "paper." Not 
 so the thrifty Mrs. Cohen. 
 
 "That ain't no paper," said she contemptuously. 
 "Tain't? 'Tis !" the groceryman contradicted. 
 
 "Uh! 'Tain't!" repeated Mrs. Cohen, making a ges-
 
 ELIAS 9 
 
 ture as if to throw the sugar off the scales. The gro- 
 ceryman laid a hand of protection on his wares. A mo- 
 ment's tension, and Mrs. Cohen said: 
 
 "Wha' do you know?" 
 
 "My dear lady," rejoined the groceryman, maintain- 
 ing his dignity, "it's a paper." He looked over Mrs. 
 Cohen's shoulder at an imaginary customer. "Wha' do 
 you wan'?" he asked. 
 
 Mrs. Cohen had no intention of yielding; she placed 
 her arms akimbo and said in a raised voice, stressing 
 each word: 
 
 "That ain't no paper." Suddenly Mrs. Cohen turned 
 into Minnie and added: "Yeh, my papa kept a grocery, 
 not yourn. 7 know." 
 
 The groceryman paid no attention to this personal 
 turn. 
 
 "My dear lady," he said, "wha' do you wan' I should 
 lose money on you? That's a paper." 
 
 Minnie turned into cranky Mrs. Cohen again. 
 
 "You can paper me from to-day up till to-morrow, that 
 ain't no paper by me." 
 
 The groceryman of the neighborhood having the repu- 
 tation of being "independent," Abie saw fit to tell Mrs. 
 Cohen that if she did not like it, she could lump it. 
 This roused Mrs. Cohen to a corresponding measure 
 of defiance. 
 
 "I will !" she announced shrilly, stamping her foot. 
 "And I'll never buy for another penny here 'cause you're 
 a cheat!" 
 
 Minnie's acting was so realistic that Abie applied the 
 epithet to himself. Instantly he turned into the normal 
 boy and made as if to spit in her face. Thinking better 
 of it, however, he merely taunted:
 
 io SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "Fights!" 
 
 Mrs. Mira Cohen vanished from the yard. In her 
 stead stood an irresolute, impotent little girl with tears 
 welling up in gray, dark-lashed eyes too large for her 
 thin- featured face. 
 
 Abie knew that his vengeance could not have been 
 more complete had he actually used the last resort of 
 the infuriated had he spat in her face. He was glad. 
 
 The tears rolled down Minnie's face. She dashed 
 them from her cheeks with the back of her hand and 
 sucked them from her upper lip. 
 
 Stooping, she picked up Foxy and left the yard. 
 
 "Fights!" It was a cruel wound to a child's pride 
 in her family. Something vaguely told Minnie that in 
 spite of the sordidness of her home life, her mama and 
 her papa were made of finer material than Abie's mama 
 and papa, or Mira Cohen and her husband. "Fights !" 
 had not been a reference to any pugnacious quality in 
 Minnie, but to the relations existing between her father 
 and mother. 
 
 Beside Minnie, who was eight, the juvenile end of 
 the Mendel family comprised Jacob aged ten, Ida nearly 
 seven, and the baby, endearingly called Bubbele, aged 
 three. The authors of their beings were two people 
 whose alliance was never formed with heaven's fore- 
 thought ; if it was, there is something terribly wrong with 
 heaven. 
 
 Abie's mother was janitress of the twin tenements. 
 When her home duties interfered with her janitor's 
 work, Abie helped her. Lighting the gas in the halls 
 was his regular job. A few days before, while perform- 
 ing this duty, the thing had occurred which provoked 
 the taunt of "Fights."
 
 ELI AS ii 
 
 Abie, making his way up the dark, rickety stairs of 
 the front tenement, stumbled over something on the 
 lowest step of the fourth flight. He struck a match,, 
 kindled his lighter, and beheld Minnie Mendel. She 
 was in tears and looked much older than her years. 
 "Say!" said Abie. 
 No answer. 
 "Wot's a madder?" 
 
 From the floor above came a woman's voice vulgarly 
 shrill and loud: 
 
 "I can't stand it any longer!" Abie and Mmnte 
 heard distinctly. "I can't stand it any longer! The 
 children go hungry and naked, and you hold on to your 
 Sabbath! I cannot stand it any longer." 
 
 Minnie lay across the step completely barring Abie's 
 way. 
 
 "I gotta light the lights," he said, "get out o' the 
 way." 
 
 Minnie moved to one side, and Abie proceeded to 
 the top floor. In the front tenement he worked from 
 up down; in the rear tenement from down up, finishing 
 on the top floor where he lived. 
 
 When Abie, on the way back, reached the step just 
 above Minnie, a man's voice sounded, calm but not 
 defiant : 
 
 "I cannot work on the Sabbath. You can if you 
 want to." 
 
 "Oh-h-h!" shrieked the woman, infuriated impotence 
 in her cry. 
 
 Abie was terribly interested. The gas lighter accen- 
 tuating the darkness at his feet, he did not see that 
 Minnie was again lying crosswise on the step below. 
 He stumbled over her a second time, now with dis-
 
 12 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 astrous results. Bump went his head on the railing. 
 The shock and the quick pain gave Abie the blind im- 
 pulse to visit corporal punishment upon the cause, and 
 he was about to kick Minnie lying at his feet, when he 
 checked himself and burst out instead: 
 
 "Fights!" 
 
 Minnie cringed and said nothing. 
 
 That violent shriek seemed to have concluded the 
 altercation. Abie waited a moment or two, then went 
 on about his business. 
 
 Presently the door above opened. Minnie saw her 
 father come slowly, awkwardly, down the stairs. His 
 head was bowed, his eyes were fixed on his feet. Two 
 or three times he muttered as he shook his head : 
 
 "She has no shame, she has no shame. The neigh- 
 bors could have heard her." 
 
 Minnie drew to the rear of the hall. Her father 
 passed without seeing her. 
 
 On the floor below he was seized with a fit of cough- 
 ing. Minnie ran to the balustrade. She saw him use 
 his handkerchief, straighten his hat, and walk out. 
 
 II 
 
 When the Mendels arrived in America from a small 
 village in the Baltic provinces, their nearest of kin met 
 in consultation to decide what the father should do 
 for a living. As the family had come safeguarded 
 by nearly a thousand dollars, it was thought advisable 
 that he go into business for himself, especially as it 
 would also solve the difficulty of the Sabbath observance. 
 Elias Mendel was a pious orthodox Jew. The relatives 
 had, of course, learned to renounce much of their piety
 
 ELIAS 13 
 
 by this time; but they had not forgotten their own 
 spiritual struggle and were tolerant of Elias. "In time 
 he will get ausgegreent" (lose the greenness of the new- 
 comer), they said. 
 
 The next question was, what business to put Elias 
 into. The decision was a soda-water stand, with a 
 show-case for candies, chewing-gum, cigars and cigar- 
 ettes. About a month later Elias, the pious Jew, with 
 the thoughtful face of one who has spent long hours 
 in the study of the Law, was standing in a booth in 
 front of a drug store on Pike Street, mixing red syrups 
 and yellow syrups with "sizzling" water to answer 
 the outlandish calls for vanilla, strawberry, ginger, 
 raspberry. 
 
 "A language!" Elias Mendel marvelled, and shrugged 
 his shoulders. 
 
 The stand did not yield the big revenue predicted. 
 The promoters of the plan accounted for the failure by 
 Elias Mendel's overscrupulous honesty. Moreover, "a 
 stand must be kept open on a Saturday. People who 
 go to another stand on a Saturday, go to it on a Sun- 
 day too, and on a Monday, and on a Tuesday." A true 
 deduction. 
 
 But Elias Mendel held to his Sabbath. 
 
 The next venture was a grocery store on Forsyth 
 Street. Elias gave full measure, and, of course, kept 
 closed on Saturday. So how could it pay? 
 
 "He is crazy honest," said the relatives- in denuncia- 
 tion. "And his Sabbath kills him." 
 
 The Mendel capital dwindled to a shadow of its 
 former self; and finally even the shadow faded away. 
 There followed a period of short-lived jobs. In quick 
 succession Elias was a paper-box maker, a bastings
 
 I 4 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 puller, a ladies' shirtwaist sleeve maker. Because he 
 was wholly untrained and was granted the privilege of 
 Sabbath observance, each position yielded him a weekly 
 wage that brought his family closer and closer to the 
 verge of starvation. 
 
 Days set in when the children asked for bread and 
 Sarah had none to give. 
 
 In the old country Elias, though he had owned a 
 dry-goods store, which had maintained his family amply, 
 had been able to give up a goodly portion of each day 
 to prayer and Talmudic study in the synagogue, as he 
 had had the aid not only of Sarah but also of Sarah's 
 parents, who had migrated with their daughter from 
 Memel at the time of her marriage. Never had he 
 dreamed of such a change. To work a whole day and 
 that there should be talk even of violating the Sabbath! 
 It was unheard of. America was a queer country. 
 
 Sarah had no such scruples with regard to the Sab- 
 bath observance, though she was not wholly irreligious. 
 Early in life she had come under the influence of a 
 "freethinker" lover, a young man who with the assur- 
 ance of the immature, waived all faith aside with 
 "Narrishkeit, narrishkeit" (foolishness) ! He had bent 
 her point of view, though not to absolute skepticism, 
 yet to uncertainty, to which, however, as long as she 
 remained in her father's home, she never gave voice. 
 Women of Sarah's generation and bringing up, in nor- 
 mal circumstances, do not pit their opinions against 
 those of their men folk. When they disagree, they 
 bow their heads and say nothing. 
 
 Sarah's parents, declaring her marriage with Leopold 
 Pollack would bring them to an early grave, forced her 
 to marry, at seventeen, Elias, pious and uncouth and as
 
 ELI AS 15 
 
 unsuited to her romantic temperament as water to fire. 
 
 By degrees she began to realize more and more fully 
 that her life was always to be what it was; she was 
 ever to be the keeper of Elias's home, nothing else, 
 and she began to nurture resentment and bitterness. 
 The longer she drew comparisons the more convinced 
 she became that Elias, for all his piety, was no whit 
 better a man than the freethinker she had been made 
 to give up. 
 
 Yet, while her parents, whom she loved and felt con- 
 sideration for, were with her, she exercised self-control 
 and maintained, on the whole, an agreeable manner. But 
 a discerning person would have observed that she had 
 periods of apparently unwarranted thought fulness and 
 often avoided meeting her parents' as well as Elias's 
 eyes when they spoke to her. Then, too, she was ir- 
 ritable with the children on insufficient provocation. But 
 no one gave Sarah any special observation except to 
 ask now and again what in God's name she wanted of 
 the children since they were only children. Sarah would 
 turn away, say nothing, and soon resume her manner 
 of quiet agreeableness. 
 
 Sarah's parents died, one following the other quickly. 
 Then came the emigration, which tore her from the 
 surroundings in which she might have continued to live 
 a comparatively serene life, and transferred her to the 
 soil of poverty, in which self-control, like so many other 
 virtues, is doomed to wither. 
 
 A few days after Minnie's and Abie's encounter in 
 the yard, Mira Cohen came to visit Sarah. Always 
 swift in her movements, she seemed now, as she en-
 
 i.6 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 tered the room, actually to be whipping the air. She 
 was a tall, lean woman, with scanty red hair drawn 
 away from her forehead and ears into a tight knot on 
 the peak of her head. 
 
 Something was up. Sarah could read it in her eyes. 
 Mira let herself down on the lounge emphatically and 
 looked Sarah squarely in the eye. 
 
 "Nu, wus macht ihrf" (How are you?) she began 
 with decision. 
 
 Sarah raised her eyebrows and looked away. 
 
 Though much alike, the two women were a curious 
 study in contrast. Sarah, too, was tall and thin; there 
 were reddish glints in her straight hair. One could tell 
 at a glance that both women were harassed and em- 
 bittered. But Sarah's pale, thin lips quivered, while 
 Mira's tight-set jaw seemed to challenge God and man 
 to dare to do worse by her. In Sarah's large gray eyes 
 were timidity and diffidence. Mira's small blue eyes 
 darted hard determination and self-assurance. 
 
 Sarah looked to the floor as though seeking inspira- 
 tion for the right answer to Mira's quite conventional 
 question. "How should one be ?" she finally brought out. 
 "If one lives and one walks and one talks, then one 
 is all right! No?" Tears gathered in her eyes, her 
 heart was heavy with its burdens. 
 
 It crossed Mira's mind that the woman was a fool. 
 There were plenty of remedies in America to resort 
 to when one had a conscienceless husband. Indeed, that 
 devotion of Elias's to the Sabbath was a fine affecta- 
 tion. The truth was, he was lazy. Accustomed to his 
 "if-I-don't-come-to-day, I'11-come-to-morrow" way in the 
 old country, he seized upon any pretext to live in the 
 same way here. Would she stand for such conduct?
 
 ELIAS 17 
 
 Indeed not. Her mind travelled with self -approbation 
 to a scene between herself and her husband. 
 
 Though Sarah and Mira were friends, Mira had no 
 patience with Sarah's out-of-place refinement, and Sarah 
 innately withdrew from Mira's ever-ready advice and 
 incessant activity. Mira was always discovering a 
 cheaper fish store, a place where one could get coal for 
 next to nothing, a pushcart of "remlets" (remnants), or 
 a dispensary; and she was forever giving advice to all 
 sorts of people about all sorts of things, from how to set 
 dough to when to call in the police. 
 
 Mira straightened herself, so that she looked like a 
 red-knobbed stick on Sarah's lounge. 
 
 "Nu, God be thanked, I fixed him!" The announce- 
 ment was what her determined manner had been setting 
 the stage for. 
 
 "Fixed him?" asked Sarah shyly, who sensed that 
 Mira was referring to her drinking husband. Though 
 her friend's confidential tone invited questioning, she 
 shrank from being intrusive. 
 
 "Yes, I fixed him. Long enough I stood it. But no 
 more. I made up my mind there would have to be 
 an end before death. If I waited for God to wake up 
 from His dreams, it would take to my death, so I made 
 my own finish." Women of the Ghetto so invariably 
 accept their lot in life as final "until death," that Mira 
 felt she was the founder of a new creed. 
 
 Through Sarah's heart darted envy. Here was a 
 woman who always found the proper remedy. Why 
 could she not do the same? 
 
 "He promised me on his knees he would abstain, and 
 yet after that he came home drunk that dear husband 
 of mine. I said to myself: 'That settles it; now there
 
 i8 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 must be an end. Rabbi Sunder's daughter it does not 
 suit to be the wife of a drunkard.' " At the recollection 
 of her aristocratic paternal ancestry, tears of resentment 
 came to Mira's eyes. "Why of all women it should 
 be just my luck to have a drunkard for a husband, I 
 don't know." She wiped her .eyes and shrugged her 
 bony shoulders. "God forgive me but He really does 
 not know His business," she averred. A shade of a 
 smile flitted over their faces. After a brief silence 
 Mira went on rehashing her grievances. 
 
 "It drowns his worries. Worries! Porries! What 
 worries has he? Nebich, he cannot work in the shop. 
 The air chokes him. He wants to live in a house with 
 a grassy yard like at home. No other way suits him." 
 Mira's breath came in excited puffs ; beads of perspira- 
 tion appeared on her long forehead. 
 
 Sarah, all impatience to know what remedy this 
 woman, who, like herself, was encumbered with an 
 unmanageable husband, had found, was passionately 
 wishing she would end the prelude and tell the story. 
 Mira, detecting the inquisitive look in her eyes, moved 
 to the edge of the lounge. 
 
 "Across the street from the house I live in," she be- 
 gan, leaning over closer to Sarah, "is Essick Market 
 Court " She waited to see whether Sarah remem- 
 bered the building; on the way to Mira's home one 
 must pass it. "That's a place for just such women 
 as me and you, too." Seeing that Sarah dropped her 
 eyes, Mira repeated: "Yes, you, too. Why should we 
 fool ourselves? It's between friends. What's the dif- 
 ference if a husband doesn't support because he drinks 
 or because he is in love with the Sabbath? If a hus- 
 band doesn't support, he doesn't support."
 
 ELIAS 19 
 
 Sarah quivered inwardly. It was a rude touch, which 
 she both resented and welcomed. 
 
 "I made him go to the Essick Market Court. I told 
 him if he would not go willingly, I would call in a 
 
 policeman. He took and he went and he stood " she 
 
 punctuated with her forefinger in midair, "like a cow- 
 ard before the judge ; and when he heard that he would 
 be arrested if he got drunk once more, he trembled like 
 a frightened little boy." Mira seemed now to have 
 reached the end of the drama in her heart and relax- 
 ing as in relief added: "It's now a week and only no 
 evil eye should befall him he hasn't been drunk once." 
 
 Both women silently regarded each other like seller 
 and buyer when the salesman has exhausted his talking 
 points and waits for the other to make up his mind. 
 
 The door opened and Elias entered. Seeing Mira he 
 gave a perfunctory greeting. Mira rose hastily. God 
 in heaven! she had stayed longer than she intended. 
 Elias was at home ! It must be late ! Hastily she gath- 
 ered up her belongings. Sarah handed her a parcel which 
 she seemed to have forgotten, but Mira, giving Elias a 
 sharp glance, said to Sarah: 
 
 "No, it's for you." 
 
 In his shabby dark gray suit, his hair tousled, his 
 beard untrimmed, Elias, dusty and worn, looked an 
 object that has been trampled upon and abused. His 
 manner and figure exuded such fatigue that its heavi- 
 ness spread like a contagion through the room. Mira 
 correctly concluded that he had been out job-hunting 
 the whole day without success because of the Sabbath* 
 She soliloquized : "A man should be so crazy religious ! 
 A woman should allow herself to be so ill-treated !" She 
 had no patience with either of them. If the woman were
 
 20 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 only energetic and did something, took him to the court, 
 for instance, had him frightened once and for all, then 
 they would get somewhere. He would make up his 
 mind that God does not pay wages for piety, that chil- 
 dren do not grow like branches of a tree, but must be 
 fed, that a wife is more a man's responsibility than 
 God Himself, that in short, a man must go and do and 
 make. 
 
 As Sarah led her irate visitor to the door and out 
 into the hall for the inevitable appendage to a woman's 
 visit a little more talk Mira expressed her thoughts. 
 
 Sarah listened, becoming more and more impressed 
 with the enormity of the abuse she and her children 
 were suffering at Elias's pious hands. Any expression 
 of regret from him, she felt, even if couched in such 
 mean terms as "dog, devil, I am sorry my piety makes 
 it hard for us," would have satisfied her. But he never 
 so much as said "my poor children;" he thought only 
 of himself and his piety, of his heaven not to be missed 
 later. Sarah's indignation waxed hotter and hotter. 
 
 Returning to the room she at once opened Mira's 
 parcel. Bread and meat! Mira's leavings! God's re- 
 ward for piety! 
 
 "Look," she said to Elias, obviously controlling her 
 anger. "If Mira had not brought this, the children would 
 have nothing to eat." Elias made no reply. There was 
 no need to ask whether he had got work. His dejec- 
 tion allowed of no optimism. Sarah stood for a mo- 
 ment irresolute, then drew closer to him. "Tell me," 
 she began as if propounding a mathmetical problem, "do 
 you think this can go on very much longer? As your 
 wife, do you think I deserve no consideration ? And the 
 children don't you ever intend to realize that they must
 
 ELI AS 21 
 
 be fed, that children do not grow like branches on a 
 tree?" 
 
 Elias rose from his chair. "Don't begin all over 
 again," he pleaded gently, his eyes moist with beseeching. 
 
 For one instant Sarah was held by pity ; then carried 
 away by anger, she hurled at him: 
 
 "I'll fix you, I'll fix you! Let all the neighbors 
 listen to my loud voice, let all the relatives consider 
 us a disgrace. If you will not work to support your 
 children, you are no better than Mira's drunken hus- 
 band, and I'll drag you to court as she dragged him. 
 I don't care for anything, I'll fix you, I'll fix you!" 
 
 Elias was dazed by the volley of words. He had no 
 idea what Sarah was talking about "drunken" 
 "court" "fix." He begged her to control herself. She 
 grew only the more furious. Elias picked up his hat 
 and went out. 
 
 IV 
 
 For days Mira's words went round and round in 
 Sarah's mind. Each day her soul drew a little nearer 
 to sanctioning the course of conduct Mira had advised. 
 "He deserves it, he deserves it! He deserves anything! 
 A man who will let his children starve deserves the 
 worst that can happen to him," she said over and over 
 again to herself. 
 
 There were moments, however, when the very fact 
 that she had this weapon to fall back upon lulled her 
 anger to rest. She admitted to herself that Elias, after 
 all, war concerned about his children; that he simply 
 had a mistaken sense of loyalty to his God. She would
 
 22 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 sigh and her naturally shy spirit: would draw away 
 from the profane measure of revenge that she was 
 contemplating. . . . But what was she to do? Where 
 was it leading to? They could not live on Mira's leav- 
 ings of bread and meat ! A man who did not support his 
 family for love of his Sabbath was as bad as a drunkard. 
 Day after day Elias returned the same dusty gray fig- 
 ure, his dragging step in the hall forever announcing fail- 
 ure. At each futile attempt, Sarah's resentment blazed 
 up and dying down left as a residue a more crystallized 
 determination to seek redress. At last, tried to the ut- 
 most, she broke away from her timidity and tolerance, 
 and, raising her head high, jumped into the fray of the 
 more sophisticated. 
 
 One Friday morning, after many rehearsals, Minnie 
 said to her father: 
 
 "Papa, mama said you should meet Mira's husband by 
 his house, and he will take you to work by buttonholes 
 in his shop." 
 
 Pretending she could market more economically for 
 the Sabbath at an early hour, Sarah had left at eight 
 o'clock. Jacob had gone out at the same time ostensibly 
 for school. A little later Minnie also departed. The 
 last to go was Elias. 
 
 At the corner of the street near the courthouse Sarah 
 and Jacob waited for Minnie; then the three waited for 
 Elias. Sarah thought with bitter sarcasm : "He hurries !" 
 
 She was as agitated as though she were the victim, 
 not the aggressor. Her heart hammered at her ribs, 
 her temples throbbed, her mouth and lips were dry, her
 
 ELIAS 23 
 
 tongue was pasty. She glanced nervously from one 
 corner of the street to the other, one moment indignant 
 at Elias's delay, the next moment hoping he would not 
 come. Her reason for seeking refuge in the Essex 
 Market Court was forgotten. She was conscious only 
 of something strange to be accomplished, of a pounding 
 heart, and a brain throbbing and muddled. 
 
 Minnie, the first to spy Elias approaching at a slow, 
 even gait, his eyes lowered, whispered: 
 
 "Uh, ma, there's pa !" 
 
 Sarah gathered her shawl nervously about her and 
 looked around. 
 
 Self-control is characteristic of Talmud-trained Jews. 
 Though Elias was astonished to see his wife and his 
 two children, he betrayed no emotion. He drew toward 
 them at the same even, slow pace. He suspected there 
 was something wrong but he asked quite calmly: 
 
 "What is the matter?" 
 
 Without preliminaries, to all appearance aggressive, in 
 reality almost collapsing from agitation, Sarah told her 
 husband "it would have to end." Once for all it would 
 have to be settled who was right, he or she, whether 
 the children ought or ought not to starve. She would 
 "make a scene to bring all the people together" if he 
 did not go to court with her and learn that a man who 
 did not support his family because of piety was no 
 better than a drunkard. 
 
 Elias listened dumfounded. He recalled the words, 
 "court," "drunken," "fix," to which he had attached no 
 actual significance. Could he be hearing aright? Was 
 the woman in front of him his wife? Were the two 
 children his children? He found nothing to say in 
 reply. Finally he gathered his wits together.
 
 24 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 
 
 "You must be crazy. It cannot be otherwise." He 
 shrugged his shoulders as if to say that even if Sarah 
 were insane, such conduct was incomprehensible. Sud- 
 denly the face of a yellow cat, which had been the 
 family pet in Russia, danced irritatingly before his eyes. 
 He dropped his lids to blot out the image. Then came 
 a fleeting vision of Minnie as a baby. He glanced at 
 the child. She, glimpsing his look, moved closer to 
 her mother, raising her thumb to her mouth. An ex- 
 quisite pain pierced Elias's father-heart. 
 
 In just a moment, Elias's beard became two beards 
 to Sarah, then three beards, and one again, and his 
 person very clear. Sarah's resolution gained strength' 
 in that moment. "Once for all!" she said emphatically. 
 Her loud voice intimidated them all. Simultaneously and 
 without definite purpose they proceeded slowly forward. 
 
 "Can it be that this is Sarah?" Elias thought. In 
 some unaccountable way a tender feeling for his wife 
 entered his heart. He stepped nearer and took her by 
 the elbow. "Come, my wife, this is for people's laugh- 
 ter" (far leitische Gelechter) . He spoke gently and tried 
 to lead her away. This only irritated Sarah more. 
 "You dare!" she shouted. Elias looked timidly about 
 to see if anyone had heard. A scene on the street was 
 above all to be avoided. They continued slowly to 
 approach the courthouse. 
 
 When they reached the door, each waited for the 
 other to lead the way. Presently an officer appeared and 
 gruffly ordered them to "move on." Frightened, they 
 proceeded as one person to enter. 
 
 Returning from her marketing, Abie's mother, who 
 was not Christianly disposed toward Sarah, just then 
 passed the courthouse. She saw the Mendels disap-
 
 ELIAS 25 
 
 pearing through the doorway. She stopped short in 
 astonishment. "That they fight," she thought, "who 
 does not know that! But to go to court f" She shrug- 
 ged her shoulders and walked on. "A coarse woman, 
 that Mrs. Mendel!" she murmured to herself. "But 
 as long as she speaks German! every sin of hers is nul- 
 lified. Yiddish past ihr nit." (Yiddish is not good 
 enough for her). 
 
 A long wait on shabby benches in a musty room a 
 period of unreality to them all then Sarah and the two 
 children were hustled to one side of a platform; Elias 
 was placed on the other side, an interpreter between. 
 
 Sarah looked nervously about. For an instant she 
 permitted her eyes to rest on Elias; he looked ghastly. 
 A sharp pain smote her heart. "Woe is me!" she cried 
 inaudibly. Such is that type of rebel, they can con- 
 tinue to prosecute by tongue or deed apparently with- 
 out mercy, while they are tortured by the voice of 
 conscience. 
 
 It was indeed a tragic Mendel group which faced the 
 Law that morning: 
 
 Sarah, her heart torn. 
 
 Elias, sorrowful and ashamed. 
 
 Minnie, alarmed and unsteady on her feet. 
 
 Jacob, shy, his cap pulled down over his tear-filled 
 eyes. 
 
 The first to be called was Elias. Sarah, whose shak- 
 ing knees almost gave way, looked about the room. 
 She observed a woman with disheveled hair, who sat 
 with her mouth wide open. Bringing her unsteady hand 
 up to her own hair she adjusted a few loose strands. 
 Elias stammered out his name with a swift look at his 
 wife. A wave of intense bitterness surged through
 
 26 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 his being, and hot tears came to his eyes. At the same 
 moment Sarah's heart again cried : "Woe is me !" Until 
 her turn came, she heard not another word. 
 
 "What is your name?" 
 
 Sarah raised her chest under her shawl and drew the 
 shawl closer about her thin shoulders. Suddenly the 
 room seemed to be in utter darkness. She blinked and 
 steadied herself against the railing. Then composing 
 herself, she answered huskily: "Sarah Mendel." Her 
 name was entered in the formidable-looking book. She 
 was now called upon to state her "case." 
 
 She ran the back of her hand over her neck, and made 
 an effort to say something, but her voice seemed gone. 
 She looked down at the floor then cleared her throat. 
 The interpreter told her to speak Yiddish, he would ex- 
 plain to the judge. Hearing the word "judge," Sarah 
 looked up at that impressive personage and smiled stu- 
 pidly. The court grew impatient. The interpreter told 
 her to "hurry." Thus recalled to action, Sarah ner- 
 vously put her hand to her wrist, slowly pushed up 
 her sleeve and exposed bruises caused by the stove door 
 falling shut on her arm. 
 
 "Does he hit you?" the interpreter inquired. Sarah 
 nodded her head. 
 
 "He don' give us nothin* to eat," little Minnie shyly 
 repeated the sentence her mother had rehearsed with 
 her, her thumb again in her mouth, her head lowered, 
 her eyes raised to the judge. 
 
 There followed some writing and an authoritative 
 command : 
 
 "Ten days." 
 
 Sarah, dazed, stupefied, limp, passed her hand over 
 her eyes. On removing it she saw her husband in the
 
 ELIAS 27 
 
 grasp of two uniformed men. She shrieked like a mad 
 woman. Arrested! Ten days! Elias arrested! No, 
 that was not what she had intended. She had only 
 wished him frightened, as Mira's husband had been 
 then he would work on the Sabbath. 
 
 Her lamentations broke on unattending ears. The 
 law was not to be trifled with. 
 
 Another "case" was being tried. With little ceremony 
 Sarah and her children were dumped outdoors where 
 the sun shone unconcernedly. Sarah wrung her hands 
 and moaned, "Woe is me! Woe is me!" the two chil- 
 dren wailing with her. 
 
 VI 
 
 Mrs. Ratkin said to her husband: 
 
 "That Mendel woman I should live stii an'd be 
 well she has sent her husband 'over the water/* 
 When I came home from Sabbath marketing I saw her 
 and her husband and Jakie and Minnie going into Essick 
 Market Court. That she and her husband fight who 
 does not know that? But to go to cowrt, and to get 
 her husband arrested ! That is already unsuited to Jew- 
 ish people." Mrs. Ratkin served her husband with her 
 early morning thoughts. "A coarse woman, that Mrs. 
 Mendel. But as long as she speaks German. Yiddish 
 past ihr nit. And such a one gets her husband arrested ! 
 Does that woman deserve to live?" Though her hus- 
 band was listening quite attentively, open-mouthed like 
 a child afflicted with adenoids, she spoke as if he were 
 an opponent to be argued into her way of thinking. 
 
 * Sing-Sing.
 
 28 
 
 Abie, too, was an attentive listener. The moment his 
 mother, engrossed in her narrative, became aware of this 
 fact, she pounced upon him. 
 
 "Why did you listen ?" Then, realizing that her ques- 
 tion was foolish, she had recourse to exhortation. "For 
 God's sake, obey your mother for once and do not 
 tell anyone what I told papa." She conceived the no- 
 tion that if Sarah knew she knew, Sarah would tell 
 the landlord and she would lose her janitorship. Those 
 whom life hounds see trouble lurking in the remotest 
 corners. Poor Sarah would never have dreamed of ap- 
 proaching the landlord. The landlord indeed ! An im- 
 posing personage, big-bellied and solemn, of whom 
 Sarah and the other tenants stood immensely in awe. 
 He never greeted them, nor so much as took notice of 
 their existence except to come to their doors once a 
 month, solemn as the occasion itself, and demand the 
 rent. 
 
 Eleven days later when Abie was sent by his mother 
 on his gas-lighting job, he struck. The instrument which 
 his father (of a mechanical turn, though pursuing chiefly 
 tHe trade of rag-picker) had devised for turning the cock 
 of the gas-jet had not been working properly for tHe past 
 few days, and Abie fiad been compelled, as he had been 
 before his father's invention, to lug a chair along. He 
 had given his mother fair warning, but she had not been 
 able to prevail upon her husband to shake off his tired- 
 ness long enougti to fix the tin tube now too large for 
 the candle. 
 
 "Go, Abie, go. It's dark already," pleaded his 
 mother.
 
 ELIAS 29 
 
 "I won't," said Abie again. "The candle comes all 
 the time out." 
 
 Mrs. Ratkin compressed the tin tube and urged 
 him to try now. At the door the candle fell out. His 
 mother, angered, grabbed the lighter impatiently from 
 his hand, inserted the candle with vehemence and pro- 
 ceeded with Abie. She was resolved to show him that 
 all instruments work well always, if one only applies 
 oneself diligently enough; if one is not a lazy loafer, 
 in short. 
 
 In the lowest hall of the front tenement, she encoun- 
 tered Sarah, who started, turned back abruptly as though 
 she had forgotten something, and then faced round again 
 and stammered out a greeting. 
 
 "What are you so excited about?" asked Mrs. Ratkin, 
 who knew Elias had returned that afternoon. When she 
 had seen him from the yard, she had looked twice, thrice, 
 to be certain her eyes did not deceive her. 
 
 Sarah gave a shy, self-conscious smile. 
 
 "My husband came back from Brooklyn to-day." 
 She colored deeply. "He went because he was sick." 
 She made a hasty move toward the stairs. Mounting 
 a few steps, she added: "I just went out to buy him 
 some supper." 
 
 "Upon my word," Mrs. Ratkin confided to her hus- 
 band in the evening, "that woman is a liar to her bones ! 
 She tells me her husband was sick in Brooklyn. Sick! 
 One says nothing then. Why was it necessary for her 
 to tell a lie?" She turned to Abie, dread of contamina- 
 tion entering her heart. "Better, my son, spend your 
 time helping your mother than playing round with that 
 Minnie girl. A homely one fui!" She turned to her
 
 30 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 husband again. "Who knows children they grow up 
 before one realizes it. God forbid !" 
 
 Jewish parents always provide careers for their chil- 
 dren up to and including matrimony, never discouraged 
 in the face of Fate's perpetual contrariness. 
 
 "S' a madder, ma ?" asked Abie. "Wuz Mr. Mendel 
 arrested? I ain' gonna tell." He placed his hand over 
 his heart in religious pledge of holiday honor. "Tell 
 me," he urged. 
 
 "Go, go!" said Mrs. Ratkin to quash his curiosity. 
 Then deeming further precaution necessary she added : 
 "I can, -God forbid, lose the place here if that woman 
 begins to tell people or the landlord that I gossip. 
 She is such a liar. Who knows what she would not 
 say if one word got to her! You hear!" she now 
 shouted at Abie, "you should never dare to say a word." 
 
 Abie acknowledged that the warning had reached his 
 ears. However, he had no intention of giving up Minnie 
 as a playfellow or a quarrel fellow. In fact, a very differ- 
 ent chain of thoughts was set going in his mind. These 
 eventually linked themselves with an event of grave im- 
 portance to the Ratkin family. 
 
 VII 
 
 Had Elias Mendel been released immediately upon 
 his wife's pleading, he would undoubtedly have been 
 welcomed back by her as one who has been restored to 
 life from the dead; and temporarily all his sins would 
 have been forgotten. But only temporarily. His reli- 
 gious fanaticism would doubtless soon again havd 
 aroused Sarah's hostility and again there would have
 
 ELI AS 31 
 
 set in the same ugly struggle. As it was, the ten days 
 gave each a chance to reflect upon the tragic reality 
 of their sordid relationship. 
 
 The period of reflection sobered Sarah, who tortured 
 herself with dire speculations as to where and under 
 what terrible circumstances the law was keeping her hus- 
 band in confinement. She grew to hate herself for the 
 enormous breach of decency she had perpetrated. Now 
 and then she found solace in disclaiming responsibility 
 for the outcome since it had been so entirely different 
 from her intentions, but the solace would not last long. 
 "He was arrested just the same," she would charge 
 herself, "like any common peasant at home." Elias 
 would be justified in hating her the remainder of his 
 days. When she remembered his decent Talmudic 
 friends "at home" and wondered what they would think 
 of her conduct, she felt a sinking of her heart. As for 
 her parents, she was sure they would "turn in their 
 graves." . . Like a scientist studying cause and 
 effect she consciously now, for the first time, thought 
 over their life together and saw her disloyalty. "I mar- 
 ried him; I must stand his idiosyncrasies as I would 
 stand a disease. To cut up capers in public at this 
 day with four children that is indeed leitische Ge- 
 lechter." She felt herself drawn back as by a firm hand 
 to her old, decent self; and rational plans for solving 
 their difficulties came to her. Jacob could sell papers, 
 Minnie could help him, she herself could peddle can- 
 dles, stationery do something. 
 
 She gave Jacob five cents immediately to invest in 
 ten papers, and he and Minnie sold them at a profit 
 of five cents.
 
 32 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Elias, in his prison cell, little divining Sarah's change 
 of heart, came to the conclusion that she was capable 
 of lying, was vindictive, and disliked him far more than 
 he had ever imagined. She was an outrageous apostate. 
 There was but one decent thing to do, divorce her. The 
 children? Ah, the children! At this point Elias al- 
 ways sighed and got no further. It was, however, with 
 the firm intention of approaching his wife as a man 
 who will have nothing more to do with her that he 
 turned his steps homeward the day of his release. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon when he reached home. 
 A melancholy twilight and quiet filled the room. None 
 of the children were at home. On the bed in a dark 
 air-tigfit bedroom a denial of our civilization lay Foxy, 
 the dog, unconcernedly asleep. Sarah was sitting at one 
 of the two windows with "leitische Gelechter, leitische 
 Gelechter!" running through her tired mind, and every 
 now and then a sigh of dull resignation escaping from 
 her. She was not expecting her husband. 
 
 When the door opened she turned her head, thinking 
 it was one of the children. At sight of Elias her heart 
 bounded. She made a successful effort to hide her 
 emotion. Nothing but the flutter of her eyelids could 
 have revealed her agitation even to the keenest observer. 
 Though her impulse was to rise, she remained seated. 
 Her husband greeted her while he still .held the door 
 in his hand. Sarah answered perfunctorily, turning her 
 head quickly to look out of the window. Elias stepped 
 into the room. He coughed, removed his hat, and wip- 
 ing the perspiratioji from his forehead, seated himself 
 on the lounge. He coughed again. Then, examining his 
 fingernails, he asked for the children. 
 
 Sarah's heart was going nervously. She moved un-
 
 ELIAS 33 
 
 easily on her chair. To cover her tremulousness she 
 put a note of impatience into her answer, "They are 
 playing on the street" She continued to look through 
 the window. 
 
 To her husband, in his present frame of mind, her 
 tone suggested: "Why do you not ask whether they 
 are hungry?" Poor Sarah! Somehow she now felt 
 she must conceal her regret. Elias consequently re- 
 flected: "The sooner we are divorced the better for all 
 of us, then I will go back 'home.' " He sighed. Sarah 
 impulsively turned eyes of concern upon him. Just 
 then there was a commotion in the hall. Bursting open 
 the door, Ida and Bubbele laughing merrily fell over 
 each other into the room. Upon seeing their father, 
 they instantly disentangled themselves and rushed at 
 him, enthusiastically shouting : "Papa, papa !" Never be- 
 fore had their father paid so long a visit to their uncle 
 in Brooklyn. 
 
 Sarah rose from her seat, stood a moment irresolute, 
 then moved toward the stove, where filling the tea kettle 
 gave her an excuse for standing with her back to the 
 group. Another moment's thought, and she decided to 
 go downstairs. She went back to her chair by the win- 
 dow to get her shawl, which had fallen to the floor, and 
 put it about her shoulders. 
 
 "Where you gone, mama?" Bubbele piped, staying 
 the movement of her little hand to her father's beard. 
 Elias had taken both children on his knees. 
 
 Sarah avoided looking at the group. Inventing the 
 need for some groceries, she said impatiently that she 
 was going out. At that moment the door opened. It 
 was Minnie. Instantly seeing her father she stopped 
 short on the threshold, undecided whether to enter or 
 turn back. Elias looked at her, his head half raised.
 
 34 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "Nu, daughter?" he said, rising as he seated Ida and 
 Bubbele on the lounge. 
 
 Minnie looked at her mother, whose eyes, she saw 
 were moist. Quickly laying her head against the hand 
 holding the knob, she burst into tears. Sarah brushed 
 past the child and out, banging the door. Minnie stood 
 weeping in the middle of the room. Elias called to her 
 again. She flew to him and cried in abandonment : 
 "Oo, papa! Oo, papa!" as she nestled her small body 
 against the man's bony frame. Elias clumsily stroked 
 her hair. "Be still, my child," he urged gently, "be 
 still." By degrees Minnie's outburst subsided. 
 
 While Elias was still pacifying her, Jacob entered. 
 Seeing his father he quickly moved into the bedroom, 
 where he threw his cap on a chair and stirred about 
 as if attending to things. Then he sat down upon 
 the bed, on which Foxy still lay asleep. Jacob won- 
 dered hastily about his father and where his mother 
 was. That his father should be petting Minnie aston- 
 ished him. He wished his mother would come back. 
 He was anxious for an explanation. ... In the 
 meantime he stroked Foxy's fur. Several times the 
 dog moved uncomfortably under the hand ; finally he 
 awoke, and shaking himself as does a swimmer to throw 
 off the wet, sniffed at Jacob investigatingly. In a mo- 
 ment he became aware of Elias's presence, and with one 
 excited move bounded into the other room and licked 
 and wagged Elias a boisterous welcome. Tears came to 
 Elias Mendel's eyes. 
 
 Foxy gone, Jacob began twirling his cap, dropped 
 it again, and sat with clasped knees contemplating the 
 ceiling. Elias, though he glanced stealthily into the 
 bedroom, did not call to his son, somehow, from Jacob, 
 expecting unsolicited action.
 
 ELIAS 35 
 
 Sarah on the street bethought herself that Elias, as 
 well as the children, would really be hungry and con- 
 verted her fictitious errand into a real one, buying a 
 can of salmon, a loaf of bread and some onions on 
 trust. It was returning that she met Mrs. Ratkin and 
 Abie. 
 
 As she reentered the room, jealousy shot through her 
 heart at the sight of Minnie in her father's arms. "Small 
 as she is," she thought, "so false first for me and now 
 for him." Poor Sarah! Minnie's innocent demonstra- 
 tiveness toward her father, she construed as a reprimand 
 to herself. Lowering her head, she began undoing the 
 packages. Becoming conscious of Jacob's presence, she 
 called to him. 
 
 Jacob had risen from the bed on hearing his mother 
 enter, but at her summons, though ready to respond, he 
 pretended he had to pick things up from the floor. The 
 truth was, he hated to face his father. Finally, how- 
 ever, he lounged in, looking steadily toward his mother. 
 Sarah asked how many papers he had sold that day. 
 "Sold them all," he answered fumbling in his pockets 
 for the afternoon's yield. Elias, in quick comprehen- 
 sion, smiled as he watched his son hand ten pennies to 
 Sarah. Though the sight saddened him, he made an 
 attempt at jocularity and naturalness. 
 
 "You have become a business man in a week, my 
 son?" 
 
 Jacob gave his father an impulsive glance and smiled. 
 Ida and Bubbele, observing from their mother's profile 
 that she, too, was smiling, burst into laughter. The ten- 
 sion was temporarily relieved. Yet throughout the meal 
 there was a feeling of constraint upon all except the 
 two youngest children, who kept on laughing and chat- 
 tering. Minnie's little body often heaved with short
 
 36 
 
 sob-sighs the kind that come after much crying. She 
 cast covert glances now at her father, now at her mother. 
 Elias and Sarah exchanged occasional remarks, always 
 avoiding each other's eyes. Jacob ate his share of the 
 meal with stubbornly lowered head. He reflected chiefly 
 about Minnie. "First she goes and says to the judge, 
 and then she cries !" He held his sister in contempt. 
 
 The meal was soon over. Bubbele asked to be put 
 on the lounge where she soon fell asleep. The three 
 other children, first Jacob, then Minnie and Ida went to 
 play on the street. East Side children have no regular 
 hours for sleep. 
 
 When the door closed on their noisy exit, Sarah 
 rose to clear away the few plates. Service with the 
 Mendels was a simple affair, each helping himself from 
 a common dish. Elias seated himself at the window 
 and looked into the yard. He wiped the perspiration 
 from his face and contemplated his handkerchief. He 
 cleared his throat, rose from his chair, then sat down 
 again as if to settle himself more comfortably, though 
 really in an effort to overcome his nervousness. 
 
 Sarah, with her back turned, kept up the appearance 
 of being busied with the dishes. Her hands were trem- 
 bling too greatly for work. Somehow she was sure that 
 her husband meant to suggest a plan that would clash 
 with hers. 
 
 "Sarah," Elias, clearing his throat, finally called to 
 her. 
 
 Sarah pretended not to hear above the running of the 
 water. 
 
 Elias called again, this time a little louder. The room 
 turned dark to Sarah, her knees shook, she held on 
 to the side of the sink. When Elias called to her a 
 third time, she could no longer evade him. She felt
 
 ELIAS 37 
 
 herself grow limp and faint, and turned not to face 
 him, but to seek a chair, and Elias, who was not look- 
 ing at her, took it for granted that she had seated her- 
 self preparatory to a discussion. Sarah passed her hand 
 over her eyes. Elias examined his fingernails, then 
 began clumsily and not at all as he had intended: 
 
 "Sarah, what are we to do?" 
 
 She made no reply. Elias repeated the question. 
 
 Hardly conscious of what she was saying, Sarah an- 
 swered, slowly, as though she were thinking deeply, 
 as though her suggestions were the inspiration of the 
 moment (such are the masquerades of nervousness). 
 
 "Jacob will keep on selling papers I will get some- 
 thing to do to help along God will help." 
 
 There was a moment's pause ; each became aware that 
 the other had spoken. Elias wondered if he had heard 
 aright. He asked Sarah what she had said. Automatic- 
 ally she repeated : 
 
 "Jacob will keep on selling papers I will get some- 
 thing to do to help along God will help." 
 
 They looked at each other. Elias saw Sarah's deathly 
 pallor and was aghast. He attempted to rise from his 
 seat. Neither spoke for a moment. Then Elias, sink- 
 ing back in his chair, put his head in the cup of his 
 palms and wept like a child. Sarah raised a corner of 
 her soiled apron to her eyes, and she, too, wept. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Elias remained without work; for the arrest neither 
 cured him of his piety nor taught him a trade. His 
 daily plodding rounds in search of a job only brought 
 him home exhausted and heavier hearted.
 
 38 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 It was a period of great trial to both Elias and Sarah, 
 whose reconciliation was followed by a sickening self- 
 consciousness inevitable with sensitive people. Gray 
 hairs appeared in Elias's dark beard, darker rings en- 
 circled his eyes. Of the two, he made the greater at- 
 tempt to bridge over the awkwardness. While Sarah 
 went about doing the housework, he would relate in- 
 cidents of the day and talk of this thing or that, and 
 often read aloud snatches of news from the daily paper. 
 If anything he said required an answer, Sarah would 
 respond with an effort at naturalness and her old-time 
 agreeableness. Generally she would avoid looking at 
 him, and sometimes, when he addressed her suddenly, 
 she would start nervously and reply with irritability. 
 Instantly, however, she would check herself and cover 
 her embarrassment by quickly finding something to do. 
 
 There were days when Elias returning from his expedi- 
 tions complained of feeling ill. "Sick!" Sarah would 
 think sarcastically and resentfully, against the better 
 self which struggled for existence. She had a constant 
 pain in her side, yet she said nothing. Never before 
 had Elias complained, and Sarah knew he would not 
 complain now without good cause; but want is a wind 
 that blows justice back to heaven. 
 
 One evening Elias returned home jubilant. He had 
 found work in a cigarette factory; the boss was an 
 orthodox Jew who had not even raised the Sabbath ques- 
 tion, and had actually of his own accord offered to pay 
 Elias his dream of a maximum salary eight dollars a 
 week. 
 
 Elias told of this good fortune with boyish enthusi- 
 asm. The rings under his eyes seemed to turn a shade 
 darker from his great joy. Sarah was glad, yet when
 
 ELIAS 39 
 
 Elias in his high spirits attempted to kiss her, she im- 
 petuously pushed him away and turned her back. Elias 
 flushed. 
 
 Sarah went to the sink and began preparing the sup- 
 per a feast of bread and sausages taken on trust from 
 the delicatessen proprietor, whose patience in the matter 
 of extending credit had been less tried in these days' 
 than that of the grocer and butcher. The man had 
 given her the eatables with marked kindness, and Sarah 
 groping her way up the dark tenement stairs had shed 
 tears because of his courtesy. 
 
 Elias reseated himself on the lounge. Several times 
 he told Ida and Bubbele, who were playing on the floor, 
 not to make so much noise. As soon as Sarah left the 
 sink, he rose to wash himself. Sarah, anticipating his 
 requirements, rummaged in a box in the bedroom for 
 a towel and brought it to him. He took it and thanked 
 her. They avoided each other's eyes. 
 
 As Sarah began the simple setting of the table, Minnie 
 came in. 
 
 "Sh'll I help you, ma?" she asked promptly. 
 
 "No, your face is dirty. Wash your face and comb 
 your hair," Sarah said in a somewhat irritated tone, 
 for, though she refused the help, she resented having 
 to do all the work herself. 
 
 Soon the family was ready for the meal. Elias told 
 Jacob, who sat in a corner reading, to put his book down 
 and come to the table. Sarah was the last to seat 
 herself. She had first to wash and comb Bubbele. 
 
 During the meal, Minnie gave Sarah a message from 
 Mira Cohen, whom she had met on the street. 
 
 "She's gonna see you to-night," the child told her 
 mother.
 
 40 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "To-night, here?" Elias asked. He did not like Mira. 
 
 "Did she say she is coming here or that I should 
 go to her?" inquired Sarah, who inferred that the mes- 
 sage had something to do with Mira's promise to give 
 her the address of a place where she could apply for 
 work. 
 
 "Yeh no I mean she is coming here," answered 
 Minnie, passing the cuff of her sleeve across her nose. 
 The father felt called upon to mend his daughter's ways. 
 
 "Yeh no " he mimicked, intending to add that a 
 
 young woman of eight should know that a corner of a 
 towel and not the cuff of a sleeve is used for wiping 
 noses. A laugh from Bubbele diverted him. His mim- 
 icking had struck her as a huge joke. She began mim- 
 icking- too. Ida took up the refrain, and soon both 
 children were crying "Yeh no-^ " and laughing so in- 
 fectiously that the others were compelled to join in the 
 fun. Sarah, however, did not enter into the spirit of 
 gaiety. "See, children, stop," she coaxed. 
 
 "Let the children have their fun," begged Elias. 
 However, the young ones settled quietly down to eat- 
 ing again. Yet the bit of merriment had cleared the 
 atmosphere of the former constraint. Elias felt he might 
 again talk about his new work. For the present, he 
 explained, he would have to do various small tasks, 
 such as sweeping the place, cleaning the tables, run- 
 ning out for lunches for the employees. The boss, he 
 said, promised to advance him if he proved himself 
 capable even to the place of foreman. Elias accounted 
 for the boss's generosity by the fact that they were com- 
 patriots, although the boss had left the "other side" 
 many years earlier. "He is an unusually nice man," 
 Elias remarked in conclusion.
 
 ELIAS 41 
 
 Sarah, interested, listened attentively, for the first time 
 free of agonizing self -consciousness. 
 
 Supper was soon over. Jacob was the first to rise. 
 When Elias questioned him, he said he intended to go 
 and change a book at the library. 
 
 "Take me along," pleaded Minnie, as her brother 
 picked up his book and cap. 
 
 "No," said Elias somewhat authoritatively, "you stay 
 at home and help your mother. Time enough when 
 you get older to go to libraries." 
 
 Minnie stuck her thumb in her mouth and looked over 
 quickly at her mother. "Mama, sh'll I help?" 
 
 "No, go," Sarah said, resentment, however, flashing 
 up in her heart again. She was tired, and the task of 
 washing the dishes, few as they were, and tidying the 
 room loomed up as gigantic. 
 
 "No, Minnele, you help your mother," Elias insisted. 
 
 Though Minnie was willing, Sarah sent her off. The 
 children went out together, Jacob grumbling: "That one 
 always has to run along like a little worm. Makes me 
 sick." 
 
 The incident created a slight tension between Sarah 
 and Elias as if something had gone wrong between them. 
 When he rose to help, she turned on him with impulsive 
 impatience. 
 
 "Go sit down. So long " she broke off and turned 
 
 away quickly. It had been on her lips to say : "So long 
 you never thought of helping and now suddenly you 
 do." 
 
 Elias, divining the unspoken, became embarrassed ; the 
 color left his face. The occasional underlying irrita- 
 tion in Sarah's manner made him more miserable than 
 had her former full-worded outbursts. He felt the
 
 42 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 struggle beneath it. Elias was in love with the Sarah 
 he had married, and when she in the least resembled 
 that old self, he loved her still. 
 
 Without comment he walked with bowed head to the 
 lounge, and called Ida and Bubbele, who came running. 
 Stretching himself out at full length, he perched Bubbele 
 on his body and told Ida to be seated on the least dilapi- 
 dated spot on the lounge ; some parts of the Mendel 
 lounge could stand very little strain and could give its 
 burden very great discomfort. 
 
 "Ah, pa, tell us a story," Ida begged. 
 
 "Yeh," Bubbele chimed in, pulling her father's 
 beard. 
 
 "Don* pull papa's beard," Ida chided Bubbele. 
 
 Elias told of the coming of the Messiah. Though 
 the children had heard the story countless times before, 
 they listened again with the keenest interest. When 
 the point of the narrative was reached that promised 
 the coming of the Messiah, Ida questioned wonderingly, 
 as she always did: "And will he come on a great big 
 mountain and blow a horn, and will all the dead peo- 
 ples wake up and walk like us ?" "Yes," Elias promised. 
 Ida's face expressed incredulity, and Bubbele, who got 
 her cue from Ida, put on a similar expression. 
 
 Elias looked over at Sarah standing at the sink. She 
 was thinking: "How people, grown up like Elias, can 
 believe all that, I do not understand. God forgive me 
 if I sin." 
 
 Here, without the preliminary of knocking, Mira en- 
 tered, wiping her face, panting for breath, complaining, 
 simultaneously, of the four flights of stairs, and seating 
 herself. 
 
 "Nu, how are you?" she began with her customary
 
 ELIAS 43 
 
 salutation, addressing Sarah. Sarah stole a glance at 
 Elias. 
 
 "How I am? I am," she said with a fatalistic ges- 
 ture characteristic of her race a resigned lift of the 
 brow and a slight sidewise ducking of the head. 
 
 Mira's look implied: "That does not tell me much." 
 So Sarah added quietly: "How should one be? Alive. 
 What else is necessary ?" She placed a dish on the shelf 
 above the sink and picked up the third and last dish 
 still to be dried. Elias, sitting up on the lounge, looked 
 at the two women. 
 
 "That's a truthful truth," Mira vouchsafed in agree- 
 ment. There was general repressed smiling. 
 
 Elias, in a talkative mood, told Mira of his day's suc- 
 cess. Mira offered congratulations, which, while sin- 
 cere, were also sarcastic. "By cigarettes," she said, "one 
 can work one's self up without limit," and then told 
 of a man she knew who now had a cigarette factory of 
 his own, though he had begun just as low as Elias. In 
 fact, so well was he doing that he had no eyes and no 
 use for acquaintances of less prosperous days. Sarah 
 and Elias listened attentively, their hearts fanned by a 
 new hope as is a dying fire by a mild breeze. Timidly, 
 Elias raised his eyes and looked at Sarah, who at last 
 had seated herself. There was silence for a moment 
 or two, the quiet dolefully emphasized by the ticking 
 of a one-legged clock which lay on its side on the 
 wooden shelf over the sink. 
 
 Bubbele yawned sleepily. "Put her to bed," Sarah 
 asked gently of Elias. He was touched. Lifting the 
 child from the floor, he kissed her tenderly, and placed 
 her on the bed in the one other room of their home. 
 The next moment Ida also was yawning. "Go to bed, 
 too, childie," he said. She rose and went. Elias picked
 
 44 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 up his coat. Sarah glanced at him inquiringly. "I'm 
 going down to buy cigarettes," he explained. 
 
 "Soon you will not need to buy cigarettes," Mira said 
 jocosely, "you will have a place of your own." Sarah 
 fumbled with her apron strings. Elias, embarrassed, said 
 good night quietly and went out. 
 
 Mira turned eagerly to Sarah. "You see, when he 
 tried, he found." she said. 
 
 "He tried before, too," Sarah replied with impulsive 
 irritation, and immediately averted her eyes in annoy- 
 ance that she had betrayed herself. The truth was, 
 secretly Sarah bore Mira a grudge, as if Mira were 
 to blame that the Law had been less stringent with her 
 husband than with Sarah's. 
 
 In theory Mira was averse to an outsider's inter- 
 ference, however well meant, between man and wife, es- 
 pecially if either were inclined to resent it. So she 
 said no more on the subject, though Sarah, she thought, 
 might at least be grateful to her for the good influence 
 the arrest had had upon Elias, since otherwise he would 
 doubtless still be an idler. Tactfully she veered to the 
 purpose of her visit. She supposed, she said, Sarah 
 would not need work now. Sarah hastily assured her 
 to the contrary, for eight dollars a week was scarcely 
 enough to maintain six people; and besides there were 
 debts at the butcher's and the grocer's "over her head ;" 
 also the children needed shoes. Mira wisely remarked 
 that the poor man's blessing was the fact that he had 
 feet to boot. They both smiled. Mira then gave Sarah 
 the promised address. It was the People's Charities 
 on Mustend Street. 
 
 "Charities?" Sarah inquired timidly, with a nervous 
 jerk of her left shoulder. She was alarmed; charity 
 did not gibe with her idea of respectability.
 
 ELIAS 45 
 
 "It is not like asking for money. It is only work 
 you want. Do not be foolish." The issue not being 
 husbands, Mira could, with impunity, be her compelling 
 self. 
 
 Sarah lowered her head. She was always helpless 
 when Mira waxed certain. The subject was dismissed. 
 They talked of other things. When, at ten o'clock, 
 Mira rose to go, Sarah accompanied her to the door, 
 where she plucked up the courage to ask: 
 
 "Maybe you can go with me ?" 
 
 "To the Charities?" 
 
 Sarah nodded affirmatively. 
 
 "Sure, sure." 
 
 They agreed to leave Mira's house at ten the next 
 morning. Out of gratitude Sarah momentarily was con- 
 vinced that Mira had meant well when she had sug- 
 gested the Essex Market Court as a remedial measure 
 in the case of Elias and that the outcome had been 
 due to her own black luck. 
 
 Elias, on his return, found Sarah combing her hair. 
 He was in good spirits. "You have pretty hair, Sarah," 
 he said smiling kindly. 
 
 Sarah turned her back. She did not like compliments 
 from Elias, and was glad of Minnie's and Jacob's en- 
 trance. Jacob had taken two books out of the library, 
 one of which Minnie was carrying, proud as a peacock. 
 Elias interrupted the child in her stream of prattle to 
 remind her of her nightly task; to bring the two cots 
 in from the outside hall and set them up in the room- 
 of-all-affairs. One was for Jacob, the other for Sarah 
 and Minnie. The bed in the bedroom was occupied by 
 Elias and the two younger children. While Minnie 
 went about her work, Elias undressed Bubbele and Ida,
 
 46 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 and Sarah removed bedding from the bed for the cots. 
 When the cots were set up, Minnie helped Sarah dis- 
 tribute the bedding. 
 
 "To-morrow when you come from school," the mother 
 whispered as together they spread a sheet, "step into 
 the grocery store and bring a bottle of kerosene." She 
 sighed heavily. Time and again she had tried to ex- 
 terminate the bedbugs and the roaches. 
 
 "Uh, yeh, ma, Jacob scratched hisself the whole day," 
 Minnie piped alertly and appealed to Jacob for corro- 
 boration. "Am' it?" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "That you was ate up by the bedbugs." 
 
 Jacob was provoked with her. She had invalidated his 
 greater maturity by her juvenile presence beside him in 
 the library. 
 
 "All the time she tells I never saw such a such 
 
 a " His stammering made Minnie and even Sarah 
 
 laugh. 
 
 Elias, already in bed beside Ida and Bubbele, called 
 out that it was late, and as he would have to get up 
 early in the morning, would they quiet down immedi- 
 ately. Sarah turned the gas low and whispered to the 
 children to be still. In the dark the three undressed 
 an3 crawled into their humble beds. 
 
 Minnie was the first to fall asleep. Then Jacob. Sarah 
 lay thinking of her tasks of the morrow the Charities 
 the bed cleaning 
 
 Then she, too, fell asleep. 
 
 Late in the night Sarah awoke. Almost at the same 
 moment Jacob also awoke. He whispered in a wail : 
 "Uh, mama, it scratches me so!" 
 
 Sarah sat up in her cot. 
 
 "What shall I do what shall I do!" she moaned,
 
 ELIAS 47 
 
 wringing her hands. Then she checked herself. She 
 must not disturb Minnie. "Go to sleep, sonnie," she 
 coaxed, "go to sleep. To-morrow I will clean again. 
 Go to sleep." As if to inspire the boy to sleep she 
 herself lay down. Jacob followed her example. When 
 all was quiet, Elias turned restlessly in bed once, twice 
 but not again. 
 
 "I clean and I clean," Sarah wailed to herself. "The 
 place is rotten the very wood is rotten " 
 
 Meanwhile Jacob was taken with a large idea. He 
 knew his mother would not refuse him anything at this 
 hour of the night when she was anxious for quiet 
 above everything else. He whispered, as if taking up 
 the broken thread of a conversation : 
 
 "So will you give me a quarter to-morrow for papers, 
 mama? I kin sell more like the other boys." 
 
 Sarah smiled. Her son's shrewdness did not escape 
 her. He had petitioned for the same amount of con- 
 fidence in his salesman's ability in the daytime, under 
 ordinary circumstances, and she had refused to give it. 
 The boy's assumption was correct ; she could not argue 
 with him now. 
 
 "All right," she said. 
 
 "Remember, you promised." 
 
 "All right. Go to sleep." 
 
 Jacob turned on his side; though he closed his eyes, 
 he did not fall asleep until dawn. Sarah slept not 
 at all. 
 
 IX 
 
 In the morning Elias said to Sarah: 
 "Last night, Sarah, I was greatly bothered. 
 Kerosene " 
 
 Sarah cut him short.
 
 48 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "I have spilled kerosene without measure; it does 
 not help. Warm nights like last night nothing helps. 
 The place is rotten, the wood, the floor. The woman 
 next door, Mrs. Cohen upstairs, everybody has the same 
 trouble." Realizing, to her mortification, that she had 
 displayed temper, she lowered her head and continued 
 more quietly : "Yesterday I found white worms, a whole 
 swarm of them under the sink." 
 
 Her evident distress went to Elias's heart. He was 
 sorry he had spoken. He turned to prepare for his 
 morning prayers. 
 
 Sarah roused Minnie and Jacob. The cots had to be 
 removed that there might be passing room. Jacob rose 
 reluctantly; he seemed only just to have fallen asleep. 
 With Minnie helping, Sarah carried the bedding into the 
 other room. Minnie then dragged the cots out to the hall. 
 Jacob, as always, concerned himself only with his own 
 person. The accepted position of boys in Jewish homes 
 is that of Lords of the Domain. 
 
 Minnie dressed hurriedly. Her next duty was to go 
 to the grocery store for breakfast rolls. She needed no 
 instructions as to the kind or quantity to procure. Each 
 of the children ate one cruller for breakfast, Elias two 
 flat buns with grated onions embedded in the top, Sarah 
 a plain water roll. The sum to be expended was five 
 cents. 
 
 Sarah, meanwhile, placed a pot of water on the gas 
 stove and threw in a handful of chicory. Rolls and 
 "coffee" had been the family's morning repast for over 
 two years, with a deviation to nothing at all in harder 
 times. 
 
 As Sarah turned from the stove to pick up the things 
 strewn about the room, her eyes fell on Jacob. His
 
 ELIAS 49 
 
 sallowness smote her heart. ''He must have been eaten 
 up," she wailed inwardly. Why was such terrible luck 
 coming to her innocent children! 
 
 Minnie, having raced up the stairs, burst into the 
 room all out of breath. 
 
 "Look, look, how she runs!" Sarah cried to Elias; 
 then to Minnie : "Why do you always run ?" and to her- 
 self, moaning : "How thin and pale she, too, looks ! They 
 are all coming to nothing." She turned away to hide her 
 tears. 
 
 Minnie, who took Sarah's lament for a scolding, de- 
 fended herself. 
 
 "Papa said he must be in the shop by seven." 
 
 Elias, engaged in the part of the morning prayer at 
 which speech is forbidden, shook his head to deny that 
 he had meant the child to run herself breathless. Min- 
 nie turned away sulking. 
 
 "Come, come," admonished Sarah, to distract Minnie, 
 who, mistaking this for an order to help set the table, 
 brought the cups from the shelf over the sink. 
 
 Breakfast over, Elias left saying he expected to return 
 earlier than the evening before, when he had been de- 
 tained in conversation with the boss. 
 
 As soon as the door closed on him, Sarah turned to 
 Minnie. 
 
 "Do not forget to bring the kerosene. Tell the gro- 
 ceryman to put it in the book." 
 
 In the book ! Trust ! Minnie hated taking things 
 on trust, and she said so petulantly to her mother, who, 
 looking away and evading the child's objection, contin- 
 ued : "If he says anything tell him your papa is working 
 and your mama will soon pay the bill." Some expression 
 on her mother's face left the child silent, apparently
 
 50 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 acquiescent. "I think I will be home when you come 
 from school," Sarah continued, "but if I am not, then 
 put the bedding out on the fire escape." 
 
 "Why can't Jacob do it?" Minnie asked in a fretted 
 tone. 
 
 Sarah turned to the boy : "You do it, Jacob, then." 
 
 "I peddle papers; ain' that enough?" 
 
 He was right. Sarah lacking the energy for dispute, 
 spoke in a voice full of impending tears: 
 
 "Look, look how they quarrel with me ! She does not 
 want to do it, he does not want to do it everything falls 
 to me to do. Woe is me !" 
 
 Minnie, who suffered when her mother cried, repented 
 at once 
 
 "Aw right, ma, I'll do it I'll do it." The transfer 
 of emphasis was inspired by her mother's incredulous 
 look. 
 
 "I am going to the Charities to get work," Sarah re- 
 sumed in a colorless, weary tone. "We owe the butcher 
 and the grocer and everybody. And you all need shoes." 
 Jacob and Minnie regarded their feet. Sarah sighed. 
 
 "Aw right, I'll do it," Minnie again promised, feeling 
 her assurance ought to allay her mother's worries as 
 to debts and shoes. To be even more of a solace, she 
 proceeded to clear the table. Jacob ensconced himself in 
 a corner to study his arithmetic, in which he was to 
 be examined that day. 
 
 "Is it hard?" asked Minnie. 
 
 "Not very," Jacob grunted, keeping his eyes on his 
 book. 
 
 "Will I be able to learn it when I get up high like 
 you?" 
 
 "Aw, shut up!" shouted Jacob. Sarah looked at him
 
 ELI AS 51 
 
 disapprovingly. "I don' care," he said sullenly, "all the 
 time she asks questions like last night." 
 
 "Last night / asked questions? What questions?" 
 Minnie seemed ready to argue against the false charge 
 to the bitter end. Sarah heard Ida turn in bed. "Be 
 quiet," she begged. 
 
 Jacob strapped his books. 
 
 "Will you be home by dinner time?" he aJced his 
 mother as he stood at the door ready to leave. 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 In slight embarrassment, he requested the twenty-five 
 cents for newspapers. 
 
 Sarah repented her nocturnal rashness. Twenty-five 
 cents was a large investment. However, she had prom- 
 ised ; she gave him the money, cautioning him many 
 times not to lose it while inwardly bearing bedbugs an 
 additional grudge. 
 
 "Wait for me," Minnie called. 
 
 "No, I got to go." 
 
 Minnie darted an anxious look after her brother, 
 snatched up her primer and started to follow when 
 Sarah detained her for one last reminder that she was 
 to buy kerosene. 
 
 "Aw right, mama, so a hundred times you tell me." 
 There Jacob was gone ! She had been deprived of the 
 glory of appearing on the street beside him, perhaps of 
 carrying some of his books, and so presenting an en- 
 viable figure before her little girl schoolmates! Oh, 
 it made her sick! 
 
 Sarah said nothing. Perhaps the child's annoyance 
 was justified. She lowered her head and sighed. Min- 
 nie ran out. 
 
 Sarah awakened Ida and Bubbele. She dressed them
 
 52 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 and set them to their feast of chicory and cruller. 
 "Hurry," she said., 
 
 "Where you gone?" asked the sleepy Ida. 
 
 "To get work." 
 
 "Where?" And Bubbele chimed in: "Yeh, where 
 mama ?" 
 
 Sarah bent over Bubbele and spoke in the confiding 
 tone of mothers telling fairy tales : 
 
 "Mama is going to a BIG place, where they will send 
 her by rich, RICH houses to do work, and to make 
 money to buy Bubbele cakie, and and " Sarah's in- 
 ventiveness gave out. She paused and continued with 
 greater energy: "and chicken, CHICKEN for Bub- 
 bele!" She smothered the baby with passionate kisses. 
 
 "Cakie and chicken!" Ida repeated, imitating her 
 mother's tone. 
 
 Bubbele deigned to respond with the condescension of 
 a baby in any household: 
 
 "Yeh, aw right, mama, y' kin go." 
 
 "Oh, yes? Thank you, my child." 
 
 Sarah and Ida exchanged glances and laughed. 
 
 When Sarah was ready to go, Bubbele pouted and 
 seemed to change her mind concerning the leave of 
 absence. Sarah repeated her golden promise; doing so, 
 she smiled herself out, incidentally instructing Ida not 
 to go near the matches, not to let Bubbele do so either ; 
 to run down at eleven o'clock and buy ten cents' worth 
 of wurst and three cents' worth of bread ; to be sure 
 to get mustard with the wurst; to put the eatables in 
 Minnie's charge for division among them at lunch : to 
 take care that Bubbele should not fall and hurt herself ; 
 not to fall herself ; not to let Foxy run wild ; under no 
 circumstances to go near the open windows.
 
 ELIAS 53 
 
 Ida listened intelligently, and Sarah left without mis- 
 givings; for after all Ida was nearly seven. 
 
 On the street, meeting Mrs. Ratkin, Sarah recklessly 
 informed her of the bad night they had had. 
 
 Mrs. Ratkin did not see what she could do about it: 
 since it was not her fault she did not see why Mrs. 
 Mendel bothered her about it. As Sarah walked off, 
 she thought: "Nu, stay at home and clean. Goes out 
 like a whole lady." 
 
 X 
 
 The hours seemed endless to the two small children. 
 But they made the best of the long wait, buoyed up 
 by the promise of good things to eat. It was a relief, 
 however, when eleven o'clock came and with it the break. 
 Ida perked up and summoned Bubbele to accompany 
 her on the errand of wurst, bread and mustard. She 
 closed the door hastily and forthwith had reason to 
 repent. The key of the patent lock had been left stick- 
 ing inside. For a moment she was greatly disturbed; 
 then she bethought herself of the fire-escape window, 
 accessible by way of their neighbor's flat, and all was 
 well again in Ida's world. 
 
 The delectables purchased, the three waited on the 
 street for Jacob and Minnie, who at last appeared. Ida 
 cautiously broached the subject of the lockout, supple- 
 menting her account with the distressing information 
 that Bubbele made her "sick!" that she had "ranned" 
 in the gutter in front of "ninety thousand" trucks and 
 nearly got "murdered" over seventy times. She de- 
 pended upon the martyrdom entailed by her monitor- 
 ship, to neutralize the offense of her forgetfulness. And
 
 54 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 it did. Neither Jacob nor Minnie complained, Minnie 
 out of sheer gladness to have Bubbele there safe and 
 sound. As they mounted the stairs, Jacob asked when 
 their mother was coming back. 
 
 "To-morrow," said Ida. 
 
 Minnie dropped Bubbele's hand and stopped short. 
 "To-morrow!" she and Jacob exclaimed simultaneously. 
 
 "Yeh." Ida looked at Minnie. "She said you 
 shouldn't go no more to school to-day, you should stay 
 home." The greater their incredulity the more Ida 
 tried to convince them. "I should live so," she ended. 
 Whereupon they all resumed their upward climb, the 
 one least conscious of complications being Foxy. 
 Blessed are the ignorant ! 
 
 Timidly knocking at the neighbor's door, Minnie asked 
 permission to climb across the fire escape into her 
 "house." Jacob, with a natural aversion for all neigh- 
 bors, had refused to embark on the enterprize. 
 
 The neighbor was willing, glad, indeed, to accommo- 
 date the Mendels, who had extended her the same 
 courtesy. Minnie crawled through the window out on 
 the fire escape, which barely touched the window of 
 her "house." She put one foot over the railing on to 
 the window sill of the Mendel kitchen and with one 
 hand grasped the window frame. Then she swung the 
 second foot over swiftly. 
 
 The Mendel dwelling was four stories high. A slight 
 mis-step would have landed Minnie in Kingdom Come. 
 But she performed the acrobatic feat without a mis- 
 step. Surely it is an inconsistent Power which watches 
 over the children of the lowly, lavishing dirt, disease, 
 and starvation upon them on the one hand, and, on the 
 other hand, rescuing them from trucks and falls.
 
 ELIAS 55 
 
 Mrs. Ratkin just then in the yard wanted to scream, 
 yet had sufficient presence of mind to consider it might 
 frighten Minnie and be her undoing. When the child 
 finally disappeared in safety, she shrugged her shoulders 
 and mumbled: "Such a mother! To leave her children 
 alone like that. A chutzpeh (cheek). Only a Deitschke 
 would do it." Mrs. Ratkiri had previously questioned 
 the two younger children on the street concerning their 
 mother's whereabouts. "She went uptown," Ida had 
 said ; from which Mrs. Ratkin concluded that Sarah 
 was enjoying a vain social call. 
 
 Minnie opened the door for the ravenously hungry 
 group, who without further preliminary than the open- 
 ing of the parcel for a frank exposure of the wurst, 
 mustard and bread, sat down to eat. Each of the chil- 
 dren gave Foxy an occasional morsel. Jacob offered 
 him the skin of his piece of wurst generously spread 
 with mustard. The dog looked decidedly unapprecia- 
 tive of the joke; the children laughed. Minnie called 
 Foxy to her, cooed to him, and with a loving pat gave 
 him her last piece of wurst, which Foxy consumed with 
 lightning rapidity. 
 
 "Who's gonna bring supper?" inquired Jacob as he 
 was getting ready to leave. 
 
 "Papa'll bring it. Mama said so," replied Ida, 
 stretching her imagination. Jacob and Minnie stared. 
 They were puzzled beyond words. But Jacob was not 
 one to wrestle with problems. Before going out he 
 asked Minnie to see to it that their father kept supper 
 for him; he might be detained selling his larger stock 
 of newspapers, he said. Minnie promised. 
 
 As soon as he was out Minnie turned to Ida. 
 
 "Are you sure mama ain' coming home?" she asked 
 earnestly.
 
 56 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "Honest." Ida laid her hand over her heart. 
 
 Minnie was convinced. 
 
 She went about quietly cleaning the table and pick- 
 ing up scraps from the floor. It occurred to her that 
 since her mother was to absent herself for so long, she 
 herself ought to clean the place against vermin. 
 
 "I'm gone down to buy kerosene," she said. 
 
 The children were expecting her to join them in a 
 game of jacks. Bubbele pouted. 
 
 "You never play wid me," she wailed. 
 
 "It will bite papa and mama, and Bubbele too, to- 
 night if I don' spill kerosene," Minnie emphatically 
 explained. 
 
 Bubbele capitulated after her big sister had promised 
 to come back in a "second." Perhaps she came back in 
 less than a second, she was so out of breath. 
 
 The first thing Minnie did was to struggle with the 
 tightly imbedded cork. She got it out with a jerk, 
 spilling lots of the fluid over her person. Next she 
 and Ida brought all the bedding to the fire escape ; Bub- 
 bele felt useful carrying a single sheet. These things 
 accomplished, Minnie saturated the low woodwork of 
 the bedroom, the floor, the spring, the frame of the bed, 
 the cots. Next she brought the bedding in again and 
 bestowed a fair dose upon each piece. So much of the 
 liquid covered her own person by this time that she was 
 beginning to be more of a smell than a body. 
 
 Sarah returned as the Augean task was nearing com- 
 pletion. She was almost overcome by the stench, and 
 for a moment was too puzzled to realize what was go- 
 ing on. Then she automatically dropped several pack- 
 ages out of her tired arms and shrieked : 
 
 "God mine, what did you do? How did you dare?' 
 She slapped the diligent Minnie.
 
 ELIAS 57 
 
 Minnie stood speechless. Sarah, in a passion, shook 
 the child with all her might, and gave her a push which 
 sent her tumbling on to the floor. Her face struck against 
 the table. 
 
 Bubbele began to cry ; Foxy to bark ; Ida crouched in 
 a far corner of the room; Minnie shrieked. 
 
 Blood ! Sarah was terrified. Rushing to Minnie she 
 raised her from the floor and shouted to Ida to bring 
 water. Minnie's nose was bleeding. 
 
 While performing first-aid to the injured, Sarah be- 
 stowed much petting and many kisses. 
 
 "But why did you do it?" the mother implored in 
 anguish, holding a wet cloth against the weeping child's 
 nose. 
 
 Minnie explained between sobs and heavings. 
 
 "Ida said you would'n' come home till to-morrow, 
 and I thought it would bite papa to-night if I did'n* do 
 it by myself." 
 
 Sarah looked at Ida with the queer feeling that in- 
 sanity was lurking in the household. 
 
 "To-morrow! Who said to-morrow?" 
 
 "I had afraid to stay home alone," Ida wailed. "Bub- 
 bele and me Bubbele near got ranned over " She 
 
 ended in copious tears. 
 
 Sarah sighed, resigning herself to the tangle and the 
 stench. When Minnie felt better, she laid her on the 
 lounge, and wearily restored the bedding to the fire 
 escape and the cots to the hall. 
 
 The first thing Elias said when he returned in the 
 evening was: 
 
 "What's the matter with her nose?" There was much 
 concern in his voice. Indeed the organ had assumed al- 
 most double proportions. Sarah was very contrite.
 
 58 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "I was so angry about the stench that I nearly killed 
 her. Poor childie, she meant it well. I gave her 
 such a push that it would have killed her but for better 
 luck." Reflectively she added : "I could have killed any- 
 body after such a day as this." 
 
 Elias listened puzzled. What difference in this day 
 from other days had warranted his wife taking chances 
 with the life of their eldest little daughter? Sarah was 
 fast returning to her old ways. He made no complaint, 
 but he was annoyed. 
 
 "What was the matter with the day?" he asked. 
 
 XI 
 
 Self-consciousness disappears with the occurrence of 
 the unusual. Therefore, without constraint Sarah re- 
 counted her experiences at the Charities. She spoke hast- 
 ily, excitedly, even touching Elias's arm when she 
 thought he was allowing his attention to be distracted 
 by one of the children. 
 
 When she called for Mira, she found her still cleaning 
 her three' rooms, and the operation continued for a full 
 hour; after which Mira herself needed a cleaning, and 
 this consumed more time. Thus, it was after eleven 
 o'clock that they started out, and as they footed it 
 the whole way, they did not reach the Charities until 
 noon. 
 
 "On pins and needles I sat in her house on account of 
 the children," Sarah told Elias. 
 
 At the Charities door Mira, drawing her shawl about 
 her with a touch of smugness, said she would wait for 
 Sarah on the street. "Time enough to go inside when 
 one has to," she said with a smile. This cut Sarah,
 
 ELIAS 59 
 
 who interpreted it as a hint at social superiority and 
 felt it an audacity ; Sarah's ancestry included fewer 
 needy ones than Mira's. If one were to go by that law 
 she was certainly Mira's superior. "But when one is 
 down oneself " She lowered her eyes and sighed. 
 
 Elias sensed with a pang that she blamed him for her 
 social deterioration. "But who wanted her to go?" he 
 defended himself. "If I had known, she would not have 
 gone." He sighed and looked through the window. 
 
 Sarah had entered the Charities alone, and from sheer 
 fright and dejection had slunk into the first room she 
 
 saw. It happened to be the right room. 
 ******* 
 
 "What is your name, please?" asked the Lady at the 
 desk. 
 
 The man darted a quick, nervous glance around the 
 room, then brought his eyes back to his interlocutor. 
 
 "Huh?" He held his mouth agape. 
 
 "What is your name?" This time there was a slight 
 frostiness in the Lady's tone. 
 
 The applicant grew still more uncomfortable. In his 
 nervousness he turned his head squarely away from the 
 desk, but quickly faced around again. The Lady raised 
 her voice and put the question in Yiddish. She suc- 
 ceeded in eliciting a steadfast regard of her face. She 
 asked again : "What is your name ?" with freezing 
 iciness. The man dropped his eyes. Some ill fate led 
 him to shuffle on his feet and look backwards once 
 more. 
 
 "I am talking to you," the Lady shouted, "to you! 
 Can't you understand when a person asks you your 
 name?" In an abandonment of disgust she added in 
 English: "For goodness' sake!" Several clerks in the 
 large room raised their heads, and the Head of the
 
 60 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Department, an employee of many years' standing, ruf- 
 fled her forehead in irritation. 
 
 The shock of the Lady's louder tone brought the ap- 
 plicant to his senses. As a matter of fact, he quite 
 grasped the question and had known he was the one 
 addressed, but somehow his tongue had failed to serve 
 him. With awakened spirit he threw his head back to 
 help convey the impression that while he had not un- 
 derstood, he now did, and said : "Uh, sure. My name ? 
 Itzick." 
 
 The Lady proceeded to write. "Your second name?" 
 
 As he had never been sick, Itzick promptly answered 
 it had not been necessary to give him a second name. 
 
 It was very trying. Behind Itzick waited a long line 
 of men and women. The Head of the Department sent 
 frequent inquiring glances to indicate that the line should 
 diminish more rapidly. The Lady exploded. 
 
 "Sick! Who asked you about sick? Your second 
 name?" Under her breath she muttered: "Stupid!" 
 and flushed patches appeared on her tired face. 
 
 Itzick's "next" dug his knuckles into Itzick's ribs 
 and explained in a whisper that she wanted his family 
 name. Itzick, his face purple, intended to tell her he 
 had thought she meant his second first name, which 
 orthodox Jews give only in cases of severe illness, but 
 he merely answered, praying for the roof to come down 
 on his head and crush him : 
 
 "Uh, sure, Kramer." His knees shook, yet he made 
 an outward show of assurance. 
 
 "Thank God!" said the Lady, though her face re- 
 tained its expression of disgust. She looked up at Itzick, 
 whose eyes, meeting hers, closed quickly, opened, and 
 closed quickly again. 
 
 "Where do you live?"
 
 ELIAS 61 
 
 Itzick Kramer's heart beat fast with the horror of 
 another question. He was conscious that his face had 
 reddened, which made him redden the more. He wished 
 he could tear himself to pieces. 
 
 "Around the block." 
 
 Itzick Kramer's "next" would have "put him wise" 
 to the specific information required, but the Lady's 
 countenance so obviously threatened a volcanic eruption 
 that he felt compelled to preserve his own safety. It- 
 zick Kramer's "next" coughed and put his hand up to 
 his mouth so as to hide the fact from the lady that the 
 hand was originally intended to journey to Itzick Kra- 
 mer's ribs. 
 
 There was a hush of Something Terrible in the air. 
 
 "Around the block?" shouted the Lady with the ris- 
 ing inflection that democratically proclaimed her one of 
 Itzick Kramer's compatriots. "What do what street? 
 What number? Can't you understand that I have to 
 write it in a book ? Where do you all get your heads ?" 
 she ended almost in a wail, at her wits' end. 
 
 The Department Head came upon the scene. Experi- 
 ence had by now sapped this Lady dry of explosiveness. 
 
 "Miss," said she in a dignified tone, "if you cannot 
 get the information you need, send them away; do not 
 raise your voice ; it disturbs everyone in the office." 
 Quietly, then, she ordered Itzick Kramer out of the 
 line, telfing him to hear, or go home and wash his ears. 
 
 Itzick flushed a deeper purple. With that sudden in- 
 surrection which at times comes to timid natures, he 
 refused to leave. He had done nothing wrong, he said. 
 The Department Head summoned a man who was em- 
 ployed to weed out disturbers, and soon Itzick Kramer, 
 overcome by physical superiority, found himself ejected 
 into the callous Great Outdoors.
 
 62 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "The impudence !" muttered the Department Head as 
 she made her way back to her desk, meanwhile, at a 
 glance, taking inventory of the persons in the line. The 
 soul of the line trembled. 
 
 Itzick Kramer's "next" automatically fell into place 
 for the quizzing. The first two questions were answered 
 with the brilliance of a school boy who has learned his 
 lesson by heart. The third question held the horror of 
 the Unknown. He strained his head forward to listen 
 attentively. 
 
 "How many children," the Lady asked in Yiddish, 
 "have you under" (jerking her thumb downward) 
 "fourteen years of age, and how many children have 
 you over" (jerking her thumb upward) "fourteen years 
 of age?" She put the question very slowly, stressing 
 each word, allowing time for beads of perspiration to 
 break out on the man's anxious face and for his heart 
 to beat so rapidly that his attention was divided be- 
 tween what she asked and that organ. When finally 
 she completed the question and he quite grasped it, he 
 experienced the greatest relief. He took a deep breath. 
 Inoffensive as this act may be under ordinary circum- 
 stances, it can have a most irritating effect upon a Lady 
 waiting, whose business it is to elicit replies at maxi- 
 mum speed. The Lady moved nervously in her chair 
 and drew up her toes inside her shoes. The man, feel- 
 ing her exacerbation, desired to say the right thing 
 quickly, but as nothing can so readily make a clean 
 sweep of intelligence as nervousness, he began enumer- 
 ating : "Lebe is not yet ten " he stopped for breath 
 
 "Yudel is already eleven " He took another breath. 
 
 The Lady's demeanor evinced increasing impatience. 
 Schmuel Rothenberg, thinking to make haste, enumer- 
 ated more hurriedly.
 
 ELIAS 63 
 
 "Bashele should live and be well." Bashele was the 
 ailing youngest. 
 
 "How " began the Lady, interrupting him, but 
 
 Schmuel Rothenberg humbly pleaded : 
 
 "Oh, Lady, Lady, wait a minute." She waited. Run- 
 ning his tongue over his upper lip and raising his 
 shoulders, as if taking a new lease on energy, he wenf 
 on, his knees shaking: 
 
 "Bashele is three years and two older oldest died, 
 may it never happen to you!" Sadness came into the 
 man's eyes; he looked down at his feet. 
 
 "Have you any children over fourteen years?" The 
 Lady asked, relaxing from sheer fatigue. 
 
 "I have that is, I had " 
 
 This was too much for human endurance. 
 
 "Oh, for goodness' sake!" the Lady exclaimed as 
 loudly as she dared, bearing the Department Head in 
 mind. 
 
 "Lady Lady " Schmuel Rothenberg's tone and 
 
 the anxious expression of his face would have melted a 
 heart harder than the Lady's. 
 
 "Can't you answer a single question straight?" she 
 fairly begged. 
 
 "Yes, yes, Lady," Schmuel Rothenberg assured her, 
 not understanding a single word, knowing only there 
 was pleading in her voice. Suddenly his nervousness 
 left him completely, as so often happens when people 
 are roused to a point beyond themselves, and he an- 
 swered without further hesitancy : 
 
 "The other children died ; the four are all younger." 
 
 "Thank God!" the Lady exclaimed with so much sar- 
 casm that some in the line smiled and more daring ones 
 laughed.
 
 64 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 To Schmuel Rothenberg it appeared that she thanked 
 God because his children had died. He winced and 
 dropped his eyes. 
 
 "What is your trader" 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 The Lady placed him on the list of "Useful Men," 
 wrote something on a ticket, gave it to him, and told 
 him to come the next day. 
 
 "To-morrow! Not to-day?" There was keen dis- 
 appointment in the man's voice. Schmuel Rothenberg's 
 life was a perpetual animal terror as to mere livelihood. 
 
 From the Lady's face it was clear he was to move 
 on and make room for the next. He moved on, medita- 
 tively repeating "To-morrow!" as he slowly walked out 
 
 of the room. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Before long the Department Head decided to forrri 
 two lines of the remaining applicants, and Sarah was 
 among the first to be interrogated. 
 
 "I grew hot and cold," she said, "but my Lady was 
 really a nice girl, a golden girl. She talked with me 
 as if she was an old friend who had known me all 
 her life. She wants me to work in her house Sundays, 
 and will give me two more Ladies." 
 
 Did Sarah have to go back there? This concerned 
 Elias, distressed by her tales beyond any interest in her 
 success. 
 
 It now came Sarah's turn to exclaim with the Lady's 
 fervor: "Thank God!" No, she did not have to go 
 back. 
 
 The finality of her tone must have been sport for 
 the Fates.
 
 ELIAS 65 
 
 "And Mira, did she wait for you?" 
 
 "Yes, and lucky, too, because I had such a pain in 
 my side that I had to go to her home and lie down." 
 
 For a time neither* Sarah nor Elias spoke. Then 
 Sarah, examining- her* apron as if for some definite 
 purpose, said reflectively: 
 
 "I felt when I left there as if I had been spilt with 
 pamoonitza (slops). And that is for work. How must 
 it be when one comes for money!" She shuddered. 
 Elias looked at her attentively. 
 
 "Then after that I came home to find the stench of 
 kerosene." Sarah looked at Minnie asleep on the lounge, 
 and sighed. "I nearly killed her." How Sarah's heart 
 ached ! 
 
 The two younger children were playing marbles on 
 the floor. In a farther corner of the room, ink on the 
 floor and his geography book on his lap serving as a 
 desk, Jacob sat studying his lessons. 
 
 As the supper dishes had not yet been cleared away, 
 Sarah rose to go about her tasks. Elias from diffidence 
 checked his impulse to help her; instead he brought in 
 the bedding from the fire escape. Later they sat down, 
 and Elias read aloud the day's news. 
 
 At bed time, Jacob, at Elias' instructions, helped to 
 set up the cots, as Minnie was still asleep. When Sarah 
 went to undress her, Minnie woke up. "I'll get un- 
 dressed by myself," she said testily, drawing away from 
 her mother and feeling her nose. Sarah's eyes filled 
 with tears ; she turned away. 
 
 Amid childish pranks and laughter, Elias put the two 
 younger ones to bed. Then he himself retired. Soon all 
 was still.
 
 66 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Mrs. Ratkin, passing as she extinguished the gas in 
 the hall, thought sneeringly: 
 
 "God be thanked, it is quiet here." Sing-Sing had 
 effected a cure. But what a measure! A blight never 
 to be lived down. 
 
 XII 
 
 The following Sunday Sarah did her first day's work 
 at the "golden" Lady's home. It was a modest apart- 
 ment shared by several girls. Sarah was to do the 
 week's washing and Grand Cleaning, as the girls who 
 went out to work could do only makeshift cleaning dur- 
 ing the week. 
 
 Ella Liebman, the "golden" Lady, gave Sarah, as she 
 had promised, the names of two other Ladies who had 
 applied to the Charities Employment Bureau for "a 
 nice woman, one who would appreciate kind treatment." 
 
 On her second Sunday at Miss Liebman's Sarah de- 
 scribed her other employers. Mrs. Finkelstein, who en- 
 gaged her for Tuesdays, was "a simple, nice woman," 
 she said ; while Mrs. Roth, who kept a servant for the 
 general housework and for whom she was to do wash- 
 ing on Thursdays, was "a high-tone Americaner." Mrs. 
 Roth had insisted on Fridays. "On Fridays I have my 
 own Sabbath to make," said Sarah, to whose proud na- 
 ture neglecting Sabbath preparation meant a diminution 
 of family dignity. It was one of Sarah's inconsistencies 
 that, little as she felt for the Sabbath, she never missed 
 making the special preparations for it, as had her 
 mother before her. 
 
 Mrs. Roth was, indeed, the sort of person whose 
 generosity follows the pattern of generosity set by Fate
 
 ELIAS 67 
 
 itself. For Sarah, coming from the Charities evidence 
 of humblest position and possession Mrs. Roth deemed 
 it proper that the normal working day should be 
 lengthened by two hours and the normal wages cur- 
 tailed by twenty-five cents. In her opinion, a charity 
 subject who dictated the terms of a benefaction was an 
 ingrate. 
 
 Sarah, when applying to Mrs. Roth, timidly told her 
 that the Charities Lady paid her one dollar for the day 
 and kept her only until four o'clock, thus giving her time 
 to prepare her own family's supper. Mrs. Roth, mildly 
 annoyed, wondered by what right Miss Liebman set the 
 standard of hours and wages, and became at once skep- 
 tical as to Sarah's niceness. However, she acceded to 
 the terms, but with a gingerliness that did not escape 
 Sarah's sensitive perceptions. 
 
 ' Once prejudiced, Mrs. Roth adopted a consistently 
 supercilious manner. She refrained from greeting 
 Sarah at either her coming or going, and looked beyond 
 her when she entered the room in which Sarah stood 
 washing the clothes. Sarah never left Mrs. Roth with- 
 out being greatly wrought up. 
 
 At the end of a number of weeks, during which she 
 regularly poured out the tale of her grievances to Miss 
 Liebman, who listened with a social worker's sympathy 
 for the types of Sarah, she came one Sunday more than 
 usually excited. It appeared that the previous Thurs- 
 day Sarah had informed Mrs. Roth she had a pain in 
 her side and could not do her washing; that Mrs. Roth 
 had remonstrated emphatically: 
 
 "A pain in the side ! Goodness, that is not so awful ! 
 / get a pain in my side, too." Sarah was about to 
 agree to do her lighter washing when the lady added :
 
 68 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "A poor woman should not be so particular." Sarah 
 was up in arms. 
 
 "You can do your own washing!" she flung out. 
 While making for the door she heard: 
 
 "The impudence of these people ! A little pain in the 
 side and they cannot do a speck of washing ! And when 
 her child, her Bubbele, had a tiny cold, she did not come 
 at all. These people are, honestly, more particular about 
 themselves than we are about ourselves and our 
 children." 
 
 "God save me from such other ladies!" Sarah said 
 to Miss Liebman, and added : "After all, am I not a 
 woman just like she is? And if my side hurts, must 
 it hurt less than hers because it is my side? Should 
 one woman not sympathize with another woman? Am 
 I made of wood and she of gold? Fui!" Sarah bent 
 lower over the washtub. Miss Liebman looked at hei* 
 quizzically. "She is a high-tone lady. From home we 
 are not from the garbage-can either." Sarah sighed and 
 rubbed harder, wishing all manner of ill luck on the 
 Sabbath. 
 
 Sarah's version of the Mrs. Roth incident as com- 
 municated to Elias contained the additional reflection 
 that the woman was a pastkootsvte (an ugly, nasty 
 one) : upon saying which she spit vehemently into the 
 sink and secretly hoped Elias was feeling as badly as 
 she. 
 
 One Sunday later Miss Liebman asked Sarah if she 
 cared to take another place. 
 
 "No," she said, "I do not want another Mrs. Roth." 
 After a moment's silence she added musingly: "When 
 the children will need shoes again, it will be hard." 
 Suddenly, with a rueful grimace she added : "Oh, let
 
 ELIAS 69 
 
 God worry a little." She looked up. They laughed. 
 
 Miss Liebman was growing fond of Sarah. 
 ******* 
 
 And God must have Worried ; the need-for-shoes period 
 brought its own solution. 
 
 By some providence the butcher in the neighborhood 
 was bereft of his wife, who ever)' Friday had plucked 
 the chickens. In his predicament he recalled that Sarah 
 had often taken meat on trust and decided she might be 
 glad to make a little extra money. Sarah eagerly ac- 
 cepted the work, which was to be done in the very early 
 morning hours on Fridays and the days preceding the 
 Holy Days. Minnie, "a smart girl," could help, as the 
 butcher suggested. 
 
 The period of greater affluence for the Mendels 
 brought greater peace, but not according to the wagging 
 of Mrs. Ratkin's tongue. Through that censorious me- 
 dium Sarah's character remained as black as ever with 
 the neighbors, who were predisposed to antagonism be- 
 cause of Sarah's standoffishness, which they miscon- 
 strued as an assumption of superiority, whereas it 
 sprang from diffidence and a desire to hide her home 
 difficulties. 
 
 How was it, then, that Sarah raised her voice so loud 
 that neighbors could hear, and resorted to the publicity 
 of a court scene? 
 
 Who shall stand in judgment on a human being at his 
 wits' end? Only he who would call the drowning man 
 who catches at a straw a fool. 
 
 XITI 
 
 On an afternoon three months later, the quarter gas 
 meter in the Mendel household burned low, and Sarah'
 
 70 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 was without the quarter necessary to brace it. She was 
 in a quandary, the supper was only half cooked. Count 
 as many times as she would, the loose change in the 
 home treasury aggregated only twenty-two cents. Pres- 
 ently she thought of an old kerosene stove which had 
 been put away under the bed, never to be used again. 
 There was kerosene in the house, and the stove might 
 work well enough to finish the meal on anyway. With 
 much effort she extracted it and carried it into the room- 
 oT-all-affairs. She gave it a thorough cleaning, and with 
 the aid of a broken saucer got it to stand firmly on the 
 coal stove. Then she found there was not a match in 
 the house! She looked down in the yard for Minnie, 
 intending to send her to the grocery store for matches. 
 The child was not to be seen. Sarah had just about re- 
 signed herself to the descent and ascent of the four 
 flights of stairs, when the door burst open and a very 
 excited Minnie and a wildly barking Foxy dashed in. 
 One would have thought a deadly enemy was in pursuit. 
 
 "What's the matter?" cried Sarah. The child stuck 
 her thumb in her mouth and lowered her head. Sarah, 
 too preoccupied with her own plight, did not press for 
 an explanation. She told Minnie to go on the errand. 
 
 "I don' wanna," Minnie whimpered. 
 
 "You don't want to? Why? 
 
 "Abie " 
 
 "Abie what?" 
 
 "Abie's down by the yard, and I have afraid." 
 
 "Children's nonsense," thought Sarah glancing down 
 in the yard again. "He's not there. Don't look in the 
 yard. Run right out," she urged Minnie gently. 
 
 The child, sensing her mother's weariness, consented 
 to go, though as she descended the stairs and ran
 
 ELI AS 71 
 
 through the hall, she was in mortal terror of encounter- 
 ing Abie. 
 
 A little while before she had gone down to the yard 
 to play with Foxy. Abie standing in the doorway of 
 the rear tenement had instantly hailed her with "Hello, 
 Fights !" Whether Abie called her Fights "for fun" or 
 "for fair" made no difference to Minnie ; the epithet 
 jarred her sensibilities. She always colored and experi- 
 enced a moment of helplessness, which ended in a weak 
 order to Abie to "shut up." This time in the moment 
 of her helplessness she wavered between stooping down 
 to Foxy and looking over at Abie. She looked at Abie. 
 His smile obviously declared he meant "Hello, Fights" 
 for fun. Nevertheless Minnie ordered him to "shut 
 
 up " but shyly, hesitatingly, as she was not in a mood 
 
 for a squabble. Abie, however, had no ear for subtleties. 
 "Fights," he repeated just to tease, coming closer. 
 
 "I tell you, shut up!" shouted Minnie stamping her 
 foot. 
 
 Foxy, scenting a fray, assumed a belligerent attitude. 
 
 "Don* che say like that," Abie warned with a superior 
 flutter of his eyelids, annoyed at Minnie's inability to 
 take his teasing and giving her a scornful look as she 
 edged away from him. 
 
 "So don' you!" 
 
 "Uh, it's fooling. Don' che know fooling Fights!" 
 
 Tears of anger and impotence came to her eyes; her 
 little heart fluttered and her chest heaved. Abie was a 
 "murder." 
 
 Gathering Foxy up in her arms she made hastily for 
 the front tenement. Suddenly she faced about. 
 
 "You shut up!" she cried, her face deeply flushed. 
 "Shut up, or or I'll sig'm on you!" Her threat was
 
 72 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 weak and the grand finale, uttered in a choked voice, 
 was even weaker. <r You bum you !" 
 
 Yet the thrust went home. It aroused Abie's wrath; 
 his eyes threatened dire consequences. Instantly Min- 
 nie resorted to aggressive self-defense. 
 
 "Sig'm, Foxy, sig'm!" 
 
 Foxy, with a fine sense of loyalty, had already dis- 
 engaged himself from Minnie's hold and was barking 
 menacingly. He darted in a semi-circle towards Abie, 
 which plainly promised defense of his mistress, right 
 or wrong. At Minnie's second bidding Foxy sprang 
 upon Abie. Whereupon Minnie, womanlike, recalled 
 him. 
 
 Abie, though in truth frightened, pretended contempt 
 for her kindly intervention. 
 
 "Aw, mind your business," he said. 
 
 "You should die in a black coffin wid your mama and 
 your papa together!" 
 
 Abie's next strategic move, Minnie rapidly decided, 
 would be one which would make it wiser for her to 
 seek immediate safety. At full speed she dashed to- 
 ward the door of the front tenement. Foxy's loyalty 
 could no longer bear restraint. He snapped at Abie's 
 legs, which legs, in the teeth of actuality, were com- 
 pelled to relax in their furtive effort to bar Minnie's 
 race to safety. It so happened, too, that Abie stumbled, 
 landing on the palm of his hands and the tip of his 
 nose just grazing the front tenement threshold. Foxy 
 jumped blithely over his form and barking triumphantly 
 joined his mistress at the bottom of the stairs. 
 
 Abie, from his prostrate position, in the knowledge 
 that he was the loser, hurled defiantly: 
 
 "Fights, Fights! Your mama and your papa fights
 
 ELIAS 73 
 
 like Irish bums. You got your papa arrested. You 
 made believe he was by your cousin in Brooklyn. 
 Fights I" 
 
 Minnie powerless to retort rapidly mounted the stairs 
 followed by Foxy. 
 
 Abie picking himself up removed a splinter from his 
 finger and felt of the bruised tip of his nose. He stood 
 in meditation from which he was roused presently by 
 an imperative call: 
 
 "Abie, Abie!" 
 
 Abie sent his gaze up the impertinent height of the 
 rear tenement and beheld the face of his mother. 
 
 "Wha' do you wan'?" 
 
 "Kom up stez en go buy ah pickle." 
 
 "Aw say, mama !" He hesitated a moment ; then his 
 pent-up anger burst. "Kom up stez and go buy ah 
 pickle," he mimicked. Instantly he realized his mis- 
 demeanor and the possibly disastrous consequences. 
 "Aw, ma, always me. Can' che send the other ones 
 once?" he cried sulkily. 
 
 "Abie!" There was that in his mother's tone which 
 carried the threat: "Wait till your papa comes home." 
 Abie had no great fondness for the prehistoric custom 
 to which his father resorted, especially since the inno- 
 vation of a five-tongue strap had added decided physical 
 discomfort to the original humility of the operation. 
 
 "Aw, ma, I'm tired," he wailed. But he made for 
 the rear tenement. His mother withdrew her head 
 from the window. 
 
 Properly financed, Abie was soon retracing his steps 
 to purchase the pickle for the family supper. 
 
 Meanwhile, as we know, Minnie's mother had dele- 
 gated her purchasing agent of a box of matches. The
 
 74 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 two belligerents met in the grocery store. At sight of 
 Abie, Minnie was alarmed. She moved closer to the 
 store-keeper. But Abie was now in a different mood. 
 He followed Minnie and hal f- whispered : "I ain' gonna 
 hi' che. Don' be afraid." Minnie showed no confidence. 
 He added reassuringly: "I should live so, I ain' gonna 
 hi' che." Though her skepticism was somewhat allayed, 
 Minnie remained unwilling to risk too close proximity. 
 Even on the street she lagged a trifle behind. But when 
 Abie sincerely asked her, apropos of nothing and quite 
 as if there had been no rupture in their relationship: 
 "Say, Minn, who do you like bedder, your mama or 
 your papa?" she relaxed entirely. 
 
 "Both," she answered with an air of defiance. 
 
 "But I mean, if God would ask you who He should 
 make die first, your mama or your papa, who would 
 you say?" 
 
 "Not neither my mama or my papa." 
 
 Abie manifested his impatience by an especial twist 
 of his body, reserved for just such trying moments. 
 Minnie slipped a few inches behind. 
 
 "Aw, I ain' gonna hi' che, crazy. But I mean first, 
 'Not neither' ain' no 'first/ " 
 
 Minnie inhaled deeply. She meant to hold to her 
 point. Bobbing her head for emphasis, she repeated: 
 "I like my mama and my papa." 
 
 Abie expressed his vast contempt of this miniature 
 female by disdainfully mimicking in falsetto: 
 
 "I like my mama and my papa." It occurred to him 
 to demonstrate by masculine precept, and he told her 
 to ask him whom he liked better, his father or his 
 mother. Minnie kept quiet. "Well," Abie reiterated, 
 "ask me!"
 
 ELIAS 75 
 
 Here the pickle divorced itself from its wrapping and 
 dropped to the slanting sidewalk : 
 
 "Oo ! Oo !" cried Minnie, wringing her hands. "Your 
 papa'll murder you !" 
 
 Abie, with his foot intercepted the pickle as it was 
 rolling into the gutter, and with his dirty hand brushed 
 off the dirt it had gathered. When it was restored to its 
 wrapping, he answered Minnie : "No, he won't," his 
 voice, however, carrying no conviction. Minnie took up 
 the conversation where it had been broken off and asked 
 rather weakly : 
 
 "Who do you like bedder, Abie, your mama or your 
 papa ?" 
 
 Abie, recalled to a lively sense of his father's hard hand 
 by Minnie's cry, "Your papa'll murder you," forgot that 
 he was to demonstrate by precept and answer with a sim- 
 ple "I like my mama bedder." Shuffling the dust under 
 his feet, he said in an aggrieved tone : 
 
 "I don' like my papa anyhow. All the time he licks 
 me." Abie's tone caused Minnie to look sideways at 
 him. Sincerity is never lost on children. Abie went 
 on musingly: "I'll get him arrested." 
 
 Minnie started as from a galvanic shock. "Oo, don* 
 che," she cut in, "don* che never." She stopped still 
 and confronted him. 
 
 "I will so. Wha' do you care?" 
 
 Minnie saw Abie already rushing into the teeth of 
 this calamity. Her little heart went through a spasm of 
 terror. 
 
 "The policemans is fresh things. They pull your 
 papa," she said earnestly. Abie made no rejoinder. 
 "They pulled my papa." 
 
 "Yeh?" He gave her a swift inquisitive glance. 
 
 Realizing she had confirmed Abie's suspicion of the
 
 76 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 family skeleton, Minnie turned self-conscious; she stuck 
 her thumb in her mouth and lowered her eyes. They 
 walked on in silence. Soon Abie said contemplatively: 
 
 "Let 'em pull. He licks me. He murders me for 
 nothin'. " 
 
 On the score of "murderings" Minnie was exceedingly 
 sympathetic. Though corporal punishment was not in- 
 cluded in the bill of miseries of the Mendel children 
 (the once when Sarah struck Minnie was the rare ex- 
 ception), Minnie had sufficient imagination to divine the 
 horrific import of the shrill shrieks that issued from 
 other homes in the tenements. 
 
 Minnie was preoccupied and made no reply. Abie 
 asked sotta voce\ 
 
 "Will you show me where?" 
 
 Minnie looked thoughtfully at him, then spoke. What 
 she said was so utterly irrelevant that he stared as 
 though she had gone crazy. 
 
 "So let's us get married," she said just so. 
 
 The question of marriage between them had been 
 broached before, but always by Abie. Minnie only sought 
 diversion now from the subject that had inveigled her 
 into an admission of a family skeleton. 
 
 Abie was thoroughly disgusted with the irrelevancy 
 and its author. 
 
 "Uh, crazy, don' che know only big peoples dass get 
 married like your mama and your papa ? CRAZY CAT !" 
 
 "I mean," she said a little ashamed that she was 
 lacking in knowledge on this subject whereas Abie 
 seemed to be very wise, "when like to-morrow and over- 
 to-morrow, like ten years, then we dass can." 
 
 "We dass if we wanna," quoth Abie, with a sapient 
 nod of his head. 
 
 Hitherto, whenever Abie had asked her if she would
 
 ELIAS 77 
 
 marry him when he "got a man" her reply had been the 
 provisional one, "Yeh, if you'll be a teacher." 
 
 Glad now of an avenue of escape, Minnie exclaimed 
 unconditionally : 
 
 "Yeh, I wanna." 
 
 They reached the stairs of the front tenement. Minnie 
 began skippingly to ascend. Abie proceeded to the yard, 
 from where he called back sing-song: 
 
 "MI IN!" 
 
 Minnie stopped at the middle of the first flight. 
 
 "Wha' do you wan'?" 
 
 "Come back." Minnie turned about. They met at 
 the foot of the stairs. 
 
 "I forgot," said he. "To-morrow, so will you show 
 me by the court?" 
 
 She succumbed to his more masterful will. "If you 
 don' tell out," she said softly. 
 
 "Uh," he replied, mistaking her meaning. "I knowed 
 all the time, only I didn't said ever, because my mama 
 told me I dassn't. My mama sawn you go into the court 
 wid her own eyes. She told my papa by the night." 
 
 Minnie, unable to meet the situation, stuck her thumb 
 in her mouth. After a perceptible pause she argued 
 weakly : 
 
 "But they don' fights no more." Her head was low- 
 ered; she looked at him shamefacedly. 
 
 "To-morrow, so will you show me by the court?" 
 he asked again. 
 
 "Aw right, to-morrow," she promised faintly. 
 
 "Aw right." Abie was satisfied. They turned on 
 their respective ways ; but in. a moment he called again : 
 
 "MI-IN!" 
 
 "Wha' do you wan'? 1
 
 ;S SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "Don' tell nobody. It's gonna be a secret." 
 Minnie waited a second. "Aw right, yeh, no, I won'," 
 she promised, and skipped along. 
 
 XIV 
 
 The Ratkins' two-room dwelling on the top floor was 
 identical with the Mendels'. The furnishings of the 
 room-of -all-affairs comprised one large table, one small 
 table, four wooden chairs, a dilapidated green plush 
 lounge, a gas stove, and a coal stove. The interior dec- 
 orations consisted of a small looking-glass hanging on 
 the wall between the two windows, just as at the Men- 
 dels', and several enlarged colored photographs of de- 
 ceased relatives relics of the Ratkins' affluent days. 
 THe furnishings of the bedroom were a bed, a cot, a 
 chair and a wooden egg-box for the family linens. On 
 the floor reposed another remnant of their better days, 
 a mat on which a white, straight-backed dog sat stiffly 
 planted on a bright green background. 
 
 The series of misfortunes which brought the Ratkins 
 down in the world began with the loss, in quick suc- 
 cession, of three children, which left them with only 
 Abie and a pair of twin girls of eight. After that, 
 as so often happens, there followed difficulties one upon 
 the other, topped by a severe illness in Mr. Ratkin, 
 whicR, truth to tell, left him slightly unbalanced. 
 Mrs. Ratkin had been compelled to become janitress of 
 the two tenements. When Mr. Ratkin finally recovered 
 sufficiently to work, he went into the business of rag- 
 picking and cashing old clothes in order to be able to 
 carry out his physician's prescription to stay in the 
 "fresh air."
 
 ELIAS 79 
 
 Mr. Ratkin's odd sing-song cry, "I cash clothes!" was 
 a source of amusement to Blast Side urchins while to 
 older folks it proclaimed him a "crazy man." To the 
 latter Mr. Ratkin was indifferent ; and as for the former, 
 the greater the number that followed him from street 
 to street and the more heartily they laughed, the greater 
 was his pleasure and the more of the Gemorrah sing- 
 song did he put into his tune. 
 
 Mrs. Ratkin was busy washing and combing the hair 
 of the twins when Abie returned with the pickle. "Woe 
 is me," she cried, "what took you so long? Always 
 when I send you somewhere it takes you a year to re- 
 turn. You loaf around " 
 
 "Aw, mama!" growled Abie, in no mood to be toler- 
 ant of criticism. 
 
 Mrs. Ratkin remained indifferent to her son's mood. 
 "How long does it take to go to the grocery store 
 and back?" she nagged. "A year? You go and you 
 come not " 
 
 "Mama, you make me sick," her son interrupted, then 
 added sulkily to avert the outburst that her expression 
 portended : 
 
 "Aw, lemme alone," and walked into the bedroom. 
 
 The bedroom was his place of refuge when under 
 attack by either parent. For the ceremony of a beating, 
 Mr. Ratkin always had to extricate his son from the 
 mass of junk under the bed ; the space under 
 the bed served the Ratkins as it did other 
 East Siders as a garret. It was here that Abie 
 had formulated plans for seeking vengeance upon his 
 father for his brutality. His mother's gossip about the 
 Mendels had sowed the seed of retribution. 
 
 For some time Mrs. Ratkin silently concentrated her
 
 8o SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 energies on her daughter's heads, saturating their hair 
 with sugar water and twisting it into a row of perfectly 
 made curls. The feat accomplished, she held them at 
 arm's length and surveyed them with pride and pleasure. 
 Removing the combings from the comb, she ordered 
 Abie to go set the table for supper as Mr. Ratkin would 
 soon be coming home, then to sweep the floor and 
 straighten the chairs. ... In not discriminating in 
 favor of the male of the species, the Ratkin household 
 was an exception to most Jewish households. The men 
 had to do housework. Mrs. Ratkin could not "tear her- 
 self to pieces." "To be a janitor is enough for one 
 piece of a woman," she would say. Mr. Ratkin thought 
 it was best to humor her on that score; he helped and 
 he compelled his son to do the same. 
 
 Abie set the table. Service with the Ratkins also 
 was a simple affair. When soup was served each was 
 given an individual plate. For "dry" meals Mr. Ratkin 
 alone was so graced, and Abie and the twins ate from 
 pieces of newspaper, while Mrs. Ratkin, dispensing en- 
 tirely with "the middle man," consumed directly from 
 the pot. 
 
 At six o'clock Mr. Ratkin returned from his day of 
 rags and old clothes besmirched and perspiring. Surely 
 the unquestioning devotion of children is touching! 
 The twins rushed to their half-witted father and clung 
 to him ardently. Even Abie, who had suffered a severe 
 licking at his hands the night before, sang out a cordial 
 "hello." Mrs. Ratkin was even effusive in her greeting. 
 She and her husband, in fact, were happily mated. Mr. 
 Ratkin took her scoldings and naggings good-naturedly. 
 Only upon Abie did Mr. Ratkin practice head-of-the- 
 house discipline. He was determined that his son should
 
 ELIAS 81 
 
 "grow up a person" even if he, the father, had to kill 
 the boy to effect it. Whereas about his wife Mr. Ration 
 would say good naturedly : "Is schon far fallen," mean- 
 ing his discipline would avail nothing. And Abie, his 
 boy spirits cramped within the confines of a pig pen, 
 was indeed a trial. 
 
 Mr. Ratkin washed and spluttered and every now and 
 then stopped to remark upon some trifle. Soon supper 
 was served. Mr. Ratkin was the first to taste of the 
 pickle. "Pooh," cried he, spitting out. 
 
 Abie stole a swift glance at his father's wry face. 
 At the same moment Mrs. Ratkin emptied her mouth- 
 ful. Immediately the twins did the same. They all 
 made wry faces. Poor Abie edged away from his 
 father, and when Mr. Ratkin made a slight move in his 
 chair, he recoiled so violently that Mr. Ratkin was given 
 a clue. Aha! 
 
 "Who went for the pickle?" he demanded, looking 
 at his son sideways. "The sonny, I suppose." He 
 turned his full face upon the boy. 
 
 "Woe is me!" cried Mrs. Ratkin, who had also made 
 a shrewd guess. "It must have fallen in the gutter." 
 
 Abie sprang to his feet and made a dash for safety. 
 
 The father rose. His color was high and so was his 
 indignation. He pointed to the chair Abie 'had vacated. 
 "COME HERE!" he shouted. 
 
 Abie remained in the bedroom doorway. 
 
 "I didn' do it for spite," he said in tears, "it earned 
 out from my hand, so don' che hit me." 
 
 "I WANT THAT THERE SHOULD BE QUIET 
 HERE!" Mr. Ratkin thundered, continuing with one 
 long finger to point to Abie's vacant chair. Mrs. Rat- 
 kin, fearful of violence, begged both to be quiet. When
 
 82 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 her husband grew wild Mrs. Ratkin invariably became 
 mild. These two understood the psychology of family 
 happiness. 
 
 Abie stood dismally devising plans for the termina- 
 tion of his misery and wishing he had not waited so long 
 to take matters in hand. He hoped the policeman would 
 "pull" this papa of his. 
 
 "Why did you not tell me it fell down?" asked Mrs. 
 Ratkin gently, as she rose to wash the pickle. Abie 
 made no reply. Going back to table she said: "Come 
 and sit down already." Abie glanced at his father. 
 His lowered eyes looked too ominous, and Abie did not 
 budge. "Nu, come Abie, you must soon go and light the 
 gas in the halls." Mrs. Ratkin gave her husband a 
 glance that was meant to say : "Here is reason enough 
 for granting him immunity." Mr. Ratkin looked non- 
 committal. Abie moved cautiously back to his chair. 
 Scarcely had he sat down when Mr. Ratkin turned 
 swiftly and punched him in the arm. "There, that's 
 what you get for shouting at your father!" he cried. 
 
 Springing from his seat Abie glared at his father, 
 his heart fairly bursting with the desire for vengeance. 
 
 "For God's sake let him alone I will perish !" cried 
 Mrs. Ratkin with so much fervor that Mr. Ratkin set- 
 tled into passivity. All was quiet. Abie reseated him- 
 self and swallowed his meal in silent tears. 
 
 When Abie was out of the room lighting the gas in 
 the halls, Mr. Ratkin soliloquized: 
 
 "All the neighbors send their boys to peddle papers; 
 I keep my son like the apple of my eye, and he shouts 
 at me!" Since his conscience told him he had been un- 
 duly severe with the child he spoke in a genuinely ag- 
 grieved tone to forestall his wife's nagging.
 
 ELIAS 83 
 
 "Who who sends their boys to peddle papers?" de- 
 manded Mrs. Ratkin. "Nu, and lighting the gas is no 
 work? When you get it into your head to pester the 
 boy, you do it without measure." She rose and began 
 to clear the table. 
 
 Mr. Ratkin faced about angrily. 
 
 "Jakie Mendel does not peddle papers maybe, no, 
 what, nu ? You always want to make me out for crazy." 
 
 Mrs. Ratkin went on with her work as she said: 
 
 "Mrs. Mendel is a high-tone lady, a Deitschke. It 
 would not suit her to work for her children. Abie has 
 a plain woman for a mother." 
 
 How could Mrs. Ratkin know of the chain of circum- 
 stances which had linked Sarah to the world of Useful- 
 Women-By-the-Day ? She knew of Sarah's work at the 
 butcher's, but that, she and the neighbors agreed, would 
 be short-lived, for was it to be expected that a Deitschke 
 would remain at mean labor indefinitely? The Russian / 
 Jew of this class nurtures contempt for the German 
 Jew because of his assumption of superior culture, and 
 the German Jew looks down on the Russian Jew because 
 of his alleged crudeness. A state of internal anti- 
 Semitism ! 
 
 Mr. Ratkin, ignoring this point, insisted that Jakie's 
 father was as rich as his own son's father; Mrs. Ratkin 
 remained silent, and there was an end of the dispute. 
 
 In the hall of the front tenement Abie met Minnie 
 going on an errand to Mira. Seeing Abie's eyes were 
 red-rimmed, she sang teasingly : "Cry baby !" and so say- 
 ing dodged him. Abie, however, was in no mood for 
 belligerency. 
 
 "Uh, my papa hollered on me coun a the pickle." 
 
 Minnie was at once sympathetic.
 
 84 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "Yeh?" she asked, drawing closer to him. 
 
 He contemplated his shoe tops while she contemplated 
 hers. 
 
 "You know where," he said. "So will you take me?" 
 
 The two looked at each other. Minnie understood. 
 
 "It's by the corner down by the street." She pointed 
 to the right, "Where we turn in by the butcher, and 
 then two blocks by the other way." 
 
 Abie tried to grasp her directions for reaching the 
 Essex Market Court. 
 
 "Kin I go now?" he asked. 
 
 "Uh, no, it's only open in the morning. The judge 
 am' there now." She was astonished at his ignorance 
 on the subject. 
 
 "So I'll go in the morning," he concluded, resolving 
 to make her act as guide. The two parted. Abie fin- 
 ished lighting the gas and went immediately to ask his 
 mother's permission to go out on the street. Permission 
 granted, he proceeded in search of Essex Market Court 
 and met Minnie returning from Mira's. She pointed 
 out the court house to him. 
 
 "Ugh, is that it? I thought it was annader place. 
 I sawn this place twenty million times." 
 
 "You go in there." Minnie pointed to the front door. 
 
 Walking home they covered in their conversation a 
 range of philosophy from kites to cares. 
 
 XV 
 
 Abie started out on his mission of vengeance at eight 
 o'clock the next morning; rather early for school, his 
 father and mother thought, though making no comment. 
 At the street door he waited in vain for Minnie. But
 
 ELIAS 85 
 
 soon he left. Since he knew the location of the court 
 house she was not indispensable. 
 
 Shortly afterwards Mr. Ratkin sallied forth for the 
 day's bread-winning. 
 
 Abie had a long wait at the court house before it gave 
 signs of life. About ten o'clock a giant policeman ap- 
 peared in the doorway and ordered the urchin to move 
 on. 
 
 "Kin I go in?" he asked. 
 
 "What do you want to go in for?" 
 
 "There's a man, he always licks me. I wanna tell the 
 judge on him and get him arrested." 
 
 The policeman looked down on the complainant half 
 mockingly, half questioningly. At that very moment 
 Abie's father's voice sang: "I cash clothes." Abie's 
 mouth remained open in the act of a word unsaid. Then 
 he cried excitedly: 
 
 "Come come on!" and made several hurried steps, 
 motioning the policeman to follow. "That's him! 
 That's the man who licks me. He murders me." 
 
 The policeman impelled by good-nature and curiosity 
 followed the boy around the corner. There stood Mr. 
 Ratkin, his head raised to a top-story window, from 
 which leaned a woman. "I cash clothes." He might 
 have been . serenading the lady so much melody did he 
 put into the refrain. 
 
 "There! That's him!" cried Abie all aquiver with 
 excitement. 
 
 Mr. Ratkin beheld his son. His refrain snapped and 
 broke. Words were too feeble to express his astonish- 
 ment. He merely gaped. 
 
 "Move on!" the policeman growled, swinging his 
 club.
 
 86 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "But he licks me," Abie protested, with an appealing 
 look up at his possible Redeemer. 
 
 "What did he say? What does he want?" Mr. 
 Ratkin asked Abie. 
 
 "He says if you lick me he'll get you arrested." 
 
 In a flash Mr. Ratkin discarded his old clothes-and- 
 rags bag, drew in a deep breath and pounced upon 
 His Own. The policeman saw fit to exercise his prov- 
 ince. He collared Mr. Ratkin and forced him along. 
 Abie made off. 
 
 Mr. Ratkin was sentenced to one night in the Essex 
 Court lockup, regardless of his gesticulations and en- 
 treaties. He had struck a child, it was his turn now 
 to be struck by the hand of the Law. 
 
 In gloomy speculation as to the outcome of his ven- 
 geance now that it was accomplished, and sorely beset 
 by misgivings, Abie wandered aimlessly through the 
 streets until driven home by hunger. 
 
 Little by little Mrs. Ratkin learned what had taken 
 place. She gasped. She choked. She turned blue in 
 the face. And, what was more, she was speechless! 
 Her unprecedented speechlessness was most ominous to 
 the petrified Abie. 
 
 "I didn' done it myself. The policeman made Min- 
 nie ," he whimpered, shuffling to the bedroom door and 
 succumbing to tears. 
 
 Mrs. Ratkin's eyes showed that her soul was rolling 
 up its sleeves for the ultimate, the beating that Abie 
 deserved. She sprang upon him fiendishly. 
 
 "Mama ma! I didn' do it," Abie wedged in when 
 she had to stop for breath. "Minnie Mendel told me. 
 She took me. Uh, mama, don' hit me, don' hit me!" 
 
 Minnie Mendel ! Aha ! Then that black-yeared Sarah
 
 ELIAS 87 
 
 had delegated her corrupt daughter to besmirch the Rat- 
 kin family name as she had besmirched her own! A 
 mitigation of Abie's crime, yet the blows continued to 
 descend until Mrs. Ratkin's wind and muscle gave out. 
 She tottered to the lounge and sank down wailing. How 
 could she look that Mendel woman in the face? What 
 demon had possessed that loafer of hers to commit such 
 a foul deed, to bring such a curse upon his innocent 
 father's head, a father who disciplined him only that 
 he might sow the seed of a golden manhood, the father 
 who picked rags for him, who did not send him to 
 peddle papers like other fathers, like the Mendel father, 
 for example? 
 
 Abie lay on the bed sobbing. The twins howled. 
 
 But sobs and sighs, Mrs. Ratkin bethought herself, 
 were no solution of her grave problem. She ought to 
 go to court at once. 
 
 Abie came forward with expert information: 
 
 "The station-house is closed already," he said. 
 
 His mother glared at him. 
 
 "You loafer you you nothing you you piece of 
 manure, if you say another word, I will give you a blow 
 that you will have to gather your teeth from the floor." 
 
 Brooding silently Abie accompanied his mother and 
 twins on the errand of reclamation. 
 
 The court house was closed. 
 
 "See I told you so," quoth Abie. A blow silenced him. 
 
 The Ratkins returning from the court house met Sarah 
 Mendel in the hall returning from her work at Mrs. 
 Finkelstein's. On the spur of the moment Mrs. Rat- 
 kin resolved to have it out with "that woman," to fling 
 in her face her pernicious influence on the neighbor- 
 hood, the pernicious influence of her ugly Minnie, and
 
 88 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 incidentally to forestall a social comeback from Sarah. 
 
 Mrs. Ratkin's bill of complaints ended with Minnie's 
 latest misdeed. Abie, she said, would never of his own 
 accord have thought out such a thing as to send his 
 father to Sing-Sing. Sing-Sing! Never had the neigh- 
 borhood heard of the place until Sarah brought it to their 
 innocent notice. 
 
 Abie slunk into a corner. The twins clung frantically 
 to their mother's skirt. A butcher's boy passing, at- 
 tracted by the loud voice, was the first to stop and listen ; 
 others followed his example. Tenants opened doors, 
 stuck out heads, and were drawn to the scene. A yel- 
 low, shrivelled old woman with a dark gray shawl over 
 her head, made her way falteringly through the hall to 
 the stairs. 
 
 "Fui ! Fui !" she mumbled. "Jewish women should 
 quarrel so! It does not suit Jewish women to quarrel 
 so." The butcher's boy laughed and scampered off. 
 Some of the audience smiled. 
 
 The old woman spat out once, twice, thrice as she 
 tottered up the stairs. Sarah looking after her was re- 
 minded of her mother; a peaceful old-country family 
 scene flitted across her consciousness. She turned and 
 mounted the steps as quickly as her tired feet would 
 carry her. 
 
 "You think," Mrs. Ratkin hurled after her, "you can 
 hide your own shame by bringing the same shame upon 
 other people's heads. You think maybe I don't under- 
 stand. But everybody in the whole neighborhood knows 
 I am an honest, respectable woman who works along 
 with her husband. But you, what do you do ? You send 
 your good, pious husband to Sing-Sing. Fui! Shame 
 on you!"
 
 ELIAS 89 
 
 Sarah shrinking within herself disappeared in a bend 
 of the stairs. 
 
 Mrs. Ratkin turning to the remaining auditors began 
 to tell of the awful character of the Sarah Mendel 
 woman. One by one they dropped away. 
 
 When Sarah did day's work, Minnie served as the 
 charwoman. Thursdays she scrubbed for the Sabbath. 
 Little East Side children talk of having to do "my 
 scrubbing," "my washing." Minnie had no knack for 
 scrubbing. Scold her as one would, she invariably got 
 herself wet, even to her shoes and stockings. The first 
 sight to greet Sarah was a sopping Minnie, and it re- 
 quired less than this to kindle her anger to white heat. 
 She could scarcely contain herself. She wanted to strike 
 the child. The temptation was so great that she had 
 to look away. 
 
 Ida and Bubbele playing near the window where the 
 floor was scrubbed but not dry tried to rise but slipped 
 and fell. Bubbele screamed. Her mother hushed her 
 up. The child again tried unsuccessfully to get to her 
 feet; she burst into a howl. Sarah was beside her- 
 self. 
 
 Minnie knelt in a puddle of water, scrubbing-brush in 
 hand. 
 
 "Look at the water in the pail. It is filthy!" Sarah' 
 glared at her daughter, who wondered what had brought 
 her mother home so cross. 
 
 "It's the last piece, I don' need no clean water." 
 
 Sarah swooped down upon the pail, carried it to the 
 sink with a furious gesture, poured out the water and 
 refilled the pail. Minnie frightened, began to cry. 
 
 "Look," Sarah shouted, "look how wet you are!" and 
 she pulled roughly at Minnie's dress.
 
 90 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "Oh, mama!" 
 
 "Cry a little! Cry! You" Sarah broke off in 
 an honest effort to control herself. 
 
 A sobbing Minnie rose from the floor and walked 
 into the bedroom. When a child of eight has scrubbed 
 two floors, has laid clean newspaper over a table she 
 has scoured, and over a stove she has polished ; and has 
 prepared supper for six well, it is rather hard to be 
 scolded instead of praised. Minnie sobbed harder and 
 harder. 
 
 Sarah opened the floodgates of her heart. 
 
 "A thousand times I told you not to tell Abie about 
 the court a thousand times. And you told him. You 
 must have told his mother, too, because she knows. Or 
 maybe Abie told her. You took Abie to the court to 
 arrest his father. What devil of a child are you?" 
 
 Minnie gazed wide-eyed and started to make denial. 
 Her mother shrieked at her to be still. Minnie turned 
 ashen white and sobbed so hard that her small frame 
 shook. She fell silent from exhaustion. 
 
 The two younger children played quietly to ward off 
 their mother's wrath from themselves. 
 
 Sarah finished scrubbing the floor, then utterly worn 
 out seated herself at the window. 
 
 "God, my God !" she thought as she gazed out upon 
 the dingy red of the rear tenement. "Will it be like 
 this forever? Work slave for what? What have 
 we? A child like Minnie must scrub and clean, and I 
 must go out to work for strangers. Elias is not well, 
 Jacob must peddle papers, and yet we have not enough 
 for shoes. And a foul tongue like the Ratkin woman's 
 dares yet to besmirch me !" She was racked to the very 
 depths of her being.
 
 ELIAS 91 
 
 When Elias came home he found Minnie red-eyed, 
 hunched up on the bed. 
 
 "What is the matter?" 
 
 Minnie burst into sobs again. 
 
 "Mama mama, she blames me. She says I told out to 
 Abie. I didn' do it at all. I didn' take him by the court. 
 He was hisself ." She could say no more. Elias was dis- 
 turbed and puzzled. Sarah, conscience-smitten for her 
 onslaught upon the child, read reproof in Elias's glance. 
 
 "You have something to say, too!" She rose from her 
 seat with an infuriated look, and grabbing her shawl 
 rushed out, slamming the door behind her. Crying all 
 the way, she walked to Mira's. 
 
 Elias was bewildered. He shrugged his shoulders and 
 sighed. After waiting nearly an hour for Sarah to 
 return, he and Minnie, whom he gently asked to help 
 him, set the table and after supper cleared and washed 
 the dishes. 
 
 When the children were asleep and all was quiet in 
 the home, except for the ticking of the clock, Elias 
 seated himself at the window. He gazed out on the 
 rear tenement now black in the darkness. 
 
 "It is hard on her," he reflected. "To-day she was 
 by the woman to work. She is not used to such a life 
 from home. She is a refined woman, of a good family. 
 It is terrible. What shall I do? Will it always be like 
 this? How hard! What a hard life!" He recalled 
 the notion prevailing "at home" that the streets of 
 America were paved with gold which, to own, one had 
 only to pick up. 
 
 Across Eiias's thoughts there swept a plaintive croon- 
 ing from a home in the rear tenement. A woman was 
 singing her baby to sleep.
 
 92 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "America is dock a goldena Land; 
 Men darf nur zein sehr reich."* 
 
 He wiped the tears from his eyes. 
 
 Long after he had retired, Sarah returned accom- 
 panied by Jacob whom she had met on the street. Elias 
 called to her saying supper had been left for both of 
 them on the stove. 
 
 "A pretty thank you," was Sarah's sarcastic reply. 
 
 Nothing more was said, and soon the lights were 
 turned out for the night. 
 
 XVI 
 
 To Mrs. Ratkin, whose heart bled for her schlimasel- 
 dicker (unlucky) husband, an eternity seemed to elapse 
 as she and the children waited for the doors of the 
 court house to open. What, she wondered, keeping her 
 eyes fastened on Abie as if to probe his soul, could so 
 suddenly have turned him vicious enough to play his 
 own father so foul a trick! "A healthy boy a smart 
 boy in school what devil got into him!" She eased 
 her feelings by plaguing him. He should set his hat 
 straight, he should tie his shoe-lace, ht should stand on 
 both his feet, he should look there and not here. 
 
 At last, trembling with fear and fury, Mrs. Ratkin 
 was facing the judge. She made her appeal in Yid- 
 dish, plus vehement gesticulations. Now and then to 
 intensify her meaning, she had recourse to an English 
 word or broken phrase "boychick" "fadder" "lock- 
 
 * "America is a golden land ; 
 One needs but be very rich."
 
 ELIAS 93 
 
 hop." The "boychick" being Abie, son of the man ar- 
 rested yesterday. To Mrs. Ratkin there could be only 
 one man that had been arrested yesterday. The inter- 
 preter unravelled the complications and told her to go 
 to the street, where her husband would join her. 
 
 A legal trick to get rid of her ! She expostulated. A 
 policeman dumped her out. Hard were Mrs. Ratkin's 
 feelings against Columbus and his Medena (land) ; she 
 was ready to curse and swear when, to her amazement, 
 her spouse emerged from the court house. 
 
 He blinked. The street seemed strange, his family 
 strangers. He displayed no sign of recognition. His 
 odd behavior silenced even the twins, who held back 
 from greeting him. Mrs. Ratkin looked shrivelled and 
 aged. Her troubled eyes could make neither head nor 
 tail of her husband. She was wretched. Abie slunk be- 
 hind the group, to the side of it, wherever he could 
 dodge observation. 
 
 They walked homeward automatically. By degrees 
 the sense of strangeness wore off. Mr. Ratkin spoke 
 to the twins, Mrs. Ratkin stopped to brush her hus- 
 band's coat. Finally the wedded two launched upon the 
 utmost the culprit Abie, of whose presence the father 
 was not yet aware. 
 
 Mrs. Ratkin asserted Abie's innocence. It was all 
 "that Minnie, that Mendel woman's Minnie's fault." 
 The boy could never have thought of such a thing as 
 going to court; the girl had talked him into it, in fact, 
 she had compelled him to go there. "Nu, how do you 
 like such chutzpeh (cheek) for a mother to influence 
 a child to do such a thing!" Mr. Ratkin was not to 
 be easily convinced. 
 
 "I was a boy, too, nu, why did no mother's girl in-
 
 94 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 fluence me to arrest my father? I tell you, that boy 
 is a loafer through and through." He smacked his lips 
 witTi appetite for the beating in store for the culprit. 
 
 "Itzick," Mrs. Ratkin begged, divining her husband's 
 intentions, "I beseech you, let there be peace in the house 
 over the Sabbath." She affected extreme weakness. 
 "Upon my word, I have no strength to stand on my 
 feet. Yesterday I told that Mendel woman just what 
 I think of her and her Germankeit, and her ugly Min- 
 nie, and I aggravated myself so, I did not sleep all night. 
 I have no strength to stand more." 
 
 The twins listening earnestly wished matters would 
 adjust themselves, so that their parents would take heed 
 of their august presence. The apples of their parents' 
 eyes, they were hardly accustomed to being slighted. 
 
 There was silence. Abie thought he was missing con- 
 versation and stealing closer was spied by Itzick Ratkin, 
 whose angry flush did not escape Mrs. Ratkin. "Hold 
 yourself back," she shouted to her husband and in the 
 same breath to Abie: "Run." Abie ran, and Mr. Rat- 
 kin, of necessity, "held himself back." 
 
 Abie sauntered along a few yards behind the others, 
 his hands in his pockets, his head sunk low, his eyes 
 fixed on the pavement. He was thinking hard. A 
 wretched life, lickings, lickings, all the time lickings. He 
 hated his father. Life on earth was hell. He would 
 seek heavenly refuge under the wheels of the Madi- 
 son Street cars. In the clutch of this strengthening re- 
 solve, he lost sense of his whereabouts and failed to ob- 
 serve that his father, as they drew nearer their home, 
 was seeking a second opportunity. Several feet from 
 their door he made a dash for the boy, but the mother's 
 shriek, "Itzick!" was a timely warning to Abie, who
 
 ELIAS 95 
 
 dodged his father's fist by the merest slice of good luck. 
 
 "God!" cried Mrs. Ratkin. 
 
 Abie ran until he was certain he was out of the dan- 
 ger zone, then stopping to get his bearings, he turned 
 towards Madison Street. It was the lunch hour. He 
 met Minnie coming from school. 
 
 Her heart pounded angrily at sight of him. Never 
 would she speak to that liar again. Abie instantly sensed 
 her mood. However, he did not intend to make his 
 exodus from this world without explanation. He barred 
 her passage. 
 
 "Get out of my way ! You're a liar ! You told your 
 mama I telled you about us, and I showed you where. 
 You're a liar!" She spoke unrestrainedly, her feminine 
 intuition telling her she was safe from rebuff. 
 
 "I didn' said nothin'," Abie wailed in denial. "My 
 mama, she sawn yous all gone in the Essick Market 
 Court that day, she told my papa, I heard it wid my 
 own ears, and my mama she said I shouldn' said noth- 
 ing to you, that she sawn yous, but she did. I did not 
 said you took me. All the time she blames it on me." 
 Tears of injury gathered in the boy's eyes. Abie was 
 weary, world weary; East Side children do get world 
 weary. 
 
 The boy's tears melted Minnie's little heart. She 
 made no reply. Automatically they walked on together. 
 
 "I'm gonna get runned over; sick of it; hope I die," 
 Abie said as if to himself, then reasserted for Minnie's 
 ears : "I'm gonna go and get runned over by the Madi- 
 son Street car." 
 
 Minnie became alert. 
 
 "So you'll get dead." 
 
 "I don* care. I wanna."
 
 96 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Minnie grew penitent. 
 
 "Ill be sorry," she confessed in a low voice. 
 
 Silence. 
 
 Instead of turning the usual corner, they walked 
 straight ahead. Abie was tired, his feet ached. 
 
 "Let's go in and sit down on the rock," he suggested. 
 The rock was a large stone in an air-shaft, so named 
 by the children of the neighborhood. It was big enough 
 to hold them both. For a few minutes they sat in 
 silence. Abie toyed with a button on his jumper ; Min- 
 nie outlined the pattern of her checked dress with her 
 forefinger. 
 
 "I wisht my papa dies, I hate him," said Abie. 
 
 A brief pause. 
 
 "You ain' gonna go by the car?" urged Minnie. 
 Abie's suicidal intent worried her tremendously. 
 
 "So when I die, you'll be sorry?" 
 
 The tears started to Minnie's eyes. She pleaded earn- 
 estly : "Don' go by the car, Abie, then I'll speak to you 
 my whole life." 
 
 Abie sat hunched up, his hands squeezed tight in his 
 lap, his shoulders curved. His lips were parched, his 
 eyes red-rimmed, his face worn and pale. He gazed 
 into space. 
 
 "So, when I get a man," he asked after a silence, 
 "will you marry me, Minnie?" Minnie, whose little 
 heart went out to him in an abundance of pity, said 
 softly and a little diffidently: "Yeh, Abie," this time 
 without the usual proviso, "if you be a teacher." 
 
 From a window of the tenement heights a newspaper 
 bundle came flying through the air, opening and scat- 
 tering in all directions diversified rubbish, chicken guts, 
 fish guts, plain garbage embellished with dust.
 
 ELIAS 97 
 
 A goodly portion landed on the children's heads and 
 in their laps. Horrified they jumped up and shook off 
 the filth, and simultaneously turned their gaze upward. 
 
 "You dirty rotten pigs," they cried, addressing the 
 windows, "you should go to hell and die!" Thus re- 
 lieved they abandoned the air-shaft. 
 
 The factory whistles blowing one o'clock gave Min- 
 nie an awful shock. Too late for home, too late for 
 afternoon session! Abie proposed they go to Rutgers 
 Street Park "to sit," and Minnie consented after some 
 persuasion. By three o'clock, when they left the Park 
 together, Minnie's counsel had prevailed and the would- 
 be suicide was decided to endure his domestic sufferings 
 until he "got a man." In the hall of the front tenement 
 
 they parted, promising to meet again in the evening. 
 ******* 
 
 When by twenty minutes past twelve Minnie was not 
 yet home from school Sarah, much concerned, opened 
 the door to listen for her footsteps. By half-past twelve 
 she was all unstrung, and sat wringing her hands in 
 despair. From Jacob, his mouth filled with bread and 
 cheese, came the consoling statement that Minnie had 
 probably been detained by the teacher to clean the black- 
 boards, the "best girl," he explained being assigned that 
 honor now and then. 
 
 "Would it be just at noontime?" 
 
 "Only at noontime," prevaricated Jacob. 
 
 Since it seemed quite plausible that the teacher had 
 at last discovered the "best girl" in Minnie, the mother 
 felt somewhat relieved. 
 
 Sarah was just deciding to leave her seat at the win- 
 dow and go watch for the child on the street when 
 Minnie bounded in breathless and excited. Minnie im-
 
 98 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 mediately poured out the tale of Abie's suicidal intent 
 and her truancy. Sarah listened, with odd feelings stir- 
 ring in her breast. This child of hers was queerly com- 
 plex: more than a baby and more than a grandmother. 
 Sarah sighed. Her mother's silence encouraged Min- 
 nie to lean lovingly against her. 
 
 "Ma," she said toying with Sarah's hair, "Abie and 
 I am gonna get married when he gets a man and I am 
 big like you." 
 
 "Go get something to eat." Sarah dropped her eyes. 
 She was annoyed. 
 
 Minnie, though she could not understand why, sensed 
 her mother's displeasure. In silence she cut herself a 
 piece of bread and took a brown senile-looking banana, 
 one of a penny "job-lot" of eleven, and began to munch it. 
 
 As for Abie, he brought tears of gratitude to his 
 mother's eyes when he put in his appearance. There was 
 no telling, was Mrs. Ratkin's opinion, what next such 
 a loafer as her Abie could do, even to himself. She 
 sent her husband a mute appeal for peace, which he 
 respected. 
 
 So there was harmony in the Ratkin home for the 
 Sabbath. 
 
 As a new form of punishment Mr. Ratkin refrained 
 
 from talking to his son for several days. "Tell papa " 
 
 Abie would say to his mother ; "Tell your son " Mr. 
 
 Ratkin would say to his wife. 
 
 XVII 
 
 The combined income of the Mendel family was not 
 destined to bring an abatement of Sarah's worries. So 
 many different needs had accumulated that the money
 
 ELIAS 99 
 
 seemed to fly immediately that it came to nest. In ad- 
 dition Elias ailed and she herself had a constant pain 
 in her side. 
 
 But a gentler spirit was born in the weary Sarah. In- 
 stead of her ire, Elias now roused her compassion; he 
 seemed so dispirited and unwell. She would sit for 
 hours at a time staring into vacancy as if to discover 
 ways out of their distress. She never took Elias to 
 task any more, or even rebuked the children. 
 
 One day Minnie bouncing in from the afternoon ses- 
 sion knocked over Ida who was standing at the door 
 shaping a sheet of newspaper into a fireman's cap. Ida, 
 as she scrambled to her feet, besought Foxy to take 
 vengeance for her. "Sig em!" she cried. Foxy forth- 
 with drew himself up at attention, barked and seemed 
 ready to carry out his Young Royalty's command. Bub- 
 bele stirred in her sleep. 
 
 "Ssh !" Sarah called to the belligerent trio as she tip- 
 toed to the bedroom to peep at the baby. All was quiet. 
 Sarah tiptoed back to her seat at the window. Foxy 
 relaxed. Minnie went to wash her hands and Ida in 
 need of consolation, cried sulkily, dropping the news- 
 paper: "Ma ma, I'm tired." She fetched a long sigh 
 and Sarah, who saw she really looked tired, did not 
 repel her when she climbed into her lap. Mothers of 
 Sarah's generation have their demonstrativeness re- 
 served for the very special occasions. 
 
 Minnie, attracted by the cosy picture Ida and her 
 mother made, squatted on the floor beside them. Along 
 came Foxy and sprawled himself luxuriously next to 
 her. 
 
 "Mama, tell her to go away!" sulked Ida. Ida was 
 not one to dismiss a grudge readily.
 
 ioo SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "Be still children!" Sarah pleaded gently. 
 
 They lapsed into silence. 
 
 Mechanically Sarah began to hum a Yiddish lullaby, 
 rocking Ida in her arms. The children, affected by the 
 mournful tune and their mother's unwonted serenity, 
 listened spellbound. But soon Sarah broke off to wipe 
 her tearful eyes. 
 
 "Ah, ma, sing some more!" coaxed Ida sleepily. 
 
 But Minnie, who had been scrutinizing her mother, 
 interrupted with an observation: 
 
 "Uh, ma, you got gray eyes." Sarah's eyes had been 
 her pride. She felt somewhat embarrassed. "Ain' it 
 mama?" urged Minnie. 
 
 "No," Sarah exclaimed with exaggerated indigna- 
 tion engendered by self-consciousness, "but my hair is 
 gray." It seemed to Minnie that her mother held her 
 to blame. 
 
 "Mama, your hair ain' gray. It's brown. Gray is 
 white-like, ain' it?" Her mother's affirmation did not 
 come. "Your hair is all dark like mine," continued Min- 
 nie indignantly, as she held a strand of her own hair 
 against her mother's. Sarah seemed still unconvinced. 
 Minnie fetched the small mirror from the wall between 
 the windows and held it so that the faces and heads of 
 both were reflected. "See now, ma, your hair ain' gray," 
 she reiterated, feeling she had refuted the charge. 
 
 Sarah, glimpsing her sallow, haggard face in the mir- 
 ror, felt her heart caught on the point of a stiletto. "At 
 home they used to call me pretty Sarah!" she wailed 
 inwardly. 
 
 "Put the mirror back !" she cried passionately. Min- 
 nie was startled. To her amazement her mother was 
 crying.
 
 ELIAS 101 
 
 "What's a madder, mama?" cooed Minnie, grieved, 
 pimled and penitent. She held her hands out to take 
 Sarah's face between them. Sarah evaded the caress. 
 
 "Put it back, I tell you," she repeated. 
 
 Sarah was crying harder when Minnie came back 
 to her side. The child was miserable. 
 
 "Mama, uh mama!" she cried impotently. 
 
 Sarah stroked her head. "Oh, my girlie, may God 
 grant you better fortune!" she moaned, rocking the 
 sleeping Ida to and fro. 
 
 Somewhere deep down in the mother's heart lived a 
 dread that her daughter's lot would be like her own. 
 "But," she would reassure herself, "she is an American, 
 she will go to high school to college if I live to send 
 her. Her life will necessarily be different from mine." 
 But deep within her Sarah's soul sighed. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 At dawn next day Sarah, careful not to disturb the 
 others, dressed and hurried to the butcher's for the Fri- 
 day chicken-plucking. Elias, who rose an hour later, 
 prepared his own coffee, and then called to Minnie and 
 Jacob. Minnie, as she lay asleep, looked pale and 
 pinched. Elias was glad that Sarah had dispensed with 
 the child's assistance at the butcher's this time. It took 
 a while before the two children began to stir in their 
 beds. Finally Elias had to urge Minnie to hurry ; there 
 were the rolls to purchase. She stirred and complained 
 of a headache. Five minutes later she crawled out of 
 the cot, looking even sallower than in sleep. Elias was 
 worried. He called Jacob and told him to go on the 
 errand.
 
 102 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "Where's Minnie ?" growled the boy, who could not 
 allow for this deviation from the family custom. 
 
 "Minnie has a headache." 
 
 "I got a headache, too." He closed his eyes. It was 
 characteristic of him to resort to subterfuge to gain ex- 
 emption from a household task. Minnie threw an ex- 
 asperated glance at his head snuggling in the pillow. 
 She ran over, tore the pillow from under him and dashed 
 away. Jacob was out of the bed in one bound and in 
 pursuit. Elias intervened smiling upon both children. 
 To restore peace he said : 
 
 "Go, Minnele, run down to the grocery. I cannot 
 wait for Jacob to dress. I will be late." 
 
 Minnie relinquished the pillow. She finished dress- 
 ing and taking five cents from her father left. When 
 she returned, breathless as always, she was pleased to 
 find the cots and bedding removed from the room-of- 
 all-affairs. Assuming that her father had been the good 
 angel, she thanked him. Truth to tell, Jacob had con- 
 tributed his aid. 
 
 Elias, to Minnie's surprise, got ready to leave before 
 eating his rolls. 
 
 "Papa," she called, "you didn' ate nothin' !" 
 
 "I did." 
 
 "But not no rolls, and you didn' ate no supper last 
 night neither." 
 
 Jacob, who was combing his hair with the fraction of 
 the family comb, looked from under a long wet fore- 
 lock and growled disgustedly : 
 
 "Chatterbox! All the time she asks questions." 
 
 Minnie, except for a bitter look, ignored him. 
 
 "Ssh," said Elias, to forestall a quarrel, and made for 
 the door without confessing that while Minnie was gone
 
 ELIAS 103 
 
 he had had a spell of nausea. Minnie, too self-con- 
 scious now to insist on his eating, joined Jacob in 
 calling out: "Good-by, pop." 
 
 The second number on the program of Minnie's daily 
 activities took her into the bedchamber. "Get up, Ida! 
 Get up Bubbele!" After a series of sleepy protesta- 
 tions the children scrambled out of bed into the room- 
 of -all-affairs, where Minnie attended to the entire cere- 
 mony of Bubbele's dressing and to the lacing of Ida's 
 shoes, a detail which, when it fell to Ida for execution, 
 invariably introduced complications in the household ; 
 the laces would get irretrievably twisted, and a howl 
 would ensue that would bring the family in a flurry to 
 extricate her from her miseries. 
 
 Next in order was breakfast. At table Minnie appor- 
 tioned the largest cruller to Jacob a standing discrim- 
 ination in his favor. When the repast was over she 
 cleared the table, washed the dishes, instructed Ida and 
 Bubbele how to behave until "Mama would come home 
 from the butcher's," and finally left for school. 
 
 She made a detour to the butcher's, where she found 
 Sarah imbedded in a mountain of feathers. Disregard- 
 ing the presence of the butcher and his customers, she 
 jumped over the sorry heap of plumage. 
 
 "Mama," she said, "papa didn' waked me till late " 
 
 Sarah looked up in surprise from the speckled gray 
 chicken in her lap. 
 
 "A golden child she is!" passed through her mind. 
 "I scold her so!" Minnie's nose still showed signs 
 of the historic push "and it is as if nothing happens." 
 A tender look came into Sarah's eyes as she turned them 
 on Minnie and said: "I do not need you. Just go to 
 school."
 
 104 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Minnie stole a hasty kiss and jumped back over the 
 mountain of feathers, which rose in a storm of pro- 
 test. "Pooh, pooh!" the butcher and his customers 
 cried, turning their heads away. The child laughed and 
 skipped out, while Sarah looked after her lovingly, her 
 eyes moist. The butcher gave Sarah a knowing wink. 
 
 "Some girl!" 
 
 "Yes, a girl and a half." This last proceeding from a 
 friend of Mrs. Ratkin's, Sarah was somewhat dubious of 
 its sincerity. 
 
 XIX 
 
 "Elias," said Sarah, one hot spring evening as she 
 finished washing the supper dishes, "the summer is nearly 
 here again. I cannot stand another summer of bedbugs 
 and roaches and worms. Maybe we can take other 
 rooms." 
 
 Elias raised his eyes from the newspaper he was read- 
 ing and attempted to answer, but only brought out thick, 
 unintelligible sounds followed by a fit of coughing. 
 When the spell subsided, he said : 
 
 "When I cough, I get the taste of cigarettes," and 
 added gently: "Do you think it will be better some- 
 where else? We cannot afford to pay much more than 
 we are paying here, you know." 
 
 "Mira told me of two rooms on Madison Street which 
 do not cost much and are better." 
 
 Elias resumed the perusal of his paper. 
 
 "If you can find rooms you like better, take them, 
 my wife," he said with apparent apathy. 
 
 Sarah, always resentful of Elias's calm, which she at- 
 tributed to indifference, flushed. Since the crucial ex-
 
 ELIAS 105 
 
 perience of the arrest, however, she refrained from dis- 
 plays of irritation. 
 
 "I am sick of this place without the vermin. That 
 housekeeper, that Mrs. Ratkin, looks at me when she 
 sees me as if she would take my eyes out. I never 
 have the heart to bid her even the time of day since 
 then. And I cannot tell you how it annoys me to see 
 Minnie run around so much with that loafer Abie. 
 Always she is with him with him whenever you 
 see her. If at least they did not quarrel, but they 
 do." 
 
 Elias raised his eyes and said : 
 
 "Nu, where is the harm? If she does speak to him 
 and if they do quarrel. They are children." 
 
 "Nu, yes, children. She neglects her school lessons, 
 she is never in the house to play with her younger sis-* 
 ters and nothing. Anyway I do not like it." 
 
 Elias smiled at what was in the back of Sarah's 
 mind. 
 
 "Do not be a foolish woman." 
 
 "If I am foolish, then I am foolish, that is all. But 
 Minnie is now almost nine years old. The years fly. 
 Soon she will be a grown-up girl. How long does it 
 take for them to grow up?" 
 
 Sarah grew suddenly melancholy. A mist covered 
 her eyes. Her thoughts travelled across the Atlantic to 
 her free-thinker lover, and she experienced a moment of 
 strangeness to her surroundings to Elias to everything 
 of her present life. With a deep sigh she rose and auto- 
 matically took the one-legged clock from the shelf over 
 the sink and wound it, then stood for a while medita- 
 tively wiping her face on the end of her apron. After a 
 time she said :
 
 106 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "I am going down to the children on the street. Shall 
 I send you up some soda water?" 
 
 Elias raising his brows slightly but keeping his eyes 
 lowered, replied, again apathetically, Sarah thought, and 
 to her keen annoyance: 
 
 "If you want to." 
 
 Sarah took a cracked pitcher under her apron and left. 
 
 "I will look for other rooms," she said to herself. "He 
 would be satisfied in a stable." 
 
 As Sarah closed the door Elias examined his handker- 
 chief. A red stain. Blood! It had happened sev- 
 eral times, but each time Elias had assured himself it 
 was nothing and probably would not happen again. This 
 time a tremor of fear shot through him. When he recov- 
 ered he was glad Sarah had not seen the blood ; it would 
 have frightened her. He sighed heavily, and wearily 
 picked up his paper again, but he did not know what he 
 was reading. 
 
 On the way downstairs, Sarah met with a slight mis- 
 hap; one of the steps gave way beneath her tread, and 
 she fell nearly a full flight. Mrs. Ratkin, who happened 
 to be on the floor below, spontaneously expressed con- 
 cern. But Sarah, more than ever filled with disgust of 
 the tenement, indulged once again in the luxury of un- 
 restrained temper. 
 
 "God mine," she fairly hissed in Mrs. Ratkin's face, 
 as if the janitress were to blame for the rottenness of 
 the building, "a person can kill himself here. How does 
 one live already to get out of this verminated place!" 
 She lifted her eyes to heaven. 
 
 Mrs. Ratkin drew herself up to the dignified height of 
 janitress. 
 
 "Nu, really, if it does not suit you, why do you not
 
 ELIAS 107 
 
 move? The landlord will weep out of existence his 
 third eye!" Going her way Mrs. Ratkin thought: "I 
 hope they will move. I will tell the landlord she said 
 they will move. She did say so as much as said so." 
 
 Sarah realized she had committed an indiscretion. 
 After all, she knew nothing definite about the rooms on 
 Madison Street. Ignoring Mrs. Ratkin's sarcasm, she 
 passed, limping slightly. 
 
 A group of children were circling round in the gutter 
 to the rhythm of a doleful tune. On the edge of the 
 sidewalk sat a group of women on wooden egg boxes, 
 gossiping and watching with pride their progeny in the 
 ring, whose voice or voices they thought to distinguish 
 above the others. In momentary forgetfulness of their 
 cares, they beamed with the love and pride of mothers 
 the world over. 
 
 Sarah discerned Ida and even yes, even little Bub- 
 bele holding her sister's hand, and circling gracefully 
 round and round. 
 
 "Go in and out the window Go in and out the win- 
 dow " the children's voices rang in plaintive discord. 
 
 There was an unoccupied egg box near the curb; 
 Sarah, however, seated herself on the doorstep, thereby 
 giving cause for whispered comment. Aloofness such as 
 this, though inspired by a shy reticence, made Sarah out 
 a haughty superior to Mrs. Ratkin and her followers. 
 Woe be to him who lacks the spirit of free-masonry 
 which must animate all who cling to the same plank in 
 life! 
 
 "Blocking the way," grumbled Mrs. Ratkin, emerging 
 from the house. 
 
 Sarah rose instantly, brought the egg box from the 
 turb to the doorstep, and placing it so that it would
 
 io8 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 not obstruct the passage, seated herself. More and hotter 
 comment gathered. 
 
 A great truck lumbering heavily, but at some speed, 
 down the street caused diversion. Mothers shouted to 
 their young to come in from the gutter. Ida and Bub- 
 bele, surprised to hear Sarah's voice, looked round. 
 
 "Oo, ma!" they cried running happily to her, their 
 pace set by Bubbele whose baby legs were not always 
 equal to their task. 
 
 Sarah wiped Bubbele's mouth and ran her fingers 
 through her hair to straighten it. "You have spots on 
 your dress, and pull your stockings up," she said to Ida, 
 and next: "Where is Minnie?" 
 
 "She is wid Miss Lacey, and is gonna come right 
 back." 
 
 Miss Lacey, a sweet young thing, the product of Up- 
 per New York's lap, had reached Minnie's ken by way 
 of Miss Liebman. Once when Minnie had gone to Miss 
 Liebman's home on an errand for Sarah, the young 
 woman, attracted by her mature little ways, had engaged 
 her in conversation. The visit resulted in Minnie's be- 
 coming eager to join a girls' club at the Queen's Daugh- 
 ters, a neighborhood house. Sarah objected. "Settle- 
 ment" smacked of charity. Charity was the last thing 
 Sarah aspired to for her children. But Minnie's insist- 
 ence had finally wearied her into consent. 
 
 Scarcely had Ida spoken when Minnie came skipping 
 along, flushed and happy. 
 
 "Uh, ma," she began, "Miss Lacey " Minnie was 
 
 Miss Lacey's devotee. 
 
 "Your Miss Lacey!" Sarah interrupted testily, for if 
 Sarah had nothing else against MissaLacey, enough that 
 she was a Gentile. Gentiles might be good but they at-
 
 ELI AS 109 
 
 tempted to proselytize and she preferred that her chil- 
 dren steer clear of them. "Better go and buy your papa 
 soda water." 
 
 With the cracked pitcher under her arm, Minnie went 
 across the street for the two glasses of "vanilla" and 
 returned with it still healthily sizzling. The pitcher 
 passed from mouth to mouth for "sips." Sarah refused 
 the cup of good fellowship much to the children's 
 distress. 
 
 Cautioning her not to trip on the broken step, Sarah 
 despatched Minnie to her father with the refreshing 
 beverage. 
 
 Elias, who had quite forgotten about the proffered 
 drink, was touched by Sarah's thoughtfulness. He rose 
 and poured out a scanty glassful for himself and offered 
 the rest to Minnie. She took a few sips. "Kin I take 
 the rest to mama?" she asked. 
 
 Elias took her close to him and kissed her. "She is 
 not like the other children," he mused wistfully as he 
 watched her step to the door as cautiously as a tight- 
 rope walker. 
 
 Sarah was pleased when Minnie brought the soda to 
 her. 
 
 "She is not like the other children," thought she with 
 mournful pride, "she is more like my family." Her 
 heart swelled with a passionate yearning for the future 
 welfare of her daughter, in which bitterness at her 
 own lot was mingled. How ugly, sordid, unsuited 
 to the gentler promise of her girlhood was her life! 
 If Minnie's fate could only be in accord with the tradi- 
 tion of ease and refinement of her mother's side of the 
 family if only she would not marry an Elias! . . . 
 Minnie would go through high school and through col-
 
 i io SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 lege too ; here, in America, girls became teachers, doc- 
 tors, lawyers; they married educated gentlemen Minnie 
 had a "golden head" who could know what brilliant lot 
 was in store for her! . . . Sarah's eyes lighted on the 
 drab tenement opposite, on the rusty fire escapes, littered 
 with ragged, soiled bedding, on which lay babies asleep, 
 then dropped upon the neglected children in the gutter 
 and the long line of slovenly maternity edging the side- 
 walk. And she wondered miserably what Fate really 
 had in store for her child. 
 
 XX 
 
 Mrs. Ratkin informed the Landlord between hems and 
 haws for she shivered and she shook in the presence of 
 her Mighty Superior that Mrs. Mendel had declared 
 her intention of moving. 
 
 Nonchalance is unknown to the lowly. Always keyed 
 up to a fear of the worst, Mrs. Ratkin could not under- 
 stand how the Landlord, confronted with the possible 
 loss of a tenant and of Ready Cash, remained so indif- 
 ferent. He evinced not the least concern ; on the con- 
 trary, he passed to other details as if he had not heard 
 the momentous news, and departed to secure his rentals 
 without a word of comment on Mrs. Mendel. 
 
 Uninformed Mrs. Ratkin! Her mind did not grasp 
 the fact that her Mighty Superior, standing firmly on 
 both legs, could afford to have a whole one removed, 
 while she, tottering on only a fraction of a single weak- 
 leg, could not afford to have that fraction so much as 
 threatened. 
 
 She poured out her astonishment mingled with dis- 
 appointment to her husband.
 
 ELI AS in 
 
 "A man should not care a bit about his houses! I 
 tell him Mrs. Mendel will move so Mrs. Mendel will 
 move and he says nothing ; he walks up the stairs, and 
 nothing!" 
 
 Sarah made many efforts to find better rooms. Those 
 on Madison Street recommended by Mira had the for- 
 bidding quality of costing two dollars more a month; 
 with that increment all calculations failed to produce 
 an equation between income and expenditure. 
 
 Though Elias was aware of her weary searches, he 
 never inquired into the results which did not pass un- 
 noticed or unresented by Sarah. One Saturday she 
 yielded to a nagging impulse to rouse him out of his 
 lethargy. House-hunting during the week, she told him, 
 with all her other duties, was hard for her; the family 
 together ought to go and look on Saturdays. The inner 
 quaking with which she put the proposal (since house- 
 hunting might be considered an infringement of the Sab- 
 bath) was evident in her manner and brought ready con- 
 sent from Elias, who was moved tenderly by his wife's 
 new-born fractional timidity. He loved her for it. 
 
 They investigated every place displaying a "Room-To- 
 Let" sign. But, alas, no rooms except two wretched ones 
 in a basement were as cheap as those they occupied. At 
 the end of the futile hunt Elias suggested that they 
 should remain where they were. Sarah lowered her 
 head, resentful and disheartened. 
 
 "You are always satisfied." 
 
 "Satisfied?" Elias exclaimed. "I would rather live 
 nicer, too, my wife, but maybe when it gets busier I 
 will get a dollar raise. Then we can afford to pay 
 more." 
 
 Before Elias received a dollar raise, Sarah reflected
 
 112 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 bitterly, the bedbugs and roaches and worms and Mrs. 
 Ratkin might commit murder upon the family ; she 
 could increase their income sooner herself. "To-mor- 
 row," she resolved, "1*11 ask Miss Liebman to get me a 
 third Lady." 
 
 But during the night Elias was very ill, and the next 
 morning he could not go to work. Nor could Sarah. 
 Minnie was despatched with a message to the girls. Both 
 Sarah's and Elias's earnings for the day were lost. 
 
 The first of the following month the Landlord came 
 for the rent, and Sarah paid it. Another month in the 
 same rooms, with their long torturing hours of heat and 
 pests ! Sarah's heart withered at the prospect. 
 
 When Mrs. Ratkin observed that the name Mendel 
 was missing from the list of delinquents whom she was 
 to plague for rent during the month, she remarked to 
 her husband, half in annoyance at still having to put up 
 with "that Mendel" woman and half in satisfied spite that 
 Sarah had not risen to better quarters: 
 
 "They were not on the list of the others. She paid 
 the rent. They will stay, I suppose. A black year on 
 them!" 
 
 XXI 
 
 "I'm gone Sunday by Cooney Island to holler all sum- 
 mer on a stand." This news Minnie sprang on Abie in 
 the yard as he was intently watching the efforts of a 
 horse-fly to free itself from between his thumb and fore- 
 finger. His attention was drawn from the fly only long 
 enough for a casual glance at Minnie. 
 
 "Let it alone, it hurts," cried Minnie, slapping his hand. 
 The insect, freed, flew off.
 
 ELI AS 113 
 
 "Uh, you crazycat! Like a fly kin feel! J'ever!" 
 
 "Sure! It hurts." 
 
 "You know?" he asked skeptically. "How do you 
 know?" Abie was not satisfied with intuition. He re- 
 quired pure reason. 
 
 Having nothing for proof but her imagination, which 
 told her that a fly squeezed between two fingers must 
 suffer pain, Minnie was silenced. 
 
 "I was by the country once and sawn lots millions 
 of big flies," Abie boasted. "And I tore their wings and 
 everything " 
 
 "I'm gone Sunday by Cooney Island to holler on a 
 stand," Minnie repeated, trying tactfully to change the 
 painful subject. "I'm gone for the whole summer, 
 and " 
 
 "It was by Brownsville. So my father took my sister 
 and me. We picked all kind a flowers. So a girl, I 
 gave her a scratch, so she gave me a punch, so I gave 
 her a push, so she gave me a hack, so my father took the 
 flowers and knocked them away." Abie paused a mo- 
 ment. "But he didn't holler nothin' 'bout the flies." Ir- 
 refutable proof that vivisection of flies was legiti- 
 mate. 
 
 "Was you ever by Cooney Island?" Minnie asked, 
 eager to escape this topic of tortured flies. 
 
 "How you gone?" The question as put, while an ad- 
 mission that Abie had never been to Coney Island, also 
 expressed his skepticism as to Minnie's going. Though 
 he had never caught her in a misstatement of fact, yet it 
 was his way to require proof. 
 
 How Minnie came to serve as a puller-in at Coney 
 Island was the climax of many circumstances. 
 
 In the first place, the butcher who employed Sarah
 
 ii4 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 had taken unto himself another wife, with the distinct 
 understanding that the marital compact was to include 
 concerted interest in the business ; and as the new spouse 
 replaced Sarah at the job of plucking chickens, the Men- 
 del income was reduced by nearly a dollar a week. Then, 
 the bachelor girls, whose apartment Sarah cleaned on 
 Sundays, had gone on their summer vacation for four 
 weeks. (One man's meat is another man's poison.) 
 Finally, Elias continued to ail. In spite of his valiant 
 efforts to down his weakness, he was obliged every now 
 and then to stay away from work, and so lost the day's 
 wages. Though Elias's employer was a considerate man, 
 he could only conform to the accepted rule in the labor 
 market, according to which an employee is docked for 
 absence. He, too, had to eke out a living. 
 
 Sarah was compelled to borrow, now a dollar from 
 Mira, now from a relative. But borrowing is a sorry 
 business. The gift of delicacy in giving is confined to 
 the very few. Sarah was miserable. 
 
 However, in the balancing scale of human affairs, it 
 chanced that a man and a woman, acquaintances of rela- 
 tives of the Mendels, were wedded, and their union was 
 to play a role in the Mendel economy. 
 
 On a day in mid-July there descended upon Henry 
 Street and ascended upon the Mendel family ample Riva 
 and near-skeleton Morris, the newly-weds. 
 
 Morris was a man whom idealism had emaciated. 
 Dreaming of a college education he had worked days 
 as assistant to a watchmaker and had studied nights. 
 Several years of this regimen reduced him to blue glasses 
 and the conviction that life was one Grand Damn Thing. 
 He was meditating suicide about the time that Riva, 
 ample of body and jovial of spirit, appeared in his board-
 
 ELI AS 115 
 
 ing house and by some odd fate fell in love with him. 
 Via the "Missus" of the establishment, the lure of Pos- 
 itive Comfort was held out to him if he would take 
 Riva in marriage. He shilly-shallied. Marriage devoid 
 of romance he deemed unbeautiful. But as in Riva's 
 Coney Island stand there loomed the possible realization 
 of his dream of a college education, he one day early in 
 July promised for all his life to love and cherish Riva. 
 As the season was advancing, the New Alliance, upon 
 Morris's suggestion, decided that extra help was desir- 
 able. Someone was needed to advertise the wares, to 
 cry : "Peanuts ! Candy ! Ice-Cold Lemonade !" They 
 mentioned their needs to the aforesaid relatives of the 
 Mendels, and promptly Minnie was proposed: "a smart 
 girl who can holler like gold," they said. 
 
 Elias, strangely, had not yet returned from work when 
 the New Alliance made its ascent upon the Mendels on 
 a Wednesday evening. The part of the shop in which 
 he spent most of his time had once boasted a window 
 which was now boarded up because the boss felt he 
 could not afford to replace the broken pane; it would 
 have cost fifty cents. The work-room was a strip of 
 space running back from two windows facing Allen 
 Street on a level with the tracks of the elevated trains. 
 Even the more robust of the workmen found the thun- 
 dering noise and dust raised by the passing trains a hard- 
 ship. By the end of each day Elias's strength was re- 
 duced to nothing. Yet he had become accustomed to 
 the homelikeness of the place and the friendliness of the 
 boss, and shrank from making a change. Besides, what 
 else could he do? Eight dollars a week! And how 
 great was the fortune to be free from harassing worry 
 about the Sabbath!
 
 ii6 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 The day had been stifling. Elias had pulled through 
 his work only by the greatest force of will power. In 
 the afternoon he could scarcely stand upright. At clos- 
 ing time, just as the boss and a young helper were leav- 
 ing (Elias was always the last to go), he uttered a 
 hysterical shriek and went down on the floor in a heap. 
 The boss and helper ran to his aid, and workers from an 
 upstairs shop brought remedial measures for a faint 
 water and vinegar. When Elias came to, he was apolo- 
 getic for having caused so much trouble and worry. The 
 boss insisted on seeing him home. At the tenement door 
 Elias apologized for not inviting him up ; he was afraid, 
 he said, that his wife would be alarmed. 
 
 "I stayed for a chat with the boss," he explained in 
 response to Sarah's inquiry. 
 
 As to Minnie's serving the utilitarian purpose sug- 
 gested by the New Alliance, his opinion inclined neither 
 one way nor another. He was too feeble for positive 
 judgment. Sarah sensed apathy and was filled with re- 
 sentment. "You have some idea," she said with slight 
 spirit. 
 
 "Ask the child," Elias said. "If she wants to, let 
 her go." 
 
 Minnie just then bounced in from the street. Riva 
 was disappointed at sight of the delicate little girl. It 
 had not crossed her mind that she would find anything 
 but a child replica of her beefy, blowzy self a big one, 
 a thick one, a fat one, as she might have put it in Yiddish. 
 However, her need for a "puller-in" was great and the 
 pay she intended to offer was small, so she turned 
 to Minnie with inducements. "In Cooney Island you 
 will see it's wonderful," she said. "Punch-and-Judy 
 shows, and music, peanuts, soda and everything." She
 
 ELIAS 117 
 
 looked down at the child's feet and turned to Sarah. 
 "If she will stay all summer, 111 buy her a pair of yellow 
 shoes, and I'll present you with five dollars in advance. 
 She can come Sunday and stay till school begins." 
 
 "Do you want to go, child?" askd Sarah. 
 
 With her thumb in her mouth Minnie mumbled: 
 "Yeh." 
 
 The deal was closed. The New Alliance was to call 
 for Minnie the following Sunday. 
 
 Thus Fate provided Riva and Morris with the "puller- 
 in" for their refreshment-stand and Sarah and Elias with 
 five dollars Cash on Delivery of their offspring, and Abie 
 Ratkin with the surprise of surprises when a few days 
 after she had made the announcement to his skeptical 
 self, Minnie actually went off sandwiched between the 
 fat Missus and the lean Mister. 
 
 XXII 
 
 Though no mention was made of the fact in the society 
 columns of the New York press, the Mendel family, 
 with the exception," of course, of Minnie, spent the sum- 
 mer at their residence on Henry Street. Great Stress, 
 after its temporary, half-hearted absence, became again 
 a devoted intimate. 
 
 Sarah might, perhaps, have fallen into her disagree- 
 able ways again had not Elias continued to ail. From 
 day to day he seemed visibly to shrink ; his step to be- 
 come more leaden, his face paler and paler. One eve- 
 ning, a few days after Minnie's departure for Coney 
 Island, Sarah, standing beside the sink, turned unexpect- 
 edly and saw him spit blood into it. She was terrified. 
 Had he ever spat blood before? Elias confessed.
 
 n8 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "Woe is me!" she cried, "there are the five dollars 
 from Riva. Go to a doctor. How does a man spit 
 blood for months and not do something?" 
 
 Spend money for a doctor! Elias would not hear 
 of such a thing. It would pass away, he was sure; 
 it was only the hot weather. 
 
 But Sarah's fears were not allayed. She confided 
 in Mira. 
 
 "If he will not spend money for a doctor" (Mira 
 considered Elias parsimonious), "then you ought to 
 make him stay at home some good day, some day when 
 he is feeling well and not falling from his feet, and 
 take him to the dispensary, a place where poor people 
 are treated free by doctors." 
 
 Sarah shrank. "Poor people" recalled the Charities. 
 She sighed with apprehension. 
 
 "Nu, what are you sighing for? It is not so ter- 
 rible." There was more pity in Mira's heart than in 
 her words. 
 
 Sarah proposed the dispensary to Elias. 
 
 "Oh, Sarah," he replied, "zolst du gesunt sein (thou 
 shouldst be well), don't fill my head with such non- . 
 sense. I do not feel so sick. It will pass." He always 
 pretended to feel better than he actually did, though 
 several times within the next weeks he was compelled 
 to stay away from work. 
 
 But the black cloud lost a shade of its blackness. A 
 more successful relative learning of the Mendels' plight 
 persuaded them to accept a loan of two dollars a week, 
 and by the end of August Miss Liebman and her 
 friends returned from their vacation. At the same 
 time the hearts of Sarah and Elias were gladdened by 
 happy postal cards from Minnie. "Thank God," Elias
 
 ELI AS 119 
 
 remarked occasionally, "one of the children is having a 
 
 pleasant time." 
 
 * * * * * * * ' 
 
 In all parts of the metropolis people succumbed from 
 the heat. The residents of the twin tenements, the Rat- 
 kins setting the fashion, one after another mothers, 
 fathers, boys, girls abandoned their rooms at night and 
 dragged pillows and mattresses to the roof. 
 
 One night, after having partaken too freely of ice-cold 
 lemonade (lemonade with a history in which Abie played 
 the leading role), Mr. Ratkin awakened his wife who, 
 having worked hard that day, lay beside him on the roof 
 steeped in the slumber of the worthy. 
 
 "Wake up, wake up." He shook her. "I feel bad." 
 
 Mrs. Ratkin woke up, and soon Mr. Ratkin went to 
 sleep his eternal sleep. 
 
 The Mendels and other neighbors were awakened by 
 Mrs. Ratkin's unearthly shrieks. In a few moments 
 Itzick Ratkin was carried to his home, and within the 
 same space of time the home became crowded with men, 
 women, and children of every sort, size, and shape. The 
 physician, summoned by one cooler-headed man, dis- 
 persed the crowd and upon examination pronounced Mr. 
 Ratkin dead. The news spread like wild-fire, and the 
 combined populace hurled itself upon the physician in in- 
 credulity. But Itzick Ratkin was dead. Heart failure, 
 was the unsatisfactory explanation. How Mrs. Ratkin 
 mourned and moaned that her husband had not at least 
 been sick sick, so that she could feel the justification 
 
 of his dying! 
 
 ******* 
 
 Outside the front tenement a curious mob had 
 gathered.
 
 120 
 
 "It's a funeral," went about in whispers a funeral 
 variously speculated to be that of a child, a woman, an 
 old man, an expectant young mother, a girl, and the jani- 
 tress's husband. 
 
 On the fringe of the crowd stood a thin little girl, her 
 great gray eyes wide with astonishment. What was this 
 gathering in front of her home? Who was in that un- 
 beautiful coffin just then being carried out of the house? 
 
 Minnie's heart stood still. Edging her way closer, she 
 saw Mrs. Ratkin, followed by Abie, who was followed 
 by the twins, all mourning their loss. And when the 
 crowd thinned out, there stood Sarah Mendel with eyes 
 red from crying. Minnie ran up to her. 
 
 "God mine, Minnie!" Sarah clutched her terror- 
 stricken. What had brought her? Sarah could scarcely 
 realize it was her own little child. Where had she come 
 from so all of a sudden ? She thought her safe at Coney 
 Island. 
 
 W r hen Riva and Morris had called to take Minnie 
 away, Sarah, overcome by nameless fears, had been loath 
 to let the child go and had almost, at the eleventh hour, 
 retracted her consent. Now her imagination leapt to all 
 sorts of horrors. 
 
 "What's the matter ?" she cried. "What has happened 
 to you? Woe is me!" 
 
 "Uh, ma, I'm so glad I'm home," sighed Minnie, snug- 
 gling in her mother's skirts as she wiped away the tears 
 of homesickness. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 Upstairs came the explanation. 
 
 It was under the supervision, in fact, at the dictation 
 of Riva, that Minnie had sent home the postal cards tell-
 
 ELI AS 121 
 
 ing of her wonderful life in a whirl of Punch-and-Judy 
 shows, which could "kill" one with the fun, and music 
 enough to make one "deaf," and good things to eat, 
 enough to make one "burst." 
 
 The truth was, that while the Riva-Morris residence 
 consisted of one whole room (rented for the season), in 
 which they occupied the one real bed, Minnie's share in 
 it was the floor softened by a few old coats, a sofa cush- 
 ion, and a strip of cheese-cloth. Here, in the dead of 
 night Minnie shed her honest tears of homesickness. Oh, 
 how homesick she was ! Her homesickness had begun 
 the very moment the Henry Street tenement was out of 
 sight. And how the weeks had intensified it ! The few 
 times the Alliance had found her crying they reminded 
 her that five dollars for her services were already in her 
 mother's keep and that yellow shoes and a dress in 
 prospect were not to be despised. Perhaps had Minnie 
 guessed how she was missed at home she would have 
 made her escape regardless of these considerations. But 
 little did she know that five minutes after she had left, 
 Bubbele insisted that Minnie ought to be there to comb 
 her hair, and Ida sulked on general principle, while when 
 Elias returned from work the home seemed terribly 
 empty to him; and Jacob at bedtime thought it was 
 "funny kind a to lock the door without not Minnie be- 
 ing in." 
 
 Abie too had missed her. He approached Ida and at 
 the point of a wooden gun insisted on information as 
 to when her big sister would be back. But Ida was 
 a "dunce;" a year and a day were the same to her. 
 Gee! 
 
 In time he tackled Sarah. It was one day after his 
 discovery of the Great Blessing.
 
 122 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 On East Broadway a man hauled a wooden box out 
 of a basement. Abie, passing, saw and became curious. 
 He waited for the man to descend, then cautiously 
 peeped into the box. Oh, joy! lemons! speckled lem- 
 ons, to be sure, some more speckled than other, but 
 lemons nevertheless. He collected a few and was about 
 to make off when the man reappeared, and so frightened 
 him that the fruit fell from his hands. 
 
 "Gu het, take 'em, little boy," said the man. "You 
 can come every day and take some." 
 
 After that the Ratkin family regaled themselves daily 
 with the delicious drink made from the "good" parts of 
 the lemons, and Mr. Ratkin began to see a redeeming fea- 
 ture in his son, little dreaming that Abie's lemons were 
 to be his undoing. 
 
 Returning one day with lemons galore, Abie, meeting 
 Sarah, had an inspiration. He held out two, "good" 
 sides up. "I got em for nothin', " he said as an induce- 
 ment, because Sarah looked ready to refuse. "How?" 
 asked Sarah. "From a man who knocks them away." 
 Elias had been ill that day; he had stayed away from 
 work ; cold water, lemon and sugar "Er wet sich up- 
 chapen die hars," (be refreshed) thought Sarah. She 
 took the lemons and hid them under her apron. Her 
 back was already turned. Abie's courage took fire. 
 "When is Minnie comin' back, Mrs. Mendel ?" he asked. 
 
 A swift change in the state of Sarah's heart toward 
 her benefactor. "Nu, loafer," she said turning upon 
 him, "is it your business? When she will come back, 
 she will come back. You need someone to quarrel with 
 maybe ?" 
 
 "Fresh thing!" grumbled Abie, lamenting the waste 
 of his lemons.
 
 ELIAS 123 
 
 As Saturdays and Sundays were the busiest days in 
 Coney Island, the Riva-Morris corporation prepared an 
 extra quantity of home-made lemonade on Fridays. It 
 was a calamity, therefore, when one Friday evening the 
 stick with which Riva compounded the savory beverage 
 in a wooden wash-basin disappeared. Tears of vexation 
 came to Riva's eyes as she bent her profuse body to 
 hunt in all corners of the cluttered room. Minnie had 
 to crawl under the bed while she rummaged in the dis- 
 order of the bed itself, then had to help her shove pack- 
 ages, boxes and furniture from place to place, and finally 
 was sent to ask the landlady if she had seen the stick. 
 "Maybe Morris put it away," suggested Minnie on re- 
 turning from the landlady. But the frantic Riva would 
 not wait for Morris. She had another solution. She 
 rolled her sleeves up and made her arm do the rotatory 
 work of the stick. 
 
 Now Sarah and Elias were agreed about one thing; 
 that Minnie's sensitive stomach was an inheritance from 
 her father. "The least thing makes her sick," Sarah 
 often complained. The sight of Riva's dirty sweaty arm 
 immersed in the lemonade lemonade that people, Min- 
 nie knew, would be drinking lemonade such as she her- 
 self had partaken of many times, turned her sick. She 
 retched and vomited. 
 
 Riva conveniently diagnosed her trouble as sea-sick- 
 ness for were they not close to the ocean ? She offered 
 her a drink of the lemonade. 
 
 Horror of horrors ! 
 
 "I don't want the lemonade." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Because it's dirty." 
 
 Wailing wall of Jerusalem! Whatever possessed the
 
 124 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 child to say so! Her answer brought down upon her 
 head a deluge of abuse. She received it in silence. 
 
 The next day Riva noted that Minnie omitted lemon- 
 ade from her verbal advertisement of the refreshments. 
 "Doesn't it suit you to call lemonade too ?" she demanded 
 angrily. 
 
 "It's dirty." 
 
 ''What's dirty?" 
 
 "You stucked your hand in it." 
 
 From the slops of the East Side comes this impudent 
 T>rat to tell Riva that her hand is dirty! The Alliance 
 was overcome with fury. The following day Minnie was 
 shipped home, Morris putting her on the car and instruct- 
 ing the conductor where to let her off. 
 
 "It's nearly the end of the season anyway," Riva said 
 to Morris, rejoicing in the secret recesses of her heart 
 that she would save the money for the shoes and the 
 dress. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 Elias awoke very ill the night following Mr. Ratkin's 
 death. Sarah felt his temples and concluded his was a 
 case of "hot head," which is the manifestation of illness 
 to our tenement friends and the forerunner of the 
 worst evil. Sarah grew excited. He must have a doctor, 
 was her firm decision, and she would summon one the 
 very first thing in the morning. A crisp two-dollar 
 bill was in her possession, more than enough in those 
 days when a physician demanded fifty cents a visit. 
 
 Mira dropped in at seven o'clock the next morning 
 to ask if Sarah cared to go with her to a store on Hester 
 Street where cracked eggs were to be had for "next to
 
 ELIAS 125 
 
 nothing." Sarah told her of Elias's condition. Indeed, 
 he must have a doctor was also her verdict ; and she went 
 right down and brought back a Doctor Levin, who had 
 saved the life of one of her neighbor's children when an- 
 other physician had given the case up as hopeless. 
 
 Elias could not be cured of his lung trouble, said Doc- 
 tor Levin, unless he went to the country for six months. 
 
 Elias sick with lung trouble! Sarah, Minnie, Ida, 
 Bubbele, Jacob stood awestruck. This that they had 
 heard could not possibly be ! 
 
 But Mira had her own opinion in the matter. "The 
 country is a hospital maybe ?" she asked, measuring Doc- 
 tor Levin with a look. 
 
 "Yes, a hospital in the country." 
 
 Did not Doctor Levin see that Elias was a father of 
 children; that his presence on earth was necessary, and 
 for purposes of "practicing" the hospital could find it- 
 self another man? Mira pursed her lips defiantly; her 
 red knob of hair quivered. 
 
 The wise East Sider, convinced that a hospital is an 
 establishment which snatches up the bodies of the poor 
 to practice upon, will no more agree to send a patient 
 there than he will agree to have him buried alive. Lack- 
 ing Sarah's, or Itzick Kramer's, or Schmuel Rothen- 
 berg's experience with the Peoples Charities, physicians 
 have failed to discover how these people come by their 
 belief. 
 
 Doctor Levin, a young man new in his profession, dis- 
 posed of Mira with one contemptous look; then pleaded 
 with Elias to believe that nothing but a long rest in the 
 country would save him, and advised him to go just as 
 soon as arrangements could be made for his admission. 
 
 Sarah and Elias were impressed by Doctor Levin's
 
 126 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 evident sincerity. Sarah, accompanying him to the door 
 followed by Minnie, thanked him, and asked distractedly, 
 as if speaking to herself: 
 
 "Woe is me, how does an otherwise perfectly healthy 
 and strong man become so sick all of a sudden?" 
 
 Doctor Levin flashed round upon her in youthful 
 amazement. 
 
 "How ? By living against all the laws of nature." 
 
 His words, solemn and ominous, remained with Min- 
 nie the rest of her life. 
 
 For a few days Sarah found herself with scarcely a 
 moment in which to give any particular thought to Elias, 
 who as it happened felt somewhat better. She cooked 
 for Mrs. Ratkin, washed for her, cleaned her home, fed 
 her children and provided consolation. The janitress 
 was sadly broken down; she could not pull herself to- 
 gether. The tenants had even to take over her janitor's 
 work. Of all the neighbors Sarah did the most. She 
 had an ailing husband "of course, Elias would not die 
 
 from his sickness, but " And nothing so softens us 
 
 toward our fellows as to see them visited by a catas- 
 trophe that may befall us, too. 
 
 A week later a brother of Mrs. Ratkin turned up, and 
 the family moved away. 
 
 XXV 
 
 After the Ratkins' departure Minnie was left much to 
 herself. She was lonely; she missed Abie. And she 
 missed Foxy, who had gone on his transmigratory way. 
 Poor Foxy! At his wits' end for something to eat he 
 had gorged upon some refuse in a neighboring air-shaft 
 and the next day departed this life.
 
 ELIAS 127 
 
 One afternoon Minnie tried to forget her loneliness in 
 a game of school with a dozen pieces of coal for pupils 
 set in a row on the lounge against the wall. Withdraw- 
 ing a foot or two and using a stick as a ruler she pointed 
 to tfie first pupil. 
 
 "Spell cat," she ordered. No answer. "Spell cat." 
 Still no answer. A stupid pupil! She passed on to the 
 next. The first piece of coal fell over. The teacher 
 raised the pupil and told her to behave; as she turned 
 to the next pupil the first fell over again. The teacher 
 frowned and compressed her lips in exact imitation of 
 her own teacher. Placing one hand on her hip and rais- 
 ing the ruler, she dealt the naughty pupil a sharp rap. 
 Something impertinent came in reply. The teacher 
 looked at the pupil and repeated in Doctor Levin's very 
 tone of amazement: "How? By living against all the 
 laws of nature!" She waited as if to give time for the 
 idea to sink in, then repeated : "By living against all the 
 laws of nature!" 
 
 Sarah entered with the purchases for the evening meal. 
 Coal on the lounge! Didn't Minnie know that coal 
 spoiled a lounge. There now, never mind, Minnie 
 should begin at once to prepare supper; she herself had 
 to go right out again to Mira. 
 
 Sarah's object in hurrying to Mira was to obtain that 
 sage's sanction for Elias to go to the hospital. Elias, 
 who had got much worse, had consulted Doctor Levin 
 again and was now waiting to be sent to the country: 
 indeed, he was eager to go. A heavy cloud hung over 
 Sarah. Mira's denunciation of the country rang an ill 
 omen in her heart. Mira knew so much about every- 
 thing. What if Elias would get still worse in the coun- 
 try? But perhaps if the sage were told of how eager
 
 128 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Elias was to go, she would approve. Sarah would also 
 tell her of a cheap room she had found in a basement 
 on Madison Street one room would be enough for them 
 if Elias were away ; of her plans for doing a little extra 
 work peddling perhaps; and of a job Minnie had se- 
 cured taking care of the butcher's twins at five cents 
 an afternoon. They could struggle through six months. 
 If only Elias would get better! 
 
 Mira, however, was not to be shaken from her opinion 
 of "countries;" a hospital was a hospital, country or no 
 country, and a hospital was a slaughterhouse. 
 
 On the way back home, Sarah tremblingly decided to 
 talk the matter over again with Elias. If Mira held to 
 her conviction so unwaveringly, maybe maybe there 
 was more to it than they understood. She sighed once, 
 twice, thrice no strict account can be kept of sighs 
 in Sarah Mendel's world. 
 
 Scarcely had she reached home when Doctor Levin 
 came bringing the notice of Elias's admission to the sani- 
 tarium and before she had a chance to voice her fears 
 Elias himself entered and seemed so glad that she had 
 not the heart to discourage him with Mira's ideas. 
 Sarah, he said, would see, mer zu Shem (God willing), 
 he would come back better than he had ever been. 
 
 The following Tuesday Elias went away. 
 
 A week later Sarah was notified that Elias was very 
 ill, and she must come at once. Pneumonia had devel- 
 oped from a severe cold. 
 
 Sarah could have torn the flesh from her body as at 
 Elias's bedside in the sanitarium she watched his labored 
 breathing and noted the fearfully emaciated face with 
 a red patch on each sunken cheek ; his fevered tossing, 
 the heaving of his flat chest ; the gaze of his eyes as he
 
 ELIAS 129 
 
 opened them and looked unknowingly at her. Mira had 
 been right. They must have been "practicing" upon him. 
 She followed each movement of the doctor and nurse 
 like a spy; she strained every nerve to understand what 
 they were saying. When Elias moaned as they moved" 
 him, she could have shrieked. 
 
 Mira, as soon as she heard that Sarah had been sum- 
 moned, went to the hospital out of an impulse com- 
 pounded of curiosity, a desire to help, a desire to console, 
 and eagerness to get in her "I told you so." 
 
 Sarah shrank and cowered when Mira appeared. 
 From the narrowed keen little blue eyes and compressed 
 thin lips, she read the opinion to which Mira would hold 
 forever: "Sarah was to blame. No sensible woman 
 would have let her husband go to a country. Country, 
 schmuntry! A hospital, that's what it was." However, 
 Sarah's look of misery restrained Mira's tongue and 
 turned her intended taunt into words of consolation: 
 Sarah should hope for the best. 
 
 "Woe is me!" Sarah cried, "if only he comes back 
 alive, I will be content with bread and water the rest of 
 my life." 
 
 Mira had come to the hospital not merely to stand 
 around ; she had come to be of use, so that when 
 the physician was about to administer a hypodermic, she 
 told him to substitute a glass of whisky. Sarah, con- 
 vinced by Mira's confident manner that the glass of 
 whisky was the one thing that would save Elias, eagerly 
 seconded the request. The doctor, anxious to do his best 
 for Elias, tried to explain that the hypodermic and not 
 whisky was what Elias needed. But Mira, only the 
 more emboldened by his indulgent tone, let out a torrent 
 of abuse. The physician, in his impotence to convince
 
 1 30 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 these two ignorant women, ordered them roughly to 
 mind their own business indisputable proof that the un- 
 fortunate Elias was being practiced upon, slaughtered. 
 Sarah and Mira turned ashen. 
 
 In the chill hours of the dawn Sarah sat swaying to 
 and fro, clutching at her hair in an agony of grief. She 
 was a murderess, a murderess, a murderess, she told her- 
 self over and over. 
 
 Elias had passed away that night.
 
 PART II 
 THE CELLAR
 
 PART II 
 
 THE CELLAR 
 
 CHAYIM SCHLOPOBORSKY kept a shoe repair shop in a 
 cellar on Madison Street. In the rear was a room in- 
 tended, according to the architectural plans, for the living 
 room. As Chayim Schlopoborsky was obliged to live 
 with the greatest economy, it occurred to him one night, 
 as he fought for sleep against the noise of the passing 
 street cars, that he might move his lounge, table, chair 
 and stove from the back room to the shop, partition 
 part of the shop off with a curtain, and live and work' 
 in the shop. The rear room he could then rent out. 
 Such a room he felt ought to bring him five dollars a 
 month. The following day he made his inspiration 
 known to the Swedish janitor, who, lame in the use of 
 the Yiddish language, had difficulty in understanding. 
 However, once he did understand, he smiled approv- 
 ingly ; it was a brilliant idea ; "Smart !" he cried, pointing 
 to his forehead and went off for a room-to-let sign for 
 Chayim Schlopoborsky to display in his window. 
 
 A few days after Elias had gone to the sanitarium, 
 Sarah, carrying out their plan for greater economy, 
 moved with her four children into Chayim Schlopo- 
 borsky's cellar. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Chayim Schlopoborsky, with a heart not altogether of 
 stone, had sympathy for Sarah in her bereavement and 
 pitied the orphaned children. However, after the first 
 
 133
 
 134 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 flush of sympathy wore off and the loud talking and 
 wailing in Sarah's quarters annoyed his customers, he 
 was obliged to remonstrate. Thereafter, Sarah wept 
 more softly and so did the children. Relatives and 
 friends, too, were restricted to modulated lamentations. 
 "The man next door from whom we have this room 
 rented is a bad one," Sarah would say with a warning 
 
 finger to her lips. 
 
 ******* 
 
 In her stupefaction after Elias's death, Sarah lost all 
 concern for the future. She gave up her work of char- 
 ring and her new business of peddling candles on Friday 
 mornings, and even neglected her housework. While 
 Mira busied herself for the home and the children, she 
 sat idle, wringing her hands, crying lamentations, be- 
 moaning Elias's fate and the fate of her children. 
 
 A full month passed and Sarah still suffered herself 
 to be supported by relatives, who began to think she 
 was a little too indifferent about her dependence. A 
 week later some began to whisper that she was being 
 "spoiled" then that she had "chuzpeh" (cheek). Finally 
 there was only one left who still had faith in her. "She 
 is stunned. When she comes to herself, we shall be able 
 to reason with her," he declared. Four weeks more 
 passed, yet Sarah gave no sign of waking up to the hard- 
 ship that her dependence imposed upon her relatives. 
 "As if," they said boldly now, "she does not know that 
 for us to give fifty cents, one dollar, two dollars, is like 
 tearing off our skin for her." A little later they cried* 
 indignantly : "Let her go to the Charities if she can't do 
 for herself but let her have mercy on us! We are poor 
 too." 
 
 "We cannot propose it," the one of faith said, "she is
 
 THE CELLAR 135 
 
 no beggar from home. When she comes to herself she 
 will see our hardship and will go to the Charities of 
 her own accord." 
 
 One more week, then the relatives unanimously de- 
 cided to see to it that Sarah was roused. Mira was 
 delegated to do the rousing. 
 
 Sarah had forgiven, but she had never forgotten 
 Mira's superior attitude on their pilgrimage together to 
 the Charities, so that now when Mira mentioned going 
 to the Charities for monetary aid, she turned upon her 
 with a storm of abuse. Poor, mistaken Sarah ! She saw 
 in Mira a conspirator with Fate. 
 
 "She all but threw me out of her house," said Mira 
 to each of the relatives. "When I told her it was no 
 plan to sit round and let others poor, too, even if they 
 are blood ties support her, she nearly ate me up alive." 
 To the one staunch relative she added caustically: "For 
 that she is enough herself. For that she is not so stun- 
 ned. I did not say that she should go to work. I know 
 she is not enough herself for that ; but to go to the Char- 
 ities she can do that!" 
 
 The relatives decided to withdraw their support. Only 
 two dollars from the one faithful relative came to Sarah 
 the next week. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 IT was a bitter cold Saturday morning. Sarah sat 
 with her children huddled about a tiny coal stove, in 
 which a few pieces of wood were burning low. In the 
 home there was not a scrap of food. 
 
 "Uh, mama, I'm hungry," wailed each of the three 
 younger children.
 
 136 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Sarah's glassy eyes filled with alarm. But when the 
 cry was repeated, her alarm put up the shield of anger, 
 and she reprimanded them, at first gently, then more 
 harshly. 
 
 "I will go get something to eat right away. Mean- 
 time be still. It is not so terrible that you should be 
 without food once." Sarah knew not what she was 
 saying. 
 
 A long glassy stare, then a look of dawning resolution. 
 It was Saturday ; Miss Liebman would be at home. She 
 would go and ask to do the girls' cleaning that day in- 
 stead of Sunday and explain her absence of the past 
 weeks. If the pain in her side would only let up! To 
 test herself she rose from her chair and crossed the 
 room. At the other end she sank into a chair, so sharp 
 and intense was the pain. 
 
 "Ma ma, I'm hungry." This time it was Jacob, who 
 until then had not complained. A tear quaked on each 
 lid, the corners of his mouth were drawn, and he 
 scratched his head helplessly. 
 
 The girls glanced furtively from Jacob to their mother. 
 Sarah with the look of a terror-stricken animal rose 
 swiftly, regardless of the pain in her side. 
 
 "Go," she cried to Minnie, "go in the back way of the 
 old groceryman on Henry Street and ask him to give 
 you bread and a herring. Tell him your papa died and 
 your mama has no money." Though the store was closed 
 on Saturday, the grocer occasionally transacted business 
 through the back entrance. 
 
 Minnie rose simultaneously with the command, so com- 
 pelling was Sarah's demeanor. 
 
 "You go along," Sarah said to Jacob, who never be-
 
 THE CELLAR 137 
 
 fore obeyed a command so instantly. There was some- 
 thing startling in Sarah's look. 
 
 The other children huddled closer to the stove. Sarah 
 sat with drooping shoulders, irresolutely twining and un- 
 twining her fingers, a picture of abject despair. "Woe 
 is me, what has been the matter with me that I let 
 it come to this ? I could have worked. Woe is me !" she 
 thought over and over again. 
 
 The relatives had succeeded in rousing Sarah ! 
 ******* 
 
 Chayim Schlopoborsky opened the Mendels' door with- 
 out the ceremony of knocking. 
 
 "Mrs. Mendel, you are really a respectable woman and 
 you have your great troubles, but I am a poor man too. 
 I must have my five dollars' rent. I have been waiting 
 already over a week." 
 
 Chayim Schlopoborsky did, indeed, have his own troub- 
 les. Six months previously he had gone through the 
 horrors of a pogrom, in which he had lost one child and 
 both his parents. The height of his ambition was to 
 bring over his family of wife and six children; in the 
 little Russian town they waited eagerly for his summons 
 to the Land of Freedom. 
 
 While the miserable Mendels hugged their feeble little 
 stove in the back room, Chayim Schlopoborsky sat on 
 his stool in the front shop cogitating: 
 
 "Mir is als bashert! (everything must happen to me!) 
 Nu, if she has no money to pay the rent, let her go 
 to the Charities. I am not rich enough to keep her for 
 nothing. I have my own troubles." 
 
 To do Chayim Schlopoborsky justice, he was ignorant 
 of the exact state of affairs in the Mendel home. What
 
 i 3 8 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 he did know exactly was that he was five dollars short 
 of the passage money for his wife and babies. 
 
 Sarah looked at the shoemaker dum founded. She 
 was about to explain that in a few days she would get 
 money for work and would pay him, but Chayim mis- 
 took the expression on her face for an appeal. 
 
 "I am poor too," he said, "if you have no money, go 
 to the Charities. Rich people give money there. I can- 
 not afford to be a philanthropist." 
 
 Sarah, the look of a hunted beast leaping into her 
 eyes, jumped from her chair. In a burst of impotent 
 rage she grabbed up one of the children's school books 
 and hurled it at the shoemaker. It struck him on the 
 head. She followed it with another book, then with a 
 knife and then with a fork. The man shrieked. People 
 passing on the street, stopped to listen. The Swedish 
 janitor ran in just in time to tear another implement 
 from the violent Sarah's hand. 
 
 "A regular devil she is!" Chayim Schlopoborsky 
 shouted, making for the door and slamming it shut be- 
 hind him. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 The sky hung gray over the metropolis; heavy 
 clouds drifted cumbersomely in layers across the melan- 
 choly expanse. It began to drizzle. 
 
 A husky expressman, humming a lively air from a 
 Yiddish operetta, carried the Mendel belongings from 
 their basement shelter to the sidewalk. The last piece 
 deposited, he removed a plate from the inside of the 
 coal stove, in which he had placed all the dishes, set it 
 on top of the stove, and laid a ten-cent piece on its
 
 THE CELLAR 139 
 
 yellowish, cracked surface. Then he looked down into 
 the basement. None of the Mendels were to be seen. 
 Wiping the perspiration from his large, red face, he 
 slapped on his cap, thrust his hands into his pockets, 
 and sauntered off, keeping step to the tune of the Yid- 
 dish operetta. 
 
 The rain came down on the Mendel belongings. 
 
 After a time Sarah, as if stealthily, emerged from the 
 basement. She was dry-eyed, with the haunted expres- 
 sion that had settled upon her face. The three girls, cry- 
 ing, followed. 
 
 The street was deserted. The children looked up at 
 Sarah. Her eyelids fluttered. She glanced at the fur- 
 niture and wrung her hands, then turned away. 
 
 "Go, children," she said in a hard voice, "stand inside 
 the vestibule so you do not get drenched." The children 
 made no move. "Go, children, wait there until I come 
 back. I am going away." 
 
 "Where you gone, mama ?" Minnie asked in terror. 
 
 Sarah in her trials had often threatened to throw her- 
 self into the river. 
 
 "I am going to the Charity place to see the Lady." 
 
 "Don* go, don' go, mama!" the child cried, certain 
 her mother intended to do something desperate. 
 
 "Go up on the stoop, you hear?" Sarah raised her 
 voice. 
 
 "Lemme go along wid you," Minnie pleaded, rubbing 
 her tears away with the back of her little hand. 
 
 Sarah threw her a commanding look. Minnie led the 
 children up the stoop into the vestibule. Sarah drew 
 her shawl close about her rigid body and walked down 
 the street. 
 
 On the Saturday of the attack on Chayim Schlopobor-
 
 I 4 o SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 sky, immediately after Minnie and Jacob had returned 
 from the grocer, Sarah in spite of her pain had set out 
 to call on Miss Liebman. Repeated ringing of the door- 
 bell had brought no response. From the janitor she 
 learned that the girls had moved away, where he did 
 not know. So she decided to go to the Charities to see 
 her. But the next few days the pain in her side was 
 so intense that she went instead to Mrs. Finkelstein, who 
 lived nearer, only to hear from the maid that the lady 
 was taking a six weeks' rest at a winter resort. 
 
 What Sarah in her desperation might have attempted 
 had not the sympathetic relative called that same eve- 
 ning and left her five dollars, is hard to say. She im- 
 mediately offered the shoemaker three dollars. He re- 
 fused to accept it. He had vowed "that regular devil" 
 should be thrown out. As the janitor more than 
 agreed with him that Sarah was not one devil but one 
 and a half devils, and the landlord was an open-minded 
 man, Sarah was served with a dispossess notice the sig- 
 nificance of which she failed to realize and so was wholly 
 unprepared for the eviction that followed close after. 
 
 When she reached the Charities building it was nearly 
 five o'clock. Somehow she could not muster the cour- 
 age to go in ; she waited on the street for Miss Liebman. 
 After half an hour of strained expectancy, with frequent 
 eager glances at the door each time it opened, she begged 
 a boy to go in and ask Miss Liebman to come out. The 
 boy brought back word that Miss Liebman no longer 
 worked there and that there was no one then in the office 
 who knew her whereabouts. 
 
 It is in such moments as these that we throw up our 
 hands and run either to or from God. Sarah looked up 
 to the heavens and denied God.
 
 THE CELLAR 141 
 
 She stood stark. Then she faced about and walked 
 homeward, slowly, with bowed head. 
 
 On the sidewalk in front of her whilom home she 
 found Jacob standing by the furniture looking mystified. 
 As he had gone straight from school to hawking news- 
 papers, the eviction was a surprise to him. 
 
 "What's a madder, mama?" he asked, but received no 
 reply, as Sarah who had glanced into the vestibule, 
 missed the children. They were not where she had left 
 them. At that moment the vestibule door flung open 
 and Minnie came running out. 
 
 "Uh, ma," she cried happily, "Mrs. Block upstairs 
 made us come up by her house." 
 
 Though Sarah swiftly gathered that a neighbor had 
 offered hospitality, she stared idiotically. 
 
 "Mama, she said I should make you come up, 
 too." 
 
 "Go upstairs," said Sarah, addressing both Jacob and 
 Minnie. 
 
 "You come too," pleaded Minnie. 
 
 "Go go alone " Sarah pushed Minnie gently 
 
 backward. A great lump was in her throat. She felt her 
 self-control slipping away. 
 
 "You come, too." 
 
 "Go!" Sarah shouted, and turned her eyes to the fur- 
 niture. 
 
 A passing man noticed the group and the furniture; 
 he stopped, mumbled something, and deposited a coin on 
 the collection plate. 
 
 "Do you hear me? Go, you bloodsuckers!" yelled 
 Sarah, bereft of her reason. 
 
 The two children turned upon their heels. 
 
 Sarah clutched at her heart with her cold, moist hand.
 
 142 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 She looked up at the heavens, then down at the base- 
 ment, and she vowed vengeance upon CHAYIM 
 SCHLOPOBORSKY. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 The children had waited patiently in the vestibule, 
 watching the drizzle turn into a downpour. Two people 
 passed and left coins in the collection plate ; another 
 walked by rapidly, apparently too bent upon his own af- 
 fairs to answer the call of another's need. 
 
 Presently the vestibule door opened. An elderly 
 woman emerging brushed past the children and de- 
 scended the stoop. 
 
 "Oigh wei !" Mrs. Block cried from the bottom step ; 
 looking back at the children: "Is this your furniture?" 
 
 "Yeh," Minnie stuck her thumb in her mouth. 
 
 Mrs. Block was all excited pity. "Where is your 
 mama? Woe is me!" she cried, wringing her hands 
 and running back up the steps. 
 
 "She wen' away," Minnie said. Ida and Bubbele be- 
 gan to cry. They were cold and sleepy. 
 
 "Mein Gott! Mein Gott! Do not stand here." The 
 woman pushed them into the hall. "Come upstairs with 
 me." 
 
 Taken so suddenly, the children did not resist, though 
 Minnie had her qualms about Sarah and Jacob. 
 
 "Mother mine, mother mine!" the woman muttered 
 when she had got the children in her home and bustled 
 about, drying them, brushing their hair, kissing and pet- 
 ting them. 
 
 It was while they were being regaled with bread and 
 cocoa that Minnie ventured to say:
 
 THE CELLAR 143 
 
 "My mama might be downstairs and my brother 
 maybe earned too. I wanna go down and see." 
 
 "Yes, bring them both up," Mrs. Block repeated three 
 times. 
 
 When Minnie returned bringing Jacob but not Sarah 
 and told their hostess that her mother refused to come, 
 Mrs. Block picked up her shawl and said she would go 
 down herself. 
 
 "Uh, I'm so glad! She'll come if you go," cried 
 Minnie. 
 
 When the door closed upon the hostess, Jacob growled : 
 
 "Chatterbox ! Makes me sick ! Always she got to go 
 and say !" 
 
 Jacob's harshness at this particular time was 
 unbearable. 
 
 "Shut up!" cried Minnie. "You don't care, yeh, if 
 mama stays out the whole night in the rain or not." 
 Though Minnie had explained to him on the stairs that 
 they had been "knocked out cause mama didn't pay the 
 rent," it had not occurred to Jacob that the horrid busi- 
 ness would last through the night. He was struck to the 
 heart. To evade Minnie, he turned to spin a top for 
 Bubbele, a toy Mrs. Block had taken away from a boy 
 in the street to punish him for having struck her foot 
 with it. 
 
 Sarah was in the vestibule weeping when Mrs. Block 
 appeared. 
 
 "By standing here and crying you are not helping your 
 children. Do not forget you are a mother of chil- 
 dren." 
 
 A man stopped and deposited a penny in the 
 plate. 
 
 Sarah's body quivered from head to foot as from a
 
 144 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 chill. She followed Mrs. Block into the hall and up the 
 dark stairs. 
 
 XXX 
 
 Mrs. Block did everything to cheer Sarah and put 
 her at her ease. She seated her on the most comfortable 
 chair, removed her shawl, placed Bubbele on her lap, 
 talked, laughed, bustled. "And now," she said finally to 
 the children, "say what you want for supper salmon, 
 cheese or herring or sardines?" For all her coaxing, 
 they remained non-committal. She went down and 
 brought back salmon and cheese and herring and sar- 
 dines, as well as horse-radish and sponge cake for her 
 husband. 
 
 Mr. Block was a gentle, kind-looking man, whose slow 
 manner distantly recalled Elias. He greeted his unex- 
 pected guests with friendliness, immediately suspecting 
 their relation to the furniture on the street. 
 
 Supper, served on a regular even if coarse set of 
 dishes, was a silent meal. The hosts were occupied with 
 conjectures and plans for their guests, while Sarah, in 
 her misery, battled against rising tears. When the chil- 
 dren ventured to whisper, she hushed them up. 
 
 After supper, Mr. Block played with Bubbele on his 
 knee, and the other children gathered round him, laugh- 
 ing at the way he danced the child up and down. For 
 a while it seemed as if there were peace in the hearts of 
 all. 
 
 "How would it have hurt us to have had a dozen 
 such?" Mr. Block asked his wife. 
 
 Mrs. Block, who was childless, smiled as she met 
 Sarah's eyes.
 
 THE CELLAR 145 
 
 "Their father lives?" Mr. Block asked Sarah. 
 
 Ere the evening was over the Blocks learned a goodly 
 portion of the Mendel history. But Sarah kept secret 
 the story of the disciplining relatives and Chayim 
 Schlopoborsky's iteration of their advice. 
 
 "When a woman finds herself in your position in this 
 country," said Mr. Block weightily, "there is no reason, 
 nevertheless, why she should go under. There are char- 
 ity places. If you do not want to apply yourself, some- 
 one else can do it for you. It is not so terrible even 
 if it is bad ; the years will fly, the children will grow up, 
 they will go to work. It is not so terrible." His expres- 
 sion belied his words. Sarah gulped, dropped her eyes 
 and said nothing. 
 
 Mrs. Block, whose sympathetic heart was torn by 
 Sarah's evident wretchedness, proposed they get ready 
 for bed. Bubbele yawned and rubbed her sleepy eyes. 
 The rain pelted dismally against the window. 
 
 "Itzick," Mrs. Block said, "this rain is enough to 
 drown the furniture. What do you say to going down 
 and putting a sheet over it?" 
 
 Mr. Block took the torn sheet and went down. Re- 
 turning he energetically set to work to maneuver sleep- 
 ing space for their guests. 
 
 Soon everyone was in bed and the home dark. The 
 rain came down wifF still greater force. Hailstones rat- 
 tled against the panes, and it began most unseasonably 
 to thunder and lighten. 
 
 "Nebich 1" Mr. Block whispered to his wife, who wiped 
 her eyes and sighed. 
 
 "To-morrow, the first thing in the morning," she said, 
 "I will help her look for one or two rooms, and on your 
 way to work you better leave a letter at the Charities
 
 i 4 6 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 asking them to come. Herself she will not go. I could 
 see it in her eyes. We will ourselves lay out the few 
 dollars for the moving and the rent deposit and for a 
 little for them to eat." 
 
 "Yes, I will do like I did for the man in my shop 
 leave a letter ; they attend to it just as well." 
 
 At a vivid flash of lightning, Mr. Block left his bed 
 and fastened dark shawls over the lower halves of the 
 windows. Passing his little guests he whispered to them 
 to "sleep" and playfully pinched Minnie's nose telling her 
 that her gray eyes shone like diamonds in the dark. The 
 
 children, to Sarah's annoyance laughed. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Before the others awoke the next morning, Mr. Block, 
 using the wooden seat of a chair as a desk, indited a 
 letter in the Yiddish to the Peoples Charities. He 
 wrote dramatically of the condition of the widow Sarah 
 and her four children, penniless, with the sidewalks of 
 New York as their only home. "Out of pity and as a 
 service to God," he concluded, "my wife and I took them 
 in for the night." 
 
 On his way to work he delivered the note. 
 
 While Mrs. Block was putting the bedroom in order, 
 Sarah snatched the opportunity to admonish the children. 
 
 "Be careful of everything. Don't touch anything. 
 Don't break anything. Remember this is the home of 
 strangers. . . . Minnie, and you, too, Jacob, don't come 
 back for dinner at twelve o'clock; it will be too much 
 trouble for Mrs. Block." Minnie and Jacob looked 
 gloomy at the prospect of a fast. "Nu, don't carry on," 
 Sarah warned them. "It won't hurt you to do without 
 dinner." Sarah looked so pale and her upper lip 
 twitched so that the children suffered at the sight of her.
 
 THE CELLAR 14; 
 
 Minnie moved intending to caress her mother. Sarah 
 held her off. "You go to the butcher's children right 
 after school ; the five cents will come in handy." To 
 Jacob: "You come home; don't waste a minute after 
 school ; if I find rooms, you will have to help me carry the 
 furniture." At last they had permission to leave for 
 school. 
 
 "Do you think we should take the children along when 
 we look for rooms?" Mrs. Block, emerging from the 
 bedroom, asked Sarah. 
 
 Sarah shrugged her shoulders. She looked so tired 
 and worn that Mrs. Block thought she had better not be 
 encumbered with the babies. "Let them stay at home 
 quietly and play and we will make greater speed." 
 
 Sarah put the children down in the middle of the 
 room, again admonishing them not to touch a single 
 thing. 
 
 "I have no diamonds and pearls in my house," said 
 Mrs. Block. "Let them play with everything if it amuses 
 them." 
 
 In the dark hall Sarah chose the darkest spot to ask 
 Mrs. Block: 
 
 "Do you think they will accept a one-dollar deposit if 
 we find a room or two?" 
 
 Poor Sarah! One dollar was all she had, and she 
 feared to go on a useless expedition. 
 
 Mrs. Block, certain of reimbursement by the Charities, 
 said: 
 
 "My dear Mrs. Mendel, don't be a child. Whether 
 five dollars is with me or you, what does it matter? 
 I will lay it out for you, and when God will grant you 
 better times, you will give it back to me." In her heart 
 she thought: "God, what a pig a person is compelled
 
 148 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 to be! If I were not sure that the Charities would 
 give it back to me, I simply could not afford to offer it 
 to her." 
 
 Sarah, blinded by tears, stumbled down the dark stairs. 
 On the street she turned livid at the sight of the furni- 
 ture. Mrs. Block hurried her away. 
 
 For three hours the women hunted. They scrambled 
 up rickety stairs and down into basements. Not a single 
 place was to be had for five dollars a month. 
 
 Nearly noon time, disheartened and tired, they faced 
 each other helplessly on the street. The rings under 
 Sarah's eyes were black ; her face was drawn and sal- 
 low. She held her hand to her right side. Mrs. Block 
 decided to stop house-hunting. 
 
 "If worse comes to worse," she said as they entered 
 her rooms, "you and the children can stay with us an- 
 other night." 
 
 Mrs. Block compelled Sarah to lie down on the lounge. 
 Wearily Sarah turned her head toward the wall and 
 closed her eyes. 
 
 "Ssh !" Mrs. Block whispered to the children still play- 
 ing on the floor. 
 
 Sarah sat up. 
 
 "Be quiet!" she commanded harshly, "don't disturb 
 Mrs. Block." 
 
 "No, no," Mrs. Block cried, "I was thinking only of 
 you. They do not disturb me a bit." She was alarmed 
 by Sarah's wild appearance. "Go to sleep, see, do me a 
 favor," she begged, and forced her guest down on the 
 lounge. She feared for Sarah's reason. 
 
 Sarah lay down again. The children were still as 
 mice. 
 
 Elias was reading aloud from the newspaper Jacob
 
 THE CELLAR 149 
 
 was studying his lessons, his geography on his lap and ink 
 on the floor. The teakettle sang on the stove Minnie 
 was sweeping the fine, large room-of-all-affairs of Henry 
 Street. Mrs. Ratkin was saying to her how nice and 
 companionable her Abie and Minnie were 
 
 Sarah was startled from her dreams by the creaking 
 of the floor as Mrs. Block moved across the room. She 
 sat bolt-upright, her hair disheveled, her eyes staring. 
 She could not remember after her fifteen minutes' doze, 
 where she was, then she cried in extreme distress: "It 
 must be terribly late. I must go at once to look for 
 rooms." 
 
 "Nu, nu, don't be excited," the good Mrs. Block beg- 
 ged. "You will eat dinner first and the children will 
 come right away for dinner from school. After that 
 there will be time enough to look for rooms." 
 
 Sarah protested, rising and arranging her hair. "The 
 children are not coming from school anyway," she said, 
 "I told them not to. Bubbele and Ida will have enough 
 with a piece of bread. I do not want anything." 
 
 Mrs. Block changed color. 
 
 "Fui ! fui !" she cried, "to let your own children rather 
 do without food than trouble a strange woman a little* 
 bit ! With a real mother's heart you could not do that !" 
 Mrs. Block really meant to shame Sarah. "A mother 
 should rather trouble a whole world than sacrifice the 
 tip of her child's pinky " 
 
 A rap at the door interrupted the sermon. Sarah's 
 mind was in a whirl dinner, pinky, sacrifice, Elias, the 
 teakettle 
 
 The Charities investigator was admitted. When the 
 young woman made known her mission Sarah seemed 
 to turn into marble; she stood rigid, ashen white, be-
 
 150 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 wildered. Mrs. Block was terrified into an immediate 
 admission of what her husband had done. 
 
 "With a real mother's heart" rang in Sarah's brain, 
 "a woman should trouble a whole world rather than 
 
 sacrifice the tip of her child's pinky " Something 
 
 snapped in her being: her hold on herself gave way. 
 She dropped on the lounge and delivered herself up to' 
 the mercy of the investigator. 
 
 Bubbele and Ida came to lean against their mother 
 and to scrutinize the visitor. And the investigator, whose 
 privilege it is to disregard the sacredness of privacy, 
 probed into every nook and cranny of Sarah's existence. 
 While waiting for answers she now and then took notice 
 of the children. 
 
 "You're a pretty little girl but your hands are very 
 dirty," she said to Bubbele. 
 
 Bubbele looked hard at her baby fingers. 
 
 "Water is very cheap." 
 
 Bubbele and Ida looked up at their mother as if to 
 see whether she felt the same way about it. 
 
 Bubbele's hands were dirty ; she had been playing sev- 
 eral hours on the floor. Sarah, who wanted to say so, 
 merely squirmed on the lounge. 
 
 "Have you any relatives?" 
 
 "Yes, a few on my husband's side." 
 
 "Give me their names and addresses." 
 
 Sarah gave them. 
 
 "En en Tante Mira " piped Bubbele. 
 
 Sarah smiled down upon the baby and patted her 
 cheek to silence her. She felt self-conscious and timid' 
 and mortified. 
 
 "Who is Tante Mira?" The investigator was on the 
 alert.
 
 THE CELLAR 151 
 
 "She is no relative ; only a compatriot." 
 
 She would make sure of that herself. She asked for 
 Mira's address. Sarah gave it with black misgivings in 
 her heart. She could have shaken Bubbele. 
 
 "How comes it your relatives permitted you to be 
 evicted ?" 
 
 The investigator laid a rude hand upon a bruised heart. 
 
 Sarah's lips quivered, her eyes reddened and smarted. 
 What explanation could she make? How, indeed, was it 
 that the relatives had permitted the calamity ? She could 
 not say. 
 
 The investigator shrewdly decided that here was a 
 matter requiring a detective's skill and she would have to 
 exercise her ingenuity to ferret out what was at the 
 bottom of Sarah's silence on this point. 
 
 "I think," she said finishing her writing, "you had 
 better come with me now, and we will find rooms." 
 
 Sarah gave Mrs. Block a look which said : "We hunted, 
 did we not ? My side hurts." Mrs. Block's look in return 
 said : "It is lunch time ; we ought to have a little to eat." 
 But neither demurred. 
 
 Sarah rose, put on her shawl and stood ready to go. 
 Ida and Bubbele followed her to the door. She pushed 
 them aside impatiently. 
 
 They found two rooms on the fifth floor of a Rutgers 
 Street tenement, at seven dollars a month. The investi- 
 gator, eager to be on her way, handed Sarah five dol- 
 lars in the presence of the janitress, saying: 
 
 "I will pay the janitress ; this is for moving and food. 
 To-morrow morning at nine o'clock you must come to 
 the Charities." 
 
 Exactly what Sarah had dreaded that the Lady 
 would disgrace her before the janitress. Her heart
 
 152 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 pounded at her ribs, her knees threatened to give way. 
 As she made her way back to Mrs. Block's home, little 
 children looked at her timidly, as if she were crazy, and 
 shied away from this woman with the queer staring eyes 
 
 who muttered to herself: "Such a life ! Such dark 
 
 fortune ! Better to be dead to be dead !" 
 
 XXXI 
 
 Sarah and her fatherless progeny went down on the 
 records of the Peoples Charities as Case No. 31100. The 
 last two paragraphs of the filing card read : 
 
 "Visited relatives of applicant. Found said rela- 
 tives not in want. Said they had helped applicant 
 immediately after death of husband, but applicant 
 got to expect help and would not help herself. 
 Asked how it was they let applicant be evicted. Said 
 they did not know of eviction. 
 
 "Would recommend, as applicant seems well and 
 strong, that she be given work in the work-room to 
 prevent pauperization." 
 
 Miss Kranz, the investigator, laid this report on the 
 desk of the Head of the Department at closing hour. 
 The next morning the Head of the Department, who, 
 out of devotion to her work, always arrived at the office 
 half an hour in advance of the other employees, read 
 it and returned it with an O. K. as to the recommenda- 
 tion and with the notation: "How about asylum for 
 two younger children?" The case thus lay on Miss 
 Kranz's desk pending the arrival of the case in the flesh. 
 
 While Sarah was receiving this absent treatment, she
 
 THE CELLAR 153 
 
 was hurrying and scurrying in her new household. She 
 was so nervous that things dropped from her hands and 
 her voice rang shrilly as she told the older children leav- 
 ing for school that she was going to the Charities and 
 would not be at home lunch time. Her ringers trembled 
 as she handed Jacob twenty-five cents for the usual in- 
 vestment in newspapers. 
 
 Holding Ida and Bubbele, whose hands were as clean 
 as could be, Sarah wearily plodded her way to the Char- 
 ities. As she approached the place, she was conscious 
 of a peculiar, horrifying sensation a sensation she 
 vaguely felt she had experienced on another occasion. 
 What was it? She paused in an effort to recall. Elias? 
 What had Elias to do with it ? In an instant her memory 
 became vividly alive. "I felt when I left there as if 
 I had been spilt with pamoonitza. And that is for work. 
 How must it be when one comes for money!" So 
 she had said to Elias after her first visit to the Charities. 
 
 She shivered convulsively. How was it going to be ! 
 
 She was coming for money! 
 
 "With a real mother's heart " rang in her 
 
 mind Grasping the children's hands more firmly she 
 
 hastened up the steps. 
 
 A boy ushered her into a large square room in which 
 were rows of wooden benches were there already sat 
 others in her same plight. She slunk to a rear bench and 
 sat down, the children clinging to her skirts. It was early 
 and employees straggled in one by one. A formidable 
 quiet held the place, broken by an occasional cough, the 
 creaking of a bench, a whisper. Sarah's nightmare sense 
 was even more intensified. "God mine am I really I?" 
 she asked herself. 
 
 The arrival of Miss Kranz dashed the reality of it all
 
 154 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 in her face. Her heart pounded, she perspired, her breath 
 came faster, her thoughts more clearly. "I have come 
 here for my children's sake. I will take alms for my chil- 
 dren's sake. I will sacrifice my decency for my children's 
 sake I will ask them to give me scrubbing and washing 
 by ladies. A little I can earn that way " 
 
 Meanwhile Miss Kranz was running her fingers deftly 
 along the edges of a stack of cards to find case No. 
 31100. Glancing at the notation on it she beckoned to 
 the case in the flesh. 
 
 "Will you let us," she said when she had Sarah seated 
 facing her, "put these two younger children in the orphan 
 asylum ?" 
 
 Orphan asylum meant nothing to Sarah, who had never 
 heard the expression before; yet her heart leapt to the 
 fear of separation from her children. She wiped her 
 sweaty face with a trembling hand and asked timidly : 
 "What is it, an orphan asylum?" She was told. It was 
 like being convinced of the reality of a ghost. This that 
 she was listening to could not be it could not be. 
 
 "You may have a few days to think it over," sounded 
 Miss Kranz's voice as from another world. "And now 
 about you," the voice went on in a tone of admonition, 
 "you will have to do some work here in the work- 
 room." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 Miss Kranz scented surprise in Sarah's tone. 
 
 "Yes!" she replied with peppery sharpness and a sur- 
 vey of Sarah's body that gauged her working powers. 
 "You are certainly well enough to work. A healthy 
 woman can't sit back and fold her hands." 
 
 Here Miss Kranz was interrupted by another investi- 
 gator to have a laugh with her over an applicant who
 
 THE CELLAR 155 
 
 insisted that the United States owed him a living the 
 United States was rich enough With a linger- 
 ing smile Miss Kranz turned again to Case No. 
 31100. 
 
 "Well, make up your mind about the children first, and 
 when I come to see you the day after to-morrow, be 
 ready to give me your decision. I would advise you 
 to let them go." (Those were not the days when to 
 keep the family together was considered "scientific" 
 charity.) She paused as if to let her advice sink in. 
 "Then I will see about getting work for you here in the 
 work-room. Can you sew?" 
 
 Sarah abominated sewing. She said meekly: "I never 
 sewed much." 
 
 Miss Kranz rose hastily. Sarah out of timidity in- 
 stantly did the same. Miss Kranz said with impatience. 
 
 "That's all right, that's all right. You can learn to 
 sew. You have to do some work." 
 
 Sarah longed to say that she preferred day's work, 
 but the words would not frame themselves. She led the 
 children out, her heart crying : "Woe woe is me !" The 
 children talked to her. She hushed them up. Little 
 Bubbele could not keep pace with her mother's hurried 
 steps and tugged on Sarah's skirt. Sarah paid no atten- 
 tion until the child threw herself down on the pavement 
 and kicked and screamed. 
 
 "My darling !" Sarah raised her from the ground and 
 kissed her passionately. "No, no,. darling mine, mama 
 will walk slower. Woe woe is me !" 
 
 At home the janitress informed Sarah that a woman 
 had called. "A woman" she emphasized "not a lady," 
 to distinguish the caller from the Charities investigator. 
 Sarah dropped her eyes and hurried the children up the
 
 156 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 stairs. "Who could it have been!" she pondered. In 
 the house Sarah threw herself on the lounge while the 
 two children made straight for chairs, all of them pant- 
 ing from the steep climb. Sarah lay gazing at the blank 
 wall, her mind a dizzy jumble of disconnected thoughts 
 of the Charities, orphan asylum, the woman caller who 
 she could have been; and she agitated herself over the 
 potential gossiping propensities of the new janitress. 
 "Woe is me, all the tenants will know we live on charity 
 if she is a gossip " 
 
 The children were so still that Sarah looked up. She 
 encountered a pair of troubled little faces with eyes re- 
 garding her fixedly. Ida tearfully crying "Ma !" jumped 
 up and ran to her mother; Bubbele followed and threw 
 her baby body over Sarah's chest, and wailed, moved by a 
 child's intuition that all was not well with her mama. 
 
 "Don't cry, darling. Mama is not crying. Did you 
 think mama was crying? No, no, darling." And as if 
 to prove that she was as cheerful as she sounded, Sarah 
 rose and went about her home duties. "Do you want 
 apple and bread for lunch, darling?" she asked Bubbele. 
 
 "Yah!" the child piped as babylike as baby can be. 
 Sarah smiled, and Ida implanted a kiss on Bubbele's 
 mouth. 
 
 Sarah looked into the bread box. There was bread 
 enough but there were no apples in the house ! Sighing, 
 she resigned herself to the arduous climb again. She 
 brought bread as well as apples, for her thoughts had 
 been: "Scraps are not enough for growing children 
 like Minnie and Jacob. When I was a growing girl my 
 mother used to make me eat quantities of sour cream 
 and cheese and sweet butter and black bread. My chil- 
 dren are to be pitied my four fatherless babies !"
 
 THE CELLAR 157 
 
 Jacob and Minnie bouncing in from school were de- 
 lighted to find the family at home, and doubly so when 
 they discovered the feast of bread and apples. While her 
 little family were munching and chatting, Sarah thought : 
 
 "They are children after all, even Minnie and Jacob. 
 How they talk and laugh already! As if everything is 
 as before as if their father were not dead as if they 
 had not been on the street two days ago!" She sighed" 
 and shrugged her shoulders in uncomprehending toler- 
 ance of the ways of the young. 
 
 Minnie and Jacob were soon off to school again. Bub- 
 bele and Ida lay down to sleep off the effects of the 
 morning's expedition. Sarah sat by the window and 
 thought: "To send the children to an orphan asylum 
 
 must mean to give them away and sign a paper " 
 
 (Signing a paper to our tenement friends is to commit 
 one's self beyond recall.) "It is like handing them over 
 as a gift My children I should give away to stran- 
 gers !" A sense of outrage flamed up in her soul. "I will 
 not give them away and sign a paper if they will throw 
 us ten times out of rooms and I will sooner work my 
 
 fingers to the bone " She debated with herself as if 
 
 she were her own opponent. . . . Then her thoughts 
 drifted to the other aspect of the situation. "But if the 
 children will get enough to eat there! It will be better 
 for them they are children and will soon get used to 
 being without me. That I will long for them should not 
 matter " 
 
 A light tap on the door roused her. 
 
 Never in her life was Sarah so glad to see anyone as 
 
 she was now to see her friend and enemy, Mira Cohen. 
 ******* 
 
 In her tour of investigation of the Mendel Case, Miss
 
 158 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Kranz had included Mira Cohen, who, unaware of the 
 eviction, had given information based on the old status 
 of Sarah's offensiveness and ingratitude. When she 
 learned of the eviction, however, she could, as she told 
 her husband in the evening, have bitten her tongue off, 
 so provoked was she with herself for having diminished 
 Sarah's chances of obtaining assistance. 
 
 "How should I have known?" she argued to appease 
 her conscience as she tossed on her bed in the small hours 
 of the night. "She insulted me only because she was so 
 desperate. I ought to go to see her. Bygones ought to 
 be bygones. They were thrown out on the street! And 
 it was even a rainy day. My God in heaven ! I will go 
 to see her the first thing in the morning." 
 
 However, the dawn found Mira's conscience less alert, 
 and it was not until ten o'clock that her resolution to 
 visit Sarah and let bygones be bygones took the form 
 of action. Not finding Sarah in, she had applied to the 
 janitress to make sure the Charities investigator had 
 given her the right address and returned home resolved 
 to call again in the afternoon. 
 
 In the melancholy twilight of the room, Mira listened 
 in true sympathy as Sarah laid bare her bitter heart. 
 
 ******* 
 
 "Minnie, go down and buy a postal card and write on 
 it what I tell you," said Sarah in the evening. 
 
 Though tired from a long day of school and nurse- 
 work, Minnie made the wearisome journey. 
 
 "What sh'll I say, ma?" she asked as, breathless, she 
 sat down to write. 
 
 Sarah laid a card before the child. "Copy the address 
 from here," she said. 
 
 Minnie, copying, wrote :
 
 THE CELLAR 159 
 
 "Peoples Charities, Mustend Street, Case No. 31100, 
 Sarah Mendel." 
 
 "What sh'll I tell her?" 
 
 "Tell her," said Sarah, looking away nervously, "that 
 she should please excuse me from signing a paper for 
 my fatherless children to give them to the Gerry Society." 
 
 Sarah spoke in Yiddish ; by labored effort Minnie pro- 
 duced a faithful translation in English. But what a 
 struggle when she came to "Gerry!" It must be a mis- 
 take. She had not been taught the word at school. She 
 could not believe the English language guilty of including 
 such a meaningless term. Finally she wrote "Gehrer." 
 That done, she looked up at her mother and asked: 
 
 "Ma, who do they wanna take away them?" she 
 pointed to Bubbele and Ida. 
 
 "Yah, ma, usn?" Bubbele asked. 
 
 "No, darling," said Sarah, gathering the baby in her 
 arms, "it is just for fun." 
 
 The children were satisfied. 
 
 "What's the Gehrer Society?" asked Minnie. 
 
 Sarah looked quickly away. Her manner grew for- 
 bidding. 
 
 What was a Gehrer Society, indeed? A place where 
 Jewish orphans were converted to Christianity, where a 
 cross was branded on the child's chest, arm, or back ; 
 where a child was whipped mercilessly on the slightest 
 provocation, especially the Jewish child. A place that 
 did not relinquish the child, once the paper was signed, 
 before it attained maturity, if ever the child did attain 
 maturity. What! Send her Ida and Bubbele to such a 
 place! Visions of the "country" came to Sarah, of 
 Mira's wisdom in identifying it with a slaughterhouse. 
 She shuddered. "Not, if to keep them, I must work my
 
 160 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 fingers to the bone." Besides, Mira had promised (with 
 the simple primitive virtue of her class, real self-sacri- 
 fice) that were Sarah to get work for every day, she 
 would, and gladly, clean Sarah's home daily, cook, take 
 care of the children and, in short, do for Sarah as she 
 would be done by. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 The morning on which Sarah expected Miss Kranz 
 she went about her work in a flutter of nervous expecta- 
 tion. The morning passed, the lunch hour passed, but no 
 investigator appeared. Late in the afternoon, when 
 Sarah had decided that Miss Kranz was not coming and 
 had donned her working apron intending to polish the 
 stove, a rap sounded on the door, followed by Miss 
 Kranz's entrance. Sarah hastily spread both her hands 
 flat over her stomach where the apron was most soiled. 
 Miss Kranz's sharp eyes traveled swiftly over her person. 
 
 "How are you, Mrs. Mendel ?" 
 
 Sarah, making no reply, dropped her eyes and flushed. 
 
 "Nice rooms," remarked Miss Kranz, with a hasty 
 survey of the premises. Observing a pot on the stove 
 she approached it in a casual manner. Sarah's hands 
 were clammy. She lifted a corner of her apron, partly 
 to wipe them and partly to gain time to control the hor- 
 rid beating of her heart. The investigator threw a 
 hasty glance into the pot; its melancholy emptiness pro- 
 claimed Sarah Not Guilty ! 
 
 "Well, how are you ?" Miss Kranz repeated, and seated 
 herself. 
 
 Sarah also seated herself, so conscious of her soiled 
 apron that she could not think clearly of anything else.
 
 THE CELLAR 161 
 
 "Thanks," she said. 
 
 It being the privilege of a Charities investigator to in- 
 struct the lowly in the ways of proper living, the lady 
 remarked, though quite gently: 
 
 "Now, Mrs. Mendel, look at your apron. It is very 
 dirty. There is no need for that. Water does not cost 
 any money." She rose, walked over to the sink, and 
 turned on the faucet to demonstrate how freely the water 
 flowed. 
 
 Sarah, her color mounting rapidly, again placed her 
 palms flat over her stomach, and smiled inanely in 
 apology. 
 
 "Nobody can be healthy who is not clean," continued 
 Miss Kranz to enlighten the ignorant object of charity. 
 Sarah's left shoulder jerked nervously backward and for- 
 ward; she sighed a sigh chopped in two as it left her 
 breast. Miss Kranz reseated herself. "Well, have you 
 decided about the children?" 
 
 Sarah's breath came short; her heart-beats seemed to 
 thunder in her ears. In fear and trepidation she replied : 
 
 "I want to keep my children. I do not want to send 
 them to a Gerry Society." 
 
 "Gerry Society? Who thinks of sending them to the 
 Gerry Society? We want to place them in an orphan 
 asylum where there are none but Jewish children. They 
 will be better off there than here." Miss Kranz threw 
 a circular, semi-disdainful glance around the room. 
 
 Sarah became panic-stricken. Not a Gerry Society? 
 The firm ground of her objection rocked beneath her 
 feet. Yet were it ever so much an orphan asylum and 
 ever so little a Gerry Society, she did not want to part 
 from her children. She bent forward and spoke with 
 restrained excitement.
 
 162 SARAH AND H&R DAUGHTER 
 
 "But I am used to having them at home. I want 
 them." 
 
 "Now, Mrs. Mendel, if you wish our help, you must 
 be satisfied to do as we say. We want to do the best 
 for you." 
 
 Sarah twisted her fingers under her apron. 
 
 "I know. But it is very bitter." Tears came to her 
 eyes. 
 
 "Well, think it over a little longer, and I will report 
 what you said to-day," concluded Miss Kranz, rising. 
 
 "I want to work," Sarah said, also rising. 
 
 Miss Kranz gave her a quick, interested glance. 
 "Well, well, coming round," she thought. In a tone of 
 especial kindness she told Sarah to come to the office 
 the following morning, and advised her in the meantime 
 to consider carefully the matter of the children's future. 
 Sarah followed her to the door burning to retort that she 
 had already considered it carefully, but Miss Kranz 
 turned to face her and she dropped her eyes, and hastily 
 promised obedience. 
 
 "Have you much left of the money I gave you?" 
 
 Sarah blinked. "I have enough." Miss Kranz did not 
 require assurance of the truth of the statement. 
 
 When the door closed, Sarah stood dazed; then in a 
 few moments she walked automatically into the bedroom 
 and looked at her two sleeping babies. "Mem Gott!" 
 she moaned, and wrung her hands. Bubbele stirred ; 
 Sarah tiptoed out. In an effort at self-control she set 
 to polishing the stove, but soon dropped the brush and 
 went to the window. One vacant stare out of the win- 
 dow, and she stepped over to the sink, removed her 
 apron, and put it under the running water. The water 
 seeping through the apron came out darkly discolored.
 
 THE CELLAR 163 
 
 "It is very dirty," she thought, flushing scarlet. She 
 rubbed soap on, but too nervous to stay at the task 
 threw down the soap and went back to the window. 
 
 "God ! they will take the children away. They will 
 take them away !" She wrung her hands despairingly. 
 She wanted to scream, to dash her head through the 
 windowpane. She pressed her hand against her scalp 
 which was raw and painful; she was feverishly hot. 
 A terrible vague fear shot through her. In her terror she 
 threw open the window. "God, my God ! I am going 
 crazy !" she cried, pressing her palms to her temples. 
 
 Bubbele cried out. The child dreamed that her 
 mother spilled a pitcher of cold water over her. Sarah, 
 startled, slammed the window shut and rushed to her 
 baby, who wailed and clung to her. 
 
 "Yes, my dollele, yes," Sarah soothed her, stroking her 
 warm forehead with her dank hand. Ida, too, awakened, 
 and the three moved into the room-of-all-affairs. 
 
 All night Sarah tossed restlessly on her bed, rehearsing 
 how she would refuse to send her children to the Orphan 
 Asylum or Gehrer Society or whatever it was. 
 
 The morning found her ill and unable to go to the 
 Charities. In the afternoon she sent Minnie to summon 
 the ever-responsive Mira. And Mira, on leaving Sarah, 
 deposited a dollar bill (Sarah's cash had run low) under 
 a broken plate on the table and consoled her: 
 
 "But if you were sick!" 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 It was two days before Sarah was well enough to go 
 to the Charities. Anxious to forestall criticism, she
 
 1 64 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 washed and pressed the children's dresses, and scrubbed 
 and scoured their little bodies; as a result of which she 
 arrived late, and went down in Miss Kranz's opinion 
 as one of the habitually dependent, such as the relatives 
 had made her out to be. Miss Kranz's cold recep- 
 tion of her only aggravated Sarah's timidity. With heart 
 pounding and breath labored, she seated herself, drawing 
 the two children close, and with trembling fingers 
 smoothed out a wrinkle from her apron. 
 
 "You must let your husband go to the hospital," Miss 
 Kranz's voice reached her. "We can do nothing for 
 you until you do as we say." Miss Kranz ushered out 
 an applicant who stood with fingers clasped in mute ap- 
 peal. Sarah felt as if she must die if Miss Kranz proved 
 as relentless about the children and the Gerry Society. 
 But, whatever the obstacles, she braced herself to carry 
 out her resolution. 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Mendel, so you have come?" Before 
 Sarah could grasp the insinuation in the words and offer 
 an explanation, Miss Kranz added : "Come upstairs with 
 me." 
 
 Sarah rose quickly grasping a child with each hand. 
 
 "No, leave the children down here." 
 
 Sarah cast a hasty suspicious glance round the room. 
 The subtle agony in it was lost on Miss Kranz. 
 
 "Will they not be in the way?" 
 
 "No. They may sit on your chair." 
 
 Seating Bubbele, Sarah stood Ida next to her and whis- 
 pered : "Under no circumstances leave her ; and don't let 
 anyone bribe you away from the spot." If Sarah's 
 wish had taken flight to heaven, all orphan asylums and 
 Gerry Societies would have crumbled to dust at that 
 moment.
 
 THE CELLAR 165 
 
 She followed Miss Kranz through a wide corridor, 
 up a spacious stairway, to a door marked "606 Work- 
 room." It was a long, rather narrow room, in which 
 great stacks of clothes piled up around the windows kept 
 out the daylight. Miss Kranz's whistle brought a re- 
 sponse in a refined woman's voice. 
 
 "All right, Miss Kranz, I'm coming." 
 
 From behind a partition emerged a middle-aged lady, 
 whose personality suggested a closed chapter of affluence 
 and culture. She came slowly forward and smiled in 
 expectancy of an introduction. 
 
 "Mrs. Mendel Mrs. Newman." 
 
 Mrs. Newman again smiled her well-bred smile. Miss 
 Kranz drawing her aside gave her the details of the 
 new case. Mrs. Newman listened, while casting side 
 glances at Sarah, who stood fumbling with her apron. 
 The interview ended with Miss Kranz familiarly tap- 
 ping Mrs. Newman's chin and flippantly asking: 
 "Verstehen Sief" 
 
 "All right, my dear," said Mrs. Newman with motherly 
 sweetness, and turned in a businesslike manner to Sarah, 
 who timidly drew a step nearer, though she kept her 
 eyes fastened on Miss Kranz as she moved to the door. 
 She was about to take the risk of asking whether the 
 children were quite safe downstairs, when Miss Kranz 
 sang out : "Oh, Mrs. Newman, send Mrs. Mendel down 
 to me again when you are through with her ; her children 
 are downstairs." Sarah's anguish subsided. 
 
 "Sit down, my good woman," said Mrs. Newman, 
 pointing out a chair. Sarah falteringly seated herself. 
 Mrs. Newman scanned the premises, then walked lei- 
 surely to the front of the room and as leisurely returned 
 with a chair. Seating herself she released a gold chain
 
 1 66 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 from a tiny reel which lay embedded in her ample bosom 
 and placed the attached glasses on her nose. 
 
 "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" she asked leaning forward 
 and compressing her lips. 
 
 Sarah giving her an eager glance said: "Ya," with 
 a touch of pride. 
 
 "Oh," Mrs. Newman ejaculated, "where do you come 
 from?" 
 
 "Memel." 
 
 "Well, you are quite German," Mrs. Newman's com- 
 ment was accompanied by an obviously complimentary 
 look. Sarah dropped her eyes and sighed the sigh of one 
 who has lost an inheritance. 
 
 "Have you been a widow long?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Was your husband German also?" 
 
 "No, he was from the Baltic provinces." 
 
 Mrs. Newman concluding she had done enough to put 
 the applicant at ease, straightened up for business. 
 Sarah perceiving that Mrs. Newman meant to change the 
 subject, reflected that her husband's Russianism had de- 
 tracted from the glory of her Germanism. A pained ex- 
 pression came into her eyes, and she sighed lightly. 
 
 "You see," Mrs. Newman began, pointing at the stacks 
 of old clothes, "these things are sent here by good people 
 for poor people like you and your children. The things 
 are often torn and require mending. That is the work 
 you will have to do here. You'll start at ten o'clock to- 
 morrow morning. That will give you time to send the 
 children off to school." Mrs. Newman smiled kindly 
 again. "The women are all very nice here. You will 
 soon make friends. The work is easy, plain sewing,
 
 THE CELLAR 167 
 
 you know." She rose ; Sarah followed suit. "Come to- 
 morrow at ten," Mrs. Newman glanced toward the door 
 to indicate that Sarah was dismissed. 
 
 Poor Sarah longed to tell her that she was not an 
 adept seamstress and vastly preferred work "by ladies." 
 But Mrs. Newman, whose day was too full to allow her 
 much time for a single applicant, divining that Sarah 
 had things to say (they all had if one gave oneself up 
 to them) assumed the forbidding air of the superior, 
 which quashed Sarah's courage. 
 
 "You go down the hall and down the stairs. Miss 
 Kranz's room is on the first floor. Good-by." The direc- 
 tions were given with flawless courtesy. But Mrs. New- 
 man turned her back. 
 
 It was many years since Sarah had experienced a 
 moment of self-respect and social equality ; and the 
 rapid termination of the luxury left her miserable. In a 
 daze she turned to the door and left hurriedly. 
 
 "Sit down, mama," Ida whispered when Sarah ap- 
 peared in Miss Kranz's room. Sarah remained standing, 
 however, for Miss Kranz, busy writing, gave no indica- 
 tion of what was expected of her. Sarah wiped her 
 sweaty face with her hands and her sweaty hands on the 
 corner of her apron. 
 
 When Miss Kranz finally wheeled round in her chair 
 and shot the question, "Well, how about the children?" 
 Sarah grew so dizzy that she almost reeled. With the 
 irresponsibility of excessive nervousness, she cried: 
 
 "I will not give them away. I suffered the torture 
 of bringing my children into the world, I will keep 
 them." A flame of self-assertion burned in her eyes and 
 a dare-devil spirit supplanted her timidity. 
 
 The refined Miss Kranz, taken aback, made no reply.
 
 1 68 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 At the close of the day her notation on the report-card 
 of Case No. 31100 read: "Applicant offensively refused 
 to commit children." 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 Shortly before ten o'clock the following morning, 
 Sarah, successfully evading an encounter with Miss 
 Kranz, stealthily made her way through the spacious hall 
 to the work-room. As she paused hesitatingly on the 
 threshold, Mrs. Newman looked up, greeted her with the 
 cordiality of one meeting another on the same level and 
 invited her in. "Take off your shawl," she said as she 
 called: "Miss Greenberg, oh, Miss Greenberg!" 
 
 From behind a table piled high with old clothing came 
 a little middle-aged woman, whose face betrayed one 
 long, bitter struggle with Fate, in which Fate had won. 
 
 "Miss Greenberg, this is Mrs. Mendel." 
 
 Miss Greenberg in no way indicated that she was af- 
 fected by the introduction. Some whispered instruction, 
 then Miss Greenberg called in a dry voice : "Come 
 missus!" and turned sharply. Mrs. Newman motioned 
 Sarah to follow. Sarah did so with bowed head. Miss 
 Greenberg stopping at the center of a long, narrow table, 
 drew out a vacant chair. 
 
 "Sit down here," she said to Sarah and walked away. 
 
 Other women seated at the table gave the new woman 
 a hasty glance of inspection and bent again over their 
 work. Sarah's senses were numb. At Miss Greenberg's 
 reappearance she grew a bit panicy, and received the 
 needle, thread, thimble and pair of scissors with un- 
 steady hands. "Try on the thimble," said Miss Green-
 
 THE CELLAR 169 
 
 berg in the same dry, lifeless voice, and again left 
 abruptly. 
 
 The thimble leapt out of Sarah's fingers to the floor 
 and rolled into an obscure corner of the room. Terror 
 struck her heart. She bent here and there in search 
 of it, conscious of ten Miss Greenbergs and a dozen 
 Mrs. Newmans and a whole roomful of persecuting 
 women. She grew hot and sweaty and enraged with 
 her lucklessness. Just as she located the thimble Miss 
 Greenberg re-appeared. Sarah was seated. 
 
 "Fix this with backhand stitches," said Miss Green- 
 berg, holding up a heavy brown coat in which was a 
 rent. Laying the coat on Sarah's lap Miss Greenberg 
 was off again. 
 
 Now nature in her wisdom or folly had omitted from 
 Sarah's composition any aptitude for needlework. She 
 had never sewed, had never learned how to sew, and 
 had never wanted to learn how to sew. This suddenly 
 imposed task was a cruelty. But who saw it as such? 
 Who sees it as such to-day? Poverty is an attribute 
 which subjects all who possess it to a Procrustean law. 
 
 Sarah tried to comprehend the meaningless words, 
 "backhand stitches" and excitedly fumbled with the 
 needle and the thread to effect their necessary alliance. 
 At last she succeeded in inserting the thread. Her relief 
 was only momentary, for she drew the thread the wrong 
 way and pulled it out again. Flushing scarlet she more 
 nervously attempted the threading a second time. Con- 
 cluding the operation, she adjusted the heavy coat to her 
 lap. "Backhand stitches !" rang in her ears. What were 
 they? She leaned a little toward the neighbor on her 
 right to glimpse, if possible, how she did it. The woman 
 lifted a face so desiccated and unfriendly that Sarah
 
 170 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 hastily turned the other way. There she encountered a 
 placid countenance, as vacant as a cow's and a broad grin 
 that kept the mouth wide open and displayed large, white 
 regular teeth. 
 
 "What is the matter, missus?" 
 
 Sarah, fearful of provoking displeasure, looked about 
 timorously to see whether Mrs. Newman or Miss Green- 
 berg were observing her. She knew instinctively that 
 Miss Greenberg was easily moved to anger. 
 
 "You needn't be afraid ; I am allowed to help you." 
 The woman waved her hand as an accompaniment to 
 the boast. "I am already an old customer. They all 
 ask me when they first come." Her grin ended in a dulf 
 giggle. Sarah gave a hurried nervous glance round. 
 
 "What's backhand stitches?" she whispered, a timicf 
 smile on her flushed face. 
 
 "Oh, like that " the woman said, taking Sarah's 
 
 coat and needle. 
 
 As Sarah looked on in strained attention, the other's 
 fingers flew deftly and evenly over the rent. But when 
 Sarah attempted to imitate, her needle snapped at the 
 third stitch. Such agony was expressed in Sarah's eyes 
 that the phlegmatic woman was moved. 
 
 "Wait a minute," she whispered. "I will get you an- 
 other needle." She turned to her neighbor ; the neighbor 
 had no needle to spare. She was about to rise and ap- 
 propriate one from the drawer in which the needles were 
 kept when Miss Greenberg appeared to investigate the 
 new woman's progress. Had it not been for Sarah's 
 obvious nervousness and distress Miss Greenberg would 
 have given the deserved reprimand. As it was she went 
 off without comment for another needle.
 
 THE CELLAR 171 
 
 "As long as she did not holler, don't care," the left- 
 hand neighbor encouraged Sarah. 
 
 Miss Greenberg stood over Sarah as she tried once 
 more to thread the needle. So the task became utterly im- 
 possible and though Miss Greenberg had seen trembling 
 hands before, she was moved to thread the needle her- 
 self. Abstractedly she lingered beside Sarah, resting one 
 hand against the table. Sarah's instructor bent stealthily 
 over the hand, kissed it, and flung up her face beaming 
 with a phlegmatic, ingratiating smile. Miss Greenberg 
 good-naturedly tapped her on the head. One or two 
 women laughed. The woman at Sarah's right scowled 
 and muttered: "Sucker!" Sarah experienced a curious 
 sensation of uncleanliness and strangeness to herself. 
 She threw a swift glance at the women the room and 
 struggled to realize her own presence there her rela- 
 tionship to it all. With a sigh she lowered her eyes. She 
 sent her needle too deep into the heavy material and it 
 snapped again. 
 
 The repeated offense roused Miss Greenberg to a 
 sense of her supervisory capacity. She snatched the 
 broken needle, went quickly for another and told Sarah 
 that there would not be a third. 
 
 Sarah labored over the rent all morning and was ex- 
 hausted. 
 
 Her left-hand neighbor initiated her into the way of 
 closing shop; she was to stow her needle here, her 
 thimble there, et cetera. As the women departed they 
 sang out cordial good-by's to their supervisors and to 
 their partners in poverty. The room was finally de- 
 serted. Sarth timidly lingered, awaiting Mrs. Newman's 
 instructions. The worthy lady at last appeared, asked 
 her why she hadn't left, and told her to be on time in the
 
 172 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 morning. "Wasn't it nice and pleasant?" she asked and, 
 waiting for no reply, added : "It's nice and pleasant," and 
 turned away. 
 
 On the stairs Sarah found the phlegmatic neighbor 
 waiting for her, evidently eager to learn Sarah's pedi- 
 gree. Sarah in her misery turned abruptly, as though 
 from a bad stench, and left the woman muttering: "Un- 
 grateful ! Crank !" 
 
 Miss Greenberg reported to Mrs. Newman that the 
 "new case" was "very slow and inefficient." Mrs. New- 
 man, with a wise air, replied Sarah was "that sort, you 
 know." 
 
 Minnie and Jacob were leaving for the afternoon ses- 
 sion when Sarah returned, feeling as if she had been gone 
 from her children an eternity. Passionately she hugged 
 and kissed Bubbele as her heart cried : "Elias ! oh, Elias !" 
 And she sank down on the lounge and shook with sobs 
 as deep as the misery of her life. Ida and Bubbele, 
 frightened and pale, tugged at her skirt and tried to tear 
 her hands away from her face. Failing, they, too, burst 
 into sobs. But Sarah could not control herself not even 
 for their sake. 
 
 In the evening Mira came again, to Sarah's immense 
 solace. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 From Mira's manner, as she entered the room, Sarah 
 discerned at once that she had a confidence to impart, 
 and, therefore, checked her impulse to pour out the tale 
 of her tribulations. Mira, however, no less quick to dis- 
 cern, cried commiseratingly : 
 
 "Nu, what is it, God mine? You look yellow in the
 
 THE CELLAR 173 
 
 face, and your forehead is as furrowed as if the world 
 were weighing on your head." 
 
 Sarah's lips quivered ; she dropped her eyes. Tears 
 came in spite of her attempt at self-control. 
 
 "Nu, speak out your heart; it will relieve you," Mira 
 urged. 
 
 "For me there is no relief," Sarah replied. 
 
 But Mira insisted, and with the telling of her experi- 
 ences a faint relief came to Sarah's soul. At least there 
 was one person in the world who understood the smart, 
 the sting, the humiliation, the agony of what she was 
 going through. 
 
 And it was not Mira's sympathy alone that consoled ; 
 Mira seemed also to have a definite remedy of some sort 
 up her sleeve. Every little while, during Sarah's recital, 
 she threw a sidelong glance from her sharp, blue eyes 
 and thrust her chin forward as much as to say: "Wait 
 till you hear what I have to tell!" And when Sarah 
 concluded her tale, she sat up straighter and darted in- 
 tenser glances. 
 
 "What is your news ?" asked Sarah. 
 
 "What are you talking about?" Mira burst out, as if 
 Sarah had been contradicting her. "I am a business 
 lady." 
 
 She answered Sarah's look of astonishment and inter- 
 rogation by opening a package and displaying pieces of 
 blaclt buckram edged with wire. 
 
 "They, my relatives, sent me this from Boston. They 
 call it bends (Mira's pronunciation of "bands"), and 
 they told me that I should try to get orders for the bends 
 in the millinery stores here in New York. If I succeed, 
 they will send me a lot of the buckram and wire, and I 
 can make them up myself and sell them at a profit, which
 
 174 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 will go to me. I went around from store to store and 
 I have got orders galore." She smacked her thin lips, 
 settled back in her chair, and looked up as if challenging 
 Sarah to mention another person as smart as herself, 
 while her knob of red hair nodded back: "I should say 
 there isn't anyone as smart as I am." As an after- 
 thought she added: "It is really very nice of my rela- 
 tives ;" but since it was not in her nature to give the devil 
 a bit more than his due, she quickly hooked on : "But 
 they are in Boston. They could not sell in New York 
 anyway. So what does it hurt them ?" Another thought 
 popped into her head. "Nu, who knows? Mira Cohen 
 can yet become a regular business lady." Her eyes 
 moistened. Mira was one of those people who are not 
 so sure that the sun shines behind the clouds. She, too, 
 was having a hard struggle, with a "useless" husband, 
 an unruly daughter, and a stuttering son. 
 
 For a time both women gazed into space, as though 
 trying to fathom the deeps of life. Sarah was the first 
 to break the silence by sighing. Then Mira said the 
 thing for which Sarah's curiosity had been palpitating. 
 
 "Who knows if I get enough orders you can maybe 
 help me with the sewing, and we can do the business to- 
 gether. If there will be for you a little and for me a 
 
 little it will be enough " She gave a shrug of her 
 
 shoulders. "Who expects to become a millionaire?" she 
 added deprecatingly, as if to propitiate fate. 
 
 Again they gazed into space. Before Sarah's vision 
 passed scenes of the Charities work-room. How she 
 loatfie'd it! Would Mira's "bends" hold a way out? She 
 dared not hope so far. Time and again, bending over her 
 sewing, which required daily a veritable revolutionizing 
 of her nature, she felt it would be more decent to squat
 
 THE CELLAR 175 
 
 on the curb on Grand Street grinding an organ for pen- 
 nies. How she loathed -it! 
 
 Mira, to cheer her, told a story of a poor man who had 
 a dog, who was driven by hunger to commit a theft and 
 took the dog along. It was in the dead of night. The 
 dog, hearing a strange sound, barked. The man tried to 
 quiet the animal. "S-sh, dog," he said, "if I make a suc- 
 cessful robbery, you, too, shall have a bone to suck." 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 Sarah always slunk past Miss Kranz's office in terror. 
 If only she could evade being called upon to give a de- 
 cision regarding the children, she thought, until Mira took 
 her into partnership, "the world would be mine." Once 
 in the work-room she would breathe easily again and lose 
 herself in dreams of a brighter future, in which her two 
 rooms on Rutgers Street were filled with buckram, coils 
 of wire, thimbles, needles, thread. Around the table sat 
 she, Minnie, Ida, and even Jacob, manufacturing bands. 
 In this glory, the work-room faded into non-existence. 
 
 One day Miss Kranz opened the door upon a most 
 vivid dream. Crash went Sarah's castle in the air! 
 "Woe is me, if only she has not come to tell me I must 
 give the children away!" The whole miserable reality 
 overwhelmed her. 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Mendel," Miss Kranz called, as Sarah's 
 soul made its descent from the air-castle to hell. 
 
 "Well, dear !" came from Mrs. Newman. Miss Kranz 
 turned from Sarah, greeted the supervisor, and the two 
 walked away together. 
 
 Had Sarah only known that she need have no fear! 
 Those whose province it was to mould the destinies of
 
 1 76 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 the worthy poor had decided that it would be better to 
 wait until Sarah herself begged for shelter for her chil- 
 dren. They proceeded on the theory that if a man wished 
 to affect small feet he should be given small shoes and 
 allowed to feel the pinch of them until he himself cried 
 out. But the Charities did not know all the facts. How 
 could they know the facts when Sarah had not told them ? 
 What reason had they to suspect that a source of income 
 rising to seventy-five cents and even a dollar a week 
 flowed from Jacob ; that Minnie's mothering of the butch- 
 er's twins yielded another munificent sum ; that there ex- 
 isted a sympathetic relative who, according to his wife's 
 version, was cursed with a good nature that blessed the 
 Mendels with an occasional gift of money, and that there 
 was a conscience-stricken compatriot, Mira? 
 
 For some time after her last call, Mira did not come 
 again. Twice she had sent a dollar bill by the sympa- 
 thetic relative and a message that she would visit Sarah 
 soon. But ten full weeks passed without her putting in 
 appearance and Sarah decided that if the mountain did 
 not come to her, she would go to the mountain. 
 
 Her dream of piles of buckram, endless coils of wire, 
 and quantities of needles, thimbles, and thread, with chil- 
 dren helping, had become a fact at Mira's home. When 
 she entered, she found Mira heated, with black streaks 
 discoloring her face, bent busily over her work. 
 
 Mira flushed self-consciously. She had received many 
 orders for the bands, enough, in fact, to keep someone 
 else beside herself and children busy. Yet who can blame 
 Mira? He who has just saved himself from drowning 
 is not eager to go back into the deep water to rescue an- 
 other. For the first time since she had come to Amer- 
 ica, Mira enjoyed the comfort of knowing that twenty-
 
 THE CELLAR 177 
 
 five dollars rested in the bank for her. How could she 
 be expected to share the intoxication with a mere com- 
 patriot? Besides, when she had told Sarah her news 
 and had suggested partnership, she had done so unpre- 
 meditatedly, under the swift impulse of pity for her un- 
 happy friend. 
 
 The evening passed in conversation on the various 
 phases of their respective lots in life, while in the back of 
 each of their minds danced the promised partnership. 
 Mira, however, said not a word on the subject. Indeed, 
 a few minutes after Sarah's arrival, she and her chil- 
 dren cleared away all traces of the new industry. 
 
 Sarah walked home with an intensity of bitterness rag- 
 ing in her heart such as even she had never experienced. 
 In the days that followed Elias's death, she had been 
 dazed. Now she was as painfully sensitive as an open 
 wound. She saw in all its clearness what lay ahead for 
 her and her children. They were doomed forever to pov- 
 erty, to sordidness, the lowest dregs of humiliation. The 
 cup of hope had been held to her lips only to be dashed to 
 the ground. 
 
 All night, wide-eyed and sleepless, she lay staring de- 
 spairingly into the darkness. Jumbled thoughts, yet none 
 the less vivid, tossed in her brain. Her fate was to be 
 innumerable years of serfdom in the Charities work- 
 room, with the cow-like creature always at her right and 
 the yellow, shrivelled half-corpse at her left. And worse 
 yet, no other fate seemed likely, even for her children. 
 She pictured them branded with crosses on the chests, 
 domineered over by rough Gerry Society officials ; in 
 
 maturity cast out into the heartless world like herself 
 
 And by then she would be dead! . . . She lay in frozen 
 rigidity. A wave of misery seemed to surge over her
 
 178 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 head, so that she gasped for breath. . . . She shook her- 
 self. Suddenly she was gripped by the fear that in such 
 deep despair lay destruction. Her soul struggled as out 
 of a quicksand toward hopefulness. Why this despair? 
 Was she not able-bodied? Was all the world but the 
 Charities closed to her? Could she not do something, 
 
 too do something She sat bolt upright, spurred 
 
 by a new impetus. ... If success were possible for the 
 homely, unrefined, red-headed Mira, why was not suc- 
 cess possible for her, too? If Mira's children, one 
 "meshuga," another a "mecka," could be of help to her 
 in a business, why could not her children be of much 
 greater help? Why could she not be a business lady, 
 too? 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 "Minnie," Sarah said the next evening (her daugh- 
 ter had just returned from a club meeting at the Queen's 
 Daughters, Jacob was out selling his papers, and the 
 younger children were on the street), "I want you to 
 go over to Mira. Say you passed and just stepped in. 
 When she is not looking, take a piece of black buckram 
 with wire sewed on the edge. You will see pieces like 
 that lying around there. Hide it under your dress and 
 bring it home." 
 
 Minnie knew all about Mira's "bends" business, hav- 
 ing heard her mother tell of it to the Sympathetic Rela- 
 tive. 
 
 Sarah held her head high as she spoke and put a touch 
 of defiance into her manner, in anticipation of opposi- 
 tion from her young daughter. 
 
 Minnie looked at her mother at first uncomprehend-
 
 THE CELLAR 179 
 
 ingly, then in astonishment. Though her intuition 
 warned her that she would rouse her mother's displeas- 
 ure, she answered in a fretful, self -defensive tone: 
 
 "I don' wanna, mama." 
 
 Sarah was well aware that her request was no 
 credit to her motherhood, but it was not the province of 
 a child of hers to tell her so. She grew angry. Her 
 upper lip twitched, her lids fluttered, her body stiffened. 
 She advanced upon Minnie, ready to shake the child, 
 who withdrew into a corner of the room. 
 
 "You do not want to?" she shouted. The two glared 
 at each other, Minnie, her thumb in her mouth, her head 
 bent and eyes raised. 
 
 "Didn' you yourself send me back wid the nickel that 
 time to the grocery store when I brang it too much for 
 you ? By Mira to go and take is stealing ! I don' wanna 
 steal." 
 
 A slap in the face would have been easier to bear. 
 Sarah took a hasty step forward, raised her fist and 
 slowly, taking a breath after each word, shouted at the 
 cowering child : 
 
 "All black years on your head, you ungrateful worm, 
 you ! I slave for you to keep you home. To the Gerry 
 Society I ought to send you, all of you, where others 
 send their children. All of you I ought to send there. 
 Instead I slave for you and fight with everybody to keep 
 you together, and now you stand before me, small as you 
 are, and call me a thief!" The passionate outburst was 
 so out of keeping with what the child's diffident refusal 
 merited that even Sarah realized it as soon as the 
 words were out of her mouth. True to human nature, 
 she had sought self-defense in the exaggeration of the 
 offense.
 
 i8o SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Minnie, petrified but not crushed, sobbed as she cried : 
 
 "Why don' you send Jacob, or Ida 'stead a me ?" 
 
 Here Ida entered. She stood at the door a moment 
 rubbing her nose with the cuff of her dress; her face 
 was blue and pinched with the cold. 
 
 "Wots a madder, ma?" she asked. 
 
 "Go away !" Sarah shouted. The child staggered back. 
 
 Sarah flung out of the room into the bedroom and 
 threw herself upon the bed. But her pounding heart 
 made a recumbent position impossible. She jumped up 
 again and returned to the room-of-all-affairs, where 
 Minnie, crouching in a corner, was silently weeping. Ida, 
 seated on the lounge, sprang to her feet at sight of her 
 angry mother. 
 
 "Your sister," Sarah cried to Ida, "is a whole honest 
 lady. Maybe, my younger daughter, you are such a lady, 
 too?" Her tone carried bitter sarcasm. Taking a deep 
 breath and coming close to Ida, she began emphatically : 
 "Now, Ida " And she repeated her demand. 
 
 For the very life of her Ida could not understand why 
 sucE a fuss had been made over such a little thing. 
 
 "Sure I'll go. Sh'll I go now? I'll take Bubbele along, 
 hah?" 
 
 "All right," said Sarah, with averted eyes. Sarah 
 never forgot that scene with Minnie. 
 
 Ida left and in half an hour returned, bringing the 
 Mendels' future in her little hand. 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 For three days Sarah and Minnie were not on speak- 
 ing terms. The evening of the third day they happened 
 to be left alone together in the home. Minnie was busily
 
 THE CELLAR 181 
 
 engaged in her studies; Sarah was struggling to edge 
 pieces of black buckram with black wire. Suddenly her 
 needle snapped, and the broken point pierced under her 
 fingernail. She shrieked with the pain. Minnie, terri- 
 fied, jumped up and rushed to her. "Mama!" she 
 
 cried, "oh, mama, mama " Her little face was drawn 
 
 with compassion as she watched Sarah extricate the 
 point. "It hurts you so," the child cooed tenderly. 
 "Suck the blood away wid your mouth." She gazed up 
 at her mother, the deepest solicitude in her lovely gray 
 eyes, the gentlest love in her heart. Sarah gave no sigh 
 of appreciation. 
 
 Settled again at her work, Minnie timidly called to her 
 mother from the sink, to which she had gone to wash 
 away blood stains : 
 "Ma, kin I help you ?" 
 
 "Help!" shouted Sarah angrily, adding, as if her de- 
 cision were the result of deliberation : "You will all help. 
 Your easy days are over, the days when your mother 
 alone will slave. You are orphans. You must help." 
 She dropped her eyes. "You stand back and call your 
 mother a thief !" she concluded. 
 
 It was not Sarah, but Sarah's tongue, which spoke. 
 How much more complex were her feelings ; and how dif- 
 ferent was the language of her storm-tossed heart ! 
 
 Minnie came closer to her mother and nestled against 
 her unfriendly body. 
 
 "Ma, I didn' call you a thief ; only Miss Lacey always 
 says, too, we should always be honest." 
 
 "You always have some excuse to take you away from 
 your mother and your sisters and brother. First it was 
 Abie, now it is Miss Lacey Cracey Macey in that gen- 
 tile charity " Sarah's eyes gleamed with so strange
 
 1 82 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 a light that Minnie moved away from her and presently 
 went downstairs. Standing at the front door of the tene- 
 ment, her thoughts wandered back to Henry Street and 
 Abie. Where was he? The days of Henry Street 
 seemed so long ago ! Her "papa" sailed before her tear- 
 ful vision. She stood bent and wrinkled a little old 
 woman of eight. 
 
 Sarah, left alone, applied herself even more zealously 
 to her sewing. Several things accounted for her bitter 
 mood. She had been reprimanded by the ever-scolding 
 Miss Greenberg; Miss Kranz had passed her in the hall 
 without greeting her ; upon that had followed the strain of 
 finding shops where buckram and wire could be bought, 
 and the wearisomeness of learning to make the bands 
 without instruction. Each difficulty brought fresh ter- 
 rors ; each fresh terror was fought with giant might. She 
 
 was a quivering mass of raw nerves. 
 
 ****** 
 
 In a week Sarah began to solicit trade. She plodded 
 from one millinery shop to another from Grand Street 
 to Division Street, from Division to Delancey. She so- 
 licited from every shop regardless of whether it had al- 
 ready disposed of its custom or not, offering prices more 
 attractive than others, and, where she was denied, plead- 
 ing: "I am a widow with four children and I must sup- 
 port them." Within a month she acquired a fair clientele. 
 The children were ordered to put their shoulders to the 
 wheel. It became a busy household. 
 
 Mornings Sarah continued to work at the Charities, 
 since the bird in the hand could not be lightly tossed 
 aside, and she planned to remain one more week so as 
 to assure a safe margin, then she would throw up the 
 work and also refuse to take alms.
 
 THE CELLAR 183 
 
 Before the week was up, however, a contretemps oc- 
 curred to upset her arrangements. Mira, informed by 
 one of Sarah's dissatisfied customers that Sarah had be- 
 come her competitor, betook herself to the Mendel home 
 early one morning and told Sarah for the second time in 
 the course of their friendship just what she thought of 
 her. And this time Mira did not forgive until the day 
 of Sarah's funeral. The scene wholly unnerved Sarah. 
 At the Charities work-room she was almost too unstrung 
 to bear Miss Greenberg's bad humor and fault-finding. 
 The climax came when Miss Kranz summoned her at 
 closing time and announced that the Charities would 
 withdraw their payment of her rent. The Charities had 
 "smelt a rat" in Sarah's continued satisfaction with the 
 pittance allowed her for her labors in the work-room, 
 which, they knew, was insufficient for the full support 
 of her family. As she did not cry out from the pinch of 
 the small shoes, they concluded that she had an unac- 
 knowledged source of income. Miss Kranz, as she voiced 
 her suspicion, observed Sarah's reaction as intently as if 
 she were putting her through the Third Degree. Sarah 
 was uninformed in the ways of the grafter, else she 
 might have taken the precaution to avert this suspicion. 
 She stared at Miss Kranz, her soul outraged and indig- 
 nant, her body quivering from head to toe. Finally she 
 took the plunge she had been longing to take all the 
 months, safe margin or no safe margin. 
 
 "You nothing you " she cried, "you independent 
 
 nobody you who would die of fright at the remotest 
 prospect of enduring my hardships and suffering you 
 dare to stand there brazenly accusing me of swindling 
 you for your dirty alms? Why, my fingers and heart 
 burned at the very touch of it I prayed for death to be
 
 T84 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 spared the humiliation You little, empty crea- 
 ture. . . . And that shrunken, dried-out Miss Greenberg 
 is one of a pair with you. At home we would not have 
 had you for our servants." 
 
 Poor Sarah ! In her outrage she grossly exaggerated 
 the weaknesses of these people. She did not realize that 
 they, as much as she, were the victims of an all-too- 
 sorry system. 
 
 For years afterward, when Charity officials needed to 
 cite a case of ingratitude (had they not rescued the 
 woman from the very gutter?), Case No. 31100 was pro- 
 duced. 
 
 Sarah, for her part, flung the Charities far, far from 
 her, and from that day concentrated on the bands busi- 
 ness with the fierce determination with which men and 
 animals fight in a life-and-death struggle.
 
 PART III 
 BANDS
 
 PART III 
 BANDS 
 
 Were not money restricted to its particular kind of 
 speech, a certain one thousand dollars lying deposited in 
 the Bowery Bank of New York City might have told an 
 interesting tale of what it had done to disrupt a family 
 of a mother and four children. But money is in honor 
 bound to speak for and not against a family. 
 
 With the avarice of one whose soul has too long been 
 starved of its needs, Sarah took to the making of money. 
 As the first deposit of one hundred dollars in the bank 
 was swelled by a second hundred dollars and this by a 
 third, she was spurred on to lash herself and her chil- 
 dren into ever greater activity in the bands' business. 
 
 Cutting, wiring, counting, packing, and selling filled the 
 days. On no pretext was a child exempt from the daily 
 duty assigned to it. Sarah stood over her offspring em- 
 ployees with an insistence verging on mania. If a child 
 said it was ill, Sarah sensed pretense ; in the claim that 
 school lessons must be studied she saw only an attempt 
 to shirk. The bands had to be manufactured above all. 
 
 "Do you want to go back to Henry Street? Do you 
 want to be thrown out even of a cellar? Do you want 
 to go to the Charities? Another time you will go. I 
 have done enough for you." So she would shout down 
 their other interests. Her vulgarity and aggressiveness 
 cowed them into capitulation. 
 
 Five years had passed since Ida appropriated Mira's 
 
 187
 
 1 88 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 sample. The family now occupied a five-room flat on 
 Third Street, the East Side's Up Town of those days. 
 The largest bedroom had been converted into a work- 
 shop. At one end mouldy, dusty buckram was piled to 
 the ceiling, buckram that Sarah had purchased at a bar- 
 gain from a small dealer for a sum far below what the 
 regular buckram dealers charged, and as it served her 
 purpose she took much pride in the discovery. "It would 
 be mighty well for you," she often boasted to the chil- 
 dren, "if you took after your mother in resourcefulness." 
 The sill of the bespattered window in the room was 
 stacked with wire ; the floor was littered with pieces of 
 waste buckram, wire, thread, paper and rolling wads of 
 dust. Amid the chaos the children sat on homely wooden 
 chairs with their backs bent, their faces sweaty and be- 
 smirched. Immediately after school, began the session 
 for work, and it continued far into the night. Saturdays, 
 Sundays, and holidays were distinguished by even longer 
 hours of toil. They cut, they sewed, they counted and 
 tied. At first they cut with inadequate shears and sewed 
 by hand; then Sarah invested in sharper shears and a 
 labor-saving machine. Though the children expected re- 
 lief from these innovations, none came, for Sarah in- 
 sisted on a greater output. 
 
 Indeed, soon they came to feel they had a "regular 
 boss," not a mother ; that their new and more spacious 
 abode was not a home but a "regular shop," Jacob, a 
 "regular operator," and the girls "regular shop girls." If 
 they complained when Sarah happened to be in a tender 
 mood she reasoned with them : "Kinderlech, money is an 
 indispensable crutch in this world; without it you walk 
 lame and everybody can come along and throw you over. 
 That costs blood. Oh, how they spill your blood! If
 
 BANDS 189 
 
 by sweating a little you can walk firm on two feet, isn't 
 it worth while? Come, don't be children. Listen to 
 reason." 
 
 XL 
 
 Sarah's patrons included a Mrs. Tannenbaum, who 
 was well acquainted with the millinery trade. Sympa- 
 thizing with Sarah in her valiant struggle, she kept her 
 informed of Mira's doings, of advance fashions, of new 
 competitors, in fact, of all happenings in the small hat- 
 dealers' world. 
 
 "There is a new man in the feather end come in from 
 Chicago," she announced one day. 
 
 Sarah received the news with lukewarm interest. Her 
 own specialty could not be affected by the intruder. 
 Later in their talk Mrs. Tannenbaum referred to the 
 man as a Mr. Pollack. Sarah startled, remained silent 
 a perceptible moment, then asked for his first name. 
 
 "Leopold." 
 
 Could it possibly be Leopold Pollack of Memel, the 
 tall, thin, sensitive Leopold Pollack of her girlhood, her 
 free-thinker lover? The question dived through her 
 heart like a swallow, in its downward sweep casting aside 
 all of the sordid past that stood between them, and in its 
 upward flight raising a full realization of a personal life 
 closed and done with forever. A lump rose in Sarah's 
 throat. She dropped her eyes, and sighed. 
 
 But how could Leopold Pollack have been in America 
 long enough to go into business without her knowing it? 
 To Sarah, business followed only upon a long preliminary 
 struggle. Mrs. Tannenbaum's description of Leopold 
 Pollack, however, agreed, on the whole, with the appear-
 
 190 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 ance of the man she knew ; and she was inclined rather 
 to believe it was he. 
 
 "I knew him when I was a girl," she finally remarked, 
 to explain her interest. 
 
 "You knew him when you were a girl? Wouldn't it 
 be a joke if it were really he? And how funny I men- 
 tioned him!" Mrs. Tannenbaum chuckled. "It's some- 
 times the queerest thing how life works." She was 
 keenly interested in the possible development of the ro- 
 mantic episode. 
 
 Sarah, for days, went about her work abstractedly, 
 living over again scenes of her girlhood. She was listen- 
 ing to Leopold preaching atheism to her as they walked 
 together in the woods, and anon he was kissing her, prais- 
 ing her gray eyes. 
 
 She would wrench herself away from these memories, 
 angry with herself for her sentimentality, and force her 
 mind to work in its usual way, in the way that took only 
 the children into account, their education which was to 
 insure them against economic stress such as she had 
 known and make them what she had not been able to be. 
 As for her own life, it was to be over with when these 
 duties were accomplished. Her lot was to work up the 
 business for the children's sake. But mixed with her 
 thoughts was a vague disapprobation of the scheme of 
 things, by which personal happiness, personal satisfac- 
 tion in living were made impossible. She would compare 
 her life to a desert a stretch of nothingness, barren of 
 all joyousness, desolate, except for a burning passion for 
 the mountain heights of attainment. 
 
 In the meantime her millinery friend was working be- 
 hind the scenes. 
 
 As Sarah stepped into Mrs. Tannenbaum's store one
 
 BANDS 191 
 
 day, she came face to face with Leopold. The world lost 
 its reality and for a moment Sarah was bereft of her fac- 
 ulties. Her bag fell to the floor from her limp hand ; she 
 entwined her fingers as in prayer ; tears gushed to her 
 eyes. 
 
 "Leopold !" It was like a cry out of the dark. 
 
 A moment of profound silence, then the man, who had 
 perceptibly aged and grown thinner, stepped forward, 
 his sensitive lips quivering as he took Sarah into his 
 arms. 
 
 "Sarah ! For God's sake, Sarah !" 
 
 Eagerly they interrogated each other. When had he 
 come to America? How was it he had not let her know 
 of his coming? Surely some mutual acquaintance would 
 have given him her address. How had he, too, hap- 
 pened to go into the millinery business? 
 
 Leopold satisfactorily answered all her questions. 
 
 When had she come to America? How had Elias 
 fared? Dead! Four children ? Had she had a struggle ? 
 
 Leopold Pollack had begun life equipped with ideals 
 which he had discarded in the shuffle. To the man who 
 does not start out on a smooth platform already pre- 
 pared for him, ideals may be a leaden encumbrance: 
 at least Leopold found them so. Six years before, he had 
 left Memel for South Africa where rich relatives had 
 taken him into their narrow environment, and to fit into 
 it he had been obliged to cramp his wings. Several years 
 of discontent resolved him to quit. He came to America, 
 where he tried his hand at customer-peddling, insurance, 
 and what not. Just now, through a friend's "lift," he 
 was endeavoring to set himself up if the feather busi- 
 ness. His ideals were now replaced by a warm cynicism 
 as to the greater advantages accruing the poor man in one
 
 192 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 land as against another land; to be poor, he was con- 
 vinced, was hell in the old country to be poor was hell 
 in the new country. 
 
 Sarah's feelings blended with his; her heart wanned 
 with a sense of kinship for him and with gratification at 
 the similarity in their development. 
 
 When they finally parted, Leopold walked away, feel- 
 ing strangely young again. His step was brisker, his 
 whole manner more alert. Sarah's eager interest in him, 
 which she felt too greatly to mask, had fed his vanity. 
 It had come like a fresh breeze in a sultry night, scatter- 
 ing the clouds of his cynicism. Sarah was not the girl 
 he loved years ago, nevertheless she was a comely 
 woman ; in fact, he found himself thinking she had im- 
 proved with the years. 
 
 She was, indeed, a very different Sarah from the Sarah 
 of the Charities work-room. In her well-made, tailored 
 suit she presented a fine full figure. Her neglected body 
 had received the physician's and dentist's care ; the former 
 had rid her of her vermiform appendix, and, by the lat- 
 ter's art, her cheeks were no longer sunken. She radiated 
 freshness and vivacity and might have been taken for a 
 woman of not more than thirty years. 
 
 As the incidents of the meeting revolved in Leopold's 
 mind, the love that had waned but had never been ex- 
 tinguished in his heart began to smoulder afresh. As he 
 recalled their youthful clandestine meetings, an old void, 
 which no other woman had ever filled, was pricked into 
 existence again. Sarah was a widow. Perhaps the dream 
 of his youth might still be realized. Who knew! Leo- 
 pold shrugged his shoulders. The thought, "She even has 
 a successful hat-bands' business," came to his mind and 
 was swiftly dismissed. He himelf had not been success-
 
 BANDS 193 
 
 ful ; he did not seem to be cut out for the sordid business 
 of buying and selling. He could not go about wearing 
 the salesman's ready-made smile, simulating affability, 
 dancing attendance on customers. He had not the trades- 
 man's nature, and being a man he could not, like Sarah, 
 adapt himself, the gift of adaptability being divinely 
 vested in women. 
 
 Ruminating thus upon his flaccid career, he drifted 
 into melancholy and regrets. Who could tell had life 
 not wrenched Sarah from him, how different it all might 
 have been! He sighed. In an effort to shake off his 
 oppressive feelings, he walked more rapidly, saying to 
 himself: 
 
 "Wednesday, Thursday, Friday three more days until 
 we see each other again." 
 
 XLI 
 
 "Mama said a hundred times you shouldn't give the 
 full gross," Ida insisted. 
 
 Minnie, drawing herself up, replied defiantly: 
 
 "I don't care what mama says. If I count I am going 
 to count a full gross for each package. She isn't going 
 to boss me about that. If you want to skin, go ahead." 
 
 "Listen to that disgusting thing. Calls mama a skin !" 
 
 Beckie (Bubbele of old) turned her head away from 
 the machine over which she sat bent. 
 
 "Oh, stop fighting. You make me sick," she called, and 
 busied herself again over the machine. 
 
 Minnie and Ida eyed each other like game-cocks. 
 Then, as if better thoughts had come, they went on count- 
 ing the bands. 
 
 Minnie's lips moved and articulated: "Hundred forty-
 
 194 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 three, hundred forty- four." She had counted the full 
 gross loud enough to be heard. "For spite," was Ida's 
 interpretation. Anger born of dislike swelled her heart. 
 The two girls were always at daggers' drawn. Ida, will- 
 ingly unscrupulous, felt she was carrying out her moth- 
 er's orders, while Minnie was exaggeratedly scrupulous 
 because she could not be otherwise. And Ida saw spite 
 in it, and the affectation of a "high-tone lady." She 
 dashed the batch of bands from Minnie's hands and sent 
 them scattering to the floor. The two confronted each 
 other belligerently. 
 
 At this juncture the door opened and Sarah entered. 
 She was returning from a long day's selling, tired and 
 hot and perspiring. With the quick perception that time 
 had cultivated, she noted that her daughters were quar- 
 reling. She sighed wearily. 
 
 "Mama," shrieked Ida, "I'm not going to work with 
 her any more." 
 
 Sarah asked no questions. Minnie's eyes scornfully 
 regarded her sister. 
 
 "Go on, tell!" she cried. "Maybe mama'll kill me." 
 Tears of impotence gathered in her eyes. As in child- 
 hood, Minnie was still singularly lacking in controversial 
 weapons of self-defense. Under attack her mind refused 
 to function, and speech failed her. But when she knew 
 she was right, she firmly, even if silently, held her ground. 
 Her part in the family quarrels rarely extended beyond 
 her refusal to carry out orders that were opposed to her 
 principles. Unable to say more and unwilling to lose 
 her self-control in their presence, she dropped the few 
 bands in her hands and left the room. 
 
 She walked into the parlor, the room that chiefly be- 
 spoke the Mendels' affluence, with its suite of green plush
 
 BANDS 195 
 
 furniture, long looking-glass, pink silk tidy over the man- 
 telpiece, green plush album, rose-patterned rug, stiff 
 Nottingham lace curtains, and crudely colored, hand- 
 painted portraits of Elias and Sarah's departed parents. 
 Flinging herself into a rocking-chair, Minnie indulged in 
 a brief shower of tears, then sat pondering on the sor- 
 didness of their family life and wondering why her 
 mother had not, as usual, reprimanded her. 
 
 The reason was that Sarah had keenly detected that 
 this was a quarrel about one of those points on which 
 Minnie was inflexible; she had long ago decided that 
 when it came to a question of real loyalty Minnie was 
 not to be depended upon; never would she give a 'short 
 count, never would she substitute the poorer grade of 
 buckram for the better. Sarah had often sighed re- 
 signedly as does a housewife who, finding one decayed 
 apple in her purchase of a quantity of otherwise excellent 
 fruit, concludes to accept the bargain and not to hold it 
 against the dealer. 
 
 This time, furthermore, feeling it was more expedient 
 to propitiate Minnie, she followed her to the front room. 
 
 "I bought you a waist." 
 
 Minnie turned to face her mother standing in the door. 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 Only that morning had Minnie complained that her 
 one waist was out at the elbows, and here her mother 
 had already bought her another waist! The girl, who 
 had not expected such prompt attention to her need, was 
 toucBed. 
 
 "Try it on." 
 
 While Minnie untied the parcel, Ida and Beckie saun- 
 tered in. A new garment for any member of the family, 
 even after a rumpus, was a matter of general interest.
 
 196 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Minnie went to the pier glass, took off the waist she was 
 wearing and put on the new one, of a dark red flannel 
 with straight up and down rows of black soutache trim- 
 ming ; exactly to Minnie's taste. She was about to fasten 
 it when Beckie stepped forward, raised Minnie's arm 
 and said: "It's damaged, I think." "It is," agreed Ida. 
 Sarah had bought the waist for twenty-nine cents ! From 
 the way she inspected it now one would have inferred 
 that the stain on the sleeve was a surprise to her. 
 
 "I can't wear it," said Minnie, quickly slipping it off. 
 She tossed it toward a chair, but it missed the mark and 
 fell to the floor. Sarah was enraged. Not only had she 
 failed to palm the waist off on Minnie, but she also de- 
 tected, she thought, scorn of her thrift. Snatching the 
 waist from the floor, she waved it as if to strike 
 Minnie. 
 
 "You ungrateful worm, you, it doesn't suit you?" 
 
 The retort came so quickly that Minnie, wholly un- 
 prepared, was frightened, all the more so when, glancing 
 into the looking-glass, she caught sight of her mother's 
 distorted face. Without replying, she picked up her old 
 waist and began to put it on. Her seeming unconcern 
 added to Sarah's fury. 
 
 "You unappreciative pig, you," she cried. "I walked 
 with blisters on my feet to get you a red waist, as you 
 said you wanted, and now when I bring it, you throw it 
 in my face." 
 
 This distorting of the fact, as well as the implication 
 that the waist was unearned, sent a wave of deep re- 
 sentment through Minnie and loosened her tongue for 
 the moment. 
 
 "Don't I work?" she exploded.
 
 BANDS 197 
 
 "Work! All great big lumps like you work. What 
 then a mother should support you? But do you ever 
 do more than you have to for the business, like the other 
 children?" Sarah stopped for want of breath; however, 
 her manner foretold there was more to come. "It will 
 soon all end," she added, stressing each word with a pe- 
 culiar intonation that struck all of them. Beckie, look- 
 ing up in surprise, asked : 
 
 "What do you mean ?" 
 
 "Never mind," said the mother, stalking out of the 
 room, "it will soon all end !" 
 
 "What do you think she means?" Beckie whispered to 
 Ida. Ida shrugged her shoulders. Minnie turned to the 
 glass to finish dressing. The two girls went back to the 
 work-room. 
 
 Minnie peered at her reflection. The glare of anger 
 lingered in her large gray eyes under which the dark rings 
 had deepened. She was paler than usual and looked 
 troubled and unhappy. A lump stuck in her throat. 
 
 "You're sick of this," she communed with her image 
 in the glass. "You'll give up high school and go to work 
 in an office. . . . Maybe you'll even make enough money 
 to give Jacob a little every week so he won't have to 
 take from her. . . . It's always the bank, the bank ! We 
 don't count. . . . Buys a fire-stained waist on Baxter 
 Street. All the girls at high school look nice. I should 
 look like a beggar ! . . . I don't do as much for the busi- 
 ness as the others because I don't cheat. They make me 
 sick."' 
 
 She dried her eyes, finished dressing, arranged her hair 
 a little more becomingly, then went into the adjoining 
 room.
 
 198 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 At that moment the door opened, and Jacob entered, 
 accompanied by another young man Abie Ratkin. 
 
 XLII 
 
 At the beginning of a new term in the College of the 
 City of New York, Jacob Mendel had several times dur- 
 ing roll-call wondered, half unwillingly, when he heard 
 Abraham Ratkin's name: "Can that be Abie Ratkin of 
 Henry Street?" And Abraham Ratkin had wondered 
 freely: "Can that be Minnie Mendel's brother?" Finally 
 Abraham decided to note carefully whose deep-voiced 
 "present" came in response to "Jacob Mendel." At the 
 end of the session he looked up his new classmate. Im- 
 mediately they recognized each other, and enjoyed a self- 
 conscious, yet wholesome laugh together. 
 
 "See you at the end of the classes," said Abraham. 
 
 "All right." 
 
 As they walked out of the college building that after- 
 noon Jacob asked Abraham to come home with him, as- 
 suring him the family would be glad to see him. Abra- 
 ham, curious about Minnie, and as it was not out of his 
 way to his own home, accepted. 
 
 "Well, I'll be jiggered!" cried Minnie, with a light 
 laugh. "If it isn't Abie Ratkin !" 
 
 Abraham .eddened and stood for a moment fascinated. 
 In contrast with the only women he knew, his plain, sober 
 mother and sisters, Minnie appeared like a baffling 
 enigma. This Minnie standing before him with her head 
 thrown gracefully back on a long white neck was not the 
 Minnie of Henry Street! Though Minnie had regular 
 features, her charm lay rather in some subtle, haunting 
 expression in her eyes, which were now alight with pleas-
 
 BANDS 199 
 
 ure. Unlike his mother's and sisters', her voice was low 
 and musical ; her manner soft and modest. 
 
 Hesitating only an instant, he approached and held out 
 his hand as he joined in her laughter with a self-con- 
 scious, broad smile. 
 
 "Ma ! Beck ! Ida !" Minnie called excitedly. "Guess 
 who's here! You'll never guess who's here." 
 
 The sudden amicable summons brought them quickly, 
 all agog. 
 
 "Nu, mem Gott, Abie Ratkin!" Sarah cried: the two 
 girls echoed her astonishment. 
 
 By a little coaxing he was prevailed upon to join 
 them in a feast of tea, cookies, and jam. 
 
 "What is the news with your family?" Sarah asked 
 with peculiar eagerness. 
 
 Abraham, still confused by the cordial reception and 
 the unexpected, insistent invitation, permitted himself a 
 moment in which to collect his thoughts. 
 
 "Well," he began, "let's see. My uncle, mama's 
 brother, has taken very good care of us all these years. 
 My sisters are both grown up and go to high school, and 
 I go to college." Here he coughed over a crumb in his 
 throat. Sarah, in constrained expectancy, awaited what 
 he had to say next. Had his mother married again? 
 That was what she wanted to know. The question of re- 
 marriage had been much in her mind of late. Leopold 
 Pollack was courting her ; and when the children seemed 
 to be impervious to her discipline, marriage to Leopold 
 held a promise of the best solution. It was this refuge 
 she had had in mind when an hour earlier she had cried : 
 "It will soon all end." The children, she felt at trying 
 times, needed a man's discipline; she herself must be re- 
 lieved ; sewing, selling, managing all the details of a
 
 200 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 home and a business were too much for one woman ; 
 and Leopold was right when he urged these con- 
 siderations upon her. His persuasive powers were 
 bringing her closer and closer to yielding. She even de- 
 luded herself into the belief that it was chiefly these con- 
 siderations which were influencing her decision and not 
 her heart's desire. Leopold that very day had been most 
 persistent in his suit. 
 
 "So your mother never married again?" asked Sarah, 
 looking away as if she intended that he alone should hear 
 her question. 
 
 Abraham had a boy's pride in his mother. She had 
 adapted herself gracefully to well-being, managed a ser- 
 vant with dignity, ran an orderly, comfortable home, and 
 dressed in good style. 
 
 "Oh, no," he said, "why should she marry again ? She 
 is happy just with us. You ought to see her. She looks 
 fine." 
 
 The boy, Sarah thought jealously, spoke with more 
 enthusiasm of his mother than her children did of her, 
 although she had slaved ten times harder for them. 
 Small wonder that Abie's mother was happy. Perhaps 
 had she had to manage all these years on her own ca- 
 pacity for work, she would not have found it so easy to 
 remain without the protection of a man. But, as always 
 when Sarah tried to argue herself into justifying her 
 marriage with Leopold, another and a finer impulse held 
 her back fear that harm might result for her children. 
 
 As the girls conversed with Abraham, she listened ab- 
 stractedly ; her mind drifting to gray pictures of the time 
 when the girls would be grown and have beaux, and 
 Jacob would have his sweetheart. The business would 
 then devolve even more heavily upon her; and later,
 
 BANDS 201 
 
 when they would leave to establish homes of their own. 
 she would be lonely left alone that would be her re- 
 ward. 
 
 "A penny for your thoughts," Abraham laughingly 
 called to her, with a shy glance at Minnie for her ap- 
 proval of his jocularity. 
 
 Sarah dropped her eyes. It was as though Abie's 
 mother with her old critical attitude were sitting there 
 prying into her heart. "She would be ready to spit 
 upon me as a wicked woman," passed through Sarah's 
 mind. She felt ashamed, and selfish. In an impulsive 
 desire to redeem herself, she coaxed Minnie, as if no 
 altercation had occurred between them, to eat more cook- 
 ies and put more milk in her tea. The blue rings under 
 her daughter's eyes cut the mother to the heart. 
 
 "How do you think my girls look?" she asked Abra- 
 ham with assumed gaiety. 
 
 Abraham laughingly proclaimed them all "beauties." 
 
 Beckie was a really lovely little girl, with shining blue 
 eyes and curving baby lips that seemed always to say 
 "kiss me, come kiss me." Ida, though the stamp of ill- 
 nature was impressed on her face, had a curious 
 piquancy. Her greatest beauty was her wealth of golden 
 hair. Sarah, who knew her children were not cast in 
 the ordinary mould, enjoyed an unspoken pride in 
 them. 
 
 "But you," said Abraham, "you are so much better- 
 looking. I would never have known you." 
 
 Sarah flushed; she made no reply. She was pleased; 
 but at the same time she was hurt that her own children 
 had never remarked on her improved appearance. Leo- 
 pold had complimented her many times. If only her 
 children were a little proud, a little fond of their mother,
 
 202 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 she might find greater joy in living for them alone. She 
 drew a deep sigh. 
 
 Soon Abraham rose to leave. Shaking hands with 
 Minnie, he asked, with awkward facetiousness, if she 
 wished to be called Miss Mendel or Mildred. She pre- 
 ferred plain Minnie. They laughed, while their young 
 hearts fluttered with the self -consciousness of adoles- 
 cence. 
 
 "Never would I have thought he would grow into such 
 a nice young man," commented Sarah when Abraham 
 had gone. But for the timorous, self-depreciative mood 
 into which the visitor from the past had cast her, she 
 would have told her son that he ought to speak as ap- 
 preciatingly of her as Abraham had spoken of his mother. 
 
 XLIII 
 
 This visit was followed by others, but never again did 
 Abraham find the family ready to entertain him at the 
 tea-table. They remained in the work-room, harassed, 
 quarreling. After the first two or three visits formality 
 was discarded ; he became again the Abie of Henry Street, 
 in whose presence it was not necessary even to keep the 
 current of irritation under cover. Remembering their 
 quarrelsomeness of the old days, Abraham marveled that 
 they had not yet outgrown it. With the exception of 
 Minnie who, though she often raised her voice above the 
 others, seemed to be just, they all annoyed him. And 
 Minnie, he felt, ought not to be argumentative. It would 
 have pleased him far better had she held herself in dig- 
 nified silence. But he never could muster sufficient cour- 
 age to tell her so. 
 
 After a time he resented his interest in the Mendel s.
 
 BANDS 203 
 
 When he should have been concentrating on his studies, 
 he found himself drifting off to thoughts of them; he 
 would chide himself for bothering about other people's 
 affairs. Yet he continued to call. 
 
 One Saturday, as he passed by their home, he casually 
 dropped in. His knock at the door was answered by 
 Minnie, who was at home alone. She had been lying 
 on the lounge reading Silas Marner, so absorbed and 
 rapt that she had to bring herself back as from another 
 world, and was still dazed when she faced him at the 
 door, and stared unknowingly. Then, in slight embar- 
 rassment, putting her hands up to her tumbling hair, she 
 smiled and asked him in. Abraham, who swiftly took in 
 that no one else was at home, said he wouldn't stay. "Ah, 
 do," pleaded Minnie. 
 
 "I've been reading Silas Marner," she said, after 
 they were seated, "and I was so absorbed I felt all con- 
 fused when the bell rang." 
 
 He smiled pleased approval of her reading. 
 
 "Have you read Silas Marner, too?" 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 "Did you like it?" 
 
 "It is one of the purest gems of fiction." 
 
 Though Minnie did not quite grasp the meaning of his 
 pedantic reply, she was happy nevertheless to have some- 
 one to talk to about things other than hat-bands about 
 something that really interested her. She plied him with 
 a multitude of questions. 
 
 Whom did he like best, George Eliot, Dickens or 
 Thackeray? What reading was required at college? 
 Here she sighed. Would she ever find time to read so 
 much? Did Latin become easier or harder as you went 
 on ? She was just beginning Caesar ; it was terribly hard.
 
 204 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 It would come easier? That was good. Did one ever 
 learn to read Latin as easily as English? What course 
 was he taking? Science? What did he expect to be- 
 come? A teacher! Minnie looked at him, half smiling, 
 and meeting an answering smile, wondered whether he 
 remembered her childish proviso. She couldn't tell. She 
 dropped her eyes. 
 
 All her further questions concerned his personal expe- 
 riences and ambitions. She received his confidences with 
 the absorption of one drinking from a fount of wisdom ; 
 and the subtle flattery of her manner gave him extreme 
 pleasure. His heart swelled with pride and he flushed. 
 
 That evening he found it impossible to concentrate on 
 his studies. Pictures of Minnie blotted out the printed 
 page. The quiet and the Sabbath cleanliness of the home 
 had added an impressiveness to her personality. Her 
 girlhood somehow seemed to have been vivified. She dis- 
 turbed his peace of mind. For days he went about pen- 
 sive, silent, struggling. Finally, one night, after an ear- 
 nest debate with himself, the student won out. His 
 marks would suffer from such distractions he would 
 never, never see Minnie again. 
 
 Abie's renewal of friendship with the Mendels had 
 caused Mrs. Ratkin many a restless night upon her hair 
 mattress. Such things had been known to happen child- 
 hood friends married. Abie ought to look higher. He 
 himself had told her the family still quarreled. How 
 profoundly she hoped it would not happen ! It would be 
 such a come-down Henry Street all over again. When 
 Abraham seemed to have stopped calling she felt like 
 one reborn. But she would make quite certain and she 
 would know the reason why as well. 
 
 "They are very nice children," (she had visited them
 
 BANDS 205 
 
 once) "why don't you go?" she asked, cleverly hitting 
 upon the one ruse that was sure to draw her son out. 
 She watched him closely. He dropped his eyes. 
 
 "I don't like them, they quarrel," he said with a surge 
 of irritation, eager to evade talk on the subject. 
 
 Mrs. Ratkin was grateful and happy. It is ever thus 
 with the mothers of men when the Minnies begin their 
 
 shadow-dance. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Minnie, busy with her lessons and the bands, gave no 
 serious thought to Abraham's sudden neglect. But the 
 others made conjectures. 
 
 "Did you ask him again ?" they inquired of Jacob. 
 
 Yes, he had, but Abraham had so persistently refused 
 that he had ceased to ask him. 
 
 "It's because every time he came there was a fight,". 
 Beckie was sure. One blamed the other. 
 
 To Sarah the end of Abraham's visits marked the end 
 of a period of self-torture. He had seemed to point a 
 steady finger of warning. When Mrs. Ratkin had come 
 to pay her single visit, Sarah was roused to such a vivid 
 consciousness of the torrent of nasty criticism that would 
 flow round her were she to defy the conventions set for 
 respectable motherhood that she cast aside the thought 
 of remarriage, yet held on, as it were, by one finger. 
 Then, when weeks passed with no reminder from the 
 outside world to dog her, she once more breathed 
 freely. 
 
 XLIV 
 
 "You are!" cried Minnie, in whose heart and memory 
 her father lived ever sacred. 
 
 The mother faced her children, pale and quivering,
 
 206 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 yet with an outward show of self-confidence and dignity. 
 Sfie had just informed them that she would soon bring 
 the regular visitor, upon whom they had looked as only 
 "mama's friend from Europe," to take their father's 
 place in the home. 
 
 Jacob, at once, saw a home full of "new" children. 
 He shuddered, turned color, rose from his chair, threw 
 his mother an inquiring glance as if unable to compre- 
 hend her boldness, and scampered out of the house. He 
 hated to confront complications, he hated controversies, 
 he hated neighbors. 
 
 Sarah refrained from evincing resentment. Her heart 
 demanded that her children kiss her, congratulate her, 
 be glad that she might at last get her measure of happi- 
 ness. But in a minor key her heart also cried : "They 
 are only children, they do not understand anything ex- 
 cept what concerns themselves. 
 
 "Yes, children," she said, in a low, unsteady voice, re- 
 peating what she had rehearsed over and over again, "I 
 am a woman, alone. I have worked hard for you. I 
 am getting older. You are getting older. You will go 
 your own way soon. I will be left alone. When you 
 reach my age, you will understand." Feeling self-control 
 slipping from her, she swallowed hard. "I have known 
 Leopold Pollack from girlhood long before I knew your 
 father. He will be good to you treat you as his own 
 children if you will only be good stop quarreling and 
 willingly help with the bands." She gave way and broke 
 into tears. 
 
 As Minnie hesitated between the impulse to run to her 
 mother and the impulse to run out of the house, her eyes 
 lighted upon her father's portrait. Her mother stood
 
 BANDS 207 
 
 before her a disloyal woman, unsacred. She rushed to 
 the door and out of the house. 
 
 Beckie and Ida, troubled by the cloud which had so 
 unexpectedly descended upon them, silently gazed out of 
 the window. 
 
 Sarah left, and toward evening returned with Leo- 
 pold. The hours traveled into the night, yet Leopold re- 
 mained. The children met in corners, in the hall, on the 
 stairs. They whispered, wondered, marvelled. They 
 looked furtively at their mother, believing they must dis- 
 cover something strange, something they had never seen 
 in her before. Apparently she was the same, except that 
 her eyes darted nervously now from the children to Leo- 
 pold, now from Leopold to them. 
 
 At last Leopold called them to him. Speaking gently, 
 he promised that their interest would be his concern ; he 
 would be their father. Tears were in his eyes as he 
 asked them to accept him. 
 
 A solemn silence fell. The atmosphere held the grav- 
 ity of gathering clouds. Sarah, and then the girls, began 
 
 to weep. Jacob walked out of the room. 
 
 ****** 
 
 It was not Leopold Pollack's intention to install him- 
 self as the domineering autocrat in the Mendel home. 
 On the contrary, he wanted to be a real father to the 
 chllHren. They had been allowed to grow up like weeds, 
 it was his opinion, and for their own good as well as the 
 good of the household and the business he meant to 
 teach them to be orderly, obedient, willing and well-be- 
 haved. 
 
 Leopold, as most people who do not understand chil- 
 dren, forgot that his meditated improvements would have 
 to be effected through the medium of young living mat-
 
 208 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 ter. As soon as the early self -consciousness wore off, he 
 rolled up his shirt sleeves and launched upon his task of 
 reconstruction. 
 
 The children instantly sensed innovation and ruffled 
 up their feathers. 
 
 The work-room window was filthy, he remarked, re- 
 moving the wire from the sill and glancing from one to 
 the other, to gather which of the three children was the 
 most docile. Fixing upon little Beckie, he asked her 
 courteously to bring a pail of water, a clean cloth and 
 seat herself on the sill, pull the window to her lap and 
 wash the outside of the glass. Beckie gave her "big" 
 sister Minnie a swift look of appeal. The little ten-year- 
 old had never before been called upon to clean windows. 
 She was, if anything, small for her age; her feet, when 
 she sat out, would reach only a little below the sill. 
 
 Minnie flushed, dropped her eyes and told Leopold 
 there was danger in Beckie's sitting out, she herself would 
 wash the window. Leopold tried to conceal his annoy- 
 ance at this interference. Nonsense, Beckie was not too 
 small ; Minnie would see that Beckie could do it ; he would 
 hold on to her skirt from the inside; it was well for 
 Beckie to learn to clean windows; some day she would 
 be a married lady. Beckie smiled. Minnie frowned. 
 Married lady ! Beckie was still a baby. Minnie had al- 
 ways encouraged the child to depend upon her for a moth- 
 er's care, because their mother was always busy. She 
 turned her back on Leopold while Beckie fetched the 
 pail of water and cloth and sat out to wash the window. 
 Contrary to his promise, Leopold did not hold on to her 
 skirt. Minnie waited a moment or two, then rose from 
 counting 'bands, went over to Beckie and stood clutching 
 her. When the task was done, the child looked heated
 
 BANDS 209 
 
 and tired. Minnie herself washed the inside of the win- 
 dow. Leopold was exasperated, though he said nothing. 
 He conceived a slight dislike for Minnie. Out of his 
 pent-up feelings burst a brusque order to Beckie to settle 
 herself at sewing. The child started and turned hastily 
 to obey. Minnie's color heightened with a pang of pity 
 for Beckie and resentment against the stepfather. This 
 man, she meditated, evidently expected to "carry on" 
 that way always. Her spirit rose in revolt. She would 
 see to it that he dropped his "bossing." 
 
 Minor irritations arose constantly. Minnie's mutinous 
 spirit found almost daily fuel to feed on, while the two 
 younger children became more and more intimidated and 
 were kept in a constant nervous tremor. It got so that 
 Minnie bore a positive antipathy toward this man who 
 dared to order them around ; she hated his "matter-of- 
 fact" way ; his obliviousness of Beckie's youth riled her. 
 He had "nerve" to exact a definite output from Beckie! 
 Anything Beckie accomplished was commendable. If 
 their mama insisted, that was different. But he! Why, 
 Beckie was a kid a baby. Anyway, what had he to 
 say ? He was not a boss ! It was their mama's business. 
 They had worked the business up without him. He ought 
 to "mind his own affairs." 
 
 On complaining to her mother, Minnie was vastly as- 
 tonished that Sarah defended the man. Her mother 
 must be going crazy. 
 
 Minnie solicited sympathetic indignation from Jacob. 
 But Jacob, who was too busy with his college work to be 
 intimately concerned with these work-room squabbles, re- 
 ceived her confidences at first in silence, then with pro- 
 tests that she was to "let him alone." In his secret heart, 
 however, the boy resented both Leopold and his mother.
 
 210 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 How had his mother dared to marry now when her chil- 
 dren were all grown up ! Ugh ! 
 
 As time passed Leopold assumed the more familiar 
 right to improve the girls' manners as well. They must 
 lower their voices, be civil to each other. Beckie and 
 Ida submitted, retreating to corners, from which they 
 emerged red-eyed and whispering fretfully, but stopping 
 short if ever there was danger of Leopold's overhear- 
 ing. 
 
 "Why don't you talk?" Of what are you afraid?" 
 Minnie would shout to rouse a spirit of defiance in them. 
 She could have kicked Leopold, spat on him, dug her 
 nails into him. Her whole nature, apparently, was chang- 
 ing from timidity to aggressiveness. 
 
 Sarah made mute appeals to Minnie to control herself, 
 while she turned pleading eyes on Leopold. When Leo- 
 pold was out of hearing, she would order Minnie to learn 
 to hold her tongue ; when the children were out of hear- 
 ing, she would implore Leopold to change his tactics. 
 Each resisted. Indeed Minnie would not let him boss 
 them, she wouldn't. She hated him. Leopold, in turn, 
 gave Sarah a bitter dose to swallow by telling her she 
 had raised wild animals; small wonder he was having 
 the devil's own time of it. If the dose failed in its cura- 
 tive effect, he would charge her with abetting the chil- 
 dren into defying him, and hinted that under such cir- 
 cumstances there was no use for him to try any longer 
 to bring order out of the chaos; he might as well quit. 
 That would throw poor Sarah into a panic. If Leopold 
 were to desert her she would be exposed to public ridi- 
 cule to unendurable shame. The thought would bring 
 the goose-flesh to her skin; and in this state she would 
 pounce on Minnie, abusively insist upon her behaving
 
 BANDS 2ii 
 
 properly, threaten that her step-father "would throw her 
 out of the house," and declare he would be justified in 
 doing so ; while at the same time her heart would writhe 
 in agony as she watched the pallor spread over her 
 daughter's face and heard her unnaturally shrill shrieks. 
 Her mother, Minnie would charge, cared nothing about 
 the children. She, in a conspiracy with "that man," 
 wanted to drive them all out of the house. Leopold was a 
 lazy fellow who had come to "sponge" on them because he 
 could not make a living for himself. She would rather die 
 than permit him to overwork little Beckie or frighten the 
 life out of Ida, who trembled when she heard his foot- 
 steps. If she, their mother, did not care, she, their sister, 
 did. 
 
 At these charges against her motherhood, Sarah's blood 
 would boil. Minnie, she would shout in a rage, was a 
 wild, wild animal took the liberties of a brazen hussy 
 belonged by rights to the sort of mother who sent her 
 children out to work in sweat-shops to support their 
 mother. Minnie didn't deserve a mother who slaved to 
 let her go to high school. . . . Then the unbearable sight 
 of her daughter's greenish pallor would drive Sarah out 
 of the room, apparently hissing anger, while Minnie 
 would hurl after her : "I don't have to work in a shop ; 
 I know how to read and write, and I'm not dumb or dull. 
 If you think you're threatening me, you can be sure 
 you're not; this house is a regular hell." 
 
 During one such quarrel Minnie went into hysterics. 
 Sarah, terrified, ran to her, implored her to control her- 
 self. Minnie, from actual aversion, pushed her away, 
 shrieking that she should go to "that man" ; her feelings 
 for her children were not genuine. 
 
 For some time thereafter mother and daughter scarcely
 
 212 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 exchanged a word. Minnie went about constantly watch- 
 ing for any show of "meanness," and Sarah brooded mis- 
 erably. Then came a big order for bands. 
 
 ****** 
 
 The work-room hummed with activity. Beckie had 
 been running the machine until her back ached. In 
 choosing her last batch of bands, she deliberately dis- 
 criminated against those which were cut from the poor 
 grade of buckram because they had "lumps" and "bumps" 
 and were hard to sew. Leopold, noticing her selection, 
 snatched them away from her and demanded roughly: 
 "Don't you know we must use up the damaged buck- 
 ram?" Beckie threw Minnie a swift, imploring look. 
 "I won't let her do it !" burst upon Minnie's mind. Her 
 heart began to hammer. She seized the bands Leopold 
 had substituted and handed the better ones back to 
 Beckie. Her chest heaving, she stood defying Leopold 
 and her mother with her eyes. Sarah frowned menac- 
 ingly. Beckie, frightened, put down the better bands 
 and picked up the others which Minnie, in turn, tore 
 away from her, ready to hurl an insult at her sister, 
 when she observed the child's pallor and the alarm in 
 her eyes. Poor little Beckie! She was scared! For a 
 moment Minnie was held by a surge of pity. Then it 
 occurred to her that they were all scared that Jacob 
 was a shirker, always dodging issues. 
 
 "Beckie!" she cried threateningly, and tried to force 
 the better bands upon her. 
 
 Sarah stepped hastily forward, snatched the bands 
 away from Minnie and cried in a low voice : 
 
 "You are a busybody an ungrateful, unwilling child. 
 You don't appreciate your uncle who does his best for 
 you."
 
 BANDS 213 
 
 "Sit down and work!" Leopold shouted at Beckie si- 
 multaneously. 
 
 His shout sent a spasm of resentment through the 
 mother's heart, yet she turned to Minnie and cried with 
 equal roughness: "You sit down, too!" 
 
 "I won't!" Minnie shrieked, on the verge of hysterics, 
 her heart thumping. She could have strangled both her 
 mother and Leopold. "And I won't let Beckie hurt her 
 hands either." She tore the bands away from Beckie 
 again and, holding them up to Leopold, cried : "You're 
 a husky man, you work on these bands." And with that 
 she hurled them at him. 
 
 Leopold showed that the girl had gone too far. 
 
 Sarah, terrified, divided one swift look between the 
 two. Her heart cried in anguish : "God, what will be the 
 end of it all !" 
 
 "She ought to be thrown out of the house," raged 
 Leopold. "She ought to have to knock around in sweat- 
 shops like thousands of other girls !" 
 
 She work in a shop ! Minnie's heart flamed with con- 
 tempt and indignation. It was the ugliest, bitterest in- 
 sult. Only ignorant foreign girls worked in shops. She, 
 a high-school girl, who aspired to a college education, 
 whom Sarah herself had picked out to be a doctor, a law- 
 yer, she to work in a shop ! 
 
 "Shut up!" she hissed at Leopold. 
 
 He raised a hand to strike her, but dropped it, aghast, 
 suddenly realizing the extreme pass to which things had 
 come. He had never foreseen such dire consequences 
 from his innocent measures of reform. Sarah's ashen 
 face, as she stood in the middle of the room wringing her 
 hands, Minnie's shrill shouting, Beckie's tearfulness, 
 struck tragedy into his heart.
 
 2i 4 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Minnie shouted: "Don't you dare to " wildly in- 
 censed at his intention to strike her and almost more 
 wildly incensed that her mother stood by "complacently." 
 "I hate you ! You're a mean man. I hate you !" she 
 yelled. "I won't stay here any longer. You can stay 
 with your wife, and you can both work the children to 
 death like slaves to swell your bank account. That's 
 what you want. I hate you both of you !" 
 
 With a furious look, she grabbed up her hat and school 
 books and tore out of the house. 
 
 XLV 
 
 A dark, heavy silence fell upon Sarah and Leopold 
 when the door closed on Minnie. With a swift look at 
 each other, they turned and left the room, Sarah going 
 into the parlor where she collapsed in a chair, and Leo- 
 pold going into the bedroom where he stayed a few mo- 
 ments puttering around. Now and then he glanced sur- 
 reptitiously into the parlor at Sarah's dejected figure. 
 Soon he returned to the work-room. At the end of a 
 half-hour he could bear his restrained excitement no 
 longer; he picked up his hat and was about to go out. 
 
 "Where are you going?" called Sarah, starting up, full 
 of misgivings. 
 
 "Out," he said, avoiding her eyes. This announce- 
 ment of the obvious angered Sarah. She turned her head 
 away, flushed, and muttered under her breath : "Go ! A 11 
 of you !" 
 
 He went. 
 
 She sat down again and stared with unseeing eyes 
 through the window, while her mind went round in a 
 whirl. Such a daughter as she had brought up, such a
 
 BANDS 215 
 
 daughter! Let her go let her stay away! As if she 
 had any place to go to, as if she had the spunk to shift 
 for herself ! Was ever a mother so cursed with such a 
 stubborn, wilful child? Not even this would teach her 
 a lesson. She would come home still of the same obsti- 
 nate spirit. Forever they would continue these fights 
 these discouraging, these disgusting scenes as if they 
 were a low, Polish set. . . . Sarah heaved a deep 
 sigh. . . . What had she done to deserve such a fate? 
 In the great world other women married, too, but the 
 stepfathers and children got along, and the homes were 
 nice, quiet, pleasant. Never had she known peace not 
 as a wife not as a mother. "If only she would stay 
 away it would really be a solution." The thought, hardly 
 framed, filled Sarah with shame, like a virgin who has 
 allowed herself to think unchastely. 
 
 She rose and began to stir around the house, fol- 
 lowed by the shadow of her conflicting feelings. She 
 wondered where Leopold could have gone, when he 
 would return, and whether the two would come back at 
 the same time. "If Minnie," she thought, "would come 
 later or sooner, it would be better." Every now and 
 then a panicky feeling that, if Minnie did carry out her 
 threat, people would condemn her, call her a bad mother, 
 beset her heart ; but she lulled herself with the assurance 
 that the girl had no other refuge. . . . "Always it has 
 been Minnie. All the quarrels all the worry all the 
 ugliness of the family relationship from time immemorial 
 she caused. Always, even as a child, from the time 
 when I sent her to Mira for the band, she has stood out 
 obstinately opposed to everything I have done." Sarah's 
 heart was resentful, but her heart also ached for her 
 child.
 
 216 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 She looked at the clock. Leopold had been gone two 
 hours already. She was seized by a nervous fear that 
 he might not come back at all. 
 
 Supper preparations were completed. She set the 
 table, then went back to the parlor window. Ten min- 
 utes later Leopold opened the door. Little did he know 
 what relief stirred in Sarah's soul. 
 
 During supper no mention was made of Minnie, though 
 the eyes of each frequently traveled to the door. After 
 supper the family sat round in an unsettled state, and as 
 the evening wore on and no Minnie appeared, their eyes 
 mutely questioned one another; their faces fell into 
 troubled lines ; all listened eagerly for footsteps in the 
 hall. Leopold, unable to bear the sight of Sarah's 
 anguish, went to bed. 
 
 At ten o'clock Beckie and Ida followed his example. 
 Jacob sat up until midnight ostensibly studying. Then 
 he, too, retired. 
 
 Sarah began to pace up and down the room, wringing 
 her hands and muttering lamentations. At two o'clock in 
 the morning Leopold appeared on the threshold and 
 urged her to go to bed. 
 
 "Go away !" she cried. He went. 
 
 At the first break of dawn Sarah leaned out of the 
 front window. One moment she was frantic with con- 
 cern for Minnie, the next moment she was frantic against 
 Minnie. The chords of her heart played a double tune, 
 but she listened mostly to the mother-string. When her 
 family rose early in the morning, they found her worn 
 and wan, an object of misery. 
 
 Days passed, and still no Minnie. Sometimes, when 
 Sarah was overcome with fear that something awful 
 might have happened to her, she would entertain plans
 
 BANDS 217 
 
 for locating her going to the police station, or advertis- 
 ing in the newspaper. But dread of the publicity in- 
 volved in such steps would hold her back. In her di- 
 lemma she would resent the girl's conduct as outrageous, 
 unheard of, deserving of any evil reward and would pity 
 herself that she who had worked her fingers to callous 
 flesh and sweated and bled for her children, should be 
 treated so by her oldest daughter. In this frame of mind 
 she would grow quite indifferent to Minnie ; but, ashamed 
 of her indifference, afraid the others would perceive it, 
 she would give exaggerated outward manifestations of 
 grief, going about mute and glum and taking every occa- 
 sion to throw harsh words at Leopold. The children, 
 distressed on her account, would encourage her by 
 prophesying Minnie's return, if not that day, then the 
 next. "Go away," Sarah would shout at them, "you 
 do not care a bit about your sister." 
 
 When Jacob, however, who at first manifested his in- 
 dignation at Leopold by maintaining silence, burst out 
 one day charging hrm with a rascal's success and also 
 picked up and left, Sarah was shaken down to her nor- 
 mal self. Her conduct, she perceived clearly, had re- 
 sulted in a fresh calamity. She became at once more 
 talkative and cheerful, and showed Leopold wifely at- 
 tentions. Oddly enough, from now on she began to 
 worry about her daughter undividedly. She went to 
 Wadleigh High School and the Queen's Daughters in 
 the hope of discovering her whereabouts. Minnie had 
 ceased to attend both places. Sarah came back home witfi 
 a haunted heart.
 
 BOOK II 
 MINNIE
 
 PART I 
 INDEPENDENCE
 
 PART I 
 INDEPENDENCE 
 
 The night of Sarah's vigil Minnie spent in a home on 
 Rivington Street, the home of two Dakowsky sisters, one 
 of whom, Dora, she had met at the Queen's Daughters. 
 She knew they kept boarders in their five-room flat and 
 had a stepmother ; both of which considerations impelled 
 her to go there, as they would probably have room for 
 her and also with a stepparent of their own sympathy. 
 She was right. Dora did proffer sympathy and a third 
 of the bed that she and her sister shared provided the 
 stepmother did not object. 
 
 The worn, wrinkled little woman consented only after 
 a good deal of persuading by Dora, who, eager to glad- 
 den her friend's heart, ran back to the bedroom, where 
 she had left Minnie and where they had sat deploring 
 the cruelty of stepparents. According to Mrs. Dakow- 
 sky 's dictates, the rental of the one-third of bed was to 
 be one dollar a month; breakfast, of coffee, a roll and 
 cheese or smoked salmon, was to be five cents ; luncheons 
 she would not provide because she helped her husband 
 in his butcher shop; and supper, of good soup, meat, 
 pickle and bread, was to be fifteen cents, except on Fri- 
 days, when the price was twenty-five cents because of a 
 more elaborate menu. 
 
 In detailing this price-list Dora quite innocently raised 
 up a mountain of anxiety in front of Minnie, who lis- 
 
 223
 
 224 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 tened appalled. Dora did not know, and Minnie had 
 forgotten, that she had no money. They looked at each 
 other aghast and were about to drop into gloom when 
 an idea struck Dora. She jumped up in excited glee, 
 clapping her hands. The five men boarders had often 
 expressed a desire for a competent person to teach them 
 English. Minnie could teach them ! That would solve 
 Minnie's problem and theirs, too. Dora tingled with de- 
 light. 
 
 "What do they do ?" Minnie asked. 
 
 "Two of them are cloak operators, one a finisher, and 
 Louis is a painter." 
 
 When the men were gathered about the kitchen table, 
 Mrs. Dakowsky serving them with a "tub" of soup and 
 a pan of meat, each of which she pronounced far too 
 good for the Czar of Russia, Minnie and Dora, arms 
 around each other's waists, entered as gracefully as debu- 
 tantes in a ballroom. 
 
 "Meet my friend Miss Mendel." Dora did the hon- 
 ors. "She's a high-school girl. She'll teach you English. 
 Now ain't that lovely?" she ended emphatically, nodding 
 her head in rhythm with her tone. 
 
 The men were impressed. Before long they came to 
 terms. The lessons were to be given in class form three 
 times a week and were to cost fifteen cents a person per 
 lesson. 
 
 With the most careful economy, this income could 
 not be stretched to meet a week's needs. Minnie had to 
 do without lunches. If hunger too inconsiderately thrust 
 itself upon her at lunch time, she yielded and ruled out 
 supper. This irregularity provoked Mrs. Dakowsky, who 
 complained that by the time Minnie discovered her disin- 
 clination for the evening meal she had already invested in
 
 INDEPENDENCE 225 
 
 the viands. It was agreed, therefore, that Minnie should 
 be registered for a supper every other night and be per- 
 mitted to partake of one-half of it at a time, the other 
 half to be allowed storage room in the ice-box until the 
 next night, when she would complete its consumption. A 
 pesky arrangement ; but Mrs. Dakowsky knew how it 
 was with the girl, and, not being a heartless woman, suf- 
 fered it to continue, thinking privately that Minnie ought 
 to throw up high school and go to work. She hoped 
 Minnie would at least get additional pupils, so that she 
 could settle down to a regular supper on each of God's 
 regular nights. 
 
 Minnie earnestly hoped for the same ; her abstentions 
 were doing her no special good either. She was getting 
 to feel rather weak and shaky at the knees. She told 
 Dora so, who said, innocently enough: "You can surely 
 get work in a shop why don't you give up high school ?" 
 
 A shop ! Minnie turned upon her with eyes glaring in- 
 dignation. 
 
 Dora, abashed, remembering Minnie's experience with 
 her stepfather, apologized. Of course she ought to have 
 remembered that shop work was beneath Minnie. For a 
 day or two, however, the relations between the two were 
 strained. It was bad enough, Minnie felt, that she had 
 been compelled to descend to the East Side again. But 
 to have Dora, her friend, suggest a shop as a solution! 
 Leopold was probably saying that she was already work- 
 ing in a shop! 
 
 II 
 
 Two of Minnie's pupils were of the sort who laugh 
 loudest at coarse jokes and revel in suggestiveness. Louis
 
 226 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 the "paintner," who was often caught gaping at the long, 
 white neck of the teacher and looking with fascinated 
 eyes at her slender white hand as it wrote the letters of 
 the alphabet, was their special butt. They would pass 
 remarks about him in audible whispers, break out into 
 vulgar laughter, and, with knowing looks, dig each other 
 in the ribs. 
 
 Minnie, too young and inexperienced to ignore them, 
 would, in her ingenuousness, inquire interestedly into 
 the cause of their hilarity, and then find herself embar- 
 rassed, blushing, stammering, stuttering, and utterly mis- 
 erable. After a time she hit upon the happy idea of inti- 
 mating that they were wasting their money in thus idling 
 their time away, and this gave them pause. They brought 
 their pencils to their mouths, and worked industriously 
 the rest of the evening. After that, except on rare oc- 
 casions, things went better ; it was only when the teacher 
 was out of hearing that they teased "the paintner." 
 
 Louis' roughness of manner was refreshing rather than 
 offensive. He was loud-spoken, but mild-worded. He 
 laughed thunderously, but with an accompanying embar- 
 rassment that seemed to muffle the sound. He had the 
 gentle consideration that is clumsy in the act but so sin- 
 cere in expression that it evokes only appreciation. He 
 was. big and burly, with hands always paint-smeared and 
 clothes redolent and shining with the stuff of his trade. 
 
 Minnie appealed to him by the law of opposites. Al- 
 though under stress she had deteriorated into the aggres- 
 sive and assertive Minnie that the stepfather knew, the 
 real Minnie was gentle, low-voiced, mild-mannered and 
 shy. 
 
 Louis learned from the missus of the establishment 
 how it happened that Minnie had come to live among
 
 INDEPENDENCE 227 
 
 them a mean mother, for the sake of a strange man, 
 had driven the girl out. He learned also of the reason 
 for her absences from table at meal times. The latter 
 knowledge gave him much concern. He had the sym- 
 pathetic nature that feels with all suffering. If he met 
 a crippled beggar on the street, he would be unhappy for 
 days. There are some people like Louis still left in the 
 world. He suggested to the other pupils that since they 
 were so well satisfied they should increase the tuition 
 fee to twenty-five cents. One of the basting-pullers did 
 not take kindly to the idea. He clapped his hand on a 
 bony knee and pursed his lips. 
 
 "No sir! If she said fifteen cents, then it is fifteen 
 cents. If she will raise the price herself, then she will 
 raise the price, but we shouldn't suggest it," he said dis- 
 agreeably. 
 
 Louis then hit upon the scheme of retiring from the 
 class and becoming a private "scholner." 
 
 It was obvious, however, that Louis' small raise did 
 not carry Minnie far, for she absented herself from meals 
 just the same and looked even more pinched and pale. 
 Then Louis secretly advised her to raise her rates. She 
 deserved it, he told her emphatically. Minnie was em- 
 barrassed and stammered something to the effect that the 
 men were paying enough, and Louis felt compelled to 
 drop the subject. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Minnie had just left her books in the office of the 
 Wadleigh High School and was standing aimlessly in the 
 vestibule, with that void in her heart, that agonized feel-
 
 228 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 ing of "what next?" which only the peace-loving who 
 are condemned to be storm-tossed know. 
 
 It was done, and now school was over forever. What 
 would her mother say if she knew? What would "he" 
 say ? For the first time the anger in which she had left 
 home and which had supported her during all the weeks, 
 forsook her. The tears came instead, and she wondered 
 whether her family had actually expected and wished 
 her to stay away, whether they were really indifferent as 
 to what became of her. Had they tried to find her? "I 
 might just as well be dead as far as they are concerned. 
 If any of them had disappeared, I would have searched 
 High and low to find them." 
 
 Classes were dismissed, and girls began to pass in files 
 through the vestibule. Minnie dried her eyes and stole 
 out on to the street. She drew a deep breath as if to 
 prepare herself to face a great, big world. The first 
 thing she would do, she decided, would be to go from 
 office to office of the doctors and lawyers in the vicinity 
 of Rivington Street. In that neighborhood there was 
 less danger of detection by anyone who knew her, and, 
 Besides, she would save carfares. 
 
 She had no luck that day. The doctors and lawyers 
 all required some funny asset called "shorthand" and 
 dismissed her peremptorily because of her ignorance of 
 that pesky subject, as if her high-school education 
 amounted to nothing and her excellent handwriting were 
 a worthless trifle, when, as a matter of fact, it was the 
 one thing that she felt safeguarded her against the com- 
 pulsion to work in a shop. 
 
 Fearful that her great disappointment might submerge 
 her, she egged herself on to take comfort in the hope of 
 better luck the next dav.
 
 INDEPENDENCE 229 
 
 In the evening, after the class of the Dakowsky board- 
 ers and private instruction of Louis, she took him into 
 her confidence. He, too, was of the mind that the sun 
 would shine on the morrow. Her obvious anxiety so 
 pained him that he managed between hems and haws to 
 intimate that he would be ever so glad to lend her at 
 least five dollars until matters mended themselves. She 
 shrank from his offer as if it held indelible dishonor, 
 thereby causing him great embarrassment. He puck- 
 ered his forehead and examined his black-rimmed finger- 
 nails like a sensitive boy. 
 
 Early the next morning she started out breakfastless 
 on another job-hunting expedition, with the same empty 
 result. Nor did she have better success the following 
 day, or the day after that. But the failure of her ef- 
 forts only increased the fierceness of her determination : 
 she was not Sarah's daughter for nothing. 
 
 One day she strayed by mistake into the office of a 
 physician on whom she had already called. He had been 
 busy with patients and had dismissed her peremptorily. 
 Minnie, on opening the door, instantly perceived her er- 
 ror, and drew back. 
 
 "Oh, excuse me, I've been here before." 
 
 The young man, who was not busy now, gave her a 
 quizzical look and asked her to come in. 
 
 Flushing with excitement and the anticipation of suc- 
 cess, Minnie* closed the door and stepped timidly yet 
 eagerly forward. 
 
 He drew a chair out. "Be seated," he said, affecting 
 the manner of an older man. Then he swung his swivel 
 chair round to face his desk. After a pause, during 
 which his eyes rested intently on a paper on which he 
 was scribbling, he cleared his throat and spoke again.
 
 230 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "You were here before asking for work?" He went on 
 scribbling. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Been asking other doctors for work?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Another pause ; then, turning from the paper suddenly, 
 he flashed his eyes at her. 
 
 "Look here, girlie/' he began, "you ought to be sitting 
 on your mother's lap instead of hunting work." 
 
 The advice came so unexpectedly and was such a 
 damper on her eagerness, that Minnie could only stare 
 at him, a feverish brilliancy in her great gray eyes. He 
 looked into them as though he were searching for his 
 own image in a looking-glass. Then he brought his lips 
 together as though he were satisfied with what he had 
 seen and turned to his desk again. Instantly, however, 
 he faced about once more and regarded the girl with a 
 superior, though faintly amused, smile round his lips and 
 in his eyes. 
 
 "Have you a mother?" 
 
 She hesitated. She had a mother in the flesh, but not 
 in the spirit. 
 
 "No," she replied. 
 
 He was apparently interested. 
 
 "A father?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "What have you been doing?" 
 
 "I have been going to high school." 
 
 "When did you leave ?" 
 
 "Lately." 
 
 "Where do you live?" 
 
 "With a friend a girl friend." 
 
 The young man noted her addition, "a girl friend,"
 
 INDEPENDENCE 231 
 
 and regarded her steadfastly, as if to interpret her soul, 
 wondering how much she knew. 
 
 "Do you think," he asked, assuming a grave air, "that 
 it is very nice for a girl to go around from office to office 
 looking for work?" He used the word "nice," though 
 he meant "safe." 
 
 Minnie looked uncomprehending. 
 
 "Isn't it nice? Is it like begging?" 
 
 "No, oh, no," he answered reassuringly, "not beg- 
 ging " He leaned forward in his chair, his breath 
 
 beginning to come short. 
 
 "Come, little girl," he said in a lowered voice with a 
 paternal note in it, "sit down on my knee, and I'll tell 
 you something you ought to know." 
 
 Minnie hesitated. He looked her straight in the eyes. 
 Though her knowledge of sex propriety was limited and 
 no one would have been more astonished than she to 
 learn that there was any danger in doing what the doc- 
 tor asked, her instinct told her that to sit on a man's 
 knee was somehow not right. 
 
 "Uh, no," she gasped, shrinking back in her chair. 
 
 The doctor leaned back. He suspected that Minnie 
 knew. He assumed again the manner of a busy 
 man. 
 
 "Well, step in again to-morrow," he said brusquely. 
 "Perhaps I will ask a friend whether he needs a girl in 
 his office." He turned in his chair and bent over his 
 desk, pen in hand. 
 
 Minnie rose, a sense of deep calamity possessing her. 
 Had she lost an opportunity for work by refusing to sit 
 on the doctor's knee ? She could have bit off her tongue. 
 Attempting to cover up her agitation, she said :
 
 232 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "I I did not mean to to insult you. I'm not " 
 
 her intuition suggested the right word "afraid." 
 
 The young man manifested an electric interest. He 
 lifted his eyes quickly and, seeing that the girl was quite 
 serious, rose, placed his arm around her uncorseted 
 waist, drew her, unresisting, to his chair, and seated her 
 on his knee. 
 
 "Well, now, that's a nice girl," he said wheedlingly, as 
 one entices a shy animal. He made an effort to control 
 the trembling of his limbs. 
 
 Minnie's heart was beating from an indefinable fear ; 
 and, somehow, she felt ashamed. 
 
 The doctor silently ran his hand up and down her loins 
 over her clothes, several times gently, then less gently, 
 and finally pressed her to him ardently, his breath coming 
 thick and short. 
 
 Minnie was amazed at this, and her young face ex- 
 pressed puzzled inquiry. Ashamed, the doctor loosened 
 his hold and pretended to have the toothache. But the 
 next moment he completely abandoned himself; he 
 crushed her to him with all his strength, fumbling at the 
 same time with her skirts. 
 
 A rap sounded. He released her with lightning rapid- 
 ity. It was the janitor who came to know if the doctor 
 had found the key he had lost. Yes, the doctor had found 
 the key the words were spoken with an effort and with 
 suppressed annoyance. 
 
 The interruption sent Minnie hurrying to the idoor. If 
 only she could get out before the janitor was gone! A 
 foreboding of evil was in her heart. She was so so 
 frightened ! But before she reached the door, the doctor 
 found time to say : "Wait, little girl," and in the mean-
 
 INDEPENDENCE 233 
 
 time the janitor disappeared. The doctor stepped toward 
 her. She stood clutching the door-knob. 
 
 "Don't be afraid," he said softly, looking hard at her. 
 
 She made no reply. 
 
 "I didn't hurt you," he half asserted, half asked. 
 
 Embarrassed and perplexed at her own alarm, she 
 stood with her hand playing nervously with the door- 
 knob, the tears gathering in her eyes. 
 
 "No " came from her, timidly. 
 
 "Well, now, show me you are not afraid by coming 
 to-morrow and I will give you all the money you need 
 until you find work. Just to be a nice girl." He swung 
 his hands and raised his shoulders nonchalantly, at the 
 same time scrutinizing her sharply. 
 
 Minnie made no reply. 
 
 "You're not' afraid of me ?" he half asked again. 
 
 She turned large eyes up to him. He had convinced 
 her. 
 
 "No," she replied naively, "why should I be?" 
 
 He was greatly pleased. 
 
 "Of course you're not," he assured her, and added in 
 a low voice : "But don't tell anybody what " he hesi- 
 tated. She looked questioningly at him "that " he 
 
 hesitated again, then quickly went on: "Well, what we 
 do together is nobody's business" his breath came thick 
 again, his eyes grew cloudy "and just don't tell any- 
 body. There, now, shake hands, and promise." 
 
 She held out her hand. 
 
 "No, I Won't tell anybody," she promised ; "it's none of 
 my business." 
 
 The doctor suppressed a chuckle. He shook her 
 hand. 
 
 "Well, now, come to-morrow and show me that you're
 
 234 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 not afraid, and I'll see what I can do for you." He took 
 her to the outer door. 
 
 The words held a promise of work and Minnie felt, 
 despite everything, hopeful. 
 
 IV 
 
 It was late in the afternoon. Minnie had made the 
 rounds of almost all the remaining offices in the vicinity, 
 and was reduced to the helplessness of one drowning. 
 Would she have to go to a shop after all ? Surely, there 
 must be some office where her high-school education 
 would stand her in good stead! There was the doctor. 
 A voice within her, a weak one, to be sure, warned her 
 not to approach him. Yet he might have a position for 
 her. 
 
 Between the fear of going to him and the impelling 
 force of desperation, she turned toward his office as un- 
 thinkingly as a bird in its seasonal migration. She sim- 
 ply walked and found herself there. Half stupefied she 
 entered. The doctor looked up from his desk. 
 
 "Oh, so ! Come in and sit down." He pushed a chair 
 towards her, his tone and manner implying that he had 
 found what he had been looking for. As soon as she 
 was seated he began with assumed earnestness, "Well 
 now I have spoken to my friend, but he already has an 
 office girl. However, give me your name and ad- 
 dress and if I hear of anything else, I will let you 
 know." 
 
 "Mildred Mendel." 
 
 He wrote, repeating: 
 
 "Mildred Mendel a very nice sounding name. Where 
 do you live?"
 
 INDEPENDENCE 235 
 
 "Rivington Street." She gave the number. 
 
 "You live with a friend, don't you?" 
 
 "Yes. Dora Dakowsky." 
 
 "D-a-k-o-w-s-k-y. Are you Russian?" 
 
 "No, I'm German that is, my mama speaks" 
 She halted and blushed. 
 
 The doctor noticed her embarrassment, but deemed 
 it best to make no comment. 
 
 As he seemed to have no more questions to ask, Min- 
 nie rose to go; and the doctor, assuming preoccupation, 
 said: 
 
 "Yes, I am very busy." 
 
 Minnie closed the door behind her and left the young 
 
 man biting his fingernails. 
 
 ****** 
 
 He had no position for her! She elbowed her way 
 back to Rivington Street through the mad throng of peo- 
 ple, each jostling the other in a fierce effort to arrive as 
 quickly as possible at his destination. Her heart ached 
 with a corroding sense of aloneness. Nothing seemed 
 real. The incessant, dinning stir on the street had no 
 relation to her ; these people seemed busy with happiness. 
 Purgatory had spilled its contents upon her heart alone. 
 All was hopeless black for her. First the doctor told 
 her to come every day and promised to give her all the 
 money she needed until she found work ; now he seemed 
 to have forgotten all about it. No, he hadn't forgotten ; 
 he just hadn't meant what he said in the first place. 
 She had been afraid of him because he had taken her on 
 his knee. How foolish she had been. Why, he did not 
 even remember that he had done so. He had forgotten 
 her, like her mother, who didn't give a snap of her fin- 
 gers whether her child lived or died ; nor did her sisters.
 
 236 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 And her stepfather wanted her to die. She wanted to 
 die herself. What was the use of living? 
 
 It was an aged little woman of not much over fifteen 
 who taught the Dakowsky boarders that night and, later, 
 listened to the advice of Louis "the paintner" to try the 
 "Help Wanted Female" columns of the New York 
 World. This she conscientiously did, but without results. 
 
 Every road has a turning where the sun may be shin- 
 ing. So it seemed to Minnie when the next morning she 
 found a postcard in the letter-box addressed to her. 
 
 "Hochgesch'dtztes Fraulein," the card began, and went 
 on to say that if she would come to the office of the doc- 
 tor, she would learn something of interest to her. 
 
 She ran to his office as if a brake had been lifted from 
 off her being and left her no longer subject to her own 
 volition. She arrived with cheeks flushed, and dark rings 
 under her eyes, her lips blue. 
 
 "Well, hello there!" the doctor greeted her as if she 
 were an old pal. His cordiality only emphasized her 
 loneliness. The tears rushed to her eyes ; the floor 
 seemed to rise and sink. She wanted to cling to him and 
 beg him never to desert her, to tell him she was afraid of 
 life. But she only dropped silently into the chair he 
 offered. 
 
 "Well, that's a nice girl " 
 
 She burst out crying. 
 
 Sincerely astonished and affected, the doctor leaned 
 forward and touched her gently on the knee. 
 
 "What's the matter, little girl ?" The tenderness of his 
 voice only made her weep the more. Raising her from 
 the chair, he took her on his knee, removed her hat, 
 stroked her hair, kissed her, petted her, called her a 
 "sweet girl," "a nice child."
 
 INDEPENDENCE 237 
 
 "I'll give you money," he said tenderly. "Will five 
 dollars help you? You haven't had enough to eat in 
 weeks." He felt her fleshless hips and ribs to confirm the 
 truth of his observation. In a moment, however, he set 
 her on her feet and, forcing a five-dollar bill in her hand, 
 dismissed her, bidding her, as if against his will, to come 
 again at the same hour the next day. 
 
 She came the next day and the next and the next. It 
 seemed as if he would never tire of holding her on his 
 knee, now pressing her tight, now releasing her, then 
 kissing and pinching her as if to nip off a piece of flesh 
 to keep. Minnie could not understand it at all. But, 
 since nothing happened to her, she grew less afraid, and 
 was all the more satisfied when on asking for office work 
 he told her that what she was doing was what he re- 
 quired. He paid her fifty cents a day and kept her only 
 a short time. It solved the problem of her living. She 
 even grew happy. 
 
 But some instinct warned her not to mention her visits 
 to the Dakowsky household. The increase in her in- 
 come she attributed to a new "scholar" ; which produced 
 general pleasure, especially as she appeared at table for 
 both supper and breakfast. 
 
 But the sun must go down even after a new rising. 
 One day the doctor wanted to know how tall she was. 
 A good method was the comparative one, standing back 
 to back, then front to front before a long looking-glass. 
 But this was not accurate enough for the man of science ; 
 a better way, he thought, was to lie down on the couch, 
 each in turn, and let the other mark head and foot in 
 pencil. Minnie entered vivaciously into the suggestion 
 like a child into an interesting game. But when she lay 
 stretched out on the couch and he suddenly took her in
 
 238 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 his arms and smothered her with fierce kisses so thai 
 she felt her breath leaving her, she screamed. The doc- 
 tor released her in disgust. 
 
 Like a mouse stealing back to its hiding, she slunk out 
 on the street and ran and ran until she reached Riving- 
 ton Street. 
 
 V 
 
 She would have to tell somebody, or else something in 
 her head would snap. Wherever she turned, the doctor's 
 blazing eyes stared at her like two ghosts, and in the still- 
 ness she heard his labored breathing. Suddenly, without 
 warning, someone would take her in great big arms and 
 press the breath out of her. She was afraid of noises, 
 she was afraid of the quiet. She started when spoken 
 to, and in the silence heard her own thoughts uttered out 
 loud, and was terrified lest someone hear them. 
 
 The following evening, while giving Louis his lesson, 
 she most unexpectedly burst into tears and with the 
 frankness of the innocent and guileless told him every- 
 thing. She made one intimate confession after another, 
 wholly unconscious that the man she was talking to was 
 as much of a stranger to her as the doctor. 
 
 Louis could not credit his ears. He was simply amazed 
 at such naivete in these days of precociousness. He told 
 her, trying to keep his tone dispassionate, that she had 
 done right to scream and run away and must never again 
 go to the doctor, or to any man who might treat her like 
 that. 
 
 Her intuitions thus borne out, she felt relieved and yet, 
 somehow, more frightened. 
 
 Louis' eyes thereafter followed her gestures with a
 
 INDEPENDENCE 239 
 
 look in them that had not been there before. Her con- 
 fession had suddenly made him more alive to her physi- 
 cal presence, and also awoke in him a sense of proprietor- 
 ship, which led him from now on to invite her to go out 
 walking and to question her freely, as though he had a 
 right to know, all about her family and personal affairs. 
 She refused to say where her famliy lived. He insisted 
 that the confidence was due him, even commanded her 
 dictatorially to tell; but Minnie, afraid he might divulge 
 her stress to her people, successfully held out against him. 
 
 The money difficulty rose again like a monster now 
 that the income from the doctor was curtailed. Louis, 
 as they were out walking one evening, insisted that she 
 take money from him. She refused. Near the tenement, 
 he drew a five-dollar bill from his pocket and thrust it 
 down the bosom of her dress. In the contact he experi- 
 enced an exquisite sense of desire. He hurried her into 
 the hall and up the stairs, keeping several paces behind 
 and discouraging her attempts to face about and return 
 the money. 
 
 Every night for a week they took walks, ostensibly for 
 her to have a chance to communicate her day's experi- 
 ences to Louis, whom she would tell of her attempts and 
 failures with the disconsolateness of a child. When the 
 prospects for office employment seemed very dull, Louis 
 suggested work in a shop. "It will do temporarily," he 
 said. "Something else may turn up later." Minnie gave 
 him a queer look. But what had become of her resent- 
 ment? 
 
 They were passing a vacant lot, which was opposite 
 the Mendel home and to which Minnie had led Louis 
 every night. She fancied that if a light shone through 
 the window, all was well with those at home. If there
 
 2 4 o SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 was no light, she tortured herself and spent a restless 
 night. This evening there was no light, so that gloomy 
 misgivings mingled with her distress over her own situ- 
 ation, and she walked beside Louis, brooding. Was any- 
 one sick? Was anyone hurt? Was Beckie all right? 
 Poor little Beckie, how hard she worked ! And Ida, too. 
 How well the children could use a little more money 
 than their mother allowed them. She, Minnie, might be 
 the provider of that little more money if she took work 
 in a shop. . . . Her soul had found its straw and clung 
 to it. She began to form rosy visions of herself as the 
 good Samaritan. . . . But soon an ugly voice hooted 
 "A shop! A shop!" She shuddered. Her blasted ca- 
 reer! A heaviness settled upon her young heart. She 
 had aspired to a college education and a profession. She 
 saw now that life was hard and fate defrauding. 
 
 Louis wondered at her silence and her tearful- 
 ness. 
 
 "I hope he dies!" she suddenly muttered, gritting her 
 teeth. 
 
 "What did you say?" Louis asked. 
 
 "I hope my stepfather dies!" she said, then fell again 
 into stubborn silence. 
 
 Sometimes Louis the "paintner" could not make Min- 
 nie out. She might be suspected of having "state se- 
 crets." She was a queer girl. 
 
 VI 
 
 One morning Louis awoke with a headache. Emerg- 
 ing from the front room, which he shared with another 
 boarder, to make the railroad-car trip through the flat 
 to the kitchen for his breakfast, he passed through the
 
 INDEPENDENCE 241 
 
 room adjoining occupied by the girls. Dora and her sister 
 were up, but Minnie still lay asleep, her bare arms raised 
 over her head, her long hair strewn over both shoulders, 
 her lips slightly parted. An expression of candor and in- 
 nocence made her face lovely in repose. Louis hurried on 
 through the next room occupied by two more boarders, 
 through Mr. and Mrs. Dakowsky's bedroom, to the 
 kitchen, where the fifth boarder slept. 
 
 After breakfast all the boarders except Louis left for 
 work ; he lingered, divided between the inclination to 
 give the day to nursing his not very severe headache and 
 the inclination to disregard it and go to work. The 
 tempter won. He remained at home. Then Louis was 
 torn by two conflicting hopes, that the missus would leave 
 to help her husband in the butcher shop and that she 
 would not leave. 
 
 When he reached Minnie's room on his way back to 
 bed, she had turned to one side, and her white neck and 
 chest were exposed. Slipping into his own room hastily, 
 he shut the door tight and lay down. Soon he was 
 asleep. 
 
 Minnie awoke at half -past seven. She put on the 
 barest amount of clothing, and hastened out for a copy 
 of the New York World. Mrs. Dakowsky left at the 
 same time for the butcher shop. "Put a shawl over your 
 head ; it's raining," she said. Minnie disregarded her ad- 
 vice, as there was a news-stand close by. But this news- 
 stand had already sold all its copies of the World, and 
 she had to go a long block to and fro in the rain, and 
 came back drenched. 
 
 Standing before the looking-glass in the bedroom, she 
 removed her outer clothes and let down her hair to 
 dry. Suddenly the door of the front room opened, and
 
 242 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 the reflection of Louis appeared in the glass. She gasped. 
 He shut the door hastily. Rummaging nervously for a 
 dry blouse in a box on the floor, which contained her 
 worldly possessions, she put it on quickly, pinned her hair 
 up, and hurried out of the room into the kitchen, where 
 she spread the newspaper on the table and tried to fix 
 her attention upon the help-wanted columns. 
 
 If only it weren't raining, she reflected, she would go 
 right out so as not to have to meet Louis again. She 
 was sure he had seen her, and she was sure he shouldn't 
 have seen her with her waist off. But maybe he hadn't 
 seen her, maybe he had shut the door so excitedly because 
 she had screamed. Oh, it made her sick everything had 
 to happen to her. . . . But he was only Louis the "paint- 
 ner" ; it didn't matter. Yet she was not convinced that 
 it did not matter. 
 
 Louis, in shirt sleeves, soon appeared in the kitchen. 
 He said good morning gruffly, with averted eyes, and 
 went straight to the sink to wash himself. Her eyes 
 followed him to the front room, to which he returned 
 for the towel he had forgotten. He remained behind the 
 closed door about five minutes, then reappeared in the 
 kitchen. 
 
 Minnie, her heart palpitating, summoned up enough 
 self-possession to inquire how he came to be at home. 
 He explained, still avoiding her eyes. As there was a 
 purplish flush on his large face and deep rings under his 
 eyes, Minnie concluded that he had a "splitting head- 
 ache," the only kind, according to her notions, that jus- 
 tified one in staying away from work. She grew sympa- 
 thetic. 
 
 "I wish I could do something for you," she said, though 
 it was hard for her to speak because Louis seemed greatly
 
 INDEPENDENCE 243 
 
 constrained and acted as if he preferred not to have to 
 look at her. 
 
 "You could rub my forehead, or kiss it," he suggested, 
 smiling. "Kiss" recalled the doctor and Louis' own ad- 
 vice. Louis observed her change color and to reassure 
 her, added jokingly : "That's what they do for children 
 kiss them where it hurts." She dropped her eyes, and 
 for a while there was silence. "What are you doing?" 
 he asked, moving closer to the table, though wishing he 
 could keep away. He fumbled with an edge of the news- 
 paper. "It's too rainy to-day for you to go out. Stay 
 right home," he said. She looked out of the window. 
 The rain was coming down in sheets. He moved still 
 closer and leaned over the newspaper. "Let's see," he 
 said, "what kind of a teacher you are by the way I can 
 read the paper." He read laboriously, stumbling over 
 the "ths" until Minnie, tired of repeating corrections, 
 tore the paper away from him and told him, laughingly, 
 to "stop bothering" her. Louis flushed, and in his turn 
 snatched the paper away from her. They laughed into 
 each other's eyes. Minnie grabbed for the paper. Louis, 
 holding it out of her reach, got up from his chair and 
 let a surreptitious, covetous glance sweep over the grace- 
 ful lines of her young figure. He dangled the paper just 
 out of her reach, and they wrestled and laughed, until 
 suddenly, to her amazement, Minnie felt herself enfolded 
 in the mighty arms of Louis, who stifled her with kisses 
 and murmured breathlessly: 
 
 "I love you I love you I love " 
 
 She struggled like an animal in a trap, twisting and 
 turning in his embrace and hitting out at random here 
 there with her fists, against his shoulders, his chin, 
 his ear, his neck, his mouth, and finally, without knowing
 
 244 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 what she was doing, giving him a blow in the eye. At 
 shock of the pain he loosened his hold, and she wrenched 
 herself free and rushed from the house. 
 
 VII 
 
 She dashed pellmell up one street and down another, 
 tears of terror choking her. The whole world seemed 
 traitor and all strangers hateful, and in the eyes of all 
 she saw evil design lurking. She was gripped by a fren- 
 zied desire to see her sisters her mother! anyone not a 
 hard cruel stranger. Like one gone mad she ran to the 
 school that Ida and Beckie attended and stationed her- 
 self in a vestibule of a house opposite from where she 
 breathlessly watched the school exits. In the violence of 
 her fright and in the face of greater disloyalty her fam- 
 ily* loomed up as loyalty incarnate. One's own, one's 
 own ! How hateful strangers were ! 
 
 Three long hours passed, and still she stood waiting. 
 A whole day seemed to be going by. By the time the 
 lunch gong sounded, her eyes were fairly popping from 
 her head. At last the gates opened, and children began 
 to emerge. Minnie craned her neck and fairly devoured 
 each child form with her gaze. Finally the right one 
 flashed upon her. 
 
 "Beckie! Beckie!" she called wildly. 
 
 At the sound of her name Beckie looked around in be- 
 wilderment. The moment seemed endless to Minnie. 
 Then Beckie's eyes lighted upon her sister waving her 
 hand frantically, and she darted across the street into 
 her arms.
 
 INDEPENDENCE 245 
 
 "Where are you all the time?" There was the baby- 
 ish plaintiveness in her voice that Minnie loved. She 
 stroked Beckie's hair and pressed her cheek against hers 
 passionately murmuring tender nothings. 
 
 "Mama is looking for you all the time, and she 
 cries " said Beckie. 
 
 So her mother had been worrying about her after all f 
 Minnie felt a brief glow of satisfaction, instantly dissi- 
 pated by regret that her mother, too, had suffered. 
 
 "Does mama look for me?" she asked. 
 
 "She did ; she don't no more," said Beckie, who sensed 
 Minnie's pain and meant to spare her. 
 
 Minnie's heart sank. She had been gone so long, she 
 reflected bitterly, that her absence no longer mattered. 
 Tears for herself hung on her eyelids. 
 
 "How is Jacob?" she brought out presently. 
 
 "He left the house for good. He's by Uncle David." 
 Uncle David was the sympathetic relative who had be- 
 friended the family in past years. 
 
 The news fairly staggered Minnie and convinced her 
 that their mother was no longer a mother ; she cared for 
 no one but Leopold. A sickening sense of utter de- 
 sertion seized the girl. 
 
 "How does Uncle Leopold treat you?" 
 
 Beckie rolled her eyes to express contempt and com- 
 plaint. 
 
 "He's a regular foreman. I hate him." 
 
 "Goodness," Minnie cried, "so he still makes you work 
 too hard?" 
 
 Beckie nodded her head. 
 
 "I've accomplished nothing by going away !" cut sharp 
 as a dagger through Minnie's consciousness.
 
 246 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "There's Ida," cried Beckie, spying her sister. "Ida! 
 Ida!" she called. 
 
 Ida, though as surprised as Beckie had been to see 
 Minnie, crossed the street leisurely. She had made up 
 her mind long ago that if by any chance she met her run- 
 away sister she would ignore her. 
 
 "Beckie," she said, with her eyes studiously turned 
 away from Minnie, "come home to dinner. It's late 
 already." 
 
 Minnie stepped toward her. 
 
 "Ida, aren't you glad to see me?" 
 
 "No," Ida cried, "you abused mama and ran away to 
 have it easy and we got to do your work, too." 
 
 It had never occurred to Minnie that such an interpre- 
 tation could be put upon her conduct. She was struck 
 dumb. 
 
 Ida took hold of Beckie's hand to pull her away. 
 
 "I thought he would be better to you " Minnie 
 
 at last managed to say, hardly conscious that she was 
 speaking. 
 
 "Better ? We got to do your work now, too. Better !" 
 Ida was vastly contemptuous. "Come on," she cried, 
 jerking at Beckie. 
 
 Minnie recovered some of her self-possession. 
 
 "Go on, Beckie dear," she said huskily, "you'll be late 
 for dinner." Through the tears in her eyes the two girls 
 were merged into one, in the shape of Louis. 
 
 Beckie, lingering with Minnie, cried: 
 
 "I want to stay by you." 
 
 ' r No, " Minnie could say no more. 
 
 Ida forced Beckie down the steps. 
 
 "You'll hurt her!" Minnie called.
 
 INDEPENDENCE ' 247 
 
 "Yeh, and if she has to do your work, it don't hurt 
 her?" 
 
 Minnie looked down on Ida with something in her 
 eyes that compelled attention. 
 
 "You mustn't say that, Ida," she said, "I took your 
 part it's wrong " 
 
 "Highfalutin talk! Crazy, high-tone lady!" inter- 
 rupted Ida. "Come on, Beckie !" Beckie threw Minnie a 
 kiss and called : "Come to see me soon again." Minnie 
 nodded her head. She watched the small, retreating fig- 
 ures with a leaden heart. When they were out of sight, 
 a bleak sense of utter aloneness overpowered her. With 
 heavy steps, drearily, getting drenched to the skin, she 
 retraced her steps to the Rivington Street tenement, 
 where her space on the Dakowsky pillow was paid for. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Sarah's heart gave one great leap of relief when Ida 
 and Beckie brought their news. 
 
 Minnie had even behaved like a "high-tone lady" and 
 had said "highfalutin" things, Ida told her. Sure signs 
 of normality. How happy the mother felt, what balm 
 came to her heart! She laughed and wiped tears from 
 her eyes. 
 
 But had Ida or Beckie got her address? No? How 
 had it not occurred to them to get it? Such childish 
 forget fulness! However, Minnie was alive and well. 
 Nothing else mattered much. They would probably see 
 her again. Then they must not fail to get her address. 
 
 Once more the sky looked blue to Sarah. It was pos- 
 sible to shed tears of gratitude as a change from tears of
 
 248 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 grief. Her happiness showed in kindness to the children 
 and deference to Leopold. When she visited Jacob, she 
 took him into her confidence upon this matter and that 
 with an eagerness as if he were a newly discovered pal. 
 
 IX 
 
 Left alone, Louis, in terrible remorse, restlessly paced 
 up and down the length of the railroad flat. The heavy 
 flesh of his face had fallen into massive wrinkles, and his 
 small eyes, glistening with unshed tears, seemed even 
 smaller. Burly Louis, so innately gentle that he would 
 not have hurt the meanest thing, had mortally offended 
 his "teacherin !" He bit his lips in mortification and 
 wished he could live the last few hours over again. 
 Finally the creak of his heavy boots on the bare floors 
 irritated his nerves, and he seated himself on a chair in 
 the kitchen and chewed his black-rimmed finger-nails, 
 as he gazed hard at a bit of dark sky visible from the 
 tenement window. The childlike face of frightened Min- 
 nie haunted him; he was full of shame, was disgusted 
 with himself, particularly when he recalled the warning 
 he had given her against the doctor. And his helpless- 
 ness to undo his evil deed, to set himself right again in 
 her eyes, filled him with anguish. 
 
 Passing his big paint-smeared hand across his eyes to 
 dry them, he rose and went out of the house. In the 
 ground-floor hall he drew out his bluish-white handker- 
 chief and wiped his eyes again, then, hiding his hands in 
 his pockets out of disgust with the sight of his own flesh, 
 he went to the front door and glanced up and down the 
 street. No Minnie to be seen. After a long vigil he went 
 in search of her, looking into doorways and up and down
 
 INDEPENDENCE 249 
 
 cross streets. The rain penetrated his light-weight suit, 
 and after he had gone a number of blocks he returned to 
 his room and stationed himself at the window to watch 
 for each passerby. After another long vigil, he went 
 downstairs again. At last, from the vestibule, he saw 
 Minnie returning slowly, her wet clothes clinging to her 
 slight frame. His heart began a nervous turmoil and he 
 wondered what he ought to do, whether to let her see him 
 or to hide. He hid behind the stairs. 
 
 Minnie lingered at the curb in front of the house, 
 afraid to go in. The rain came down in torrents. Fi- 
 nally, with a convulsive shudder, she went into the vesti- 
 bule and leaned wearily against the side wall. She stood 
 so still for so long a time that Louis peeped warily from 
 out of his hiding-place to assure himself that she was 
 there. He rubbed his large hands in and out of each 
 other; the lines of his face deepened with loathing of 
 himself and the instinct that had betrayed his better self. 
 
 A fierce gust swept the vestibule. Minnie drew hastily 
 into the hall. In the suddenness of her movement, a 
 dizziness that she had felt before but only faintly, came 
 upon her with force. She groaned, staggered to the 
 stairs, and sank down. 
 
 "What's the matter?" Louis cried, rushing from his 
 hiding-place and bending over her. 
 
 His voice came from a great distance it was not real 
 all reality merged in a black blur. Louis shook Min- 
 nie with trembling hands. She came to in a few mo- 
 ments and looked up at him. Her deathly pallor agonized 
 him. He gathered her up in his arms and carried her to 
 the flat, where he placed her on the lounge, rubbed her 
 with vinegar and dashed cold water in her face. When 
 she came to, she drew away from him in alarm.
 
 250 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "Don't be afraid," he pleaded, with such earnestness 
 and such an honest shining of his eyes that her wits 
 played her false, and she wondered whether she had 
 dreamed the morning's incident. Then Ida was the one 
 who was saying: "Don't be afraid." Louis' burly self 
 seemed to be in her sister's guise. "Don't be afraid," 
 Ida kept saying. 
 
 Louis used a quantity of vinegar that would have over- 
 come a dozen faints. He got ice from the ice-box and 
 applied it with masculine awkwardness to her temples ; 
 and when she was recovered, he helped her to her frac- 
 tion of a bed, where, left alone, too tired, too sick to 
 think, she fell into a heavy sleep. 
 
 X 
 
 At the supper table, to prevent suspicion of their 
 strained relationship, Louis was, for him, garrulous. Had 
 anyone else, he asked, observed what a pretty young lady 
 they had with them ? When had she applied the paint ? 
 a reference to Minnie's flushed cheeks. He winked at 
 her out of sheer awkwardness and caused general amuse- 
 ment. Did they all notice how silent she could be when 
 she had nothing to say, and was there greater wisdom 
 than that? 
 
 When she happened to look up at him, he turned his 
 eyes away quickly, with a pained expression. 
 
 After supper he invited her, as usual, to take a walk 
 with him, brushing aside her hesitation in the dictatorial 
 way he had assumed. 
 
 "Go on, go, get your hat," he said, touching her on the 
 elbow.
 
 INDEPENDENCE 251 
 
 Mrs. Dakowsky, looking on, wished it was Dora that 
 was Louis "the paintner's" favorite. 
 
 On the street Louis at once communicated to Minnie 
 a plan at which he had arrived while she was sleeping off 
 her indisposition and he was keeping strictly in the 
 kitchen, careful not to pass through her room even for a 
 badly needed handkerchief. She ought to move from the 
 Dakowskys', was his verdict ; sleeping with two others in 
 a small bed in a small room was no life. This eating 
 once and skipping twice was nothing short of lunacy. 
 She should live with friends of his on Madison Street, 
 who had no other boarders and only one child and would 
 treat her well. 
 
 While he was giving this altruistic advice, a voice 
 within said: "You yourself should go away. By a pre- 
 tended favor to her you are removing temptation from 
 yourself. Strangers are strangers all over. For no 
 money Mrs. Argush will be no better than Mrs. Dakow- 
 sky. Sleeping in the kitchen of a two-room tenement is 
 as bad as one-third of a bed in a bedroom. But Louis 
 rooted this sentimentality out of his mind. Since he and 
 Minnie could not stay under the same roof without dan- 
 ger to both of them, the one to move might as well be 
 the younger person, to whom a change did not mean so 
 great a hardship. 
 
 To Minnie perverse is human nature the wretched 
 Dakowsky habitation when about to be denied her rose 
 desirable as a palace and as hard to part from as life it- 
 self. She turned pale and quivered. To go again to a 
 strange home loomed up as a horror and she repented, 
 oh, so earnestly, anything she might have done to pro- 
 voke Louis into taking such a stringent measure for her 
 punishment.
 
 252 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 She turned a mournful, pinched face up to him, mak- 
 ing a heart-rending sight, from which he had to avert his 
 eyes. With mingled emotions he guided her, neverthe- 
 less, against a raw, biting wind, to Madison Street, where 
 he stopped in front of a closed shop. "You had better 
 stand in the doorway," he said, "safe from the wind. I 
 will go to see if my friends are still up. It is after ten 
 o'clock and they may just be in bed." She was too 
 choked to assent or dissent ; and when he returned pres- 
 ently with the information that the Argushes were up 
 and she was accepted as a boarder, she hung her head 
 and followed him dumbly. 
 
 A familiar aspect of the vestibule roused her from her 
 lethargy. She hung back from Louis, her heart beating 
 rapidly, and tried to make out the blurred numbers on 
 the door. There could be no mistaking them they were 
 worn, but the same it was The House of the Schlopo- 
 borsky Cellar! She clapped her hand to her eyes and 
 screamed. Louis faced round quickly. 
 
 "What's the matter? Does anything hurt you?" 
 
 She was alarmed into docility. 
 
 "Nothing nothing hurts me." Louis was relieved. 
 "The wind is blowing hard," he said and, taking her by 
 the elbow, led her in. 
 
 XI 
 
 Most of her bag and baggage being on her person and 
 Louis undertaking to explain to the Dakowsky missus, 
 there was no reason, all agreed, why Minnie should not 
 remain with the Argushes that very night. 
 
 Louis had prepared the good Argushes to meet a girl
 
 INDEPENDENCE 253 
 
 "smart like anything," but as Minnie's monosyllabic re- 
 plies hardly bore out his boast, he felt obliged to explain. 
 "Wait," he said, "till she sleeps herself out. You will 
 see, she is as smart as I say." Minnie lowered her eyes 
 as he smiled upon her. Mr. Argush, spitting out threads 
 of tobacco from the end of his cigarette and scattering 
 the smoke, laughed a merry laugh, his face wrinkling and 
 dimpling. In Louis' protectiveness of Minnie he saw 
 the huge joke of matrimonial intent. 
 
 Minnie yawned. Mr. Argush pulled out his big gold 
 watch by its heavy gold chain and held it up to Louis. 
 If Minnie, he said, was to have the chance to "sleep her- 
 self out" into her greater "smartness," Louis had better 
 let her go to bed; whereupon Louis, in preparation for 
 departure, spat out the remnant of his cigarette into the 
 sink. On the way to the door he smuggled a five-dollar 
 bill into Mrs. Argush's hand and asked her in a whis- 
 per to insist upon Minnie's eating. He left, urging Min- 
 nie to feel at home. 
 
 After a moment of stiff silence the moment of read- 
 justment Mrs. Argush proposed that she and her hus- 
 band immediately remove from under the bed in the bed- 
 room the cot upon which Minnie was to sleep in the 
 room-of -all-affairs. She lighted a candle and held it for 
 him while he, on his knees, proceeded to shove aside 
 one obstructing article after another. Mrs. Argush's 
 chiding of him for making too much noise she was 
 afraid the baby in the crib would be awakened made 
 Minnie quiver with the agony of a sensitive intruder. 
 At last the cot was extricated from the tangle under the 
 bed. Mr. Argush, scrambling up, called his wife's at- 
 tention to the melted grease trickling down her apron 
 from the lighted candle, and whisked her under the chin.
 
 254 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Mrs. Argush blew out the candle, put it away in a closet 
 over the sink, and the two energetically proceeded to 
 push the table and the chairs to one side to make room 
 for the cot. 
 
 Minnie, hovering rather than sitting on her chair, was 
 tortured as to whether or not she should help ; she might 
 only be in the way if she did; and if she didn't, they 
 might think she was unwilling. Each moment her sen- 
 sitiveness heightened, for they were having difficulty 
 with the cot; the legs at one end set up, the legs at 
 the other end shut down. At last it was adjusted and 
 the perspiring Mr. Argush and his spouse turned to go 
 to the bedroom, he to disrobe, she to weed out spare 
 bedding for Minnie. 
 
 They had scarcely reached the threshold of the other 
 room when the cot crumpled up with a bang. With a 
 resigned sigh they turned back. 
 
 "Oh, it's going to be a big bother to you !" cried Min- 
 nie, who had started from her seat in the keenest dis- 
 tress. 
 
 For a moment a moment of torture to Minnie they 
 were too preoccupied to reply. Then they cried in duet 
 with great sincerity: "No, no!" 
 
 "Nu, sure it's no bother. What kind of a bother?" 
 added Mr. Argush. "Does the cot ask for food? Does 
 the landlord want extra rent? Is this room not wholly 
 to spare?" He raised his laughing eyes to Minnie; she 
 was set at rest. Mr. and Mrs. Argush were not yet pos- 
 sessors of so much as to feel that they had nothing to 
 spare. 
 
 The cot once more planted on its four legs, Mr. Ar- 
 gush tested it with his full weight. Satisfied it was now 
 secure, Mrs. Argush brought bedding; and with a kind
 
 INDEPENDENCE 255 
 
 good-night to Minnie, husband and wife retired to their 
 six-feet square of privacy. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Nothing but the flooring under her feet separated 
 Minnie from the Schlopoborsky cellar! She marveled 
 at this with youthful intensity. If her mother only knew ! 
 Oh, goodness, what in the world was going to happen 
 to her next ! Louis had had no right to bring her here. 
 But he did not know it was the house of the Schlopo- 
 borsky cellar. Why hadn't she told him? Why could 
 she make a hullabaloo when others were concerned and 
 always remained dumb for herself? 
 
 As she raised her hand to turn out the gas-light, her 
 burning eyes were caught by a bright calendar on which 
 a gaudy, bare-bosomed young woman advertised Neces- 
 sity Biscuits of the Titanic Biscuit Company; and after 
 she had gone to bed the vision danced before her in the 
 dark in brilliant shades of red and yellow until she fell 
 into a doze, from which she awoke in a few min- 
 utes with a start, tearing herself from the arms of Louis 
 and straining her neck to keep her lips out of reach of 
 his fierce kisses. She lay awake for some time, so ner- 
 vous that she dared not turn on her bed. Then she fell 
 asleep again, and wrestled throughout the night with 
 Necessity Biscuits, brazen, bare-bosomed women, Louis, 
 cots tumbling from great heights to great depths, a cold 
 stove in a gray cellar, home, mother, Ida, bands, high 
 school. 
 
 XII 
 
 She awoke early in the morning and lay quietly in 
 bed while recollections of the previous day and night
 
 256 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 filtered through her mind, faint, at first, blurred, unreal, 
 then with greater vividness, until her brain was entirely 
 cleared of her troubled sleep and the reality, hard and 
 bitter, thrust itself upon her. She could no longer teach 
 the Dakowsky boarders; consequently she would have 
 no source of income; so what in the world was to be- 
 come of her? She stared blankly into space, her whole 
 being enveloped in a cloud. All seemed utterly hope- 
 less, and she utterly helpless. From sheer impotence she 
 turned from side to side upon the cot. Again her eyes 
 fell upon the brazen, bare-bosomed lady of the Titanic 
 Biscuit Company calendar. She studied it mechanically. 
 In tfie lower left-hand corner was the picture of a huge 
 plant; in the lower right-hand corner, of an office with 
 girls bending over desks. An unconscious something 
 kept her eyes riveted on the right-hand corner. An in- 
 spiration dived through her mind. She would try to get 
 
 a position in that office ! "I'll get right up " But she 
 
 was afraid of rousing the Argushes. Then came a coun- 
 ter-fear; the Argushes might insist upon her eating 
 breakfast even though she had no money to pay for it; 
 and, determined to avoid this, she jumped up and began 
 to dress. Just as she was ready to leave, Mrs. Argush, 
 in her night regalia of a torn waist and a skimpy petti- 
 coat, appeared upon the threshold between the two rooms. 
 
 "What are you doing up so early?" she whispered, 
 stepping farther into the room-of-all-affairs. 
 
 Minnie timidly imparted her intentions. 
 
 "But it's too early, it's only six o'clock." 
 
 Even if it was too early to go out, she had somehow 
 to escape consumption of a breakfast without pay. 
 
 "Maybe it's not so early," she replied nervously, mov- 
 ing toward the door.
 
 INDEPENDENCE 257 
 
 The baby stirred. Mrs. Argush turned to listen. Min- 
 nie slipped out, and was already at the hall door when 
 Mrs. Argush discovered her flight and called in astonish- 
 ment: 
 
 "You haven't eaten any breakfast." 
 
 There ! What a satisfaction to have escaped ! 
 
 "I don't want breakfast. Good-by !" 
 
 Mrs. Argush remained staring at the closed door. 
 
 "A me en mudner mensch!" (a queer person) she mut- 
 tered, and returned to her spouse and baby, puzzled by 
 Louis' choice. 
 
 Outdoors a fresh breeze was blowing. The streets 
 wore an air of Sabbath cleanliness, and to the early hour 
 was due a peaceful quiet. Here and there an energetic 
 housewife appeared in a doorway with a can of ashes or 
 rubbish to deposit in a barrel, and here and there a toiler 
 in a "busy season" trade emerged to go to work. Scared 
 by the silence and the gray light, Minnie walked cau- 
 tiously, as if to avoid drawing attention to herself. The 
 sight of a policeman swinging his club to the whistled 
 tune of Annie Laurie, reminded her that she needed to 
 be directed to the Titanic Biscuit Company. The big 
 man's eyes twinkled down on the timid little questioner. 
 
 "Je fall out of bed?" 
 
 The joke missed Minnie, who, completely possessed by 
 this new possibility of obtaining office work, was in no 
 mood for fun. 
 
 The factory was at the extreme West Side of the 
 metropolis, and by the time Minnie reached the place, her 
 excitement, mounting with each step she took, had risen 
 to fever heat. 
 
 A timid knocking on his office door roused the super-
 
 258 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 intendent of the Titanic Biscuit Company. He turned 
 his heavy body on the revolving-chair and called : "Come 
 in." Minnie started back at the sight of the man facing 
 her. His chin and lower jaw, protruding like a slightly 
 open drawer, gave him the ferocious aspect of the pro- 
 verbial villain. "Come in, come in," he growled, rubbing 
 a rheumatic leg, which that morning had serious designs 
 against the serenity of his temper. She advanced into the 
 room and stood like a sinner on Judgment Day before 
 this Almighty. "Well, what do you want?" he growled 
 again. That mean leg would get the better of him and 
 inject gruffness into his voice though he meant to be 
 pleasant to the timid child. 
 
 "Work work in your office." 
 
 "Got any experience?" 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 He seemed to measure the impertinence of her request 
 for work in an office against her youthful body, which 
 shrank under his gaze. She was ready to run, to cry out 
 when she was startled by a sharp sound. The gentle- 
 man had rung a bell. She looked to the right and to the 
 left for a means of escape from the policeman summoned 
 to throw her out. She trembled from head to foot. 
 
 "We have no position for you in the office, we can 
 give you work in the factory. Experience not needed. 
 Satisfied?" 
 
 Minnie, not knowing what she did, nodded. 
 
 The door opened. A man of immense size, with sleeves 
 rolled up displaying tremendous muscles, appeared. 
 
 "Charlie," the Almighty grunted, "take this girl to the 
 icing department." He turned to Minnie. "You'll get 
 three dollars and a half a week," he tossed out, and swung 
 his chair around again to his desk.
 
 INDEPENDENCE 259 
 
 Simultaneously Charlie asked her to step along with 
 him ; she felt as if she were being spun round like a top ; 
 and before she realized what was happening the immense 
 man was leading her through a huge iron gate, which 
 made her shudder with a sense of her insignificance. He 
 sped on through a hallway and up six flights of stone 
 stairs. Minnie, trying to keep pace, reached the top 
 sick with breathlessness. 
 
 "Dying?" Charlie, amused, turned round to in- 
 quire. 
 
 Tears welled up in her averted eyes. She said noth- 
 ing. 
 
 Charlie slapped his pockets one after another, then 
 slapped them all over again, and seemed upset about 
 something. The sight of Pem, the keyman, who hap- 
 pened to pass at that moment, relieved him. 
 
 "Say, Pem," he called, "give's a key." 
 
 Pem took a key from his pocket. With a suggestive 
 smile he held Minnie stripped before the gaze of Charlie 
 as he dangled the key in the air. Then he threw it, aim- 
 ing at Charlie's head. Both men laughed as Charlie 
 caught the key and called "son-of-a-gun" to the retreat- 
 ing Pem. Minnie dropped her eyes and recoiled as 
 though a foul smell had reached her. 
 
 Shrinkingly she followed Charlie to a time-clock. Pre- 
 tending he had to help her reach the crank, he held her 
 up under the armpits. As soon as she could, she freed 
 herself from his hold. 
 
 "You must do that every morning. You're docked a 
 cent a minute for being late, so git here on time, or the 
 boss'll be making wages on you. See?" He chuckled 
 and pursed his lips as if to spit. Minnie giving no sign
 
 2<5o SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 of appreciation of his joke, he decided she was a "stiff" 
 and made no further advances. He always tested every 
 good-looking newcomer. This kid's eyes kind a fetched 
 him. 
 
 Charlie led her to Mr. Gamely, the foreman of the 
 icing department, who turned her over to the forelady. 
 The forelady placed her at a table to arrange biscuits in 
 straight rows on large boards, the boards to be mounted 
 on racks, the racks to be pushed to a far end of the 
 huge loft. 
 
 Minnie listened to the forelady's instructions with the 
 solemnity with which an earnest bride listens to her wed- 
 ding sermon. She was awe-inspired by the lady's dig- 
 nity, and, at the same time, so distracted by the agoniz- 
 ing realization that the place was a shop that she had to 
 strain every nerve to keep her mind from wandering. 
 A haggard child's face was turned up to the forelady. 
 
 "The girls are not allowed to loiter in the water-closet," 
 the dignified forelady continued, "and you mustn't talk or 
 sit down, or you'll get the sack." 
 
 "When should I come in?" Minnie, gulping, asked 
 timidly. 
 
 "At seven. You get a half-hour for dinner, and at six 
 o'clock the whistle blows." 
 
 Subdued noises reached the forelady's ear. She 
 turned like a dog catching a scent. An Italian workman, 
 amusing himself and those around him by a hummed ren- 
 dition of // Trovatore, instantly feigned intensive con- 
 centration upon his task of sticking rectangular cakes 
 dipped in colored icings on to iron spikes. Another man, 
 who was about to yield to temptation and sit down to 
 ease his burning feet, raised himself swiftly and bent
 
 INDEPENDENCE 261 
 
 over his work with exaggerated attention. A solemn 
 silence fell upon the half of the loft that the forelady 
 faced. Smugly conscious of her power, the forelady 
 stood still a few moments, then turned to instal order 
 in the other half of the loft. Instantly the mouths of 
 several girls shut automatically, one upon a whispered 
 tale of a "feller" who behind a rack had behaved like a 
 "fresh thing," thus proving that he did not know a "lady 
 of high ability" when he met one; another, upon the ear- 
 nest information that "rats" could be bought at the five- 
 and-ten-cent store for the latter sum as good as any "what 
 swells pay forty-nine cents for in them department 
 stores." Minnie herself was frightened out of a gaze of 
 awe upon her opposite neighbor, a young woman whose 
 top was decked with a bird's nest of ultra-blond curls 
 and whose cheeks and lips stood out in vivid scarlet on 
 either side of a flour-white nose. 
 
 The forelady for a minute or two watched the new 
 "hand" laying crackers in rows, then walked slowly 
 along, taking note of wooden and paper boxes strewn 
 about carelessly. She would see to their removal; also 
 to the washing of the windows, which were badly bespat- 
 tered, and to the leaking of the big sink. The huge rub- 
 ber mat underneath was swimming in a pool of water, 
 and the girls who worked near the sink were getting wet 
 feet. 
 
 Minnie's eyes followed the departing forelady. A 
 shop with a forelady and a foreman and everything! O 
 God ! She lowered her head to hide her distress from her 
 neighbor. And Louis would tell Dora ! Even Uncle Leo- 
 pold might hear of her disgrace. She burned with hu- 
 miliation. To think that his threat had come true!
 
 262 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Maybe he had cursed her! She hated him hated Dora 
 hated being alive. If her mother had had any love 
 for her children, she would never have married again. 
 She cared for herself and "that man" only. She hated 
 her mother. The tears rolled down her cheeks and 
 dropped on to the board. 
 
 "Say, sissy, them crackers sell dry," said Minnie's co- 
 worker. 
 
 Some who heard giggled. Minnie flushed and pro- 
 ceeded to lay crackers with greater speed. 
 
 In a far end of the loft a machine was set in motion. 
 It sent forth a few shrill notes as of ecstasy, and came 
 to a halt with an immense groan. The suddenness of it 
 startled Minnie and added to her misery. She felt like 
 screaming, like tearing the young flesh from her body. 
 Envious thoughts ravaged her soul of the girls she had 
 left behind at high school. Why had she been picked out 
 for this for working in a shop the meanest fate 
 of all! 
 
 Neighbors at adjoining tables began to hum a senti- 
 mental tune : I wonder where you are to-night, my love. 
 The notes wound themselves around Minnie's heart like 
 a shroud. 
 
 The place buzzed with sounds of activity. The very 
 air seemed to go round and round and round. Beads of 
 perspiration stood out on foreheads, rings deepened 
 under eyes, time seemed endless, minutes to be hours. 
 
 Then a shrill shriek exhausting itself automatically put 
 out the life of drudgery. A crank seemed to have been 
 turned off in the mechanism of the people. Men, women, 
 boys and girls dropped a curtain of restraint and rushed 
 pellmell to one side. In a single minute a human sheet
 
 INDEPENDENCE 263 
 
 was formed, which, for its denseness, could make no 
 progress forward. 
 
 "Got the pip?" a young fellow, cupping his hands at 
 his mouth, hallooed. Girls giggled. Boys moved closer 
 to them. 
 
 A bony old woman, gaping at Minnie, elbowed her 
 way up to her. She blinked her watery blue eyes. 
 
 "Gotche dinner, sissy?" she asked in a hoarse, coarse 
 voice. Minnie edged away. The woman peered at Min- 
 nie's hands for her lunch parcel. "Go on up there," she 
 
 piped, pointing to a rear door. "Ye kin git pie " 
 
 The woman didn't seem real to Minnie, who heard the 
 instruction as in a nightmare. She didn't move. The 
 woman drew still closer, as if to impart a great secret, 
 and laid her bony hand, smeared with a brown, sticky 
 substance, on Minnie's arm. A man eager to pass pushed 
 by them. His shirt was wet with perspiration; his per- 
 son exuded a sour sweat smell. Minnie gagged with 
 nausea. "Ain't you heard what I been saying?" the old 
 woman whispered in her hoarse voice. 
 
 Minnie turned red-rimmed eyes upon her. It was all 
 so utterly strange! Was it a shop? Where was she? 
 She was filled with terror. The old woman might have 
 been a witch out of a fairy tale, all the others, wild ani- 
 mals in an arena. Mad with a desire to escape, she 
 rushed to the door that the old woman had indicated and 
 out into a dark hallway, where she sank down on the top 
 step of the flight of stone stairs and buried her head in 
 her hands. 
 
 "It's a shop it's a shop it's really a shop!" She 
 swayed back and forth. She was too wretched for 
 tears. 
 
 Time passed ; another shrill whistle announced the ex-
 
 264 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 piration of the lunch hour. With bent head Minnie 
 joined the throng of lighter-hearted ones returning to 
 their tables of toil. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Two months later Minnie was still in the employ of 
 the Titanic Biscuit Company and still living with the 
 Argushes. She had capitulated. But her capitulation 
 was not the result of resignation or surrender. She was 
 merely too numb to resist. Circumstances had dealt her 
 a stupefying blow. Like an automaton she went daily to 
 the factory and returned to the tenement house of the 
 horrible past. 
 
 At first her fellow-workers of the same sex construed 
 her apathy as queerness. When they learned she had 
 been a high-school girl, however, and that this was her 
 first job, they labelled her a "stiff," after which they 
 faithfully ignored her. Never was she invited to join 
 them in their frolics, nor to eat lunch with them on the 
 stone stairs, one of the factory's commodious lunch 
 rooms. As for the men, they never asked her to make 
 "dates," nor even gave her a friendly poke in the 
 ribs. 
 
 Minnie was as little alive to her social ostracism as to 
 everything else about her. Indeed, she would have found 
 it far more unnatural had her companionship been sought. 
 The people in the factory passed to and fro, stood be- 
 side, behind and before her like phantoms. Her world 
 was not real. She was stunned, benumbed. 
 
 She felt secure about Dora and her family for she 
 had elicited from Louis the promise that he would not 
 tell her friend and she avoided meeting Ida and Beckie
 
 INDEPENDENCE 265 
 
 again; and nothing else came to prick her out of her 
 torpidity. 
 
 That stare into a distant world in the great gray eyes 
 of Minnie attracted Mr. Gamely, the foreman. He would 
 watch her with amusement as she worked or sat alone, 
 or arrived alone in the morning or left alone at night. 
 Either, he thought, she was quite different from the oth- 
 ers, or she was putting on airs. He would find out. 
 
 Once he addressed her as she stood at work. Did she 
 think the row she had made was straight? She flushed 
 as she raised her eyes to his. 
 
 "I I think so." 
 
 Mr. Cameley kept her troubled eyes raised a moment 
 longer, then, smiling, gave her a friendly whisk under the 
 chin and turned away. The thing was unheard of ! With 
 a great whirr the wheels of gossip were set revolving 
 among the Maggies and the Susies. "That stiff," they 
 determined, was not to be left in the smug consciousness 
 that she was "good enough for the foreman." To ignore 
 her was not enough ; she must be squelched with disdain ; 
 so they passed her by like haughty queens, drawing in 
 their social skirts and holding high their heads. 
 
 Mr. Gamely followed up the one attention with others! 
 Occasionally he stopped at Minnie's table to lay a few 
 crackers in a row and asked her if she didn't think he 
 did better work than she just for a look into her up- 
 turned eyes, which somehow undermined his foreman's 
 dignity. 
 
 Minnie, who felt she was being singled out for par- 
 ticular inspection of her work, lived in dread of the 
 "sack." The shop now had become the alternative to 
 starving, and so every time Mr. Gamely approached she 
 trembled.
 
 266 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "She's so dead stuck on him, she's fidgety," her op- 
 posite neighbor communicated to the other girls. 
 
 Once when Mr. Gamely was in an especially good 
 mood, he called to Minnie as she was passing his office 
 and ordered her, with affected gruffness, to come in. 
 As she stood timidly facing him, he had to drop his smil- 
 ing eyes ; he took boyish pleasure in his power. 
 
 "You mustn't eat so many crackers," he said with as- 
 sumed forbiddingness. 
 
 Minnie was dumfounded. She raised astonished eyes 
 in which Mr. Gamely revelled. 
 
 "Be careful," he teased, "don't go too far." 
 
 Out of his presence Minnie found words of self-de- 
 fense and was miserable that she had not told him he 
 was accusing her wrongly. For days she harbored a 
 wretched sense of injustice and resolved that at the very 
 first opportunity she would explain to Mr. Gamely; but 
 when the chance came, she fell into an uncontrollable 
 tremble and said nothing. She remained a thief in the 
 foreman's eyes ! How she loathed her palpitating heart, 
 her roof-rooted tongue. 
 
 Again, some days later, Mr. Gamely summoned Min- 
 nie to his office. 
 
 "What's that lump in your stocking?" He ordered her 
 to pull down her stocking, pretending that he expected to 
 find nuts or crackers. What he found was her week's 
 wages tied in a handkerchief. 
 
 This time Mr. Gamely got no amusement from the look 
 in Minnie's eyes. He laughed a chopped laugh, pinched 
 her cheek, called her "pretty," and hurried her out of 
 the room. 
 
 The end of the week brought a fifty-cent raise in her 
 wages with numerous consequences.
 
 INDEPENDENCE 267 
 
 For one thing, it set Minnie's heart at rest as to the 
 possibility of being sacked. A very thirsty man will be 
 grateful for muddy water. Then it permitted the ex- 
 travagance of breakfasts. Three dollars and fifty cents 
 a week, for all the elasticity of the poor man's dollar, 
 simply would not cover all of Minnie's needs. Breakfast 
 had been, resignedly, a permanent elimination. In the 
 third place it redeemed her with the Argushes in spite of 
 her queer ways. After all, a girl who can get a fifty-cent 
 raise at the end of only a few months must be "smart." 
 And, lastly, it gave Louis the tremendous satisfaction of 
 saying "I told you so" to the Argushes. He quite swelled 
 with pride. 
 
 XIV 
 
 One Saturday midday, at closing hour, Mr. Gamely, 
 with the prospect of an empty afternoon and evening 
 before him, sat yawning in his office. He was bored. 
 Minnie, one of the last of the workers to leave the loft, 
 passed by his open door, heard him snap his fingers, and 
 glanced in. He beckoned to her to enter. He settled 
 himself leisurely in his revolving-chair, lolling with parted 
 legs like a man inviting a fascinating wife or mistress to 
 sit on his knee. Minnie stood falteringly in the middle 
 of the room. 
 
 "Sit down." Mr. Gamely pushed forward a chair. 
 
 She sat down gingerly on the edge. A ray of sunshine 
 lighted up her hair and gave it a reddish glint ; her gray 
 eyes were soft and melancholy. The man's eyes traveled 
 over her person lustily. 
 
 "How'je like to go to a show to-night?" he asked with 
 the same leisureliness in his tone as in his manner.
 
 268 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Minnie stared at him. For the first time she observed 
 that his features were those of an ordinary human being. 
 He had always seemed to belong to a different species. 
 
 A show ! Mr. Gamely, the foreman, was asking her to 
 a show ! She could not believe her ears. She had never 
 in her life been to a show. Bells tinkled glad tunes in 
 her head. But the music was short-lived. She looked 
 down upon her faded waist and her sugar-smeared skirt. 
 
 "I have no nice dress." 
 
 "Go home and change your dress." 
 
 "I have no home." Every bit of her awe of the fore- 
 man was gone. She could have taken him into her con- 
 fidence about all her affairs. 
 
 "Don't you live somewhere?" 
 
 "But not at home " 
 
 Mr. Gamely suddenly straightened up. His breath was 
 labored and his eyes wore an odd stare, like the doctor's. 
 Minnie's heart gave a violent leap. She cast a swift look 
 toward the open door into the empty loft. 
 
 "Come on give's a kiss," cried Mr. Gamely in a muf- 
 fled voice, and leaned forward to take the kiss. 
 
 Mortal terror struck into the girl's heart. She jumped 
 up, wrenched herself free from Mr. Gamely 's detaining 
 hold, and, the next instant, was out of his office, running 
 madly down the six flights of stone stairs. 
 
 XV 
 
 She stood outside the huge factory panting for breath, 
 in a torment of uncertainty. Had she done right to run 
 away? Had she heard right? Had Mr. Gamely asked 
 her to let him kiss her ? Had he wanted to do the same 
 as the doctor? Were all men going to treat her that
 
 INDEPENDENCE 269 
 
 way? Goodness, what could be the matter with them! 
 Maybe she should have let him kiss her, he was the fore- 
 man. Now, maybe, she had lost her position. But 
 maybe he had not noticed that she had run away; he 
 might have thought she had just walked out to get a 
 drink. 
 
 Some instinct, however, exceeding her reason, told 
 Minnie that she had done right to run away and, further- 
 more, that she must not return to the shop. Cooperating 
 with her instinct was Louis' warning ; yet Louis had con- 
 fused her by his own conduct. Round and round circled 
 her impulses to return immediately to the shop, to run 
 home, to go back to the shop the next day, never to go 
 back while, independently of her will, her footsteps 
 carried her rapidly homeward. She reached the tenement 
 out of breath, pale, worn. 
 
 Mrs. Argush was bending over a tin basin in which 
 lay her young slice of heaven splashing in warm water. 
 
 "What is it? Why do you look so sick?" the good- 
 hearted woman exclaimed with exaggerated breathless- 
 ness. Minnie made no answer and burst out crying 
 when Mrs. Argush repeated the questions. In a flurry 
 of alarm Mrs. Argush raised her infant out of the water 
 in her arms, hastily threw a shawl over him, and led Min- 
 nie into the bedroom. "Lie down," she cried, "lie down." 
 
 While keeping watch over Minnie, Mrs. Argush 
 dressed her baby and invented a thousand reasons for the 
 girl's crying spell. 
 
 Minnie, on the other hand, was tortured by a new 
 thought. Would the Argushes and Louis think she had 
 been truthful about the raise? It was only a little over 
 two weeks since she had got it. Who leaves a position 
 so soon upon a raise? And again came the frightful
 
 270 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 uncertainty as to whether she ought or ought not to re- 
 turn to work the next day, and whether she ought to have 
 run away at all. 
 
 Once or twice Mrs. Argush broke the silence to beg 
 Minnie to relieve herself by saying what was the matter. 
 The only response she received was a restless turning 
 of the girl's body and a fresh outburst of tears. Finally 
 she went into the other room to put her baby to sleep. 
 "Schluff mein faigele, mach zu deine aigelech," she sang 
 softly in a sweet contralto. 
 
 The sound of voices roused Minnie. The bedroom, 
 always dismal, was now pitch-dark. She must have been 
 asleep a long time ! She jumped up and hurried to the 
 threshold, and asked what time it was, astonished to see 
 Mr. Argush home. Mr. Argush, washing himself at the 
 sink, looked out from a layer of soap lather and smiled. 
 
 "Time for a young lady to be up," he joked, in the 
 hope of cheering her, Mrs. Argush having already told 
 him of the state in which she had come home. 
 
 During supper Minnie sat silently brooding. Sleep 
 had not dispelled her unhappiness. 
 
 After supper Mr. Argush said he was going to visit 
 the Qiernins. Mrs. Argush sent him a wink that meant 
 he was to take Minnie along; the diversion, she felt, 
 would do the girl good. Mr. Argush promptly extended 
 the invitation and received a refusal. There was a bit 
 of talk, and five minutes later Minnie, tearful, was fol- 
 lowing Mr. Argush out of the house. 
 
 On the street he teased her. Had she got another 
 raise? Or was it a falling out with Louis, her sweet- 
 heart that was depressing her ? What then ? Until poor 
 Minnie, overwrought, felt herself grow faint. She 
 stopped and brought her hands to her face. It was not
 
 INDEPENDENCE 271 
 
 a trifle that was distressing the girl, Mr. Argiish was 
 now convinced, and his paternal' heart was much con- 
 cerned. He slackened his pace and every moment asked 
 how sne felt. At last they reached the Chernin home. 
 
 Eight men sat playing poker in the kitchen, the room 
 into which the entrance door led. Above and around 
 them hovered a thick cloud of tobacco smoke, which dis- 
 persed as if intending to make room for the visitors. 
 Olga Chernin, dark, tall and stately, with a smile that 
 bade all the world welcome, rose to greet her guests. 
 An inquiring look from Olga reminded Mr. Argush that 
 he had forgotten to introduce Minnie. 
 
 "Oh, this is Miss Mendel, our boarderke." Mr. and 
 Mrs. Chernin shook hands with her. The eight card 
 players rose from their chairs and saluted with exagger- 
 ated chivalry. A burst of laughter and a shuffling of 
 chairs filled the small room with jolly noise. The tea- 
 kettle spat out of its snout upon the red-hot stove. 
 
 Minnie was bewildered. She turned deathly pale. A 
 sudden dizziness overtook her. Mr. Argush turned 
 quickly to support her. "Take her to lie down !" he cried 
 to Olga, who caught her round the waist and led her 
 through the railroad flat. 
 
 For all the ricketiness of the bed and the dinginess of 
 the room, it was a comfort to Minnie, who ached in 
 every limb and was soul weary. 
 
 Olga, seating herself on the edge of the bed, stroked 
 her hair and meditated. Poor child, so young and a 
 boarderke already ! Goodness knew how such things 
 came to be in this most glorious of all countries! The 
 Argushes had only two rooms. The child probably slept 
 in the kitchen. Where did she work? Where were her 
 parents ?
 
 272 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "I can stay alone," Minnie said. 
 
 "Oh, no, that's all right, I'll stay here." Olga spoke 
 cordially, and she stooped and kissed the newcomer on 
 her forehead. 
 
 A warm, peaceful feeling stirred in Minnie's breast, a 
 tenderness for Olga, the stranger of a few minutes ago. 
 She laid her hand in hers. 
 
 From the kitchen, where Mr. Argush was now seated 
 with the others participating in the game of cards, came 
 his voice leading in a melancholy Russian melody. He 
 began softly, like a lover not uncertain of his welcome 
 come awooing; then, finding himself repulsed, using per- 
 suasion. The song rose to notes of passionate disap- 
 pointment, was modulated again as with pleading, and 
 died out as in despair. 
 
 Olga felt tears drop on her hand. She leaned for- 
 ward. 
 
 "What is it, dear?" she asked tenderly. Minnie wept 
 the more. 
 
 Another soft melody. 
 
 Minnie's soul merged with Olga's. Naively and pas- 
 sionately emphasizing her distress because the Argushes 
 and Louis might suspect her of having lied as to the raise, 
 Minnie told Olga her story. 
 
 Good Olga's heart warmed with fond motherliness to- 
 ward this child. "You did perfectly right to run away," 
 she soothed her, "and you must certainly not go back." 
 
 Minnie's child heart was somewhat relieved. But the 
 greatest worry was still with her: the untruthfulness of 
 which she might be suspected. 
 
 "I tell you what," said Olga, hitting upon a happy idea, 
 "come here every morning with a paper and start out 
 from here to look for work ! You will soon find it with-
 
 INDEPENDENCE 273 
 
 out doubt. All your spare time spend here. No one 
 needs to know you are without work at all. And when 
 you get another place, who will know whether it's the 
 Titanic Biscuit Company or The Schmitanic Trisket 
 Company you are working in ?" She spoke enthusiastic- 
 ally, entering wholeheartedly into the little girl's per- 
 turbed state of heart. 
 
 Olga had lifted the universe from the acquiescent Min- 
 nie's shoulders. 
 
 XVI 
 
 Olga and Boris Chernin, with their son Gregory, had 
 had to flee from Russia to escape exile to Siberia on 
 account of radical propaganda. Boris and Olga's aristo- 
 cratic training in Russia had made no provision for the 
 earning of a livelihood. In democratic America, Boris 
 found himself compelled to choose between working or 
 starving. He took any job that offered itself, one win- 
 ter even shoveling snow. That winter he was taken ill 
 with pneumonia, for a time hanging between life and 
 death and emerging a candidate for tuberculosis. What 
 with poor care because of lack of means, he soon suc- 
 cumbed to the disease ; after which Olga peddled small 
 articles, did day's work, and served as midwife, all to 
 keep her husband in a boarding-house at Liberty, her 
 son Gregory at school, and herself alive. Boris got bet- 
 ter, and Gregory entered college with honors. Several 
 times Boris tried his hand again at work of different sorts, 
 but his health, each time, threatened to give way, and 
 Olga insisted upon remaining the sole dependable bread- 
 winner and allowed him only to do odd jobs now and then 
 when he felt especially well. Leisure hung too heavily on
 
 274 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 the man's hands. Friends dropped in evenings, and 
 sometimes during the day as well, to play cards for the 
 pure comradeship of it. The habit grew, as did also the 
 number of men that came, until Olga, exhausted, beaten 
 by the daily struggle, to which she never could become ac- 
 customed, evolved the plan of charging the men a fee for 
 the privilege. Soon she herself took part in the games. 
 She had luck, and so did Boris. The innocent playhouse 
 became a professional gambling den, though always pre- 
 serving a certain air of decency, upon which Olga insisted 
 on Gregory's account. If, she would think in bitter ap- 
 prehension, he were to recall his home in later years as a 
 foul place, his mother and father as unclean people! 
 Yet often she told herself that if he were the son of his 
 parents in the soul as well as in the body, he would de- 
 velop sufficient sympathy to realize that a man treated 
 like a dog cannot be hung for failing to behave like a 
 man. Gregory would surely remember the days when he 
 and she had huddled together in the cold and shared a 
 
 miserable cot. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Minnie, with a newspaper under her arm, arrived at 
 the Chernin home early the next morning. It was a 
 rainy day and so dark still that the family was only just 
 stirring ; yet she was greeted with the warmest cordiality. 
 
 "This is my son, Gregory," Olga called to Minnie. 
 
 A young chap in shirt sleeves, with large, soft, brown 
 eyes like his mother's, a generous mouth, rather high 
 cheek bones, and a shock of curly brown hair, smiled at 
 her. Minnie spontaneously smiled back. 
 
 "Gregory, dear," Olga said in her high-pitched, caress- 
 ing voice, as she pointed to a chair at the window, "take 
 vour coat off the chair and let Minnie sit down."
 
 INDEPENDENCE 275 
 
 Gregory cleared the chair and Minnie sat down. 
 "Spread your newspaper on the table, dear," said Olga. 
 
 When Minnie was comfortably seated Olga turned to 
 tidy the room. Gregory, glancing at Minnie, caught a 
 frightened look in her eyes, as if she felt out of place. 
 He looked away. He felt sorry for her. Minnie became 
 absorbed in the "Help Wanted Female" columns. 
 When next she looked up, the room was tidied, the three 
 were dressed, Gregory in a becoming dark blue suit, and 
 Olga was saying: "The coffee is ready." She insisted 
 that Minnie join them. Minnie protested with intense 
 earnestness, wholly unconscious that out of a corner of 
 his eye Gregory was watching her two gray ones as they 
 did their imploring to be let off. Her eyes had that 
 quality of innocent mesmerism which draws men against 
 their will. It was her very unconsciousness of their 
 charm that made her the more fascinating. 
 
 It was the between-season when Christmas activity has 
 not yet begun and advertisements for help are few. Olga 
 urged Minnie not to worry. As it was raining hard, it 
 was just as well for her to stay indoors that day, she 
 said. 
 
 Toward the middle of the morning men began to strag- 
 gle in. Olga, answering a question she thought must be 
 in Minnie's mind, lightly explained their presence. The 
 one effect of the explanation upon the child, who had no 
 idea of the interrelation of card-playing and indecency, 
 was to leave her puzzled as to why it had been given. 
 Only the sophisticated are suspicious. Minnie had met 
 men in this home the night before; it was quite natural 
 to meet men here again. 
 
 Olga saw that Minnie looked tired and concluding at 
 the same time that it would be more comfortable for
 
 276 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 everyone if she were in another room, took her to the 
 bedroom. "It will do you good to lie down," she said. 
 "Try even to sleep." Kissing her gently, she left her 
 alone. 
 
 An hour later Minnie was awakened by a shout, fol- 
 lowed by a thunderous laugh. Above all the voices 
 Olga's coursed through the air like a peal of music. 
 
 "Full house!" 
 
 The girl jumped up and ran to the kitchen. She was 
 dressed in a bright, orange-colored mull blouse with a 
 black tie and a black skirt, which, for all its cheapness, 
 was immensely becoming. Her hair was dishevelled, her 
 cheeks were flushed from sleep, her eyes shone like two 
 stars. She stood in the doorway, hands clutched below 
 her breast, head and shoulders slightly forward, lips 
 parted, and brows slightly lifted. First some, then all, 
 of the men raised their eyes and were silenced by the 
 girlish vision. 
 
 "Well, dear, did you have a nice sleep?" Olga called 
 pleasantly, smiling. 
 
 The spell was broken. Minnie relaxed and entered 
 farther into the room, falling into her natural timidity. 
 
 "Yes," she said, glancing shyly from one man to an- 
 other. 
 
 One of the gamblers, large of body and tight of mus- 
 cle, with small, insinuating eyes and mountainous cheek- 
 bones, gazed at Minnie hard, an impertinent smile play- 
 ing round his lips. She had to drop her eyes. 
 
 Olga rose to fill the tea glasses and gave her chair to 
 Minnie, who took it diffidently. 
 
 "Give her some tea, too," Boris called to Olga. 
 
 "Of course," Olga rejoined in a tone implying there 
 was no need to make this suggestion. No Russian has
 
 INDEPENDENCE 277 
 
 to be reminded that tea and hospitality go hand in hand. 
 
 When the glasses were filled, Olga brought herself a 
 chair from the bedroom. The gamblers, moving closer 
 to the table, resumed their play. Heads were bent lower. 
 The ugly expression of hunters in pursuit of prey fell 
 like a veil over each face. Now and then one stopped 
 to take a sip of strong tea, perhaps to throw a look at 
 the young female stranger, whose eyes followed their 
 activity with an interest that grew more intense with each 
 new shout of enthusiasm, with each explosion of coarse 
 laughter. 
 
 The man with the mountainous cheekbones, Joe by 
 name, raised his eyes oftener than the others to feast 
 upon the new female. He speculated as to the reasons 
 for her presence, and since his experience was by no 
 means limited to this one gambling house his conjectures 
 ran riot. She looked young and as if she had never wit- 
 nessed gambling before, yet, he decided, she must be six- 
 teen at least and maybe was shamming innocence. 
 Womenfolk were artists at shamming. He would find 
 out. Several times he cleared his throat and glanced at 
 Minnie as if he meant to say something. Finally he came 
 out with it, ostensibly addressing the gathering in gen- 
 eral. 
 
 "Well, why can't the young lady join in the game?" 
 He glanced covertly at her. 
 
 There followed an exchange of looks, during which 
 activity was suspended. Olga refrained from saying 
 something that seemed to be on the tip of her tongue. 
 She contemplated the girl, shrugged her shoulders, and 
 again fastened her attention on the cards. 
 
 Minnie looked shyly from one to another. She rested 
 her eyes longest, and gratefully, upon Joe, who was
 
 278 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 thereby imbued with greater courage. Pulling himself 
 together, he rose, moved his chair nearer to his neigh- 
 bor's, told the others to do the same, and invited Minnie 
 to "move close and be a sport." She hesitated, with a 
 diffident glance at Olga. Olga, just then reminded by 
 her husband that the glasses needed replenishing again, 
 rose; she smiled only half consent upon Minnie, and 
 Minnie remained where she was, seated outside the 
 circle. 
 
 "Nu, tell the baby she can play !" called Joe to Olga. 
 
 Giving her shoulders a nonchalant shrug, Olga said to 
 Minnie : 
 
 "If you want to. It won't hurt you, I suppose. Try. 
 It is fun." 
 
 It was a moment of exultation for Minnie, who took 
 her place eagerly, quivering with joyful anticipation. 
 
 Joe snatched Olga's chair, which was next to Minnie's, 
 and gaily ordered Olga to take his. His interest so flat- 
 tered Minnie that she at once conceived a liking for this 
 big man. When he insisted that Olga make her tea as 
 strong as everybody else's, saying Olga did not give the 
 girl credit for being the "sport" that she was, her grati- 
 tude knew no bounds. For the first time in her life she 
 saw some importance in being Minnie. Her eyes, shining 
 with the new light, were extraordinarily beautiful ; and 
 Joe lent himself readily to their charm. Bent, moreover, 
 upon testing her, he edged closer and proceeded to give 
 instructions. She felt his warm breath graze her cheek ; 
 his shoulder touched hers, his leg leaned against hers. 
 His manner was vigorous, inspiring, his voice deep, his 
 tone compelling. He was irresistible, masterful. Minnie 
 felt agitated stormed. 
 
 Thus and so was meant by the stakes, the blind, the
 
 INDEPENDENCE 279 
 
 straddle, the ante. The game had seemed so simple when 
 she had watched the men playing! Now it appeared a 
 fearful complication. Her face fell into troubled lines; 
 and when some of the players grew impatient her heart 
 pounded unmercifully. Joe swiftly hushed the com- 
 plainants. If they didn't like it they could get out, he 
 thundered. Joe was a masterful man ; they submitted. 
 Turning again to Minnie, he said : "It sounds worse than 
 it is," and went on teaching her about pairs, straights, 
 flush, full house, fours, straight flush, royal flush. Here 
 some laughed and made comment : "It's ken heppen may- 
 be perhaps possible efsher!" 
 
 A sample game to be played. There was grumbling, 
 but the game was played. Minnie leaned eagerly toward 
 Joe for this and that bit of information. She followed 
 his instructions with a zest that delighted him. 
 
 At last came a real game ! Joe was financial backer. 
 
 Her chest rose and fell feverishly. She quivered from 
 head to toe. Her hair became moist round her forehead 
 and fell low in becoming ringlets. Her heightened color 
 enhanced the false brilliance of her eyes. She reminded 
 one of a young, spirited horse galloping. Not even Joe's 
 leg, which persistently rested against hers, though she un- 
 consciously kept moving her own leg away, actually 
 roused her from the trance. Six times, without her being 
 conscious of it, Olga had refilled her glass with strong 
 tea. 
 
 After a number of rounds she quite quietly ran up 
 the betting. When "called," she said as quietly: 
 "Straight flush." 
 
 A moment of tense incredulity. Minnie laid her cards 
 down. A craning of necks. A roar that ended in a veri- 
 table panic. The gamers shrieked, laughed, pushed,
 
 280 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 punched one another all at the same time. The thick 
 cloud of smoke above their heads moved as if in search 
 of safer quarters. 
 
 Minnie, at first dazed, soon tingled with delirious ex- 
 citement; and when a pile of money was shoved her way 
 she was almost overcome. She thrilled and quivered 
 under the spell of the new birth of her personality. 
 
 No wonder that after this Minnie quite abandoned the 
 thought of job-hunting. In this heaven of thrill and ex- 
 citement, she even made money more money than she 
 had made working for the Titanic Biscuit Company. She 
 hated the day to end. She regretted having to go to bed. 
 In the mornings she hurried off eagerly from the Argush 
 home. For weeks never a thought of other things en- 
 tered her mind. She developed a light-heartedness, a vi- 
 vacity, a new brilliance that slipped from her tongue and 
 darted from her eyes. 
 
 Louis took the greatest delight in the successful Ar- 
 gush care of their "boarderke" and boasted : 
 
 "Not for nothing did I tell you she is a mighty smart 
 girl." The Argushes themselves, little suspecting the 
 games and the dozen glasses of tea working in Minnie's 
 veins, were delighted with their own effective hospitality. 
 
 XVII 
 
 Joe's seat remained permanently beside Minnie's. He 
 would have it so. 
 
 Olga, though a wise woman on the whole, was blind to 
 this that was going on under her very nose. Beneath her 
 roof, gambling, elsewhere an obnoxious vice, became 
 nothing more nocuous than a "little game or two of 
 poker." Elsewhere the sight of a young Minnie with
 
 INDEPENDENCE 281 
 
 eyes glittering more lustfully every day, would have in- 
 censed her. But in her own home what harm? Better 
 that than a Titanic Biscuit Company with foremen and 
 what not. Likewise, the foreman was a rogue, while 
 Joe, one of her guests, was not, though his entire per- 
 sonality proclaimed his rascality and his small eyes fed 
 like leeches on Minnie's youth. She would even tease 
 Minnie laughingly. "Some day a man will run away 
 with your two gray eyes," she would say. Joe she would 
 tease about being in love with the girl and warn him he 
 had a rival in her own son Gregory. 
 
 One day something occurred to open Olga's eyes. 
 
 Gregory disapproved of his parents' business, though 
 his disapproval at first, as he was too young at the time 
 to appreciate its sordidness, came from his hatred of the 
 constant hilarity, the thick smoke, the atmosphere of free- 
 masonry. His was a quiet, brooding, refined nature. 
 When he complained, his mother took pains to explain 
 carefully that his father was too sick to work, while she 
 herself could stand a rough struggle no longer and was 
 eager also to give him the advantages of a good educa- 
 tion. She convinced him she had no other choice and so 
 won his tolerance. It was now about a year since he 
 had entered any complaint. 
 
 In that one year Gregory had matured; He had come 
 into contact at college with other eighteen-year-old 
 youths, Russian Jews, who took immense delight in long 
 discussions of sociological problems and were far wiser 
 than he about life and its mud puddles. Gambling, in 
 their opinion, was so unquestionably an evil that their 
 few curt, uncompromising words, when it was mentioned 
 once, left Gregory with a painful smart. He never in- 
 vited his college mates to his home. ... In most of their
 
 282 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 discussions he took an equal part, but became a silent 
 listener when they launched in their free, advanced way 
 upon the subject of sex. In this, too, they seemed so 
 much wiser than he. One young reactionary knew 
 Schopenhauer's essay on woman by heart. A champion 
 of the sex fought him with Mill on The Subjection of 
 Woman; a "radical" came to the support of the cham- 
 pion with Bebel's Die Fran, while a modern young cynic 
 said "take a whip along" when you call on a woman ; 
 which also provoked endless arguments, favorable and 
 unfavorable, concerning the qualities of the sex. In con- 
 sequence Gregory came to realize that women were "dif- 
 ferent." Heretofore he had not been conscious of them 
 as a separate kind of being and his opposite. He began 
 to study the one of the species that fell under his direct 
 experience. 
 
 She was different. She was something as different 
 from the boys he knew as a light and airy thing was dif- 
 ferent from the kitchen table of his home. She was awe- 
 inspiring. She made him want to keep aloof. It seemed 
 to him he could never bring himself to speak to her, for 
 her answers, he felt vaguely, would probably be different 
 in the same way as she herself ; would puzzle him, em- 
 barrass him. 
 
 Minnie, for her part, was attracted to Gregory, even 
 though his presence, to which she was always keenly 
 alive, and his steady brown eyes fastened upon her 
 had a disconcerting effect upon her at card-playing 
 times. 
 
 One Saturday morning when she reached the Chernin 
 tenement she hesitated to go up to the home out of the 
 sensitive consideration that it was their day of rest (be- 
 cause of their customers' piety), when they indulged in
 
 INDEPENDENCE 283 
 
 late rising, and she would be intruding. She seated her- 
 self on the stairway to waste an hour. 
 
 For the first time in the weeks of her gaming, her mind, 
 as she crouched in the gloom of the hall, reverted to her 
 home. She pictured the members of her family, who 
 would just then be rising and dressing. (Sarah had re- 
 tained the custom of Sabbath rest.) She visualized 
 Beckie partly dressed, rosy and pretty, languidly and aim- 
 lessly hunting in out-of-the-way corners for her clothes, 
 which she always misplaced. She heard the others laugh- 
 ing at and teasing her for her forgetfulness. She heard 
 her mother calling each in turn to breakfast. She saw 
 them all at table, talking, laughing. She felt lonely, mel- 
 ancholy. 
 
 "What are you doing here?" a man's voice cried. It 
 was Gregory coming down the stairs, thrown off his usual 
 reserve by the unexpected encounter. 
 
 "I'm sitting I'm sitting I hated to go in you you 
 get up late Saturdays I'm always intruding " 
 
 He liked the softness of her voice; he was drawn to 
 her. He had a fleeting desire to tell her to stop gambling, 
 and to ask her why she didn't live at home and go to 
 school. 
 
 A book dropped from his hand. They bent simul- 
 taneously to pick it up ; their heads collided. They 
 straightened up and laughed. Minnie's laugh had the 
 same gay ring as when things went well at the card 
 table. Gregory stood a moment smiling down on her, 
 then stooped to pick up the book. "They are up and they 
 are waiting for you," he said. Touching the brim of his 
 hat, he said good-by and left. 
 
 Minnie looked after him until he was out of sight. It 
 was with an excited flutter of her heart, which the simple
 
 284 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 encounter did not warrant, that she made her way up- 
 stairs. Several times she had to stop for breath. The 
 weeks of unwholesome living were telling on her. 
 
 She arrived at an opportune moment. The Chernins 
 had forgotten to tell Gregory that they were going to an 
 uncle for lunch and he was to join them there. Minnie 
 could tell him. In a few minutes they left, Olga urging 
 Minnie to make herself at home and eat something, as 
 she looked so pale and must have come away without 
 breakfast. 
 
 Being alone was a novel sensation, a pleasant sen- 
 sation and yet one was somehow reminded of the tired- 
 ness which one forgot in the bustle. Minnie rubbed her 
 eyes, stretched, yawned, and went to lie down on Greg- 
 ory's cot in the dark, air-tight room adjoining the kitchen. 
 How luxurious it felt to stretch full length to be with- 
 out fear that someone would intrude! It was quiet 
 quiet ! Oh, how good it felt ! She placed her arms in a 
 circle above her head. Thoughts of the games, Joe's ever- 
 ready helpfulness, his enthusiasm and pride over her 
 gains warmed her being like a cordial. Joe was a great 
 deal like Louis, she thought ; yet they were different. 
 Joe was always awfully sure of himself ; Louis was awk- 
 ward and embarrassed. There were other differences, 
 too. After all they were not so much alike. Perhaps it 
 was simply that they were both big. My, how loudly Joe 
 talked ! Her mother would have referred to him as a 
 "suldat." Louis was always very nice now when they 
 took walks together. He never acted again as he had on 
 that rainy day. She hardly ever remembered it any more. 
 Now she thought of it, it struck her that ever since then 
 Louis had seemed less easy with her. "That's because he 
 knows he wasn't true," she decided. . . . She wondered
 
 INDEPENDENCE 285 
 
 when Gregory would return. It somehow gave her pleas- 
 ure to think of him to-day. He was so nice his brown 
 eyes and all. And he had laughed so heartily after the 
 collision of their heads! Had that been one of his col- 
 lege books? Could he be going to the same college as 
 Abie Ratkin as as Jacob! She sat up, frightened. 
 Goodness ! What if he did know Jacob and should tell 
 him where she was ! 
 
 The bell rang. She jumped up and ran with pounding 
 heart to the door. It was Gregory. Olga's message 
 fairly burst from her. Her eagerness and earnestness 
 were so out of proportion, that Gregory was moved to 
 laugh. What could she do but laugh, too ? They laughed 
 and laughed. Finally he whipped off his cap and said he 
 would make tea: it was cold out and he was chilled. 
 Would Minnie drink, too ? Maybe. She was really weak 
 with hunger. The night before she had had no appetite 
 for supper. It was nearly twenty-four hours since she 
 had eaten anything. After the laugh her legs trembled; 
 and how her heart pounded! She went quickly to sit 
 down. Picking up one of Gregory's library books from 
 the table, she cried: 
 
 "Oh, algebra!" 
 
 Gregory, astonished, turned from the stove. 
 
 "Do you know algebra?" 
 
 "Oh, yes. I passed with high marks." 
 
 He was more greatly astonished. 
 
 "Did you go to college ?" 
 
 "No. High School, Wadleigh High School." 
 
 "What year?" 
 
 "Twod " 
 
 It was a slip of the tongue. They laughed. 
 
 "Second," she finally wedged in between giggles.
 
 286 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "What languages did you have?" 
 
 "German and Latin." 
 
 "Why don't you go to high school now?" 
 
 She dropped her eyes. Her face clouded over. But 
 she felt at ease now with Gregory, and answered 
 frankly : 
 
 "Because I have a stepfather and I went away from 
 home." 
 
 Gregory proceeded with the tea preparations more 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 Minnie found herself wishing he would hurry. A feel- 
 ing of faintness was coming upon her. To hide what 
 she knew must be the traitorous pallor of her face, she 
 walked over to the window and stood looking out. In 
 a moment Gregory heard a thud. He dropped the lid of 
 the teakettle, turned and saw Minnie on the floor. He 
 rushed over to her, shook her, called her by name. She 
 made no answer. He lifted her and carried her to his 
 cot. Running back for a glass of water, he dashed it in 
 her face. She came to. 
 
 "Yes," she said in reply to his question, "I have fainted 
 before." 
 
 Following her instructions, he quickly brought a wet 
 towel, bound it about her head, and laid coverings over 
 her, for she was having a chill. When she felt better he 
 made her drink tea with whisky in it. 
 
 "Are you sure you feel better?" Gregory was not so 
 willing to take her word for it, as the rings under her 
 eyes were very dark. "I'll bet you had no breakfast!" 
 he ventured. 
 
 Minnie made no answer. 
 
 "I'll boil you some eggs." 
 
 "Oh, no, don't. I don't feel like eating," she said, sit-
 
 INDEPENDENCE 287 
 
 ting up. But she grew terribly dizzy. Bringing her 
 hands up to her eyes, she groaned. 
 
 "What's the matter ?" cried Gregory, forcing her down 
 on the cot again. 
 
 "Don't !" pleaded Minnie. 
 
 At that moment they were both startled by a voice. 
 
 "Nu! Nu!" 
 
 It was Joe, who had come for his umbrella, many times 
 forgotten. Drawing his own conclusion about the prox- 
 imity of the two young people, he laughed a coarse laugh. 
 
 "Oh, you kids!" 
 
 "How did you get in ?" asked Gregory. 
 
 "I left the patent lock open," Minnie explained. 
 
 "She fainted," said Gregory. "Mama and papa are 
 away." And he went on to say that they were expecting 
 him for lunch and he was in quite a dilemma about 
 meeting them. 
 
 Joe eyed the boy closely. His first conjecture faded a 
 bit. Gregory seemed to be telling the truth. Yet if he 
 himself, Joe decided rapidly, were caught in so compro- 
 mising a position he would have found a blanket of sham 
 far thicker than Gregory's yes, even at Gregory's age. 
 "I'll tell him to go to his parents" thought he; "I'll 
 offer to mind her myself." And so he did. 
 
 Did Minnie think she was all right? asked Gregory. 
 Was she sure it was all right for him to go? Yes, in- 
 deed. He went. 
 
 The moment the door shut, Joe swung into the bed- 
 room and sat down on the cot, a voluptuous smile playing 
 upon his face and in his tiny, insinuating eyes. "Well," 
 he said, "are we going to be a good girl ?" He smoothed 
 her face, her hair, her neck in a single stroke. She was 
 not afraid, but she moved her head away.
 
 288 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "Come on, come on/' he cried brazenly, "sweet sixteen 
 and never been kissed?" She blinked her eyes. "Never 
 been kissed?" he insisted. His vigor, his vulgarity, made 
 her feel dizzy; she gulped for breath. Nothing has the 
 power so to intimidate finer natures as vulgarity. 
 
 "Yes," she felt compelled to reply. 
 
 He ha-ha'd; the place rang with his ha-ha! How it 
 pleases a man to discover he is right ! 
 
 "There !" he cried, as he bent his bulky upper half for- 
 ward and lifted her like a feather in his arms. He 
 planked down a kiss on her lips which brought their 
 teeth into contact. 
 
 Before Minnie could think beyond her tremendous sur- 
 prise, she heard a woman's scream. 
 
 "God mine!" 
 
 With a jerk Joe released her. 
 
 It was Olga. She and Boris, not finding the uncle at 
 home, had returned. They had met Gregory at the foot 
 of the stairs. 
 
 There was a silent measuring of souls with eyes. 
 
 "You dirty, rotten bum, if you know what's good for 
 you, get out of this house and don't you ever cross this 
 threshold again !" Olga pointed to the door. 
 
 Joe insolently sauntered past her for his hat and um- 
 brella, and in the same insolent manner made for the 
 door. There, with hat in hand, he stood for a second 
 holding the knob, threw an insinuating smile at Gregory, 
 which he transferred to the mother and next to Minnie, 
 who had risen from the cot and was standing in the door- 
 way between the rooms. 
 
 "Ha-ha !" he roared, "the son is younger " 
 
 Olga caught the insinuation in a flash. Had she laid 
 undue confidence in the girl? Joe had taken her heart,
 
 INDEPENDENCE 289 
 
 pierced it, and thrown it back in her face. She wanted 
 to kill him. 
 
 "Get out of here!" she shouted. 
 
 He left after another ha-ha. 
 
 Minnie, panic-stricken, stood transfixed. Things had 
 happened so quickly that she was dazed into unconscious- 
 ness of their reality. She seemed to be dreaming a night- 
 mare. Olga darted a look at her that made her cower as 
 before an instrument of death. Then the tension broke. 
 Minnie fainted again. 
 
 The same thing had happened before, Gregory said, 
 and told the full story of how he had come to leave Min- 
 nie in Joe's care. Olga's mother heart clung to the ex- 
 planation with fierce relief. That was what it had been. 
 Joe, in his vile mind, had distorted her boy's innocent 
 ministrations. 
 
 Olga, bending over Minnie and trying to revive her, 
 suddenly realized that the girl must no longer be left 
 ignorant of the facts of life. She must be told everything 
 as her mother would have told her had she deserved the 
 name of mother. And she must no longer be allowed to 
 come to the house to gamble. How was it, Olga blamed 
 herself, she had never realized the enormous danger of 
 it before ! She must have been blind, an idiot ! 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Minnie rested on Gregory's cot until the late after- 
 noon ; then Olga, considering the time opportune, as the 
 menfolk were away, called to her to come to the kitchen. 
 
 "Sit down here." Olga indicated a chair beside her. 
 
 What had Olga to say ? Minnie felt impending doom. 
 Was it to scold her because "that Joe" had kissed her!
 
 290 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 All day as she had lain struggling for the physical 
 strength to rise and go home, the thought of his conduct 
 had tortured her. She had felt again, now with disgust, 
 his rough face against hers; the recollection of his kiss 
 sickened her somewhere way down in the pit of her 
 stomach. Mrs. Chernin did she think it was her fault, 
 that she was to blame ? 
 
 "Minnie," Olga began gravely Minnie grew limp with 
 fright "I have something to tell you. I will speak to 
 you like a mother." 
 
 The child stared at her. 
 
 "My dear, you are a child yet and how old are you ?" 
 
 "Going on sixteen." 
 
 "Sixteen !" Olga looked away, tears in her eyes. She 
 sat silent a while, thinking commiseratingly of the poor 
 little girl's lot and wondering how she ought to begin 
 her warning. It was so hard. Bracing herself with the 
 thought that it was inevitable, she moved forward and 
 began. 
 
 "You remember what happened to you in the Titanic 
 Biscuit Company the foreman, I mean?" Minnie re- 
 membered. "Well, for Joe to kiss you is just as bad 
 it's wrong in fact " 
 
 "Uh, I know it," cried Minnie, so glad to be able to 
 agree with Olga. She nodded her head vehemently. 
 
 Goodness, what did this girl understand what didn't 
 she understand! Olga was wholly puzzled. She sighed 
 and scrutinized Minnie. No, she didn't understand 
 really and she wasn't feigning innocence. She was a 
 baby. She had to be told everything. Her instinctive 
 understanding had to be re-enforced by definite knowl- 
 edge. The attractiveness of her personality to men was 
 only enhanced by her innocence. Some day she would
 
 INDEPENDENCE 291 
 
 fall a prey to some beast. Olga was in a flutter. How 
 to say it ! Just what to say ! If only someone had talked 
 to Olga herself when she had been a young girl, maybe 
 she would know better how to proceed. 
 
 "You know, dearie, you are a girl. The others are 
 men. Men and girls marry." 
 
 "Yes " 
 
 Olga lapsed again into silence. What in the world was 
 she to say ! She looked despairingly at the clock. Greg- 
 ory or Boris might return at any moment. 
 
 "It is only when a man and a woman are married that 
 the man has the right to hold her in his arms, to kiss her. 
 You were right when you ran away from your fore- 
 man." 
 
 Minnie thought of the doctor and of Louis. 
 
 "Did anybody else treat you like that?" There was 
 still a small, lingering doubt in Olga's heart as to what 
 might have transpired between Minnie and Gregory. 
 
 "Yes. A doctor and another man." 
 
 "What did they do? Who is the other man?" 
 
 "The other man is Louis ; he is a painter." 
 
 Olga smiled at the addendum. 
 
 "What did they do?" 
 
 Minnie reflected, feeling some hesitancy in telling. 
 "Kissed me and held me tight, especially the doctor. He 
 and I were lying on a lounge." 
 
 Again Olga was puzzled. What exactly had the girl 
 experienced ? 
 
 "Did Gregory kiss you, too?" 
 
 "Uh, no!" Minnie cried, shocked. 
 
 Olga was at last satisfied and felt very tenderly toward 
 Minnie. 
 
 "Do you understand now what I mean?" Her voice
 
 292 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 carried so much helplessness, she might have been plead- 
 ing for a favor. 
 
 "What?" Minnie asked naively. 
 
 "Well, that you must never allow any man or boy to 
 fondle you, kiss you, except if you are married to him or 
 are going to marry him." 
 
 Minnie sat silent. She knew it, yes, she knew it. But 
 what how could she help it if they did it to her? 
 
 "I never ask them to." 
 
 "Of course you don't ; but don't let them." 
 
 "I ran away from them." 
 
 Oh, there wasn't any use trying to explain. After all, 
 Minnie would have to grow older. She would learn. It 
 would develop like a plant in her. For the present she 
 had the instinct of self-preservation. 
 
 Olga, certain she could be no more explicit, was about 
 to drop the subject when, out of sheer curiosity, she 
 asked : 
 
 "Do you mind when they do it to you ?" 
 
 Minnie took a moment to think. The doctor and Louis 
 had frightened her and so had the foreman, but not Joe. 
 She liked Joe. Disgust of his embrace had come only in 
 retrospect. 
 
 Olga sat reflecting upon the oddness of it Joe, a 
 coarse fellow, vile, sordid, was a man Minnie liked ! She 
 switched off to another subject, equally as much on her 
 heart. 
 
 "And then, Minnie," she began, "gambling is not very 
 nice for a young girl. When I first allowed you to play, 
 I had no idea that you would keep it up indefinitely. 
 You remember I let you come here so that you could 
 have a place from where to look for another position." 
 
 Minnie was astonished at the abrupt change of sub-
 
 INDEPENDENCE 293 
 
 ject. All her sensitiveness was pricked into attention. 
 She instantly decided Olga was reproaching her. Olga 
 saw that she had turned pale and hesitated to continue. 
 
 "It is nearing Christmas time, the busy season," she 
 resumed after a time, putting even greater severity into 
 her tone, "you ought to be able to get work now in a 
 store perhaps. You ought not to be content to spend 
 every day gambling here with a lot of men." Bad 
 enough, Olga was thinking sorrowfully that she had to 
 spend her days so. For a sweet, innocent child, with 
 every opportunity in life, to choose gambling! 
 
 How could Minnie discern the tenderness behind Ol- 
 ga's advice? Child that she was, she saw only that Olga 
 was closing her home to her, was accusing her of having 
 outstayed her welcome. And before her lay work in a 
 shop again! The horror that she had been convinced 
 was past and done with faced her again. Her soul 
 quaked. She wanted to cling to Olga, to beg her to let 
 her stay. But a stronger instinct, her pride, held her 
 back. 
 
 "You will be much better off, dear," Olga continued. 
 "You will work in a store and make regular wages and 
 get yourself nice dresses, and some day you will marry. 
 
 This is no way " The "dear" touched Minnie. She 
 
 began to cry. Olga, meaning to comfort her, unfortu- 
 nately chose the wrong thing to say. "I let you come a 
 long time. I don't think you have anything to cry about. 
 Another girl would have thought of going away of her 
 own accord, sooner " 
 
 Minnie screamed. 
 
 Olga, alarmed, touched her on the arm and told her 
 to control herself. Minnie wrenched herself free. Why 
 had Olga fooled her made her think she was welcome?
 
 294 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Olga, almost as much as Joe, had always laughed appreci- 
 atively when she, Minnie, had had good luck, and had 
 always encouraged her in the spirited part she took in 
 the games. She had not been true, she had not been true ! 
 She resented Olga with all her heart. 
 
 How should Minnie have guessed that Olga also was 
 naive ? But for Joe's flagrant manifestation of rascality, 
 Olga might have remained blind to the risk she was tak- 
 ing with the fate of the child in her care. 
 
 "Take your hands away from your face," Olga said. 
 Her voice sounded even greater severity. Indignantly 
 Minnie jumped from her seat and rushed out of the 
 house. 
 
 In the ground-floor hall she encountered Gregory. 
 
 "What are you crying about?" He was full of con- 
 cern. 
 
 She edged away. He followed her. 
 
 "What are you crying about?" 
 
 She pushed past him and ran out. 
 
 XIX 
 
 The Argushes, who had been anxious when Minnie did 
 not return at her usual Saturday hour, welcomed her 
 with a cordiality that reflected their relief. But her red- 
 rimmed eyes and downcast air alarmed them all over 
 again. 
 
 "God mine!" cried Mrs. Argush, "what happened to 
 you? Did you meet with an accident?" 
 
 Minnie brushed past her into the bedroom and, with- 
 out waiting for permission, threw herself on the bed, 
 where she cried and cried. The perplexed couple could
 
 INDEPENDENCE 295 
 
 extract no explanation from her nor coax her into par- 
 taking of the evening meal. 
 
 At eight o'clock Louis happened in. The wildest sur- 
 mises leapt to his mind. He was dreadfully distressed. 
 Like the Argushes, he coaxed and coaxed her to take him 
 into her confidence, but with as little success. Finally, by 
 the greatest gentleness, he persuaded her to go out with 
 him for a walk. 
 
 "You must tell me what happened to you," he said, 
 after they had walked a block in silence. No, she 
 wouldn't, she wouldn't, she wouldn't. But, despite her 
 protestations, some inner voice told Minnie that event- 
 ually she would. 
 
 "What have you to hide ?" Louis shrewdly asked. His 
 face reddened. Minnie's silence in response even to this 
 was particularly ominous. His breath came short and 
 fast. Minnie, frightened by his emotion, brought her 
 thumb to her mouth and looked at him from down up. 
 "You must tell me. I am bound to know. Tell me," he 
 commanded, taking hold of her arm. 
 
 Though tears of resentment at this importunateness 
 came to her eyes, though her voice choked over the lump 
 in her throat, she told Louis everything that had hap- 
 pened to her, beginning with the foreman of the Titanic 
 Biscuit Company and ending with Olga's advice. The 
 last she repeated in a manner which plainly conveyed 
 that, though Louis himself had confused her, at last she 
 knew. 
 
 Louis smiled. He smiled in spite of his pity for her, 
 in spite of his perplexity as to what it was about this 
 girl tjiat rendered her a prey to his species. She was not 
 beautiful, though there was an attractive something 
 about her personality; nor and his eyes glanced over
 
 296 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 her slight frame was she even well developed. His un- 
 derstanding shrugged its shoulders, while his heart 
 clenched its teeth with jealousy at the thought that an- 
 other man might possess her. 
 
 Louis' sudden passion in the Dakowsky kitchen had 
 deepened into something greater. He had come on fre- 
 quent visits to the Argushes, had taken many walks with 
 Minnie, had entered into her mental attitude upon things 
 which, immature as it was, carried a delicacy and a 
 sense of justice which to him, especially because he was 
 boorish, had a fascination. She wouldn't go back home 
 because her uncle wasn't fair; she wouldn't have her 
 mother know of her hardships because a mother ought 
 naturally to be concerned; if she had to be reminded that 
 she was a mother, it showed a lack which made her an 
 undeserving mother, and so it was perfectly fair that 
 she, Minnie, deprive her of her oldest daughter. She did 
 not want Dora to know that she had made the compromise 
 of going to work in a shop, because Dora, not having ex- 
 perienced the struggle herself, would call it weakness. 
 As a matter of fact, Minnie herself considered it was 
 weakness. She ought rather to have killed herself. . . . 
 She didn't think a man with intelligence and ambition 
 ought to be a painter. Sharing a front room on the East 
 Side was an affront to a right standard of living; refine- 
 ment demanded more. She considered having to live 
 with the Argushes an imposition on her by God. 
 
 Then there had come the period of stimulation from 
 card playing, when she blossomed into a charming vi- 
 vacity like a flower in season. She romped with the 
 Argush baby, her eyes full of mischief ; she talked to it 
 in a vocabulary beyond the others' comprehension, and 
 laughed gaily over her own sport. The evenings when
 
 INDEPENDENCE 297 
 
 Louis visited she seemed especially full of fun ; she would 
 make one mischievous remark after another, charming 
 and delighting Louis. 
 
 He had, in fact, for weeks been thinking of marriage 
 to Minnie, though his mind was not yet at peace about it. 
 In his own estimation he was a mere "paintner;" an 
 American high-school girl could aspire to a nobler al- 
 liance, he felt. 
 
 Yet he was sure he would treat her better than any 
 other man ; he would carry her about in his arms to save 
 her footsteps, he often said to himself ; he would care for 
 her better than for himself. Now she was struggling, 
 and with her determination not to return home, what 
 other relief was there if not marriage? True, she was 
 very young to think of marriage, but she was wise 
 enough. No one was ever so childish in matters of sex 
 as she, and so wise in other matters. 
 
 Walking beside him, depressed, her youth so severe a 
 condemnation of the hard fate pursuing her, his heart 
 went out to her in boundless tenderness. Almost as a 
 surprise to himself, he said : 
 
 "Minnie, let us get married. I'll take the best care 
 of you. I know you're a high-school girl and I'm only a 
 paintner, but I have money from home and I'll give up 
 work and study to be a doctor anything you like 
 best " He paused, flushing all over his large face. 
 
 Somehow Minnie was not surprised. Not that she was 
 in the least prepared for the proposal ; it simply had no 
 meaning to her. 
 
 He continued to plead his cause by telling her that it 
 would be a solution to her struggles ; he would carry her 
 about in his arms, she would be precious as gold to him. 
 And as he spoke, sunshine flooded her horizon. She
 
 298 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 began to draw pictures of a kingdom of four rooms fur- 
 nished in green plush in which she reigned; and she ex- 
 perienced a sense of peace and comfort. Her silence en- 
 couraged Louis who finally asked: "What have you to 
 lose ? I will care for you as no one in the world would. 
 And if you wish it, if you think it nicer, I will go 
 with you to see your mother. . . ." 
 
 "No, indeed!" 
 
 "Then you answer !" 
 
 All over again he painted in rosy colors all the pleas- 
 ures of a home ; of being forever through with shops and 
 foremen ; of doing a little housework, a little cooking, a 
 little marketing, and then being free as a queen. 
 
 At each picture Minnie felt closer to the kingdom of 
 heaven. 
 
 "When?" she asked. 
 
 He could hardly believe his ears. 
 
 "Any time right away," he replied with great vivac- 
 ity. He felt more excited than he thought he ever could. 
 
 "All right," she said simply. 
 
 How Louis "the paintner" trembled with joy! 
 
 Though it was midnight when they returned, he 
 brought the Argushes out of bed to tell his news. 
 Their gladness took such boisterous forms of expression 
 that neighbors were alarmed. Some suspected thieves, 
 others fire, but the sound of laughter allayed their fears. 
 Mrs. Argush rummaged in the closet for a chipped 
 saucer; finding it, she threw it to the floor and smashed 
 it, shouting "maseltov! maseltov!" upon which her spouse 
 commented that she "was going crazy with joy." From 
 a secret region under the sink he brought out a bottle of 
 whisky and passed drinks to the "long life and happi- 
 ness" of the new couple! The little man beamed and
 
 INDEPENDENCE 299 
 
 dimpled, laughed and slapped Louis on the back. Mrs. 
 Argush, on the other hand, assured Louis that she felt 
 about Minnie as her own daughter, and her pride and 
 satisfaction in having found such a grand match for her 
 was boundless. She kissed Minnie and danced her around 
 the room ; she embraced and kissed Louis, saying she was 
 living over again the joy of her own engagement. Upon 
 which her husband took her in his arms ; petted her and 
 called her "my old one." Mrs. Argush's eyes filled with 
 tears. 
 
 Boorish Louis, full of happy emotions, red and uncom- 
 fortable, with no place for his hands and feet, sat with 
 a silly smile on his face while a thousand thoughts ran 
 riot in his head. He thanked them. He wanted to beg 
 Mrs. Argush to instruct Minnie in the ways of married 
 life, but he held himself back. He wanted to kiss Min- 
 nie, but he held himself back. Indeed, he was so con- 
 fused that Mr. Argush took pity on him. "Nu, chusen," 
 he said, "the bride is tired. You will be together long 
 enough. Let her go to sleep now." 
 
 Minnie lived through the whirlwind in a daze. It all 
 seemed remote, the hilarity absurd, and Louis' having 
 told the Argushes absurd. She was mute, annoyed, puz- 
 zled and a stranger. When Louis rose to go she was 
 infinitely relieved. 
 
 Louis was at the door saying good-night. 
 
 Minnie was seated. 
 
 "Nu, kalle see what a child she is ! Aren't you going 
 to see your lover out ?" Mrs. Argush cried. 
 
 Minnie rose, surprised that this was expected of her 
 and annoyed with Mrs. Argush. She walked over to 
 Louis. He stood holding the door-knob, blushing and 
 embarrassed ; a helpless look in his eyes, the meaning of
 
 300 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 which was telegraphed to Mrs. Argush, brought the re- 
 ply: 
 
 "That's all right that's all right." She nodded her 
 head knowingly. "I'll teach her " 
 
 Mr. Argush burst out laughing. He slapped his wife 
 on her pudgy shoulder. Louis went out. Mrs. Argush 
 beckoned to Minnie to follow him. 
 
 In the hall Louis, in a low, shamed voice, asked for 
 a kiss. She drew away. 
 
 "Oh, no!" How she wished he and the Argushes 
 wouldn't bother her! 
 
 Louis stepped closer ; he looked down from his greater 
 height upon the slip of a girl, shaking as with cold. 
 
 "But we're engaged," he pleaded. 
 
 She drew farther away. He took hold of her arm. 
 
 "Just one," he begged and seemed so eager, so anxious, 
 that she consented. 
 
 He kissed her once, hard, so that the Argushes, peep- 
 ing through the crack of the door, burst into a simul- 
 taneous laugh. Louis, startled, walked quickly off with- 
 out even bidding Minnie good-by. 
 
 XX 
 
 The next day Minnie meditated upon her new position. 
 She was going to be married to Louis the "paintner." She 
 no longer needed to worry about Olga Chernin's dis- 
 missal ; and she didn't have to look for work in a shop. 
 What would her people say if they knew she was going 
 to be married ? What would Olga say ? How funny that 
 just when she and Gregory were getting to be friendly
 
 INDEPENDENCE 301 
 
 the whole upset should come. Was anybody going to 
 marry Gregory, too ? She wished she could marry Greg- 
 ory instead of Louis. Maybe she would. Some people, 
 like her mother, married twice. She hoped if she ever 
 had children she would not neglect them even if she 
 married a second time. Louis hadn't kissed her like 
 Joe, so that his teeth touched hers. If Gregory kissed 
 her, would he kiss her like Louis or like Joe? She 
 wished he had kissed her. She would have liked to 
 know. 
 
 Sfie walked aimlessly through the streets, feeling re- 
 mote from herself and remote from everything around 
 her. It was so queer not to be full of worries the worry 
 of having to keep secret the card-playing from the Ar- 
 gushes, the worry of having to look for work in a shop, 
 the worry of dreading a foreman. She missed something, 
 as one misses the nuisance of an umbrella after a spell 
 of rain. And everything she did seemed purposeless. 
 She was bound for no definite destination, nothing about 
 her held any interest, she was cheerless, lonely, and felt 
 like crying. Her limbs ached. She was tired. She 
 thought of little Beckie, and grew homesick. She thought 
 of her mother, and grew angry, she thought of Louis and 
 felt afraid, she thought of the Argushes and wished she 
 did not need to see them soon again. 
 
 In an effort to make things seem more real, she shook 
 off her thoughts and looked around, at the people, the 
 houses, the shops. She happened to be standing in front 
 of one of the cheaper class of department stores, Grin- 
 dem & Gold, and looked in through the glass doors at the 
 humming activity inside. Something she could not have 
 told what drew her in. A throng of people were hur-
 
 302 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 rying to and fro. The store was seething with the ani- 
 mation of the Christmas season. 
 
 The Christmas season ! The "rush" season ! All were 
 busy. 
 
 Her heart leaped with its old ambition. Work in an 
 office! She tingled. Resolutely she advanced farther 
 into the store and approached a floorwalker, who directed 
 her to the manager's office. 
 
 Grindem & Gold's kindly Employer of Labor contem- 
 plated the girl with a bit of amusement as she earnestly 
 set forth her qualifications to do office work. "I'm a high- 
 school girl and I'm very good in penmanship." 
 
 He looked into space and stroked his beard as if in 
 debate with himself. 
 
 "Will you be willing to work evenings until Christ- 
 mas?" 
 
 A thrill of excited exultation sent the blood to her 
 head. Maybe work in an office at last ! Leaning forward 
 eagerly and quite forgetting the superiority of the ad- 
 dressed, she cried : 
 
 "Oh, sure, if it's in an office " She remained in an 
 
 expectant attitude, her mouth slightly open, as if her 
 very life depended upon the man's reply. 
 
 "Well," he pretended to demur, attempting to hide a 
 smile, "sure you won't fall asleep ?" 
 
 "No, sir!" Minnie solemnly assured him and leaned 
 back in her chair, her manner seeming to add : "If that's 
 all you're afraid of, you needn't be." 
 
 "All right," he said with a smile, "we'll start you on 
 three dollars a week and give you a raise if you're con- 
 scientious !" 
 
 Minnie held out her hands for a fraction of a moment
 
 INDEPENDENCE 303 
 
 like a child receiving a gift. Her heart sang: "I'm so 
 happy ! so happy ! so happy !" 
 
 "Come with me," said the man, who had another er- 
 rand to take him the same way, so that this time, when 
 she could have run up many stairs with the sprightliness 
 of the happy, she was conducted into an elevator ! What 
 a contrary way life has of managing itself ! 
 
 XXI 
 
 Among the Grindem & Gold Department Store em- 
 ployees of four weeks' standing and more a Great Im- 
 petus existed, the promise of a Christmas gift equal to 
 one week's wages. The men and women and little boys 
 and little girls applied themselves to their labors as if to 
 earn their way to a very heaven. They sweated and they 
 toiled for the Luscious Bait. 
 
 At ten at night heads of salespeople were still bent 
 over counters, cash boys and cash girls still raced up and 
 down aisles in pursuit of floorwalkers, parcels, change of 
 coin. The eyes of all were glassy with the excitement 
 and the foul air. 
 
 In the auditing department, busiest of all, the clerks 
 stayed at work until midnight ! It was only for a short 
 time, only until Christmas, and with a week's extra wages 
 as the reward, who would think of complaining? Now 
 and then a girl fainted, or began to cry for no reason at 
 all; a boy or a man suddenly felt a desperate need for 
 a glass of water. But it would all soon be over; there 
 were only ten days before Christmas. 
 
 The department store, in its lively conscience about 
 keeping its employees working overtime, provided evening 
 meals gratis. Every few nights the employees were sent
 
 304 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 for a treat into the store's regular dining-room ; on other 
 nights sandwiches were handed around and each employee 
 was allowed a half hour of respite. There were some who 
 ate ravenously, but, alas, not Minnie! One does not so 
 readily overcome a sacred prejudice against the hog. 
 The home of the Argushes was kept "kosher ;" in her 
 own home Minnie had been brought up in adherence to 
 the "kosher," from which Sarah, for all her religious 
 skepticism, never deviated. So how could she promptly 
 fall on the neck, so to speak, of the non-kosher, and de- 
 vour it? The usual ham sandwiches were certainly out 
 of the question, and the meals served in the dining-room 
 did not present a religious aspect either, while the other 
 foods had strange names and looked strange. 
 
 Upon breakfasts of nothing and lunches of wurst and 
 bread and mustard came suppers of nothing. But, then, 
 for Minnie, too, it was only for a short time. Besides, 
 working in an office was nourishment to the soul. 
 
 The days passed. It was Christmas Eve. At six 
 o'clock a dead hush fell upon the Season's Rush. Men 
 and women dropped and sent up a prayer of thanks. 
 Lines of employees formed before the windows of the 
 paying tellers. Boys and girls giggled nervously. All 
 were wearily but happily anticipating the Luscious Bait. 
 
 Minnie, almost too tired to remain upright on her feet, 
 stood in line among the others. The air in the store was 
 so warm and thick that she had the sensation of breath- 
 ing in a solid. Her head every once in a while swam 
 dizzily; she would brace herself with the thought that 
 to-morrow was a holiday and the Doubled Wage ! She 
 had long wanted a gray, ready-to-wear skirt, and she had 
 long needed a pair of shoes. Though Louis had coaxed, 
 she had refused to buy these with his money.
 
 INDEPENDENCE 305 
 
 The paying teller called her name and handed her an 
 envelope. 
 
 "Thank you," she said and stepped out of the line. A 
 few feet away she opened the flimsy yellow envelope and 
 found three dollars enclosed! 
 
 She turned back, disregarding the next in line. 
 
 "Please, mister," she cried nervously, "it's a mis- 
 take " 
 
 The paying teller turned to her. 
 
 "What's a mistake?" 
 
 "It's only three dollars." 
 
 The paying teller took the envelope from her extended 
 hand and looked up his records. Minnie stood trembling 
 and throbbing. 
 
 "Say, what do you think," he threw out from behind 
 the bars of his cage, "we're giving money away here? 
 You're only here three weeks and two days. You came 
 too late." 
 
 Too late ! Minnie stood condemned, dumfounded. So 
 it took four weeks in full to earn the Double Wage ! She 
 had never expected that they would count those few days. 
 She stood rooted to the spot. Several girls giggled. A 
 boy called: "Say, sissy, get a move on." She glanced 
 hastily down the length of the line and flushed hotly. 
 She had made a fool of herself ! 
 
 Oh, to hide or run away! But quick escape was im- 
 possible. She had still to get her hat and coat from the 
 seventh floor. Afraid that in the elevator she might en- 
 counter someone who had seen her make a fool of her- 
 self, she walked up the seven flights of stairs ran them, 
 in fact. When she reached the top landing, darkness 
 suddenly closed down on her, the floor slipped from be-
 
 306 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 neath her feet. The next she knew she was lying in the 
 auditing office, and, oh, how her body ached ! 
 
 "I'm so tired!" she moaned. She ached as if she had 
 been beaten. She turned her head away from the woman 
 manager, who had detected in Minnie "a bright little 
 girl," and was gently administering spirits of ammonia. 
 
 "Does the little girl feel better ?" she asked. 
 
 "I'm so tired!" 
 
 "You'll rest all day to-morrow, dear." 
 
 An hour later a very pale Minnie, unsteady on her 
 feet, was putting on her hat and coat. 
 
 "I hope you'll be all right and will come back after 
 Christmas," said the manager. 
 
 But Minnie never came back, and no one in the store 
 ever tried to discover why. No cog in any machinery is 
 dispensed with so lightly as is the human cog in the ma- 
 chinery of human affairs. 
 
 XXII 
 
 Leaving Grindem & Gold's, Minnie, her nerves so on 
 edge that every sound felt like a lash on her bruised 
 body, retreated to a quiet side street lined with brown- 
 stone houses, which told of a past aristocracy. She 
 could hardly drag herself along and soon realized she was 
 going to faint again. She gave a desperate glance around. 
 A doctor's sign caught her eye. Without reflection she 
 labored up the high stoop and pulled the bell. A nurse in 
 uniform opened the door upon a little girl in a heap in 
 the vestibule. 
 
 When Minnie regained consciousness she found her- 
 self on a bed with Doctor Joel and Miss Grayson at her 
 side, talking in low voices and smiling kindly into her
 
 INDEPENDENCE 307 
 
 eyes. The doctor, giving Miss Grayson instructions to 
 let her rest, went out of the room. 
 
 Aching, weary and sick, Minnie asked no questions. 
 She kept her eyes closed, occasionally moved from side 
 to side, and moaned. The nurse ministered to her in one 
 small way or another. 
 
 It seemed a long while before the doctor appeared 
 again. 
 
 "Do you feel better?" 
 
 "Yes, I feel all right." Minnie fingered her hair ner- 
 vously. 
 
 "All right?" Doctor Joel smiled. She wanted to rise. 
 "There, dear, no, no, just lie still." Doctor Joel's gen- 
 tleness brought a lump to Minnie's throat. She was ripe 
 for abundant emotional response to the slightest friend- 
 liness. 
 
 When he left, she turned her head to look out of the 
 window, which was close to the bed. With a relaxation 
 like that which she had felt when lying alone in the home 
 on Gregory's cot, she remarked what a clean, quiet street 
 this was and what a contrast the atmosphere of repose to 
 the hubbub of Henry and Rivington and Madison Streets. 
 Soon the sense of relief passed. Thoughts began to as- 
 sail her. The women passing seemed so different from 
 Mrs. Argush. so much quieter, not as if they were for- 
 ever talking, forever bustling, and the men not as if they 
 were insisting upon girls marrying them. Louis, disap- 
 pointed that she had taken work instead of beginning 
 wedding preparations, had tried every night to make her 
 understand that her conduct was reprehensible. Then, 
 too, he was so demonstrative that Minnie was constantly 
 reminded with horror of the doctor, and when Louis 
 insisted that since they were engaged his behavior was
 
 308 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 all right, she was completely dismayed. To her even 
 greater consternation, Mrs. Argush not only upheld 
 Louis, but told Minnie it was her duty to respond, and 
 the exactions of marriage would be still greater. The 
 girl had a nightmare sense of being pursued by some- 
 thing ugly and monstrous. 
 
 A stabbing pain in the region of her heart recalled her 
 from these thoughts. She stirred and moaned. 
 
 "What is it, dear?" asked Miss Grayson. 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 Perhaps, it occurred to Minnie, she was staying too 
 long. 
 
 "Ill dirty the bed," she muttered, bringing her thumb 
 to her mouth and sitting up, her sensitiveness overcom- 
 ing her weakness. But only for an instant. Her heart 
 began to pound and her breath came hard and short. 
 
 "It's all right you won't soil the bed." The nurse 
 gently forced her down. 
 
 The doctor came in and conferred with the nurse in 
 whispers, then approached the bedside and asked Minnie 
 her name. 
 
 . "Where do you live, Mildred? I'll take you to your 
 mother in my carriage, yes?" 
 
 Home! Mother! The Argush kitchen! Louis the 
 paintner! . . . No, no, no, she wouldn't go home she 
 wouldn't go to the Argush kitchen she wouldn't go to 
 Louis! She hated hated hated it all. She could not 
 stand it. 
 
 Setting her lips tight, stiffening in every limb and 
 fiber, she said slowly and decide'dly that she had no 
 mother or father or home ; she had lived with strangers 
 who had moved away and she was free to be disposed 
 of as the doctor saw fit.
 
 INDEPENDENCE 309 
 
 Not a quiver, not a tear. Hers was not the spirit of 
 the beggar wanting to rouse pity. It was the spirit of 
 desperate resolution. Like her mother before her, who 
 had reached out for the theft of a hat band, Minnie 
 reached out for the theft of a fresh start. 
 
 Her manner discountenanced disbelief and further 
 questioning. A remark or two, and it was decided that 
 she stay until Dr. Joel find room for her in a "nice place 
 where there were other nice girls and she would have a 
 fine time romping and playing and jumping until she got 
 to be a big, strong girl." 
 
 "Am I sick?" 
 
 The doctor looked down upon her with fatherly ten- 
 derness. He nodded his head affirmatively. 
 
 "What's the matter with me?" 
 
 There was such an air of maturity and independence 
 about this child, that Dr. Joel felt he did not have to con- 
 ceal her true condition from her. 
 
 Heart trouble! It sounded far worse than she felt 
 herself to be. After a little reflection, she said sulkily, 
 as though unwilling to believe him: 
 
 "I was well yesterday." 
 
 "You were not well yesterday." Dr. Joel shook his 
 head emphatically. He added softly, as if he meant 
 no one to hear : "They live against all the laws of nature 
 all their lives, and when they get sick they think it hap- 
 pened over night !" 
 
 Minnie started. "Against all the laws of nature!" 
 The scene of Mira, her mother, her sick father, Doctor 
 Levin, flashed upon her mind. Her father had died from 
 "living against all the laws of nature!" 
 
 Dr. Joel and Miss Grayson were startled by a shrill, 
 hysterical shriek, followed by another and another in
 
 ;io SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 quick succession. Minnie had seen a hideous apparition. 
 She clung to the doctor and the nurse. 
 
 "Don't don't make me go back !" she cried. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 The Helina Heimath was a vast, elegant structure, as 
 if with forethought stuck in a suburb away from the eye 
 of society that society might not have flaunted before it 
 its completed work, humanity wrecked, beaten. 
 
 Its chief directors were two men linked in philanthropy 
 as in business, Y. Nat (the gentleman's idiosyncratic ab- 
 breviation of Nathan) Grindem and Owen Gold. 
 
 Carved upon a stone plate above the entrance door 
 were the words, "For Incurables," which seemed to say 
 in their implacableness that here was merely a wayside 
 inn on the road to the hereafter. Immediately inside the 
 building one felt the obligatoriness of hush and involun- 
 tarily assumed a solemn demeanor and subdued one's 
 tones to a whisper. In the heart of the building, away 
 from its outward stateliness and corridored dignity, one 
 came upon a desolate barrenness, a conscientious absence 
 of all non-essentials, an absolute lack of aestheticism and 
 pretty comforts, which at once proclaimed it to all the 
 senses a place for poor people. Not a single cushioned 
 chair or cosy corner ; not a single sign of ease or warm 
 decoration, as if these had been omitted for prudential 
 reasons because the inmates might come to look upon 
 them as necessities and make exaggerated demands in- 
 stead of appreciating what they were receiving. Every- 
 thing bespoke stability, practicability, to the very dishes 
 of the coarsest heavy stoneware. And pervading the
 
 INDEPENDENCE 311 
 
 whole place was the smell of the poor, that unmistakable 
 sourish smell. 
 
 Instead of the peaceful harmony due the invalid for 
 his environment there was a seething turmoil, inevitable 
 in the promiscuous herding together of people, which 
 came to a hush only when it spent itself or on occasions 
 of detecting eyes. 
 
 The first weeks, when Minnie was confined to bed, she 
 was too ill to make observations, too close to the old life 
 for other thought. In the way of invalids, her mind 
 dwelt upon herself. The fear that Louis might discover 
 her whereabouts haunted her persistently. (But the poor 
 "paintner," who lost the paramount inspiration of his 
 life, never learned what became of his kalle. And as 
 for the Argushes, they congratulated Louis upon his 
 escape from a ttteen mudner mensch (a queer person) ; 
 for that, they were now convinced all over again, was 
 what Minnie was). She also lived in constant dread 
 that Dr. Joel would discover she had not told him the 
 truth when she had said she was an orphan. From her 
 own point of view, she felt she had told the truth ; spirit- 
 ually she was an orphan ; but she sensed vaguely that oth- 
 ers would see no justification for her feeling so, that they 
 could imbibe only the obvious. 
 
 As her health improved her mood of introspection, 
 naturally, passed and she began to observe the panorama 
 before her. All sorts of distorted forms upon beds, all 
 degrees of emaciation, all shades of pallor, all sorts of 
 maimed upon wheel chairs, or struggling along by the 
 aid of sticks or crutches. 
 
 Like herself they were veterans of the war of life. 
 Minnie knew it ; she knew they had worked hard like her- 
 self, had eaten suppers alternate nights, or less, had gone
 
 312 
 
 breakfastless. They had lived against all the laws of 
 nature! But it reached her understanding only dimly 
 that behind her destruction and theirs was the whole of 
 fife with its ebb and flow, of which she and they were 
 the scum it threw off, and she perceived only dimly that 
 this vast charity was as much a monument to human 
 treachery as to human goodness, though she realized 
 there was something not exactly fitting in the positions 
 that Grindem and Gold held in this philanthropy when 
 employees in their large store were given wages that 
 necessitated "living against all the laws of nature." But 
 exactly wherein lay the unfittingness or how it was to be 
 remedied, Minnie did not know. 
 
 There was one thing, however, about which she was 
 clear and definitely bitter; the ladies of the Aid Society 
 of theHelina Heimath, a group of rich women who came 
 at regular intervals to bestow small gifts ; an orange, a 
 brick of ice cream, a piece of cake, a cup of cocoa. Their 
 clothes were always of an expensive, subdued suitability, 
 of an elegant propriety ; they always extolled the "view" 
 from the windows of the Heimath as "purfectly lovely," 
 as if they were cracking up a broken toy to a child. It 
 seemed to delight them immensely that the bed linens 
 were very white, and they seemed to want to impress 
 upon the inmates the fact that they had much to be grate- 
 ful for. "Why, if they think it is so lovely, don't they 
 come here when they are sick?" Minnie would think. 
 Yet when one of the ladies stopped to have a chat with 
 her, she was surprised to find she liked the lady and 
 would be ashamed of her previous hard feelings. "I 
 guess I'm jealous," she would say to herself. Her eyes 
 would fill with tears, and her young heart would ache 
 with a vague disappointment. She was, as a matter of
 
 INDEPENDENCE 313 
 
 fact, jealous; she had not conceived of dependence in 
 connection with herself ; when she had pictured herself 
 a "grown-up lady'" it had been as one exactly like these 
 who now patronized her. She resented her failure; 
 she was disappointed in life. 
 
 One visiting day, when the inmates were sitting round 
 the large ward with affectionate relatives by their sides 
 and bundles of better eatables than the Helina Heimath 
 afforded spread open on their laps, a great homesickness 
 came over her. No one visited her or cared for her ; no 
 one would ever come to see her. Was there really no one 
 to come to see her ? Jacob sprang to her mind ; he was 
 away from home and was probably feeling as deserted as 
 she. She would ask him to come. She would caution 
 him not to tell any of the others. The thought possessed 
 her; she grew as excited as if she had discovered a cure 
 for all her heartaches. She wrote to Jacob in delirious 
 haste. When she had deposited the letter in the mail box, 
 she retired to the one spot of privacy the Heimath had to 
 offer, the bathroom, where, sitting on the edge of the tub, 
 she shed bitter tears of loneliness. 
 
 The following Sunday, Jacob stood in the line of visi- 
 tors on the street, impatient for the doors to open. His 
 mind busily speculated as to the condition in which he 
 would find his sister who had written that she had been 
 at the hospital six months. He was worried by visions of 
 her reduced to a skeleton, bedridden, in fever, moaning, 
 groaning. 
 
 Mirmie stood at the window, her eyes feverishly trav- 
 eling along the line of visitors until she spied her brother. 
 At sight of him she quivered from top to toe. Her heart 
 pounded. Would the line ever move ! She looked again 
 to make sure it was he. Yes, it was. He was the only
 
 314 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 one in the world who lifted his hand like that. (It was 
 a warm day, and Jacob was wiping the perspiration from 
 his forehead.) She felt love for him for this very 
 uniqueness of gesture. The sound of "brother" brought 
 a glow to her heart, a lump to her throat. Oh, if the line 
 would only begin to move! At last it moved. She ran 
 to the door by which Jacob would enter the ward. 
 
 She was taller, stouter, and more fully developed than 
 when she had left home, and though her hair still hung 
 down her back in a plait, there was a subtle maturity and 
 dignity about her. Indeed, the superintendent of the in- 
 stitution, a man of portly belly and big shaggy beard, 
 which lent him an air of authority, referred to her (and 
 her fellow patients, imitating him, did the same) as 
 "princess," especially when she slighted her rations at 
 table in accord with the dictates of her palate. 
 
 Jacob, entering the door, fairly gasped. Sick! Why, 
 she was twice as fat as she had ever been ! He felt in- 
 dignant, as if he had been duped. 
 
 Jacob was having his own troubles. Sharing the home 
 of the uncle with whom he lived was a daughter whom 
 the Potter had moulded most unprepossessing. She was 
 large and dark and clumsy of feature ; moreover, she had 
 a foolish laugh and no brains. Jacob could not abide 
 her. Since she found as little favor with young men 
 other than her cousin, her mother and father were acting 
 in a partnership conspiracy to palm her off on Jacob. 
 They would detain him for conversation : they would en- 
 courage him to the point of compulsion to take her out ; 
 they would make every opportunity for his contact with 
 her; into all of which she herself entered with the great- 
 est alacrity. Now, Jacob throughout his life maintained 
 a sort of aloofness from people, and for him to dwell in
 
 INDEPENDENCE 3 1 5 
 
 the same house as the family was really the greatest hard- 
 ship; while as for coming into actually intimate contact 
 with them, especially with such an unattractive creature 
 as Lena, was sheer torture. The thing disturbed him so, 
 so weighed him down that you might have thought that 
 he, of all people in the world, was the one whom Fate 
 had singled out for martyrdom. 
 
 Here stood Minnie, robust, after having added a week 
 of great worry to his already worried mind. 
 
 His frigid response to her eager greeting was like a 
 dash of ice water. No one in the world cared a bit 
 for her. She was alone, altogether alone. Her heart 
 was wrung. 
 
 She led him silently into the ward, and they sat 
 down. 
 
 "Why did you tell me you were sick ? Did you think 
 you had to frighten me to bring me?" 
 
 She hesitated and smiled diffidently as she said: "I 
 don't look sick now, do I?" 
 
 "SICK ! You look ten times better than I." His heart 
 went out in an abundance of self-pity. 
 
 Minnie's eyes misted. "But I was quite sick," she said. 
 "I used to faint a lot." 
 
 Jacob had his doubts. 
 
 "How was it you waited until this late date, then, to 
 call me?" 
 
 "I didn't want to tell you sooner. I waited until I was 
 better on purpose, because I didn't want you to think I 
 wasn't getting along." 
 
 Jacob's soul laughed. Indeed, it was very likely that 
 she would do that ! Why was she telling him now, as if 
 it weren't the same thing! Very likely that she would 
 keep her troubles from folks. It took him to be silent.
 
 316 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 There he was with worries reaching over his head say- 
 ing not a word to anybody. 
 
 "You frightened me. I thought you were dying. I 
 suppose you think I have nothing else to worry about." 
 
 Because she had been so sure that he was as homesick 
 for her as she for him, his words fell with their sharpest 
 edge upon her heart. Her color rose. She was outraged. 
 How much she had suffered without ever even dreaming 
 of calling any of them to her aid ! And Jacob was wholly 
 distorting the spirit of her invitation, ready to charge her 
 with having no consideration. How she hated him ! Her 
 self-control snapped. 
 
 "If you are so sorry you came," she burst out, "you 
 had better go right back. You'll wait all your life before 
 I will want to see you again. I hate you." She rose from 
 her chair, facing him with fine dignity. 
 
 He rose, too. After he had come all that way, after 
 he had made the sacrifice of refusing an invitation to 
 join one of his friends in an outing, after he had worried 
 about her all the week, she had the impudence to insult 
 him! He dashed out. 
 
 From the Helina Heimath he went straight to the fam- 
 ily and delivered himself of his grievance. 
 
 "She chased me out," was his description of the finale 
 of his visit. 
 
 Sarah had given many an hour's worrisome thought to 
 Minnie during the months that had passed since the chil- 
 dren had seen her and the earth afterward, as it seemed, 
 had swallowed her up. She never walked the streets 
 without keeping a constant lookout; perhaps she would 
 meet her here perhaps she would see her there. Once 
 she happened to be in a millinery shop when the pro- 
 prietor sent a message to a Minnie in the work-room be
 
 INDEPENDENCE 317 
 
 hind the shop. It might be her Minnie! She insisted, 
 without explaining why she did so, upon being let into 
 the work-room. It was not her Minnie. Her heart sank. 
 
 At last Jacob came with word of her child. 
 
 She made light of his complaint. "So long we missed 
 her, a brother ought to be glad to know his sister is 
 alive." 
 
 Sarah was changed. The double role of wife to a 
 second husband and mother to his stepchildren had re- 
 awakened the qualities of patience and endurance in her. 
 The pain and anxiety of witnessing the conflict of these 
 two elements, both of whom engaged her love, had sub- 
 dued her, roused her again, as it were, out of self into 
 the wife and mother. Success of the bands business was 
 subordinated to peace. She no more indulged herself in 
 bursts of anger and faultfinding; instead she went about 
 as pacifier and mollifier, begging the children to avoid 
 irritating Leopold, and Leopold to be patient with the 
 children. With a tear or a sigh she would tacitly remind 
 him of the two runaways, about whom Leopold, in real- 
 ity, also brooded. 
 
 Since Jacob vowed he was done with Minnie, Sarah 
 insisted that Beckie and Ida go to see her the very next 
 Sunday. They, too, brought back news that she looked 
 robust and had developed into a "regular lady," and 
 Sarah shed tears of thanksgiving. 
 
 For weeks she went about with the one feeling that if 
 she could see Minnie, she would have nothing more to 
 wish for. But though she had the impulse every Sunday 
 to join Beckie and Ida on their now regular weekly visits, 
 something in her heart held her back. She hated to ad- 
 mit to herself how guilty she must seem in the eyes of 
 the too-harsh Minnie. She had sacrificed an oldest
 
 318 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 daughter for a husband. If the penalty was grief, she 
 was paying it generously. How hard children could be! 
 After all, if Minnie were not a child, she would under- 
 stand ; she would not be so hard on her mother. 
 
 One Sunday Ida and Beckie, who wanted to go on a 
 trip to Fort George with some of Ida's schoolmates, asked 
 to be let off from visiting Minnie. Sarah first used per- 
 suasion, telling them it was their duty to visit their sister, 
 then, as she failed to achieve the desired result, she burst 
 into a volume of complaint, contrary to the present stand- 
 ards, charging them with being thoughtless of Minnie, 
 who would be waiting for them and would "cry her eyes 
 out." But the children insisted they had a right to have 
 fun one Sunday once in a while and went their way. 
 
 Left alone, as Leopold had gone to a lodge meeting, 
 Sarah abandoned herself to a fit of weeping. Was ever 
 mother given so many causes for pain as she? Always 
 she was torn by a thousand miseries. The children really 
 did have a right to take one Sunday for recreation. Yet 
 Minnie would wait for them and she would doubtless be 
 heartbroken. Sarah sighed and sighed as she went about 
 the house dully. Life was too bitter, life was too bitter. 
 It was tears, tears, tears, if not for want of bread then 
 for other things, never had she known a day free from 
 care or sadness. 
 
 Then her heart was carried on a new wave of thought 
 to Minnie. Minnie, too, was having a hard life. She 
 had been sick. Many things, doubtless, had made her 
 sick. Child that she was, she had carried her resolution 
 to be independent to the very limit, until it had made her 
 sick. Goodness knew where she had lived, what she had 
 eaten, whether in the winter she had worn warm under- 
 wear. Her Minnie was to have a life like hers full of
 
 INDEPENDENCE 319 
 
 struggle, full of suffering. Because her nature was the 
 very same as her mother's firm, determined to fight the 
 fates the fates would play the game with her. She 
 could not stand it another day not another minute 
 she had to see the child her oldest girl dear to her as 
 the others. 
 
 She went into the bedroom, rummaged in a bureau 
 drawer for a fresh handkerchief, and stood a few mo- 
 ments weeping into it, then pulled down her shirtwaist, 
 brushed her hair, put on her hat and walked resolutely 
 out. 
 
 Though she took the car that she had heard the chil- 
 dren say went to the Helina Heimath, she rose nervously 
 time and again to ask the conductor if they had not al- 
 ready passed the place it was taking so long. But when 
 finally a big voice called out Helina Heimath, Sarah re- 
 mained seated, her mind a thousand leagues away, occu- 
 pied with Jacob's fate at Minnie's hands. Would Min- 
 nie chase her out, too? She felt as if she could not 
 stand it, as if her heart must break if that came to pass. 
 With such a wilful girl as Minnie, who could tell what 
 her imagined grievances could not lead her to do? Per- 
 haps she so blamed her only mother that she could slap 
 her face. God! God! what a hard life! 
 
 "Wake up, missus," the conductor roared, "ain't you 
 been asking all day for the Helina Heimath?" 
 
 Sarah blinked. Hastily gathering together three purple 
 asters, which she had stopped to buy for Minnie, she 
 scrambled out. 
 
 She saw a huge, gray building. She stopped short. 
 The place seemed familiar. She looked at the front 
 door. Yes, that was the entrance. Good God ! the coun- 
 try! the place where the girl's father had died! How
 
 320 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 could one bear all! The cry went through her soul in 
 weird minor notes like a wind dying out. She remem- 
 bered instantly with what a heavy heart, with what la- 
 bored footsteps she had ascended that same stoop be- 
 fore. She lived through again every sensation of fright, 
 every sensation of grief, all the torture, and misery, and 
 despair following Elias's death. . . . Minnie was here! 
 here where her father had died! . . . What a life 
 what a life! . . . She felt as if she could not bear an- 
 other moment of it; as if she would find comfort in 
 disappearing under the stones of the pavement. She 
 kept her head bowed and her eyes, with the look in them 
 of a soul in torture, riveted to the ground. 
 
 Aimlessly, with a lassitude pathetic in one so full of 
 energy, she walked round and round and round the 
 block thinking, marvelling, almost like a child, at the com- 
 plexity of her life, how from girlhood on everything had 
 always happened to involve her in a fate darker than that 
 of any of the women she had known. Even Mira, that 
 red-headed, coarse Mira, had fared so much better than 
 she. What had she ever done to deserve it all not to be 
 a mother in peace, not to be a wife in peace ; and to have 
 known such poverty as she had known, to have struggled, 
 struggled for whom more than for her children? And 
 now her oldest daughter, the oldest daughter in whom all 
 mothers took the greatest pride, was landed in a home 
 for incurables, in the same home where her father had 
 been at the time of their desperate poverty ! As if Min- 
 nie needed to have had such a thing befall her ; if only the 
 girl had been reasonably tolerant, reasonably obedient, 
 reasonably agreeable. What an unlucky woman she was, 
 what an unlucky woman ! 
 
 She passed the entrance door for visitors again, as she
 
 INDEPENDENCE 321 
 
 had a number of times, without noticing that the people 
 had not only been in but had also come out and the place 
 was already closed to visitors. She stood turning the 
 knob of the gate, looking helplessly up at the mute struc- 
 ture. A hand motioned to her from a window in a wing 
 of the building, directing her to the front entrance. 
 
 She ascended the stoop of old. Something in her heart 
 moaned, and such a heavy sigh escaped her, such a 
 hunted look was on her face that the doorkeeper in- 
 formed her with especial courtesy that the visiting-hour 
 was over, and even added that he was sorry. 
 
 Sarah slunk off like a beaten animal, while Minnie, 
 having watched and waited for her two sisters like a suf- 
 ferer for relief, locked herself in the bathroom and shed 
 the tears of the forlorn. No one cared for her. They 
 had come a few weeks and now they meant to come no 
 more. It was too much "bother." Nobody loved her. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 Another month, and the Heimath's gift of an oppor- 
 tunity for proper living had rendered Minnie a remark- 
 able contradiction to its "incurable" character. She 
 looked hale and hearty. Indeed, the board of directors 
 and the Ladies of the Aid Society, upheld in their opinion 
 by the superintendent, who took his clue from the medical 
 end of the establishment, began to think seriously of dis- 
 charging her. 
 
 In earnest consultation assembled, the wielders of des- 
 tinies in the Helina Heimath, the Directors and the La^- 
 dies, discussed what to do with Minnie now that she was 
 ready to be discharged. 
 
 Minnie Mendel, aged sixteen and a half, unkindly
 
 322 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 treated at home by a stepfather where could she be 
 placed to live? A number of propositions were consid- 
 ered, and finally the suggestion that she be lodged at the 
 Alpha Home for Working Girls was put in the form of 
 a motion, seconded, duly debated, and carried. Next 
 came the problem of her livelihood. The Alpha Home 
 required three dollars a week for her maintenance. Had 
 the girl a trade? No. There followed silent interroga- 
 tion of eyes, then a portly gentleman of excellent decorum 
 and without doubt of a good heart, else why should he 
 have left his easy chair at home for the mission of alms, 
 whose every gesture indicated that he was accustomed 
 to handling matters of far greater import than the mere 
 placing of a girl at a trade, offered his metal establish- 
 ment as a solution. This proposal, too, was moved and 
 seconded and carried ; and the case of Mildred Mendel 
 was dismissed ; there were other cases up that needed 
 similar consideration. 
 
 The announcement of her discharge was a shock at 
 first to Minnie, filling her with terror of a repetition of 
 her old life. Then she was glad. It was impossible that 
 she would have to live again in a kitchen on the East 
 Side, or work in a shop. They knew it had been this that 
 had made her sick, and after having gone to all the 
 trouble of curing her, what sense would there be in send- 
 ing her back to such conditions? Yet she had relapses 
 to fear. What, what if they were, after all, to make her 
 go back to a shop, to a store and to the East Side ! She 
 had no profession or trade and she had no money. What 
 would become of her? 
 
 At night when the other patients in the ward were 
 asleep, her eyes wandered over their forms of divers dis- 
 tortions, bedridden for the rest of life perhaps ; and even
 
 INDEPENDENCE 323 
 
 though her heart ached for them, it gladdened for her- 
 self, that she was better, that she could leave the bed 
 of charity for the world of independence. "But only if 
 I don't have to work in a shop only if I could have a 
 room for myself in a clean place! Dear me! that isn't 
 asking for so much ! So many people have it, why can't 
 I? I would be so happy!" Here the tears would come 
 and she would have to draw the covers over her head to 
 keep the others from hearing her weep. 
 
 As if in answer to her prayer, one of the ladies of the 
 Aid Society came to her one day and after stroking her 
 hair, which she proclaimed was arranged in a pompadour 
 that was "just the thing" and smiling down upon her 
 benignly, told her that this experience of hers was to be 
 followed by one at least equally as wonderful, that she 
 was to live in the Alpha Home for Working Girls, "a 
 nice, clean, lovely home for girls, a purfectly splendid 
 place." 
 
 The girl's heart turned a somersault for joy. Hadn't 
 she just known that the past could not repeat itself ! 
 
 For days she trod on air, her joy expressing itself in 
 dreams of coming back to the Heimath on visits with a 
 large bundle of foodstuffs, cheese, smoked salmon, sweet 
 butter, dill pickles, olives, herring. Each patient was to 
 receive her favorite delicacy. She would live through 
 scene after scene of the sort until she fell into a state of 
 delicious eagerness for the time to arrive when she would 
 be leaving. 
 
 One day word came from the superintendent's quar- 
 ters that she was to accompany an attendant to Maiden 
 Lane to make arrangements for a position. 
 
 As if by magic the heavens turned suddenly pitch- 
 black. Minnie's heart stood still, then hammered and
 
 324 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 hammered. Oh, God, not a shop ! Not a store ! Not a 
 shop! When her mind interfered with common sense to 
 ask what else she was prepared to do, she wanted to 
 strike at it with her fists. What right had it to come in 
 with its practical complacency. If only it would be an 
 office, not a store, not a shop! Oh, if only it would be 
 an office! Maybe now there were offices that did not 
 always want shorthand. She could put her hair up and 
 look more like "a grown-up lady." 
 
 Trembling with nervousness she lent herself to some 
 half-dozen hands and as many contrary opinions for 
 dressing up. One woman tied her hair with a red ribbon, 
 another one's opinion prevailed that black was more suit- 
 able. One told her to wear a one-piece dress, another a 
 waist and skirt. 
 
 The patients stood at the window, some half-dozen of 
 them, waving her good-by, envious and sympathetic. 
 When she turned out of sight, they moved away, sighing, 
 already wondering when she would come back and 
 whether she would procure the position. Probably it was 
 "by a director" no small honor. Indeed, one needed to 
 be "smart," "an American one," to aspire to such a place. 
 
 Three hours later Minnie returned, her lips tight-set, 
 her face pale. The friendly patients came eagerly for- 
 ward. With a single glance she frightened them away 
 and walked fast and stiffly to her bed, where she stood 
 for a moment rigid, then fell upon it in a heap, shrieking 
 hysterically. The medical profession was brought hurry- 
 ing upon the scene. She was questioned. 
 
 "I WON'T work in a shop! I WON'T! I'd sooner 
 die !" she cried. 
 
 Her sobs were the tune of a deep hatred that was grip- 
 ping her soul, a hatred of the circumstances that made
 
 INDEPENDENCE 325 
 
 her subject to the will of others. The Helina Heimath 
 suddenly loomed up as the epitome of all horror, as a 
 dumping ground for ruined humans, and a soul repair 
 shop for the conscience-stricken rich that they might not 
 lose their chance also in heaven. She hated it hated 
 her dependence. She swore she would be a dependent no 
 more, never in her life again. 
 
 That their good work should not be undone, the author- 
 ities of the Heimath readily agreed that some plan should 
 be devised more in accord with the girl's own desires. 
 She was consulted. She wanted to learn shorthand. 
 And shorthand she was taught by Sarah's "golden 
 lady." 
 
 The first person Minnie had met when Dr. Joel 
 brought her to the Helina Heimath was Ella Liebman, 
 who was now secretary there. It had instantly sprung 
 into Minnie's mind and greatly worried her that here 
 was someone who knew of her past and would disillusion 
 Dr. Joel concerning her orphanhood. One day she made 
 a clean breast of it. 
 
 "Miss Liebman," she said, "I told Dr. Joel I have no 
 mother. The truth is, my mother married a man who, 
 though he was recommended by friends " 
 
 Miss Liebman laughed, long and merrily, but in so in- 
 dulgent a tone and with such an affectionate look, that 
 Minnie went on : 
 
 "And he turned out very mean and I left home " 
 
 Miss Liebman divined the girl's fears. 
 
 "We understand. Don't worry," she said. 
 
 Thereafter she became Minnie's "golden lady."
 
 PART II 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER
 
 PART II 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 
 
 Minnie sat at the small table in her small, neat room 
 in the Alpha Home for Working Girls, a pad of paper, 
 ink and a newspaper before her. She wrote : 
 
 "I beg leave to make application for the position of 
 stenographer as per your advertisement in this morning's 
 New York World!' 
 
 A novel sense of dignity warmed her soul. A full- 
 fledged stenographer ! An office to be her objective and 
 nothing in the way to bar her. What different times from 
 those of the Titanic Biscuit Company! Those awful 
 days! She sighed. Though those times seemed already 
 in the distant past, thought of them made one sigh 
 made one's gladness in a present seem a bit lop-sided 
 somehow. "How could mama have been so indifferent !" 
 she wondered as she sat chewing the end of her pen- 
 holder, her eyes staring into vacancy. "I might have 
 been ruined by Joe by that doctor. I might have mar- 
 ried Louis. What a baby I was!" Her sophisticated 
 companions at the Heimath had taught Minnie things. 
 
 The summons bell rang in the hall and in a moment a 
 girl's voice called: "Mildred Mendel, the superintendent 
 wants you in her office." 
 
 Fifteen minutes later Minnie was seated in the street 
 car all excited because she was on the way to see about 
 a position as stenographer which the superintendent had 
 
 329
 
 330 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 thought she could fill. ... In an hour she came back 
 bubbling over with happiness, for she had been found 
 satisfactory and had been engaged. At the door of the 
 Alpha Home her happy bubbles broke. She was met by 
 the girl who had summoned her to the superintendent's 
 office, and was asked: 
 
 "Well, did you get the position?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Yes? Oh, how nice. Where in what place?" 
 
 In what place ? The place had not occurred to Minnie, 
 somehow it had not mattered. Minnie stood for a mo- 
 ment speechless. She dropped her eyes and voice: 
 
 "Why, the Peoples Charities " she replied. 
 
 A queer sensation played in her breast as she made her 
 way to the superintendent's office to tell the result of her 
 interview. "What would mama say, I wonder !" she was 
 
 thinking. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Among her duties was interviewing applicants. She 
 found herself the first day, while waiting for the chief 
 clerk to bring her working paraphernalia, facing a room- 
 ful of drab humanity in the Employment Bureau in the 
 basement of the Peoples Charities building. How curi- 
 ously alike they all looked though their features were 
 so different! They were scrutinizing the new "Lady" 
 with a hush upon them, broken by subdued whispers, 
 which marks people under constraint. In their humble 
 hearts was awe, the shadow of dependence. Was it their 
 obvious awe of the new personage behind the desk 
 that caused Minnie to straighten up in her chair with a 
 slender feeling of self-esteem? A very slender feeling 
 and one that soon passed. 
 
 "How haggard and anxious they look !" Her young
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 331 
 
 heart ached for this lot of suffering humanity, huddled 
 together in this stuffy basement. She strained her eyes 
 to see them more clearly as if to bring the realness of 
 themselves to themselves closer to herself. They were 
 human beings just as her mother was a human being, 
 who, like them, had once sat right there waiting for the 
 very same thing, to be given work as if it were charity. 
 She in one of their seats would seem as strange to an- 
 other seated where she was. In the Helina Heimath she 
 had doubtless seemed as strange to a visitor. 
 
 The chief clerk appeared to put her to work. 
 
 The first days of her new position were hard. Like all 
 sensitive people, Minnie stood in awe of her superiors, 
 was, as a consequence, easily rattled and made blunders. 
 But she fought hard with herself, and if she did not over- 
 come her nervousness, she at least managed to conceal it. 
 She rested her elbow on the desk to steady her trembling 
 hand and questioned the applicants in the lowest voice 
 
 to keep others from detecting her shyness. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Months passed, each day bringing a host of wretched 
 human beings to the Charities doors. There were old 
 faces, new faces, old tales, new tales. 
 
 Though poverty was no secret to Minnie, she had never 
 before consciously appreciated the endless sordidness 
 with which it joined hands. Beginning with the physical 
 ugliness to which it reduced its victims, the demon forged 
 on and on tirelessly, mercilessly, driving men to desert 
 women, women to loathe men, children to curse both. 
 . Minnie suffered. She walked about with a troubled 
 face and such an abstracted manner that her co-workers 
 put her down as queer, and smiled and talked about her 
 in whispers.
 
 332 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 In her mental struggle Minnie would appeal to Miss 
 Liebman. Teacher and pupil had become close friends. 
 Did Miss Liebman think there was a God? Did she 
 think He approved of poverty? Did she think the poor 
 themselves were responsible for their poverty? But if 
 they were ignorant, untrained, diseased, how could they 
 be held responsible any more than a man may be held 
 responsible for a hooked nose? 
 
 Ella Liebman, who had gone through precisely such a 
 period of spiritual unrest, understood and sympathized, 
 but in her greater wisdom, she suggested that it was 
 better not to think about such things since one never 
 reached a conclusion. Far from satisfying, this only 
 made Minnie the more restless and caused her to long 
 for sympathetic companionship. 
 
 Now and then she made advances to her fellow-work- 
 ers; but if her aloofness seemed queer to them, her talk 
 seemed still queerer. Did anyone ever hear of such a 
 thing as whether a person deserved to be poor ! A man 
 was poor sufficient explanation in itself, and the end 
 of it. Did God approve of poverty? As if everything 
 were not in God's hands, including the power to make a 
 man rich or poor. 
 
 They flocked together, called Minnie a "nut" and forth- 
 with took every opportunity to avoid her. And Minnie 
 now avoided them with ten times the conscientiousness 
 that they avoided her. 
 
 Occasionally she tried to talk to the Alpha Home girls, 
 but never felt drawn to any of them. 
 
 But still she yearned for companionship, for someone 
 with whom she could talk. A few times she tried to un- 
 burden herself to Ida and Beckie, who often visited her. 
 Beckie would listen even if she did not understand ; but
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 333 
 
 Ida, who was bored and disgusted, would find pretexts 
 for interrupting. Had Minnie seen the cat that just 
 passed? Did she feel hot or cold? And such obvious 
 boredom invariably played upon her face that Minnie, 
 flushing, was reduced to silence. 
 
 Often Minnie wondered what sort of a person Abie 
 Ratkin was now grown into and whether he wondered 
 the same about her. And Gregory Chernin, what was he 
 like now? Did he and Abie have other girls for friends? 
 A sigh. 
 
 Late one evening, coming home from a walk, she 
 passed the sitting-room and looked in enviously at the 
 girls talking and laughing. Amelia Rubin, a Russian- 
 Jewish shirtwaist operator, who sat next to Minnie at 
 table, but to whom Minnie had paid no attention because 
 of her foreignness, called to Minnie eagerly to come in. 
 She was at a loss to entertain her "gentleman caller." 
 
 Minnie walked in shyly. 
 
 In a broad, foreign accent Amelia Rubin introduced 
 Morris Caplan, a medium-sized man of about thirty-six, 
 who rose clumsily and acknowledged the introduction 
 with "Pleezed te mee' che!" A heavy gold watch chain 
 threaded through a lower buttonhole of his waistcoat and 
 draped over to a pocket, called attention to his slight 
 tendency to a paunch. Upon his large, healthily colored 
 face set with a broad nose, generous mouth and kind 
 blue eyes, there played a smile of good nature. 
 
 Amelia Rubin, a thin, weazened little creature, wearing 
 an unpretty, stiffly-starched shirtwaist, which brought out 
 the lines of bitterness on her small, sallow face and, by 
 creasing in the back, exaggerated the roundness of her 
 shoulders, brushed loose strands of her straight black
 
 334 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 hair away from her ears and screwed up her small brown 
 eyes. 
 
 "Mr. Caplan," she said, addressing Minnie in an 
 aggrieved tone, "don't believe it that it's worser half 
 slavery like whole." 
 
 Mr. Caplan looked uncomfortable and was about to 
 say that Miss Rubin was misquoting him when Minnie 
 asked : 
 
 "What does that mean ?" 
 
 "Like to work wit' small wages, not to eat, not to 
 starve." 
 
 Mr. Caplan looked round the room as in search of a 
 way of escape. It is characteristic of the Russian Jew 
 dubbed "kike" to be bored by the precocious wisdom of 
 the women of his own class. 
 
 Morris Caplan was a radical ; he believed in the equal- 
 ity of all mankind, in the abolition of wage slavery, but 
 he was Amelia Rubin's senior by ten years, a successful 
 real-estate dealer with a substantial bank account upon 
 which his head rested comfortably, and so past the age 
 and stage of extravagant protest. Amelia Rubin bored 
 him, but she was a compatriot of his; their families on 
 the other side were allied in the friendship that shares 
 pots and pans and funeral expenses, so he had to see her 
 occasionally to be able to send news of her to the other 
 side. 
 
 Amelia, for her part, was in love with Morris Caplan 
 and talked sagely in the hope of interesting him, while he, 
 out of politeness, would grudgingly take up the discus- 
 sions she initiated. But this evening he made it obvious 
 that he was bored. She had been trying to convince him, 
 regardless of whether he was already convinced or not, 
 that the wage slave is as much of a slave as the chattel
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 335 
 
 slave. To her clumsy presentation he had, out of sheer 
 capriciousness, answered that "Half is half and whole is 
 whole twice as much," his tone so frankly implying that 
 he was not interested that Amelia had taken refuge in 
 calling in Minnie. 
 
 Amelia's explanation made her statement no clearer to 
 Minnie. 
 
 "I still don't know what you mean." 
 
 She spoke without an accent. Morris Caplan was in- 
 terested. Though he had been ready to go a moment be- 
 fore, he straightened up and rested his eyes on the new- 
 comer. She looked American-born, and her dark blue 
 serge dress trimmed with a white collar brought out the 
 gray of her eyes. 
 
 Morris Caplan smiled indulgently, feeling infinitely 
 older than either of the girls. 
 
 "Amelia wants to inform me like a big piece of news 
 that small wages makes big troubles." 
 
 Minnie burst into a merry, but not boisterous giggle. 
 The quality of restraint in her laugh affected Morris Cap- 
 lan, as it had others, with a sense of modesty in her and 
 reserve. Sitting there blushing, she made a feminine con- 
 trast to Amelia, who had responded by a smile and a 
 wise nod of her head, as if to say: "Indeed, this time 
 Morris Caplan had been the sage." 
 
 "I work in the Peoples Charities, and my goodness! 
 tHere you see the horrors of small wages and the greater 
 horrors of no wages at all." 
 
 Minnie's listeners were inspired with deference. One 
 so seldom heard words of good sense from the average 
 American girl. 
 
 "What you workin' there by ?" asked Amelia. 
 
 "I'm a stenographer," Minnie replied self-consciously,
 
 336 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 proud to be able to say so, though after she had spoken, 
 her words sounded in her own soul like bragging. For a 
 moment the past of shop and store hovered close. 
 
 Morris Caplan gave her a look of generous approval 
 and was glad of her presence. Life for him was dull. 
 Having been all-engrossed in his business for a number 
 of years, he had had no time for making friends, and 
 now that he was ready for them, he found that those of 
 his own educational and intellectual standing did not sat- 
 isfy him and those of greater attainments, especially girls, 
 made no response to his advances, while the American 
 girls that tolerated him did so only for the "good time" 
 his money bought. Here was a girl living in a home for 
 poor girls who probably had as yet no assessed valuation 
 upon herself. In his longing for comrades of superior 
 mentality and culture, his heart leapt to the possibilities 
 of Minnie as a friend. 
 
 The gong for the dismissal of visitors sounded. Mor- 
 ris Caplan rose to go. 
 
 " 'Ope to mee' che again, Mees Mendel." 
 
 Minnie shook hands with him. As he walked to the 
 door escorted by Amelia, she was not sure, looking at his 
 stocky figure and clumsy walk and with his offensive ac- 
 cent sounding in her ears, whether she hoped to meet 
 him again. While she undressed for bed, he still occu- 
 pied her thoughts. Who was he? What was he? In 
 her need for companionship she rather hoped she would 
 meet him again. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 A long line of needy ones waited to be heard in the 
 Charities employment bureau. The windows were closed
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 337 
 
 against the rain, and the thick atmosphere reeked with 
 the sour stench of poor people. Under a siege of light- 
 saving the room was gloomily dim. 
 
 Minnie had put the same questions about a dozen 
 times: with thumb pointing upward, "How many chil- 
 dren have you over fourteen years ?" with thumb pointing 
 downward, "How many children have you under four- 
 teen years?" 
 
 The man confronting her looked like an animated 
 skeleton to which a stubby beard only added the more 
 gruesomeness. He dropped his eyes, in which tears had 
 gathered, then, as if bracing himself for a high jump, 
 said with dignity and in a low voice: 
 
 "I had six children. The four older ones died. The 
 two left are under fourteen." 
 
 Far from becoming inured to the misery that surged 
 through the doors of the Peoples Charities, Minnie felt 
 the applicants' misfortunes with greater and greater keen- 
 ness. A dull heartache, now constantly with her, was 
 accentuated to a painful smart by each new account of 
 suffering. She sat silent a while, finding it difficult, as 
 she often had of late, to fix her mind on her work. 
 But the record card, on which her eyes were lowered, 
 stared a reminder. She had not yet extracted all the 
 required information. 
 
 "What is your name, please?" 
 
 "Chayim Schlopoborsky." 
 
 She raised her eyes, her lower jaw dropped slightly, 
 her hand remained poised in the air. 
 
 Chayim Schlopoborsky shuffled uneasily under her 
 stare. 
 
 Minnie looked round the room, called to another girl
 
 338 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 to take her place, and fled to an ante-room where the 
 tears came in a rush. 
 
 "He perjured his soul by throwing us out of the cellar 
 so that he could bring his children away from pogroms, 
 and now they are dead !" Minnie sobbed to herself. "I 
 suppose they went from cellar to cellar until they reached 
 the lowest one! What an awful life!" 
 
 But she mustn't stay away too long. Drying her eyes, 
 she returned to work. Approaching her desk, she heard 
 her substitute's voice raised in admonition. 
 
 "Why don't you show a little more enthusiasm? One 
 would think you were doing tis a favor!" 
 
 The substitute had proposed a position at which the 
 work was soling shoes by machine. Chayim Schlopo- 
 borsky had hesitated diffidently, wishing to say he could 
 do better by hand, as he had never worked a machine. 
 
 "Don't you dare!" Minnie, quickly stepping forward, 
 cried in an unnaturally suppressed voice. "He is a human 
 being just like you. You don't know when your turn to 
 stand behind this counter will come." 
 
 The substitute was too surprised to retort, but the ex- 
 pression of her eyes gave promise of a sequel. 
 
 It was difficult the rest of the day for Minnie to put 
 her mind on her work. The scene left her overwrought, 
 with flushes of lingering indignation, followed by chills 
 of waxing nervousness as to a possibly disastrous issue 
 to herself. It was an audacious act. Would the girl 
 complain about her, and would she be scolded or would 
 they do worse and discharge her? In optimistic mo- 
 ments she welcomed complaint as giving her the oppor- 
 tunity she had sometimes desired to tell the superintend- 
 ent that the applicants were often abused and to suggest 
 that unsympathetic people ought not to be employed in
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 339 
 
 the Charities. But optimistic moments were rare. She 
 knew herself ; in front of the chief she would be tongue- 
 tied, the beating of her heart would stiffle her thoughts. 
 She hated herself for her nervousness. . . . Reverting 
 to Chayim Schlopoborsky, she wondered whether the 
 service she had rendered him outweighed the injury she 
 had done herself. She had acted right, she assured her- 
 self, and was glad she had spoken out. On her way home 
 she breathed in the fresh air gratefully, as if it were a 
 gift. 
 
 Minnie had had a few talks with Amelia Rubin. 
 Though her philosophy was trite enough to Morris Cap- 
 Ian, it was not so to Minnie, who found it echoed un- 
 formulated thoughts of her own ; and but for Amelia's 
 uncouthness and almost unintelligible language, she would 
 have given herself up freely to friendship with her. 
 Minnie was at the flapper stage of extreme stress of the 
 aesthetic. 
 
 This evening, however, she forgot her distaste in her 
 eagerness to pour out her heart to someone ; she ap- 
 proached Amelia with the easy familiarity of much more 
 than a week's acquaintance and asked her to go out for a 
 walk. But Amelia she was very sorry had arranged 
 with another girl to attend a Peoples' Symphony Concert. 
 Minnie was desolate. With a slight tremor, but with an 
 attempt at a smile, she assured Amelia it was "all right," 
 they could take a walk together some other time, and 
 hurried back to her room. 
 
 Here she tried to read Plays, Pleasant and Unpleasant, 
 but was too restless to get interested, and soon threw 
 the book down to comb her hair. Then she went to the 
 wash-room to remove ink stains from her fingers, came 
 back and stood before the looking-glass trying on collars
 
 340 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 and ribbons at the neck of her dress. Nothing gave her 
 satisfaction. In a resolute attempt to keep the wheels of 
 thought about her outburst and her position from revolv- 
 ing in her mind, she decided, as a last resort, to take a 
 walk by herself. 
 
 On the street outside the entrance of the Home she 
 came upon Morris Caplan. 
 
 '"Alb, Mees Mendel!" He held out his hand to 
 Minnie. 
 
 "Oh, how do you do, Mr. Caplan?" she greeted him, 
 and, assuming he had come to visit Amelia, promptly in- 
 formed him where his friend had gone. She did not 
 observe his excited manner and that his red face had 
 taken on a few more shades of red. In her unsuspicious- 
 ness that he had walked to the street of the Alpha Home 
 in the hope of a chance meeting with her, she moved off. 
 "Goodnight!" 
 
 He detained her. Where was she off to? Nowhere? 
 Then, as it was drizzling, why not both of them return to 
 the Alpha Home? 
 
 When they sat facing each other in the sitting-room, 
 Minnie felt as though the heavens had opened and 
 dropped down a gift. She had been so lonely and so in 
 need of someone to whom to pour out her surcharged 
 heart. 
 
 His first utterance, however, dispelled the charm. He 
 seemed to chew his words and spit them out. How had 
 he learned so well to pronounce just exactly wrong? 
 Not even Minnie's Rivington Street "scholners" had 
 spoken so badly. Or was it because her ears had then 
 been less attuned to proper sounds, she wondered. She 
 must have grown terribly "particular" in a short time,
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 341 
 
 and she warned herself against acquiring extravagant 
 tastes. 
 
 What had "see" done during the week? Had "see" 
 been happy? Every day but to-day? What then had 
 happened to-day? Morris Caplan's eyes rested upon 
 Minnie with a sort of elderly-paternal kindness, which 
 went to her heart and made her feel like a little child. 
 
 She had had trouble that day at the Charities, she told 
 him. He asked for details, and she, less anxious to re- 
 sist than to confide, gave him an account of her cham- 
 pionship of Chayim Schlopoborsky, without, however, 
 mentioning her prior acquaintance with the cobbler. 
 
 As Morris Caplan listened, while leisurely surveying 
 her well-fitting, becoming black skirt and dainty blouse 
 and taking in the charm of her eyes, which suggested a 
 gray sky, and the refinement of her enunciation, he felt 
 his heart warm toward her. It brought back his own 
 enthusiastic youth when, precisely as she, he had grown 
 heated over the right and the wrong of things. Now he 
 was more mature, more sedate, more settled down, so to 
 speak, into the world's ways, but his spirit responded 
 with sad envy and appreciation. Her young mind seemed 
 to spread its wings and be soaring. This girl, he felt, 
 had the attractiveness of simplicity and innocence of her 
 own attractiveness. His demeanor changed from the 
 condescending paternal to that of the friendly listener 
 and adviser. 
 
 He was sure she would not lose her position, but if she 
 were to, he could use a smart girl like her in his own office. 
 She had been quite right to take issue with the substitute ; 
 no human being had the right to abuse another. Indeed, 
 he was glad to have learned of the injustice; he would
 
 342 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 withdraw his own annual contribution to the Peoples 
 Charities. 
 
 The last was said with the distinct object of making 
 an impression upon Minnie, who, however, did not re- 
 spond by so much as the quiver of an eyelash ; which only 
 increased Morris Caplan's respect for Minnie Mendel. 
 Here was a twentieth-century American girl who had no 
 scent for money. In his experience American girls con- 
 descended to be in his company in the expectation of 
 theater treats, taxi rides, and boxes of candy, looking 
 upon him, to his keen consciousness and hurt, as a "kike," 
 because of his accent, disregardful of his real quali- 
 ties of heart and soul. This little American girl was the 
 first one with whom, in the longest while, he had had a 
 sensible talk. 
 
 The dismissal gong rang far too soon for Morris Cap- 
 Ian. On rising he ventured the hope that she would let 
 him visit her again. Minnie also was sorry the evening 
 had come to an end. It was flattering that a man so much 
 older than she listened to her so interestedly. On the 
 way to her room she quivered with a feeling akin to a 
 child's excitement in a new toy. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 The tale of Minnie's "jumping on" the substitute was 
 spread by that young person in various forms of exag- 
 geration among the others of her clan, whose dander 
 went up sympathetically at "the audacity of her," "the 
 cheek of her," "the nerve of her." She had better look 
 out and not try any such tricks on them. However, no 
 charges were brought, and for many weeks things went 
 along in their uninterrupted drab way.
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 343 
 
 The perplexing problem of poverty never left Minnie's 
 mind. How could a world of presumably good people 
 tolerate such wretchedness in their midst? Why did not 
 those with a surplus hand it over promiscuously to those 
 with nothing? And if Jhe surplus was not handed over, 
 then why did not those deprived of the means of living 
 rebel? Why, instead of rebelling, did they come daily 
 and beg for alms? It seemed so perfectly simple and 
 easy to Minnie for the poor to get together and resolve 
 to abolish their poverty. 
 
 Amelia Rubin, with whom she discussed these things, 
 agreed with her, but her agreement was tainted by a bit- 
 ter cynicism with which Minnie was not yet ripe enough 
 to cope. For refuge she fled to fun-making. 
 
 When Amelia was sure that God was "invented" to 
 keep folks in the dark so that all sorts of vile "tricks" 
 could be perpetrated upon them while kept by their be- 
 lief in jelly-fish submission and subordination, Minnie 
 was sure that there was a God, but. since there was man- 
 kind, too, and in the majority at that, men ruled things 
 in their own way and had made such a mess of it that He 
 had retired in confusion, so that while some simple peo- 
 ple still continued to pray to Him and to worship Him, 
 He was really every moment eloquently proclaiming 
 through our very human miseries that His power had 
 been deposed. But if Amelia, in the way of young cynics, 
 was so touched by a lovely sky, by a sunset, by the chirp- 
 ing of a sparrow that she sighed and soliloquized that 
 maybe, after all, there was a God, Minnie would look up 
 to heaven and exclaim: "God in heaven, save this girl 
 from such foolishness!" or "You are as fickle as God's 
 image has a right to be, so I'm not blaming you." 
 
 Minnie took the same refuge from Morris Caplan's
 
 344 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 atrocious language. After he had called four or five 
 times again and she had, upon Amelia's urgent invitation, 
 always joined them, she refused the next time. Though 
 his one visit alone with her, in the particularly dependent 
 mood in which she had been that evening, had given her 
 pleasure, his subsequent visits had been boresome. The 
 conversations, with Amelia at the helm, had seemed al- 
 ways to pull the wrong way. 
 
 One evening he called when Amelia was out. Minnie 
 went down wondering who could possibly have asked to 
 see Miss Mendel. At sight of Morris Caplan she was 
 appalled. But he came forward smiling so broadly and 
 radiating so much cordiality as he said, " 'Allo, Mees 
 Mendel," that she felt her heart warm to him with af- 
 fection. Pretty soon she was saying with a twinkle : 
 
 "Why do you spoil perfectly good silence? Silence 
 grates much less on the ear than 'dets is/ 'enyhull,' 'yeh, 
 'partickala.' If you want to speak, why don't you learn 
 how? And why do you call me 'mees'?* What did I 
 ever do to you to be called 'mees?' 
 
 "Go on," said Morris Caplan, "laugh yourself fat!" 
 As if to assure himself that she needed the additional 
 flesh, he took hold of her arm, laughing with her as she 
 wriggled out of his grasp. 
 
 In two weeks' time Morris Caplan, real estate dealer, 
 whose business policy it was never to take "no" for an 
 answer, had wheedled Miss Mendel into giving him les- 
 sons in English. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 Life for over a year proceeded in the same tenor 
 work, eat, sleep, giving Morris Caplan lessons, walks 
 
 * Mees is the Yiddish for "ugly."
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 345 
 
 with him, walks with Amelia until one day Ida, acting 
 as Sarah's emissary, came with Beckie to bring Minnie 
 the news that Jacob was going to graduate from college 
 and wanted her to attend the exercises. 
 
 Minnie was touched. After all, they did not look on 
 her as an outsider ; she was welcome to the family circle. 
 To keep back the tears that would come if she answered 
 directly, she cast about for something else to say. 
 
 "Is Abie Ratkin going to graduate, too ?" 
 
 Ida, though she resentfully attributed to Minnie's indif- 
 ference this switching off from the matter of family 
 interest, answered politely enough: 
 
 "He graduated last year. He skipped a term. He's 
 teaching already. Jacob got extra tickets and invited 
 Abie, and you can sit with him. We all thought" here 
 she got in her sting "you'd feel contaminated if you 
 sat with us." 
 
 Minnie grew hot. 
 
 "Tell Jacob," she said, lowering her head to hide the 
 twitching of her face, "I congratulate him." 
 
 "Thank God!" cried Ida in exaggerated relief, as 
 though Minnie had accepted the invitation in so many 
 words. "Mama lived in mortal terror of your turning 
 up your nose." She laughed disagreeably. 
 
 A week later, Minnie, dressed in clothes all new ex- 
 cept for her shoes and gloves (no working-girl is ever 
 clad in absolute harmonious newness) with a two-dollar- 
 and-sixty-five-cent volume of Shakespeare's complete 
 works under her arm, started off for Carnegie Hall. 
 
 "My goodness," she kept saying to herself, "I've got a 
 brother a college graduate !" She hugged "college grad- 
 uate" proudly.
 
 346 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 On an empty cross street, which she chose in order 
 to make better speed, she was roused out of herself by 
 a caterwauling, which proceeded from a ragged little 
 urchin down whose muddy countenance the tears were 
 making pathways. Minnie investigated. The little one 
 was lost and had no idea of his parentage or place of 
 habitation. There was nothing to do but to take him by 
 the hand and lead him, no, drag him oh, how the child 
 
 crept! to the nearest station-house. 
 
 ****** 
 
 At half -past seven there were already gathered in Car- 
 negie Hall the zealous relatives of graduates, who pre- 
 ferred to wait an hour to being one moment late. There 
 was subdued whispering, handshaking and smiles of 
 heaven itself on the wrinkled faces of old-fashioned 
 mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles; and the eyes of 
 the younger generation shone with peace on earth, good 
 will to men. Flitting figures of young men garbed in the 
 graduation black were followed with loving exclamations, 
 "That's my son !" "That's my brother !" and were scruti- 
 nized with wonderment and reverence. 
 
 Presently there came toiling up the stairs a silent group, 
 Sarah, Leopold, Ida, Beckie. Sarah's heart was heavy. 
 Jacob, in his relentless unforgivingness, had not extended 
 a personal invitation to Leopold, who had been offended 
 and at the last moment had refused to attend the exer- 
 cises. 
 
 Sarah's heart writhed. She had felt intuitively it 
 would be so. By this time in her life she had reached the 
 conclusion that she was destined never to experience un- 
 adulterated happiness. Her boy was to be graduated 
 from college! An achievement for poor people. An 
 honor, a glory, to witness a son proclaimed a gentleman
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 347 
 
 learned in the ways of great things. The occasion, which 
 ought to be one of pure joy, must be marred for her; 
 she had felt it ; she had known that Jacob's failure to in- 
 vite his stepfather personally would mean Leopold's re- 
 fusal to attend. That he had refrained from protesting 
 until the last moment had only meant a period of miser- 
 able anticipation. Sarah was hurt, angered. Neverthe- 
 less, subduing her voice, she reasoned pleasantly with her 
 husband that Jacob was self-conscious about things like 
 reconciliations, and it was a little omission which Leo- 
 pold ought not to mind. "Jacob," she concluded, "did not 
 even send an invitation to Minnie. I myself sent the in- 
 vitation by Ida and Beckie." 
 
 But Leopold was not to be argued out of his grievance ; 
 Jacob could graduate without his presence just as well, 
 he said. Further persuasion only increased the tension. 
 Sarah's heightened color, the stubborn quiet of the two 
 girls, Leopold's subdued but impassioned voice, charged 
 the atmosphere as with an explosive. 
 
 When it was high time to leave, Sarah began to cry 
 and to lament her never-ending hard lot. Bad enough 
 that her children were parted and scattered and her heart 
 was always torn in a thousand pieces Leopold had not 
 the right on this special occasion of a lifetime to make her 
 miserable and let her feel how divided her life was ; 
 for without Leopold she was not willing to go to the exer- 
 cises, and to absent herself from her boy's graduation 
 would break her heart. 
 
 Leopold gave evidence of relenting by taking off his 
 everyday necktie and rummaging in his bureau drawer 
 for a Sunday one. In silence, then, Sarah and the girls 
 made ready ; in silence all four traveled to the graduation 
 hall, and in silence climbed the stairs to the gallery, each
 
 348 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 with mingled emotions of the gladness of the occasion 
 and the sadness of their unnatural family life. 
 
 As soon a.9 they were seated, Sarah asked Ida to point 
 out Minnie's seat. The eyes of the other three followed 
 Ida's index finger. The seat was empty. When the hall 
 began to fill up and from the stirring on the platform it 
 seemed that the exercises would soon begin, Sarah 
 glanced anxiously toward Minnie's seat and then toward 
 the entrance. Would it be Minnie that was going to 
 absent herself? How heartaches never ended for her! 
 Leopold discerned Sarah's misery and genuinely re- 
 gretted the distress he himself had caused her. 
 
 A young man was about to enter the row of Minnie's 
 seat. Abie Ratkin? They all peered. Yes, it was Abie 
 Ratkin. Ida, catching his eye, beckoned to him. At the 
 same moment Jacob appeared, hot, hurried, excited. 
 
 "God mine !" Sarah exclaimed inwardly, "will he greet 
 his uncle?" 
 
 Jacob, whose heart must have been reached by his 
 mother's unspoken cry, turned to Leopold and clumsily 
 shook hands with him. Leopold, touched, congratulated 
 him. Sarah, out of gratitude, rose slightly from her seat, 
 Jacob bent down, and they kissed. Then the girl also 
 kissed their brother, and Abraham Ratkin congratulated 
 him. 
 
 Jacob, embarrassed and eager to hide his embarrass- 
 ment, said he had stolen away to see them only for a 
 minute, and left. Ida called after him that they would 
 all meet on the street after the exercises. 
 
 Abraham lingered to ask for Minnie. Beckie, with a 
 knowing, teasing twinkle, told him Minnie was coming 
 and was even going to sit beside him ; embarrassed, he 
 made a mocking bow in appreciation of the courtesy. 
 Sarah, whose eyes were misted over with anxiety about
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 349 
 
 Minnie, acknowledged the fun with a melancholy smile, 
 and as soon as Abraham left for his seat, sent another 
 furtive glance toward the entrance. Would Minnie 
 come? 
 
 "Makes me sick," Ida muttered, "always spoils every- 
 thing." 
 
 A voice called for order, everybody was seated, and a 
 solemn hush fell upon the place. The graduates began 
 to assemble on the platform ; there was music, coughing, 
 scattering sneezes and general adjustment. Then one 
 could have heard a pin drop. 
 
 Sarah looked anxiously at Minnie's still vacant seat. 
 
 A gray-haired gentleman in a brief preliminary speech 
 introduced another elderly gentleman, who rose lum- 
 beringly and crossed to the front of the platform with 
 dignified professorial mien. In a deep, solemn voice he 
 laid before the audience the history of the nation's policy 
 of wonderful democracy, which gave to one and all equal 
 opportunity to reach the heights of education, the heights 
 of attainment in every field, the heights of glory. He 
 repeated points he wished especially to impress, and sol- 
 emnly, adjuringly, pleaded for due appreciation of the 
 benefits conferred by the College of the City of New 
 York. 
 
 The speech brought tears to the eyes of parents who, 
 listening, understood not a word, since the language was 
 not their language. But what else could the man be say- 
 ing than that the particular boy of the particular parent 
 be ever grateful, ever appreciative of the sacrifices en- 
 tailed in sending him through college? Who but a par- 
 ent would have made such sacrifices? Who but a parent 
 would have slaved and stinted himself so all the years? 
 A parent's love was holy ; a parent's life hard.
 
 350 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 A pause and a storm of applause. 
 
 Sarah's misted eyes again traveled to the door. At 
 that moment Minnie, hot and flurried, entered. As by 
 Fate decreed, she met her mother's gaze in all that throng 
 of people. 
 
 Sarah's heart gave a great leap, and the color left her 
 face and lips, while Minnie grew dizzy and felt herself 
 turn pale. 
 
 Ida, who succeeded in drawing Minnie's eyes to her, 
 shrugged her shoulders and pursed her lips as if to ask 
 what good excuse Minnie could give for being late on 
 such an occasion. Minnie understood and hurriedly 
 sought her seat. The momentary unhappiness tugging 
 at her heart gave way to pleasure at meeting Abie, who 
 smiled self-consciously, quite overcome by the great 
 change in her. "A regular lady" was his summing up. 
 
 The stage proceedings had no meaning to Sarah now. 
 Her eyes devoured her prodigal daughter, and her ears 
 could listen only to the words of her own soul, "How 
 she has grown ! Only yesterday she was a teething baby. 
 She looks just as I used to look when I was a young girl 
 the same gray eyes the same features. If only she 
 will not have my black luck !" 
 
 Hand-clapping woke her as from out of a dream. 
 
 During a short intermission, occasioned by some hitch 
 in the proceedings, Beckie left her seat to ask Minnie 
 what had made her late. Minnie explained. W ell, at 
 such a time to bother to take a strange child to a station- 
 house! Even Beckie could not condone Minnie's be- 
 havior. Did Abraham think Minnie had done right? 
 Abraham evaded Beckie's pretty eyes. This display in 
 Minnie of altruism rather appealed to him, though under 
 the circumstances he could not quite approve of it, and 
 it occurred to him that the Mendels had forever a bone
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 351 
 
 of contention, if not over a big thing then over a trifle. 
 He said nothing. Minnie felt guilty. 
 
 The next number began. 
 
 Minnie's eyes followed Beckie's departing figure and, 
 traveling a bit too far, again encountered her mother's. 
 Sarah was gray at the temples, her lips were parched, she 
 looked tired, haggard, harassed. A pang of regret from 
 a feeling that she was partly to blame smote Minnie's 
 heart. She moved in her seat to dispel the feeling and 
 urged upon herself that this was a happy occasion when 
 she ought not to let anything disturb her. 
 
 A small, narrow-shouldered young man, his face flush- 
 ing painfully, his whole manner showing he was horribly 
 nervous, stepped forward on the stage, cleared his throat 
 in an effort to bring notes of manliness into a naturally 
 piping voice, and proclaimed to the accompaniment of see- 
 saw gestures that : 
 
 "Our duty to the city and the college is clear. For 
 years my fellow-classmates and I have received the con- 
 tinuous care of our alma mater. And now we are 
 alumni. All that these halls of learning can give us we 
 have received. All the attention of our patient instruc- 
 tors has been lavished upon us. The wisdom of the past 
 and present has been absorbed by us. As loyal grad- 
 uates of the college we will always think with pride and 
 tenderness of our years spent at the college and our ob- 
 ligation to our friends at the college." 
 
 Minnie's mind wandered. The whole of the past had 
 so long been sunk below her horizon that she had almost 
 outlived it and hardly ever recalled that she had a mother, 
 and a home if she chose to go to it. Nor did Abie Rat- 
 kin enter her thoughts often enough for her to feel he 
 was a part of her past. And here he was here was her 
 mother ! The past was a part of one. It was like turning
 
 352 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 round and suddenly confronting your own shadow. 
 Even the Helina Heimath was out of her mind already. 
 For all the plans she had made, when she was an inmate, 
 to visit the place after she had left, she had never gone 
 there again. She seemed to have stepped into another 
 world. Would something come up to remind her that 
 that charity, that pauperism, was part of her, too? A 
 shudder went through her. . . . She glanced sidewise at 
 Abraham. He was still short, shorter than she his head 
 was a triflle lower than hers. His nose was still curved, 
 his hair scanty, his eyes small, like the eyes of a Japanese, 
 and he still wore glasses and still looked intellectual, as 
 if he spent long hours over books ; and his face still wore 
 a benevolent expression the ideal schoolmaster's face. 
 Though Minnie was quite sure that he was very learned, 
 she wondered for some reason whether life itself reached 
 him as poignantly as it did her and whether he under- 
 stood it. Could he, for instance, understand what was 
 making her heart ache now, when she saw her mother 
 grayed and felt she herself had deliberately contributed to 
 the grayness and would continue to do so? Could he 
 understand her unhappiness because there was poverty 
 in the world, her resentment because nothing but the mere 
 physical opportunity differentiated the "ladies" who vis- 
 ited the Helina Heimath from the patients they patron- 
 ized? No, she did not think he could understand all that. 
 He seemed to have a heart of peace and an understand- 
 ing to match. 
 
 Applause again. Minnie was roused. She sighed. 
 
 "Why that sigh?" 
 
 "Oh, I'm just thinking." 
 
 Abraham smiled an embarrassed smile and moved self- 
 consciously in his seat. He cleared his throat. 
 
 "Thinking? Do you do that?"
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 353 
 
 She slewed her eyes round at him, and his breath was 
 cut short. If her eyes had been beautiful the last time 
 he had seen her the Saturday afternoon when she was 
 alone and had plied him with ten thousand questions they 
 were more than beautiful now. They were like two gray 
 clouds of endless depth, with tales and tales to tell. He 
 looked away. 
 
 "Yes, I do think. Why, does it surprise you?" 
 
 She seemed displeased. With a fluttering droop of eye- 
 lids and a paternal kindliness in voice and manner, he 
 said he was only joking; of course she thought; anyone 
 could see she did; in fact, she seemed to be quite a 
 thinker ; some day soon she would have to tell him every- 
 thing she thought about. 
 
 She felt reduced to a mite of a girl and was silenced, 
 hesitating between even greater displeasure and the satis- 
 faction that seems to be woman's more normal reaction 
 to such treatment at the hands and tongue of man. 
 
 There were a few other numbers, then came Jacob, 
 valedictorian. The hearts of all his family pounded with 
 pride and excitement as he moved to the front of the plat- 
 form. Minnie threw a cutting glance at a man behind 
 her who coughed irritatingly. Jacob cleared his throat. 
 The family leaned forward in their seats and strained 
 every nerve to listen. In a deep voice, with attendant 
 dignity, he began : 
 
 "We have traced the course of history and evolution 
 through the long rolling centuries, which have each made 
 their special contribution toward carrying the world from 
 primeval barbarism to the present era of culture and civi- 
 lization. We have examined the attitude of rich and 
 poor alike, of the plutocrat, who regards the whole world 
 as an attractive prey, and of the humble laborer, who 
 adds to the world's assets.
 
 354 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "And can we hesitate as to what cause to champion, 
 whose battle to fight? Never. We should be craven in 
 our highest duties to mankind if we did not stand for the 
 future against the past, for the toiler against the para- 
 site." 
 
 That was all Minnie heard. Her heart pounded and 
 deafened her. He had said something about siding with 
 the poor as against the rich, something about a past of 
 the one and a future of the other. It was not clear to 
 her, but she felt a kinship with him. "Jacob, too ! Jacob, 
 too !" she kept saying to herself happily, the blood run- 
 ning warm through her veins. Oh, if only she could 
 speak to him ! 
 
 Another outburst of applause. 
 
 Sarah wept. 
 
 Leopold was pale. His skin seemed suddenly to have 
 shrivelled; a subtle sense of guilt had stolen upon his 
 heart. Had he actually stood between this mother and 
 that son blood of each other's blood, flesh of each oth- 
 er's flesh? He was in superstitious fear of judgment 
 even though something deep in his being cried that he had 
 not meant to usurp the place of this mother's children. 
 He gave Sarah a sad look. She met it and placed her 
 hand in his ; together they sighed. 
 
 The exercises closed. Some of the audience loitered 
 for one more look upon a holy graduate. Most of them 
 made for the exits. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 Ida and Beckie, who had got separated in the crowd 
 from Sarah and Leopold, reached the street ahead of 
 them and joined Minnie and Abraham. The four waited 
 together.
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 355 
 
 Sarah, slowly following the crowd, wondered with a 
 heavy heart whether Minnie would seek a reconciliation. 
 Leopold, conscious of the mother's misery, breathed a 
 silent prayer that Minnie would for once forget to be 
 stubborn. 
 
 Minnie cast nervous glances at the crowd emerging 
 from the doorway. She hoped fervently that Jacob 
 would arrive before Sarah and Leopold, so that she could 
 give him the volume of Shakespeare, -congratulate him, 
 ask him to come to see her, and get away. Though she 
 did not feel unforgiving, she shrank from meeting her 
 mother and stepfather. The separation had seemed so 
 definitely established in her mind as a lasting one that 
 the thought of a reconciliation filled her with shame, as 
 if it would be maudlin and unwholesome. 
 
 Leopold and Sarah appeared in the doorway. 
 
 Minnie quickly handed the volume of Shakespeare to 
 Beckie, asked her to give it to Jacob with her congratu- 
 lations, and saying good-by hurriedly left. 
 
 Abraham, looking from her to Ida and Beckie, quickly 
 took in the situation and dashed after her. 
 
 Sarah and Leopold saw what had taken place. With 
 bowed heads they crossed over to Ida and Beckie, and 
 the four stood a silent group until Jacob appeared, then 
 they walked away, dully, heavily. 
 
 When they reached the corner at which Jacob turned 
 his independent way, Sarah kissed him, and until they 
 reached home she held her handkerchief steadily to her 
 eyes. 
 
 XXX 
 
 Abraham had learned from Jacob, with whom he as- 
 sociated at college, that Sarah had married again and that
 
 356 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 he had left home, but not that Minnie had left home, 
 too. 
 
 He and Minnie walked side by side for some time 
 without talking. Minnie was under too great stress to 
 speak, and Abraham sensed it. Finally he ventured to 
 ask where she lived. She told him. Silence fell between 
 them again. Then Abraham, deciding he ought to divert 
 her mind from her unhappiness, said: 
 
 "Well, now, tell me everything you think about. You 
 promised." 
 
 "Do you think I think so little that I can tell you all 
 I think at once ?" 
 
 He saw she was annoyed, and he was sorry. 
 
 "No," he said jokingly, adopting a light tone as the 
 best remedial measure, "I suppose your wisdom is not so 
 easily conveyed. Is that a subtle invitation to me to come 
 to see you?" 
 
 She smiled, and it crossed her mind that it would be 
 nice to have him visit her. She was grateful he had 
 suggested it. She softened, and in her changed mood 
 repented her brutal avoidance of her mother, and was 
 caught by an impulse to hurry back. But the months 
 when she lay ill and neglected at the Helina Heimath 
 rose to her mind. Raising her head with a little jerk as 
 if to shut out of sight the bitter picture and with a stif- 
 fening of her whole frame, she started conversation. 
 
 "Did you understand what Jacob said?" 
 
 The question touched the schoolmaster's pride. Abra- 
 ham cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders. 
 
 Why, yes. Jacob, like himself, was a Socialist. 
 
 "What is a Socialist?" She had never got a clear 
 idea of Socialism from Amelia, and thought here was her 
 chance.
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 357 
 
 Abraham cleared his throat again. 
 
 "A Socialist is one who believes in the social owner- 
 ship of all the means of production ; in other words, the 
 ownership by the government of all public utilities; the 
 mines, for example, the mills, the factories, the railroads, 
 the telegraphs, and so on." 
 
 As Minnie did not understand the significance or any 
 of the implications of such ownership, she ventured no 
 comment or further questions. She felt disappointed. 
 Abraham, however, eager to instruct, most in his element 
 when doing so, continued: 
 
 "Of course, from social ownership of social utilities, 
 would result the elimination of rent, interest, and profit, 
 which would do away with the exploitation of one human 
 being by another." 
 
 Minnie was awed into respect. Abraham's learning re- 
 duced her to humility. A wave of bitterness rose within 
 her against her mother, Leopold Pollack and the whole 
 world that she had not had the opportunity of going 
 through high school and college. She walked beside 
 Abraham in unhappy silence. Then she recollected Mor- 
 ris Caplan's and Amelia Rubin's idealization of her as 
 a paragon of knowledge, and the weight on her heart 
 lightened somewhat. Yet throughout the rest of the 
 evening, she was depressed by a sense of inferiority. 
 
 At the door of the Alpha Home, Abraham asked 
 whether he might come again. In her surprise she hesi- 
 tated in saying yes. 
 
 "Won't you be glad to see me ?" he questioned, holding 
 her hand in a goodnight shake. 
 
 "Yes." She lowered her eyes. 
 
 He would come the following Sunday then. 
 
 Minnie ran into the house and up to her room aquiver
 
 358 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 with the excitement of the evening's experiences. As 
 she stood in front of the looking glass combing her hair, 
 her mind was a medley; Her mother was gray already ! 
 She had looked unhappy and as if she were begging for 
 some sign of recognition from Minnie. How had she 
 had the heart to run away? She had not seen Jacob at 
 all ! What an odd evening to come in upon all the recent 
 serene ones. Life never went smoothly two minutes at 
 a time. How she would love to talk to Jacob ! Oh, but 
 if his ideas of rich and poor had no more meaning for 
 her than what Abie had said, what good were they? 
 She did not understand it all anyway never would. . . . 
 Abie would come again. That meant another friend 
 maybe. She wouldn't be so lonely. Morris Caplan and 
 Amelia Rubin, after all, weren't altogether her sort. 
 From them she never learned anything. But then Abie 
 knew too much for her. If he spoke above her head, 
 what good was it? Oh, nothing ever was just right. . . . 
 Leopold looked older, troubled. Did they really care a 
 rap about her ? Then why hadn't they run after her, fol- 
 lowed her anyway? Why had mama never come to see 
 her at the Helina Heimath ? She had been sick so sick. 
 No real mother would have done such a thing. But 
 maybe mama was getting older maybe she would die ! 
 Minnie shuddered and hastily tumbled into bed to drown 
 all in sleep. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 On Sunday afternoon Minnie, her hair arranged as 
 becomingly as she could get it, the collar of her blue 
 serge dress spotless, was sitting in her small, neat room 
 waiting for the hall telephone of her floor to ring to an-
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 359 
 
 nounce her visitor. Her mind would wander from The 
 Doll's House, and though she told herself over and over 
 that it was foolish to be nervous, it was only Abie Rat- 
 kin who was coming, yet her heart pounded and her 
 cheeks burned, and every little while, though quite con- 
 vinced that she looked well and even pretty, she rose and 
 examined herself in the looking-glass, putting almost sin- 
 gle hairs in place. Would Abraham guess she was so 
 nervous, she wondered. She rubbed her dank hands so 
 that they should not betray her when she shook hands 
 with him. 
 
 But Abraham's own hands were moist, from the very 
 same cause, and he noticed nothing. He, too, had told 
 himself it was only Minnie Mendel he was going to visit 
 while his heart pounded disproportionately with the im- 
 portance of the occasion. When she moved toward him 
 gracefully in the waiting-room, smiling and pretty, he 
 found himself at a loss what to say. To gain time he 
 glanced over his shoulder, pretending he had heard the 
 sound of something drop. 
 
 Did she wish to stay in or take a walk? She thought 
 they might stay in a while and then take a walk. They 
 seated themselves. Each seemed to go through a mo- 
 ment of adjustment, as if their souls were smoothing out 
 wrinkles. Minnie, to whom his embarrassment was ob- 
 vious, wondered, provoked with herself, whether she, too, 
 was revealing her nervousness. She simply must not. 
 So she took herself in hand and coolly began to talk. 
 
 How was his mother? His sisters? Had they grad- 
 uated? Yes? A pang of jealousy smote her, and she 
 looked away not to betray herself, suppressed a little 
 sigh, and went on. Had he got home all right the night 
 of Jacob's graduation?
 
 360 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Abraham several times changed his position on his 
 chair and cleared his throat, bringing his hand up awk- 
 wardly to his mouth. He wished they were out walk- 
 ing. The night of the graduation exercises, when they 
 had come home together, he had not been so deucedly 
 self-conscious. He felt it was absurd to allow merely 
 Minnie Mendel to unbalance him so ; even the professors 
 at college had never had the power to unnerve him. Fi- 
 nally he brought out the suggestion that they go out 
 walking. Minnie acquiesced readily, jumped up to go 
 and get her hat, and turned toward the door. 
 
 There stood Morris Caplan, ruddy-cheeked, smiling 
 broadly, his heavy gold watch chain dangling. The sight 
 of him was welcome to Minnie, who hailed him genially, 
 as one does an old acquaintance, and promptly fell into a 
 vivacious tone. She introduced him as her protege, who 
 was much nicer, she said, than his language would lead 
 one to suspect. While she was never sure that her own 
 philosophy was right, she was always sure that his was 
 wrong, and though he was good enough to associate with 
 her, a mere Alpha Home working-girl, he was already a 
 remarkably successful real estate dealer with the ambi- 
 tion to house the vast majority of the population of the 
 United States as soon as ever he graduated from her 
 college. 
 
 Abraham, who had not suspected that Minnie could, 
 as he put it to himself, "bubble" like that, was greatly 
 drawn to her. His own self -consciousness departed, and 
 a mountain of preliminaries was removed to a free ap- 
 proach to the little Minnie of Henry Street. He gave her 
 a broad smile, while a soft feeling like the light of dawn 
 crept into his heart. He remembered "Fights," the 
 "rock," the bundle of refuse, the Essex Market Court. . . .
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 361 
 
 He was startled out of his revery by hearing Minnie 
 say: 
 
 "Mr. Ratkin and I are going out for a walk. Won't 
 you and Amelia join us, Mr. Caplan?" Abraham, to his 
 own surprise, felt resentful. On the street they soon 
 paired off, and he had the chance to ask : 
 
 "Who are these people?" He had exchanged enough 
 words with Amelia to pigeonhole her "a foreign-born 
 shop-girl." No friends for Minnie, he thought. 
 
 "Amelia lives in the Home, and she's the only sensible 
 girl I've met yet beside Ella Liebman, and Miss Liebman 
 is busy with her own friends." 
 
 It flashed through Abraham's mind that his sisters 
 would supply a need of Minnie's. 
 
 "Do you spend Sundays with them? I mean, are they 
 your friends?" 
 
 "They are." 
 
 Abraham was at a loss as to what to make of such 
 incongruous rnatchings. His sisters were high-school 
 girls and had high-school friends; he himself was a col- 
 lege man with college friends. An American girl, intelli- 
 gent, quick-witted, to have a "kike" and a shop-girl as 
 friends! It was out of the regular. He hoped Minnie 
 did not have an addiction for the irregular, the odd a 
 particularly objectionable trait in a girl ; some of his col- 
 lege mates had said so. She wasn't like his sisters, that 
 was certain. There was an airiness about her, a sort of 
 effervescence, a kind of fanciness. Perhaps it was an 
 instability. He thought of her lateness at Jacob's grad- 
 uation, which, for the reason she had given, he had at 
 the time condoned; but perhaps such unusual behavior 
 was characteristic of her. He was concerned and felt 
 impelled to influence her to sobriety. Through a linking
 
 362 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 of ideas he now conjectured as to the reasons that had 
 made her leave home. If the other two girls had stayed 
 at home, the stepfather could not be an altogether impos- 
 sible person. And how she had darted away on seeing 
 her mother. How unnatural. Abraham made up his 
 mind to draw Minnie out. 
 
 But Minnie, of her own accord, went on talking about 
 Mr. Caplan and Amelia. While she liked them, she said, 
 they did not think as she did. In a way they did, in a 
 way they didn't. Did Abraham understand? 
 
 Abraham did understand, and it was just what he had 
 thought. He was glad she felt that way and was now 
 convinced that he had been correct in supposing that she 
 and his sisters ought to be friends. Promptly he formu- 
 lated a program in his mind: he would take Minnie to 
 visit them, would come to see her often, would help her 
 choose the right books to read guide her lead her 
 form her. His schoolmaster's soul was seeking exercise. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 When he had so efficiently planned a regimen for Min- 
 nie, it provoked Abraham that even after his regular 
 Sunday visits had continued for months she still retained 
 her foreign-born friends. He could not, of course, tell 
 her in so many words that she should drop them, but he 
 felt it ought to have occurred to her naturally as the re- 
 sult of his guiding, and he pondered what method to 
 pursue to make her see the right light. One Sunday 
 afternoon when they were out walking together, he said : 
 
 "Don't you think if you did not spend so much time 
 teaching Mr. Caplan you would have more time to 
 read?"
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 363 
 
 Abraham had mapped out a course of reading, which 
 included Gronlond's Cooperative Commonwealth, to clear 
 up Minnie's muddled sentimental notions about social 
 wrongs, Emerson's essays for her general good, and Mar- 
 tin's Human Body to teach her hygiene, as her frequent 
 paleness and tiredness made it obvious that she needed to 
 know something about the care of the body. It was hard 
 for her to plunge into this bony intellectuality from the 
 live, pulsating world of Bernard Shaw, Ibsen, Tolstoi. 
 So, half shyly, half complainingly, she had told him two 
 or three times that the stuff was too dry, too hard. He 
 objected, in the first place, to the terminology "stuff," 
 and it irritated him, besides, that she lacked docility. No 
 one asks a child whether it does or does not want castor 
 oil. The dose is simply administered, with a firm, even 
 if tender hand. With the characteristic fluttering droop 
 of his lids, he turned his head away in impatience, then 
 with gentle firmness administered the necessary "Oh, 
 now, come, come, settle down to it," which disarmed 
 her as to speech but not as to her intentions, since she 
 was quite convinced that the "stuff" he wanted her to 
 read had no power to illuminate her feelings. Abraham 
 failed to take into consideration that with some people 
 reason follows feeling as an offspring, and each has to 
 go through its regular process of development else both 
 thought and feeling remain forever aborted. 
 
 "I have enough time," she replied, lowering her eyes, 
 somewhat ashamed that she could not muster the inclina- 
 tion for the intellectuality to which Abraham aspired for 
 her, "but really, Abraham, I don't find it interesting. It's 
 so dry." She gave a deprecatory smile and a questioning 
 lift of her brows. "Maybe I'm stupid," she added as if 
 by the admission to gain exemption and absolution.
 
 364 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Her girlish manner attracted him, but her noncom- 
 pliance was disappointing and displeasing. He was silent 
 from impotence, wishing he could seat her beside him at 
 a table and lead her step by step along the printed pages 
 of the books he had recommended through rational proc- 
 esses of thinking to absolute knowledge. Finally he 
 said: 
 
 "I suppose you think you know enough ; that if, for ex- 
 ample, you get angry at poverty, you've found a solution, 
 and if you are puzzled as to the existence of a God you 
 have the whole of philosophy at your fingers' tips, and 
 if you take a physic you know how to keep well." 
 
 The false charge hurt. Minnie flushed and replied with 
 spirit : 
 
 "I don't see how anybody can be surer that there is or 
 there is not a God than I. He has not revealed Himself 
 to others any more than He has to me. And I think 
 poverty exists because people are selfish and grab. I 
 imagine when people develop morally, then the problem 
 will solve itself." 
 
 "You seem to be wiser than Plato and Aristotle and 
 Socrates and Karl Marx all rolled into one." Abraham 
 smiled. 
 
 They happened just then to be making a street-cross- 
 ing, and a wagon dashing from around a corner at great 
 speed bore right down on Minnie. She was in imminent 
 danger. For a single instant Abraham stood petrified, 
 then grabbed her arm and pulled her back on the pave- 
 ment, and stood pale and panting for breath. Minnie 
 laughed at the comical picture he presented. 
 
 In that single moment of her danger there swept upon 
 Abraham with almost hurricane force the knowledge of 
 the extent to which he depended upon Minnie for his in-
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 365 
 
 terest in life. But she seemed so unreasonably indifferent 
 as to whether or not she were run over that he could have 
 shaken her. 
 
 Perhaps it was just because she made it difficult for 
 him to feel secure in his ruling power that she seemed 
 so necessary to him. Prodigal children are said to be 
 especially dear to their parents, and the schoolmaster's 
 soul is essentially paternal. 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 Abraham's visit left Minnie worn out, and she lay down 
 on her bed to rest and think. 
 
 Beside his course of reading he had prescribed friend- 
 ship with his sisters. "In the three times that he's taken 
 me to see them," she told herself, "I have been drawn to 
 them less each time. They're so everydaylike, so tame! 
 I don't see why he insists upon my doing things I don't 
 want to do." Yet hand in hand with her resentment 
 went equal displeasure with herself for not being able to 
 respond to Abraham's guidance. "I used to be so lonely 
 and now he comes every Sunday. I ought to be very 
 grateful." Even at this urgence no gratitude sprang up 
 in her heart, and she sank into dejection, into a feeling of 
 heaviness, of being weighted down the state, she now 
 realized, in which Abraham invariably left her. Their 
 talks never went smoothly. If she spoke hotly about the 
 vast amount of poverty in the world and about the rich 
 thinking they made it up to the poor by doling out char- 
 ity, he called her a sentimentalist, told her she was rant- 
 ing, and would do better to read on economics and social- 
 ism and arrive at a sane, level-headed understanding of 
 what the social evils were and what would eradicate 
 them. If she told him Qf her differences with employees
 
 366 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 at the Charities, who were overbearing with applicants, 
 he said she was hot-headed, as proved by her to-dos with 
 her stepfather. 
 
 "I don't mean to hurt you, Minnie," he would add 
 when she looked hurt. "I am telling you only because I 
 am interested in you. I wouldn't take the trouble other- 
 wise." 
 
 Lying on her bed thinking over these incidents of 
 Abraham's visits, Minnie felt that actually Abraham did 
 mean it all for her good, and she wished she could work 
 up enthusiasm for his erudite attitude toward life and 
 things. 
 
 She rose and examined herself in the small, rectangu- 
 lar mirror screwed to the top of the chiffoniere. She 
 was pretty, there was no denying it. "My eyes are beau- 
 tiful. Everybody says so." She smiled to her image, 
 which, however, did not have consolation to offer for 
 long. "Oh, goodness, I'm sick of this monotony. Every 
 day it's going to work and Amelia Rubin or Morris Cap- 
 Ian or Abraham Ratkin. In novels there are all kinds of 
 experiences. Real life's not like that at all." She leaned 
 closer to the glass and smoothed her hair away from her 
 forehead. "I suppose if I had a home and didn't go out 
 working and went about in society, I'd be having lovers 
 and proposals of marriage and evening dresses and every- 
 thing." A voice whispered to her: "Be glad you're not 
 bedridden in the Helina Heimath." She shuddered and 
 urged a pious mood upon herself. "I've lots to be grate- 
 ful for. I can work and I'm not getting charity." But 
 her heart remained filled with longing, with restlessness, 
 and yearning. 
 
 Dispiritedly she went about making ready for supper. 
 In the evening she expected her sisters, who would, for 
 the first time, meet Morris Caplan, who was coming, not
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 367 
 
 for an English lesson, but for a social call upon her and 
 Amelia. 
 
 Two hours later Ida was whispering disdainfully in 
 Minnie's ear: 
 
 "Such a kike ! Can't you find better friends ?" 
 
 Minnie flushed. She felt ashamed. Why did she 
 "keep friends" with Morris Caplan? He was a kike. 
 That was the way Abraham must feel about him, too. 
 But where was one to choose friends? What a nasty 
 accent Morris Caplan still had. She would make him 
 take lessons from someone else. She ought certainly to 
 appreciate Abraham Ratkin, who was a college graduate. 
 Yet her heart would not echo the admonition ; she could 
 feel no warmth for Abraham even with his superior vir- 
 tues. She yearned for others for a different kind of 
 friends, such as she could talk to without restraint, with- 
 out the fear of being found fault with, or of not being 
 understood. 
 
 The rest of the evening she was so persistently silent 
 that her companions remarked on it and made good- 
 natured attempts to liven her up. When Morris Caplan 
 took leave, she refused to shake hands. It was her first 
 experience of a repugnance at being touched. The feel- 
 ing stayed with her until her eyes closed in sleep. 
 
 The next morning she awoke with a vast emptiness in 
 her heart. She wished she could hide her head under the 
 covers and never get up. 
 
 "Don't grumble," she fought against the feeling as she 
 dressed, "you're better off than you ever thought you'd 
 be. What if you'd have remained a shop-girl? You 
 know shorthand, shorthand, what the doctor friend of 
 your youth" she smiled "and every other office mana- 
 ger required. You're working in an office, in an office! 
 Think of it I"
 
 368 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Throughout the day the same restless dissatisfaction 
 continued. Her work seemed meaningless, everything 
 vapid, all about her hopeless. She felt like venting anger 
 on someone. The talking and occasional giggling at the 
 other desks annoyed her more than usually ; and once, 
 when a particularly loud burst of laughter went up, she 
 had to grit her teeth. Her substitute of the Chayim 
 Schlopoborsky episode was showing a postal card re- 
 ceived from an applicant. One of the group handed the 
 card to Minnie. 
 
 "Plez ladi," it ran, "kom kwik the boyler bust it's 2 
 get dronded her and mi wif had a babi." 
 
 Before Minnie knew it, she was denouncing the girls 
 hotly as heartless and disrespectful of the grief the card 
 conveyed. They were flunkies, she told them, who did 
 not see that there was no difference between the persons 
 who applied for charity and the persons who supported 
 the Charities. If anything, those who came for charity 
 had been cheated, and those who bestowed charity had 
 been the cheaters. 
 
 When she ended, all out of breath and exhausted, she 
 realized she had been foolish. Some of the girls looked 
 frightened as though they were menaced by an insane 
 person ; others declared they had never seen or heard or 
 met with such audacity, such impertinence, such impu- 
 dence! The offended substitute vowed she would stand 
 it no longer; Minnie had been "too fresh anyway" too 
 often ; she would bring charges against her. 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 "I'm blue, Amelia, take a walk with me." 
 
 Minnie had knocked on Amelia's door and, receiving
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 369 
 
 no answer, had entered unceremoniously; and Amelia, 
 who had flung herself, tired out, on her bed for a nap, 
 was awakened with a start by the sound of Minnie flop- 
 ping into the wooden rocking-chair. 
 
 "Gee, you scart me to deat' !" 
 
 "You'll never learn to say 'death' until you've had the 
 experience, I suppose." 
 
 Amelia laughed an unrestrained laugh. 
 
 "Oh, come on, stop. Get your hat on," said Minnie in 
 a tone of arinoyance. 
 
 Amelia, who had used up her strength laughing, re- 
 plied : 
 
 "Honest, I kent go. I hev no strang left." 
 
 Minnie, jumping up from her seat, cried in more than 
 mock seriousness : 
 
 "Upon my word, Amelia, you and Morris Caplan drive 
 me wild with your lingo. I can't think of a sin I've com- 
 mitted to deserve the punishment of having to listen to 
 you." 
 
 Amelia laughed again, but warned Minnie she was not 
 to say anything against Morris Caplan. 
 
 Was Amelia in love with him maybe? 
 
 What did Minnie care? Amelia dropped her eyes and 
 turned away so abruptly that Minnie was put on a hith- 
 erto unsuspected scent. 
 
 On the street there was silence between the girls for 
 some time, Amelia having perceived Minnie's nervousness 
 and realizing that her accent actually did grate upon her. 
 Minnie was the first to speak. 
 "I've got something to tell you." 
 
 Amelia's heart gave a leap. Perhaps Morris Caplan. 
 who clearly was attracted to Minnie, had proposed to her. 
 For a moment the world was a great empty place to
 
 370 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Amelia, then loyalty to her friend asserted itself above 
 alarm on her own account. She smiled a sickly smile, 
 and from between pale lips came the query: 
 
 "Did Morris Caplan propose to you?" 
 
 "Why, no!' f 
 
 So Amelia was in love with Morris Caplan and was 
 jealous ! Goodness, all the months that Minnie had been 
 giving him lessons she must have been hurting Amelia ! 
 She remembered Abraham's advice to terminate the les- 
 sons. Amelia, too, would probably have been glad. Min- 
 nie saw a dull, depressing vista ahead of empty evenings 
 without calls or lessons. It was hard. And Amelia was 
 actually in love in love as in books. She, Minnie, would 
 like to be in love, too; her life was so horribly dull and 
 empty. But with whom ? Abraham ? She shrank within 
 herself. Then, as if by stealth, her thoughts touched 
 Morris Caplan but instantly withdrew in shame. 
 
 Amelia roused her by saying: 
 
 "I guess you guess." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 They walked on in silence. After a time, Amelia re- 
 marked meditatively : 
 
 "He don't care for me." 
 
 Minnie made no answer. From her experience of love 
 in literature Morris Caplan did not, indeed, seem to care 
 for Amelia, and she could not offer false comfort. 
 
 "I think he loves you," Amelia vouchsafed, smiling 
 wistfully and with a nod that said: "No need to deny 
 it" 
 " Minnie threw her head back and laughed. 
 
 "Oh, heavens ! I believe you're jealous. You need not 
 be; you may be sure it isn't so, not on his side nor on 
 mine."
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 371 
 
 But Amelia was not so sure. 
 
 Minnie had invited Amelia out to unburden herself of 
 a new worry the loss of her position. The chief clerk 
 of the Charities, without giving Minnie a hearing, had 
 decided from the nature of the offended substitute's com- 
 plaint that Minnie was of "that sort" an anarchist ; one 
 who disseminates dissatisfaction, dissension, and in a 
 pinch throws a bomb; the Charities was safer without 
 such. 
 
 Delicacy of feeling prompted Minnie to refrain from 
 
 obtruding her trouble upon Amelia at this time. 
 ****** 
 
 "I beg leave to make application for the position of 
 stenographer as per your advertisement in this morning's 
 New York World." 
 
 Minnie was phrasing the letter in her mind as she lay 
 in bed that night, prerented from sleeping by a complex 
 of thoughts and emotions. What disturbed her almost 
 as much as the loss of her position was the reason for the 
 loss. "I told them the truth and so I became a dangerous 
 person!" The injustice of it hurt.* To want to right a 
 wrong was that to be dangerous? There ought to be 
 some redress, some justice. But there wasn't, and the 
 realization that there wasn't sickened her with impo- 
 tence. . . . And Abraham Abraham would term what 
 she had done an "hysterical outburst ;" in fact, he had 
 foretold dismissal. Again a reprimand ! She shrank at 
 the thought. How she hated and dreaded these repri- 
 mands of his ! For what ? For standing up for the right. 
 How anyone could think her conduct anything but right 
 puzzled her enormously. . . . Morris Caplan had prom- 
 ised her a position if she were ever in need of one, but 
 now she couldn't accept his offer on account of Amelia. 
 ... To think that that prosaic Amelia was in love, actu-
 
 372 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 ally in love as in books ! Was Morris Caplan in love with 
 Amelia and was there anything she could do to further 
 the match? ... It would be marvelous to be in love, 
 too. She wondered whether she ever would be in love 
 and what the emotions were like ; whether she could love 
 deeply. She glided over the past and wondered where 
 Louis "the paintner" could now be; whether he ever 
 thought of her; whether she would ever see him again. 
 She wondered what would have happened to her had she 
 actually married him; perhaps she would now be a 
 mother of several children, the prototype of Mrs. Argush. 
 She shuddered. ... As by a breeze her thoughts were 
 wafted upon a future with a gallant knight, learned and 
 tremendously enamored of her, declaring himself pas- 
 sionately, proclaiming her the epitome of all the womanly 
 virtues. . . Then disgust for the commonplaceness of 
 her life fell upon her. She crossed her ams, placed one 
 hand on each shoulder and strained herself to herself. 
 "Oh, gosh darn it ! ding it ! the deuce ! the dickens ! I'm 
 sick of it! If I were not poor, if I had a home and the 
 proper protection, I could be a free human being. To 
 think that I am made jobless because I held out for what 
 I considered right ! I hate dependence upon other people 
 hate it hate it hate it !" 
 
 XXXV 
 
 Mr. John Maloney, proprietor of the Maloney Paper 
 Box Company, was a genial, blue-eyed Irishman, whose 
 sense of humor, which for a while was daunted by a 
 siege of incompetent stenographers, came into its own 
 again with the acquisition of Mildred Mendel. When 
 Mr. Maloney recognized in Minnie a competent worker
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 373 
 
 and was sure of her remaining "steady," he told her 
 some of his bitter experiences with a view to making him- 
 self roar (there was nothing he enjoyed quite so much) 
 and to hearing the girl's young, merry, responsive giggle 
 to say nothing of her dancing gray eyes. 
 
 "I asked one of 'em to write 'the boxes which ye have 
 is no good.' She wrote 'the w-i-t-c-h ye have is no good,' 
 and I told her if that letter had gone out, I could 'a been 
 arrested for interfering in family affairs." His thunder- 
 ing roar, emanating from a region of layers of bulging 
 belly, filled the office with itself and reverberations and 
 caused Minnie to add her laughter of pleasure. 
 
 How Minnie liked John Maloney. He was the first 
 person of the kind she had ever met, a free-and-easy, 
 genial, good-hearted, good-natured, hearty, natural crea- 
 ture. 
 
 And John Maloney reciprocated the feeling. She was 
 the first of her kind he had met, a girl who could give 
 quick, ready response, serious or funny, who could ruffle 
 her forehead like a grandmother and could giggle like a 
 schoolgirl. "She's a smart kid, by heck," he would say 
 to the salesmen and others of the staff. And soon a cor- 
 dial relationship between the two was established. 
 
 All of which circumstances were gleefully imparted to 
 Abraham, who would listen paternally as Minnie nar- 
 rated the happenings of the intervals between his visits. 
 Occasionally he would jerk her back by the reins, as it 
 were, quietly, as if by his very manner to inculcate some 
 of his composure, which he so regretted was lacking in 
 her. 
 
 "You go at things so spiritedly. Your enthusiasm 
 must necessarily be short-lived. How long, after all,
 
 374 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 have you known Mr. Maloney? Two months, and you 
 already think so well of him?" 
 
 Her enthusiastic recitals, all to the purpose of boosting 
 a John Maloney, who, sanely analyzed and properly 
 pigeonholed, was a mere Irish paper-box merchant, pro- 
 duced upon Abraham the impression that Minnie was 
 extravagant in the expenditure of energy, of which, he 
 was convinced, she had none too much, because his sis- 
 ters were stouter and able to walk much farther than 
 she. What a way she had of exaggerating! As at the 
 Charities, with her idea of cheaters and cheated, and now 
 she never said a Avord about the Charities blown from 
 her horizon like thistledown. He sighed with the hard- 
 ship of managing her. Abraham believed he was indig- 
 nant wholly on Minnie's account; and it is a shame to 
 have to give him away, but the fact was, Abraham was 
 jealous. 
 
 Minnie's enthusiasm seemed to remove her farther 
 away from him than did her mere disobedience. He had 
 an actual physical sensation of her slipping out of his 
 hands. To be sure, a very definite something had oc- 
 curred several weeks earlier to shake him. He and 
 Minnie had unexpectedly encountered Morris Caplan. 
 As this was the first time she had seen Mr. Caplan after 
 Amelia's confession, she promptly carried out her reso- 
 lution to give Amelia no further occasion for jealousy. 
 Then and there she blurted out in a half -laughing, half- 
 serious way, that she would have to give up teaching him 
 because she was going to be very busy. So much to 
 Abraham's intense gratification. But the very next mo- 
 ment the sun went behind a cloud. Morris Caplan at 
 first refused to take Minnie seriously, then, as she per- 
 sisted, his face reddened and fell into troubled lines. He
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 375 
 
 looked sincerely forlorn. He begged her, regardless of 
 Abraham's presence, not to put him so mercilessly adrift. 
 Minnie's heart was touched. Deciding she would tell 
 Amelia with the greatest persuasiveness and convince 
 her, too that she need not be jealous, she succumbed to 
 Morris Caplan's pleadings. Abraham suspected Minnie's 
 acquiescence arose from a tender feeling for Morris 
 Caplan, and resented it, though scarcely acknowledging 
 his resentment to himself. (It is really taking a liberty 
 to acknowledge it for him.) 
 
 Since that time still other things had arisen to ruffle 
 his serene sky. Once Minnie had refused to let him come 
 to see her simply because she was in no mood for his 
 disciplining ; and once when he took her to task for hav- 
 ing yielded to Morris Caplan's persuasion, she actually 
 championed her pupil, actually declared he had lots of 
 excellent qualities in spite of his accent and "kikish" man- 
 ners. 
 
 Froward Minnie ! Yet there is no washing one's hands 
 easily of tar. Something about Minnie clung to Abra- 
 ham's heart, which made him pensive, restless, unsatis- 
 fied, anxious to keep her steered close to his own shore. 
 This easy swimming of hers into other waters gave him 
 the sensation of his own drowning. 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 Mrs. Ratkin hesitated before definitely diagnosing her 
 son's case, but once certain of his ailment she knew no 
 peace. She had greater ambitions for her boy. Girls 
 were easily enough to be had. Abraham, so educated, so 
 gentle, so moral! whom could he not aspire to matri- 
 monially? She sighed many a heavy sigh over the fate
 
 3/6 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 he had selected. Love was a matter of propinquity ; had 
 he chosen to visit another girl every Sunday for a year, 
 he could just as readily have fallen in love with her. Not 
 that, God forbid! anything really disparaging could be 
 said against Minnie Mendel. She was a nice girl, but 
 there were nice girls who were also pretty, strong, 
 wealthy, of real nice families. Why could not Abraham 
 have chosen one of those? "Nice family" stuck in her 
 mind especially. Had not the Mendel family the skeleton 
 of an arrest not like the one that had come about in her 
 family, by an accident but a real one, a premeditated 
 one? Mrs. Ratkin sighed. Abraham was too modest al- 
 ways. His aspirations never rose high enough. 
 
 She left this bed of thought and heart-sickness one 
 day resolved to pay Sarah a visit. Perhaps her conjec- 
 tures after all were incorrect. Abraham had said noth- 
 ing to her; she had merely drawn conclusions from his 
 preoccupation, his reduced appetite, his frequent visits to 
 Minnie Mendel. Tactfully she would lead Sarah on to 
 talk. Sarah, Mrs. Ratkin reasoned, saw the two together 
 often enough and doubtless knew her daughter's feelings. 
 Mrs. Ratkin sighed and hoped. 
 
 Abraham had never told his mother that Minnie, like 
 Jacob, had left home on account of the stepfather. The 
 whole situation, he was satisfied, could have been avoided 
 if only Minnie had been normally tolerant ; he had shrunk 
 from eliciting the same criticism from his mother. From 
 the first his attitude toward Minnie had been a protec- 
 tive one. While assuming the right to criticize her, since 
 his motives were the tenderest, he felt he must shield her 
 
 from the criticism of others. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 Sarah was alone in the house. It was a Sunday after-
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 377 
 
 noon. The girls were visiting Minnie, and Leopold Pol- 
 lack was seeking business advice from Mrs. Tannenbaum, 
 as the bands business was declining steadily. The style 
 had undergone a radical change, from hats raised at one 
 side and in the back to hats flat all around, so that bands 
 were going out of use. The matter had given Sarah and 
 Leopold many days and nights of worry, and Leopold 
 was now gone to see if their business friend could sug- 
 gest any steps for them to take. Sarah would have ac- 
 companied him had she not been feeling indisposed. 
 
 She sat thinking of how the years had flown, how the 
 children had grown up, how close to all being over the 
 game was drawing, how queer all of life was. What a 
 stubborn, heartless one Minnie was! Sarah had never 
 forgiven her the cruel slight on the evening of Jacob's 
 graduation. 
 
 In this mood it was that Mrs. Ratkin came in upon her. 
 
 Minnie ? Indeed, Minnie had spurned her mother and 
 her home the very day Leopold Pollack had come into it, 
 as if he were a veritable bum and as if her mother had 
 committed a vile crime in marrying again. 
 
 For the very reason that Sarah felt that Mrs. Ratkin 
 was critical of her, she exaggerated her grievances and 
 even indulged in a rhapsody of self-praise so that Min- 
 nie's unduti fulness might stand out the more flagrant. 
 She had sent the fatherless girl to high school. By four 
 children she had performed the duties of both parents. 
 What amount of appreciation was sufficient? And to 
 think that Minnie had quibbled about a little more work, 
 a little less work, about every little thing. And then her 
 heartlessness to have shunned her own mother and Leo- 
 pold at Jacob's graduation ! Something no mother could 
 forgive. And noiv her crazy stunts lost an excellent
 
 3?8 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 position at the Peoples Charities, a position of eminence, 
 because of some crazy anarchistic notions. 
 
 "God mine ! God mine !" thought Mrs. Ratkin. "If he 
 really wants this girl, he must be crazy." She would nip 
 the thing in the bud with the strictest maternal inter- 
 vention. She sat up straighter, her chin set itself more 
 firmly, and her mother-love and mother-pride joined in 
 staunch mobilization against her son's threatening enemy, 
 Minnie Mendel. 
 
 When she had gone, Sarah awoke to the stinging con- 
 sciousness of having blurted out things she should never 
 have said. She could have bit her tongue off. Why had 
 she taken Mrs. Ratkin Mrs. Ratkin of all women into 
 her confidence ? Mrs. Ratkin, who had nothing but praise 
 for her own children, who even exaggerated their vir- 
 tues. Sarah hated herself. When the girls came home, 
 and intending to make her laugh, told her of Minnie and 
 Morris Caplan, she ordered them angrily to keep quiet, 
 slammed the door of her bedroom shut, and locked her- 
 self in. 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 Toward evening Abraham returned from his visit to 
 Minnie, which he had shared with Morris Caplan and Ida 
 and Beckie. She had told stories of John Maloney and of 
 several experiences with him in restaurants to which he 
 had taken her to lunch. Abraham had found her witty, 
 gay, arch, charming. His delighted spirits still hovered 
 around her. If only she would lend herself to sensible 
 discipline, if she would read properly, begin to think 
 properly, what a splendid all-around girl she would be! 
 From out of the depth of his feeling he was ready to
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 379 
 
 send up a prayer for the power to instil this desirable 
 quality into her. A yearning for Minnie as his wife laid 
 itself like a warm, velvety hand upon his heart. 
 
 He and his mother were home alone together. All 
 through supper he was silent, the while Mrs. Ratkin 
 watched him closely. Had Abraham watched his mother 
 just as closely, he would have seen she was hot and ner- 
 vous, that her hands shook when she served him, and 
 that she sighed and sighed. Finally he left the table and 
 went into the Mission-furnished library to read. Mrs. 
 Ratkin cleared the table, every moment or two peering 
 into the library. She was waiting for a moment when 
 she could feel sure of a steady voice. At last she walked 
 to the threshold between the two rooms and called : 
 
 "Abe." 
 
 He looked up from his book. "Yes, mother." 
 
 "Are you there?" 
 
 Always when his mother appended this needless query, 
 Abraham would smile and flutter his eyelids, and reply 
 tenderly, as though speaking to a child : 
 
 "No, mother, I am not." 
 
 And always Mrs. Ratkin would smile loving apprecia- 
 tion upon her son. This time, however, there was no 
 smile. She coughed and straightened the front of her 
 shirtwaist. 
 
 "Abe," she began, obviously steadying her voice, "tell 
 me the truth, are you in love with Minnie Mendel ?" 
 
 Abraham flushed scarlet. He was too taken aback to 
 make immediate reply. Then a feeling of deep tender- 
 ness for his mother and Minnie as if they were one 
 came into his heart. He dropped his eyes and answered 
 caressingly : 
 
 "Yes, mother."
 
 3 8o SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Mrs. Ratkin went white. 
 
 "Do you know her well?" she asked, her voice con- 
 trolled, her eyes fixed steadfastly upon her son. 
 
 "Why, yes," he replied, with an embarrassed smile. 
 
 "But do you?" the mother insisted, her voice rising. 
 "I visited her mother to-day. Her mother herself says 
 the girl is crazy is a crazy anarchist quarrelsome, did 
 not stay a moment in the house after the stepfather, a 
 perfect gentleman, came into it has been knocking 
 around in all sorts of strange places rather than live with 
 her own mother. Do you, my son, know all these 
 things ?" 
 
 "Yes, mother," Abraham replied, his forehead ruffled, 
 a look of displeasure coming into his eyes and a note of 
 irritation into his voice. 
 
 "Well, if you do are there not plenty of nice girls in 
 the city of New York ?" 
 
 "Mother," Abraham replied, "you must not speak this 
 way. You do not know Minnie " 
 
 Mrs. Ratkin experienced an overwhelming sense of 
 having lost, which, however, was at once supplanted by 
 a more vigorous spirit of fight. 
 
 "Oh, you, too, must be crazy !" she shouted. 
 
 This was the first time in all the years that Mrs. Rat- 
 kin had forgotten her latter-day, well-learned mother- 
 dignity. 
 
 Abraham flushed. 
 
 "Mother!" he cried, rising from his seat and holding 
 her down with his glance. But Mrs. Ratkin was not 
 daunted. 
 
 "No girl," she cried, "who does not live at home is 
 worth being courted." 
 
 The thought crossed Abraham's mind that Minnie
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 381 
 
 ought really to live at home, and he averted his eyes as 
 if fearing his mother might read the thought. 
 
 "How what sort of a way is it for a decent girl to 
 live with strangers when she has her own family ?" Mrs. 
 Ratkin shrugged her shoulders in blended disgust and in- 
 comprehension. 
 
 Here Abraham interrupted with greater sharpness than 
 was his wont. 
 
 "Mother, you do not know her." 
 
 Mrs. Ratkin's objections were not a whit lessened, but 
 she saw her son was unbendable, and keeping as much 
 bitterness out of her tone as she could she said : 
 
 "Very well, my son, I hope you will not live to rue it." 
 
 The remainder of the evening was spent by both in 
 deep reflection. 
 
 "Minnie must be reconciled to her mother," Abraham 
 decided. 
 
 "So he has actually asked the girl to marry him !" 
 
 Though Mrs. Ratkin's heart bled with anguish, she 
 refused to believe. It could not be that such a calamity 
 was to befall her boy and her, his mother. There are 
 prospective mothers-in-law whom only the wedding-day 
 convinces. 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 Abraham Ratkin had to keep his bed with a cold and 
 fever for three weeks, during which fate formed its own 
 web. 
 
 Though Minnie, to all outward appearances, was vi- 
 vacious and cheerful, in the secret recesses of her being 
 she was restless and filled with longing. Her heart was 
 reaching out, unaccountably, to the inexplicable some-
 
 382 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 thing to which all youth feels it has a claim, as if life were 
 planned for giving full satisfaction. Many a time after 
 her friends' visits she would go to her room to drop 
 down on her bed with a great aching emptiness in her 
 heart. 
 
 During the weeks that Abraham was ill she was par- 
 ticularly lonely and brooding; a fact upon which a num- 
 ber of people at the Maloney Paper Box office remarked, 
 so that Mr. Maloney bestowed upon her numerous side 
 glances of apprehension. Was she, he wondered, like 
 himself, finding their mere office association inadequate? 
 
 A plan had arisen and revolved in his mind and each 
 day drew nearer to fruition, when one morning' Minnie 
 came suddenly upon him with the announcement that 
 she had decided to give up her position in his office. 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 On an evening when Minnie was in a particularly dis- 
 gruntled mood, she entered the dining-room for supper 
 to find Amelia Rubin in tears. Amelia was hungry, and 
 the supper, it seemed, was not graciously putting itself 
 out to cater to her appetite. The soup was not the sort 
 she liked, the meat was tough, the boiled potato was 
 soapy, the spinach, to her taste an atrocity at best, was 
 gritty, and her share of lettuce was withered as if from 
 old age. Amelia looked up at Minnie with tears in her 
 eyes. It was the busy season "by shirtwaists," and the 
 over-worked Amelia poured out the list of her hardships 
 in almost one breath. The greatest of her grievances was 
 that at the officers' table sat the pudgy, under-worked 
 matron with a dish of lettuce verily of the class of the 
 Elite of the Vegetable Kingdom. Did she deserve it
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 383 
 
 more than Amelia? As if Amelia had not slaved the 
 whole day ! As if the matron toiled any harder, as if 
 what was good for her was not good for Amelia, too ! 
 
 Less than this was needed to rouse Minnie's ire that 
 evening. She had gone about from task to task during 
 the day in morose silence, with a deep distaste for the pet- 
 tinesses that filled her life. She yearned, she ached, for 
 she hardly knew what for some onward, upward, for- 
 ward stride. Impulsively she grabbed up Amelia's plate 
 of lettuce and stalked with it over to the matron's table. 
 She demanded, red in the face, quivering from head to 
 foot with indignation and looking fierce enough to throw 
 the lettuce in the matron's face : 
 
 "Do you call this fit to eat?" 
 
 Girls at nearby tables suspended all activity, whether 
 chatting or the consuming of food, and gaped open- 
 mouthed/ It was an unprecedented impertinence. No 
 one had ever before dared to break the sacred convention 
 of utmost respect due the matron. The worthy lady 
 raised herself slightly from her chair. 
 
 "How DARE you?" 
 
 "How dare YOU?" 
 
 Minnie deliberately emptied Amelia's plate of its let- 
 tuce, took several leaves from the matron's plate, stalked 
 back with it, head high, to Amelia's table, and set the 
 Better Goods before her, under her breath muttering : 
 "Mean, unfair, unjust." Then she retired to her room, 
 where she threw herself down on the bed. 
 
 In a few moments there came a summons from the 
 superintendent. Minnie went to the office prepared to de- 
 fend her misdemeanor. 
 
 "Well, Mildred Mendel, what's this I hear about you ?" 
 
 "I did it."
 
 384 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "Have you any excuse to offer?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "I don't think it's fair. Amelia was just as tired, just 
 as hungry as the matron and deserved nice lettuce, too." 
 
 "What was the matter with the lettuce?" 
 
 "It was rotten." 
 
 "Couldn't Amelia tell about it without your quarrel- 
 some interference?" 
 
 "It was no accident that the matron's lettuce was nice 
 and Amelia's bad. It was an unfair discrimination. It 
 happens lots of times. The matron ought not to eat in 
 the same room at the same time, then." 
 
 The superintendent laughed. 
 
 "You're a regular little anarchist, eh?" 
 
 "I don't know what you call it." 
 
 The superintendent whisked her under the chin, and 
 her manner said something about Minnie being awfully 
 young. 
 
 "Where do you work now ?" 
 
 "In a paper-box house." 
 
 The superintendent reflected. 
 
 "Are you sort of unhappy about things ?" 
 
 How had the superintendent guessed! Minnie's eye- 
 lids quivered. She made no reply. 
 
 "I know of a position that is open in the Academy Set- 
 tlement, secretary to the headworker. It would be a nice 
 environment for you. Do you think you would like the 
 change?" 
 
 The darling, wonderful superintendent! Always she 
 was doing something just great. Minnie's heart fairly 
 melted with regret at having caused a disturbance, and if 
 she had not felt that justice was on her side, she might
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 385 
 
 have said she was sorry. As it was, she only wiped tears 
 from her eyes and thanked the superintendent. 
 
 Three hours later she was the engaged secretary of 
 Doctor Evangel ; and the following morning she gave 
 notice to John Maloney that in a week she would leave. 
 
 XL 
 
 "Yer a foolish kid. I'd keep on raising ye till ye'd be 
 dizzy." 
 
 Minnie laughed, though she felt badly at having to dis- 
 appoint Mr. Maloney. 
 
 When he had been finally convinced of her inflexibility, 
 he had assumed an aggrieved attitude, and for a few 
 days had scarcely a word to say to her, which caused her 
 sincere pain, so that one noontime when he invited her 
 to lunch, she accepted with no mincing of eagerness, and 
 at once dropped her work, washed her hands, and donned 
 her hat and coat. Mr. Maloney observed that she had 
 difficulty in keeping the tears back. He himself was feel- 
 ing rather mournful. 
 
 He chose a new dining-place, and, what surprised Min- 
 nie more, requested a private dining-room. 
 
 "I'll miss ye, kid," he said, when they were seated and 
 the waiter had disappeared with the order. 
 
 "You will not be too angry to come to see me, Mr. 
 Maloney?" Minnie asked earnestly. 
 
 "But what makes ye so stubborn about leaving?" He 
 resorted to persuasion again. "What's in a settlement 
 house? Hard work, small pay, long hours 'exploitation,' 
 as ye yourself call it." Mr. Maloney almost emitted a 
 roar, but the occasion was too solemn to permit of the
 
 386 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 indulgence, and he only smiled, Minnie accompanying 
 him with a sorry attempt at the same. 
 
 "Give up the idea, kid," he tried again. 
 
 "I don't like business ; it does not interest me." 
 
 Mr. Maloney raised his eyes hastily in involuntary dis- 
 approval of the words so uncomplimentary to his Sacred 
 Covenant with Paper Boxes. 
 
 "But yer interested in that there other thing, too that 
 there social justice stunt. If ye do less in the day, ye 
 have more time and ambition for the other at night." 
 With sudden fresh enthusiasm he added: "Ugh, I know 
 those settlement joints. The gerrls work there till they're 
 old maids." This with a glance at Minnie that said "Be- 
 ware !" 
 
 Minnie, to whom the idea was new, burst out laugh- 
 ing. Ordinarily Mr. Maloney could not have resisted the 
 infection of her laugh. The vital matter in his mind 
 pinned him down to sobriety. He surveyed his finger- 
 nails, then dug them deep into his palm. 
 
 "Mildred," he began quaveringly, his breath coming 
 short (the "Mildred" startled her as he had always ad- 
 dressed her as "Miss Mendel"), "will ye be willing to 
 marry me?" 
 
 Minnie stared. Was the man who had just spoken 
 Mr. John Maloney, her employer, proprietor of the Ma- 
 loney Paper Box Company? She was mute. 
 
 The waiter appeared with the order. Sensing some- 
 thing (in the way of waiters), he set the dishes down 
 hastily and disappeared with a faint, knowing grin. 
 
 Minnie's heart-beats thundered so in her ears that she 
 was afraid Mr. Maloney would hear them. She fast- 
 ened her eyes on her bowl of cereal. 
 
 "Well, Mildred," Mr. Maloney said eagerly when the
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 387 
 
 door had closed on the waiter, "I'm a rich feller ; I'll take 
 good care of ye. And that there social justice business" 
 ( Minnie had told him the circumstances of her discharge 
 from the Charities) "don't cut no ice with me ; ye kin 
 go as far as ye like with me." Mr. Maloney was pleased 
 with his indulgent spirit and returned the upper half of 
 his profuse body to the back of his chair with an air of 
 self-esteem. 
 
 Minnie still sat speechless. Wiping his forehead with 
 an exceptionally large handkerchief, Mr. Maloney con- 
 tinued : 
 
 "If ye were married to a rich man, ye could do yer 
 settlement work better even ye could do anything ye 
 please." 
 
 Minnie's mind was startled out of itself. Her imagi- 
 nation launched her upon membership in the Ladies' Aid 
 Society of the Helina Heimath, donned her with clothes 
 of simple, expensive, subdued elegance, rendered her 
 benefactress of countless ice-cream-and-cake treats to 
 the children of the Heimath, gave her the opportunity 
 to shake hands society fashion (from up down) with 
 the superintendent of the Heimath, and endowed her with 
 the right to engage another matron for the Alpha Home. 
 
 She was jostled out of -her fancies by Mr. Maloney, fat 
 and forty, who, interpreting her silence favorably, had 
 ardently emitted: 
 
 "Darling!" He was leaning forward in his seat. His 
 moist, fat hand sought to enslave hers. 
 
 She snatched her hand away under the shock of a 
 physical revulsion such as only the aesthetic young know. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Maloney!" she gasped. 
 
 Fear that it would not be such smooth sailing pierced 
 Mr. Maloney 's heart. He rose and came closer. Minnie
 
 388 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 also rose. Mr. Maloney wanted to, but dared not, take 
 her in his arms. 
 
 "I can give ye everything money can buy," he said 
 limply in comparison with the fervor of his feelings. 
 "What have ye now, living in a working gerrls' home, 
 with ten dollars a week wages better look at the ad- 
 vantages." He spread his hands. They extended only 
 a little beyond his huge bulk, and Minnie noticing it 
 turned sick. Then, too, the "New Woman" in her, whom 
 she had come to know through her reading, was out- 
 raged. With a trace of histrionicism, she asked: 
 
 "Do you think I can be bought like merchandise?" 
 
 Mr. Maloney winced. He had not expected that Min- 
 nie would be unwilling. Secretly he thought : "That little 
 snipper !" Aloud he said : "Wait till yer a bit older. 
 Ye'll be glad to git a feller like me ; they don't grow 
 in five-and-ten-cent stores." 
 
 Minnie reached for her coat. He took it, and, while 
 helping her on with it, tried to snatch a kiss. Minnie 
 shuddered and withdrew. Her vision played her a trick : 
 Mr. Maloney spread and multiplied into the foreman of 
 the Titanic Biscuit Company, the Doctor of the past, 
 Louis "the paintner." 
 
 Mr. Maloney took hasty notice of the fact that most 
 of the food they had ordered remained on the table un- 
 touched, and he was not without regret on this detail 
 as he led the way out. 
 
 XLI 
 
 That same evening Abraham, who had recovered from 
 his cold, came to call on Minnie. The news of her 
 change of position annoyed him immensely. Could she
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 389 
 
 not have waited for advice? The gross folly of return- 
 ing to charity work when it was such a trial to her tem- 
 per! Before long she would again be playing ball with 
 "cheaters" and "cheated" getting herself into trouble 
 losing another position. Wasn't the very lettuce incident 
 evidence? Abraham fairly puffed with disapproval. He 
 rose and made nervous strides across the Alpha Home 
 sitting-room. 
 
 Minnie sat self-conscious and mortally put out by his 
 eternal faultfinding. She could have bitten her tongue off 
 for having spoken. She had made up her mind innum- 
 erable times to refrain from taking him into her confi- 
 dence, and then had prattled, prattled like a ridiculous 
 child. Just because she grew so tense she couldn't keep 
 things to herself. She was thoroughly disgusted with 
 herself for growing so tense. 
 
 As Abraham paced the room the slit of the back of his 
 coat, opening and closing alternately, revealed and hid a 
 small button. It revolted Minnie, and as she watched the 
 movement of Abraham's thin legs, she felt a vague dis- 
 like of him creep upon her. As if to get farther away 
 from him, she drew deeper into her chair. If only he 
 would sit down. Yet she felt an indescribable respect for 
 him and was grateful for his interest in her. Wearied by 
 her conflicting feelings, she sighed and covered her eyes 
 with her hands. When she removed them, after a time, 
 she saw Abraham, who thought she was in tears, stand- 
 ing in front of her. Since she was not in tears, he re- 
 tired to his chair, from where he regarded her fixedly 
 and began to talk of what was greatly on his mind. 
 
 "Minnie, you know you are a young woman now, 
 nearly twenty. Soon you'll be thinking of getting mar- 
 ried."
 
 390 
 
 Minnie's heart leaped. She thought of Mr. Maloney. 
 She gave Abraham a hasty look of inquiry. 
 
 "Do you know, Minnie, your being away from home 
 
 is going to speak against you " He hesitated, his 
 
 eyelids fluttering. He scarcely knew how to say what 
 had been on his heart to say the whole three weeks of 
 his interfering illness. 
 
 Speak against her ! As if love needed credentials ! 
 She flushed and scowled. What would be his next step 
 in the mathematical mapping out of her life? 
 
 "A man has his family to satisfy. A girl who does not 
 live at home is sort of sort of looked down upon." His 
 heart ached ; he hated to hurt her. As if to stifle a sigh, 
 he brought his hand up to his mouth with self-conscious 
 clumsiness. A sharp, fierce resentment of Abraham 
 seized Minnie and at the same time a lunatic fear that 
 he might touch her. She shrank back visibly. 
 
 Some girls entered the room and Abraham suggested a 
 walk, checking the refusal on Minnie's lips by handing 
 her her hat, which she had brought down in preparation 
 for their customary stroll. 
 
 "I am convinced, Minnie," he said, when they were on 
 the street, "that you ought to go home to your people. 
 The other girls find it possible to stay at home. I don't 
 see why you can't, too. It would be so much more de- 
 cent." . 
 
 It was like a physical onslaught. Presently the acute 
 sensation of shock passed over into indignation. He was 
 prescribing by formula. Soon he would be telling her 
 to mould her nose into the shape of some one else's. In- 
 dividual circumstances did not exist for him ; all people 
 must act in the same way, have the same feelings, the 
 same thoughts. She hated him. She wished she could
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 391 
 
 run away from him. As in the old days with "Fights," 
 so now again he was reducing her to impotence and ir~ 
 resoluteness. 
 
 "Have you ever thought how a man in love with you 
 would feel about your living in a working-girls' home?" 
 
 A childish passion to prove him in the wrong pos- 
 sessed her. 
 
 "Don't be so sure you know how every man would 
 feel," she burst out. "Mr. Maloney asked me to marry 
 him and he knows I live in the Home. There now !" 
 
 There were more things seething within her that would 
 not frame themselves into words. 
 
 Abraham spun round like a top. His hat tipped a little 
 to one side, and his lips parted. 
 
 "What was that ?" he asked. 
 
 "YES ! You heard right !" She drew away from him. 
 
 They walked several blocks in silence. Abraham was 
 thinking : "She is indignant. Poor little girl. Perhaps I 
 am too critical. It must be hard for her to realize that I 
 love her so when I am always finding fault. What dif- 
 ference does it really make that she lives in a home? 
 Mama will come round when she gets to know her bet- 
 ter. With all her faults she is mighty sweet, mighty 
 sweet." He recalled her pretty repartee, her merry laugh. 
 He forgave her everything from the bottom of his heart, 
 and felt nothing but tenderness for her. He smiled in- 
 dulgently at the thought of Mr. Maloney, a gentile, fat, 
 elderly, aspiring Minnieward. He looked round at his 
 Minnie. Her face was pale and troubled. He took her 
 by the elbow. Poor little girl. 
 
 They walked on in silence. This evening he would not 
 tell her, he decided. He would wait until Sunday when 
 he would be feeling better and she would be in a more
 
 392 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 suitable frame of mind. His thoughts journeyed pleas- 
 antly to a few years hence when he would be sufficiently 
 advanced as to salary and the sweet creature beside him 
 would be his own little wife. 
 
 As he was still a convalescent and the prescribed hour 
 for going to bed was nine o'clock, he very tenderly sug- 
 gested that they return to the Alpha Home, so that he 
 might take leave, so tenderly, indeed, that Minnie looked 
 at him once to make sure, and a second time to express 
 
 gratitude. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Morris Caplan's bank account was not doing him any 
 special good that he could see. The muffled sounds of his 
 first-class boarding-house were getting on his nerves. 
 There were evenings when he felt moved to pound on 
 its walls merely for the sake of disturbing the gentility 
 of the atmosphere. On other evenings, of milder moods, 
 he had visions of a home of his own, the patter of chil- 
 dren's feet, a refined woman's voice; and if these hap- 
 pened to be lesson evenings, he found extra delight in 
 Minnie's company and allowed himself to hope for a 
 happy future. But when he compared himself with 
 Abraham Ratkin, a college graduate, who was also in the 
 arena, his hopes paled. 
 
 "Kike," he would rebuke himself for his audacity, 
 "where do you creep?" and he would try to forget him- 
 self in the company of gayer young women with whom 
 he would skip off to dances, vaudeville shows, and late- 
 hour eating-houses. He would spend lavishly and con- 
 duct himself like an all-round good sport, overdoing 
 everything to work the self-depreciation out of his sys- 
 tem. Afterwards he would return to his room to brood 
 and philosophize that all the world's a fool and he not
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 393 
 
 the least of fools in it. One evening, in a charitable 
 frame of mind toward himself, he allowed that after all 
 he wasn't such a bad "feller," he would make a good 
 husband ; at thirty-six a man was bound to know how to 
 treat a woman. With money to burn and a good heart 
 to boot, why might he not be as desirable as a whipper- 
 snapper of an Abraham Ratkin, who, though he boasted 
 an intellectual forehead, could provide a wife with no 
 greater luxury than bread and cheese? "He thinks he 
 takes the cake!" Before long Morris Caplan saw him- 
 self as not so unworthy a competitor and as mighty much 
 of a damn fool for having waited so long before at least 
 giving himself a chance. "Why, the girl might actually 
 be caring for me !" He swelled. "Otherwise why would 
 she keep on giving me lessons and without accepting 
 pay?" He owed it to himself and to her at least to "find 
 out, to make sure one way or 'die yadder.' " 
 
 He reached the Alpha Home just as Abraham Ratkin 
 was taking leave. 
 
 For his part, Morris Caplan was mighty pleased that 
 colds were included in the scheme of things, so that 
 Abraham Ratkin was obliged just then to keep early 
 hours. Morris Caplan's satisfaction reached Abraham, 
 who scowled, and would have changed his mind and 
 stayed, had he not been afraid of appearing ridiculous. 
 
 The moment Morris Caplan and Minnie entered the 
 Alpha Home sitting-room, she dropped into a chair, gave 
 a whistling sigh, threw her hands up and laughed tear- 
 fully. Naturally, Morris Caplan was curious. Minnie 
 exploded. 
 
 "Oh, he makes me sick and tired. He wears me out. 
 He is forever trying to make me over. I am always at 
 fault about everything, everywhere, every time, now, for-
 
 394 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 ever, and a day later." She laughed again and shook 
 herself as if to throw off Abraham's presence. The tears 
 were in her eyes, and her feelings were tense enough to 
 have warranted a spell of hysteria. 
 
 To Morris Caplan the heavens opened. In a burst of 
 brilliance he saw Minnie in a bridal veil tripping by his 
 side. So that Ratkin "feller" was not her favorite ! His 
 heart fairly danced within him. The Alpha Home sit- 
 ting-room was too small, too familiar for his new emo- 
 tions v 
 
 He proposed a walk. 
 
 "I've just come back." 
 
 "But you wuzent in pleasant company." 
 
 She smiled and went. It was a mild evening. Morris 
 Caplan led her to a bench in Central Park. Minnie was 
 silent because of a mind crowded with thought. Morris 
 Caplan was silent because of the turbulence of his heart. 
 How to say it ! When to say it ! He felt suddenly like 
 a silly boy. She was so much younger than he. He was 
 accustomed to being a bachelor. Muffled sounds of his 
 boarding-house reached his ears the loneliness and drab- 
 ness of it. How much nicer a home and an end of eat- 
 ing in restaurants a child or two. . . . He turned im- 
 pulsively and laid his hand on Minnie's, which was rest- 
 ing in her lap. 
 
 "What is it ?" Minnie asked. 
 
 Simply as a child, he told her: 
 
 "I love you. I think you have no faults." What bet- 
 ter could he say as a rival of Abraham Ratkin ? 
 
 She looked at him smilingly, thinking he was jesting. 
 But no, she could tell from his face he was in earnest. 
 She tried to withdraw her hand. He held it more firmly. 
 A faint anxiety came into his eyes. He was experiencing
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 395 
 
 one of those moments of intense suspense in which a man 
 sees his fate swinging in the balance. 
 
 From sheer nervousness Minnie laughed. 
 
 Morris Caplan was annoyed. 
 
 "Don't laugh!" he said, squeezing her hand. 
 
 She tried to wrench her hand away. She was in a tur- 
 moil of alarm, incredulousness, resentment, as though 
 Morris Caplan were unjustly imposing something upon 
 her. It was a horrid situation. Poor Amelia ! And two 
 proposals in one day ! Heavens, everything had to hap- 
 pen to her. 
 
 "Let go my hand, Mr. Caplan. Ah, please let go my 
 hand." 
 
 Morris Caplan became determined. When a man feels 
 that the step he has taken is too daring, he cannot bear 
 to find his opinion corroborated. Minnie was an Ameri- 
 can lady, who probably, like the rest, dubbed him "kike." 
 He gripped her hand harder and leaned over. 
 
 "You mane you are in love wid det Ratkin feller?" 
 
 "No, of course not. You are hurting me. What in 
 the world is the matter with you? Please let go my 
 hand." 
 
 Minnie's unfailing friendliness, Morris Caplan now 
 felt, had given him the right to feel encouraged. Had her 
 friendliness been hypocritical ? Had she planned to make 
 a fool of him? 
 
 "Oh, here comes somebody. Let go my hand." 
 
 He relaxed his hold. Minnie jumped up and ran. 
 
 Morris Caplan was stunned. Then he rose and started 
 in pursuit, but Minnie was already at the park entrance. 
 There was no use trying to overtake her. 
 
 So the girl had made a fool of him! The impudent 
 infant! He was furious like a teased animal. . He
 
 396 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 spat upon the pavement. . . . "She's a young fool," he 
 thought. "What do / care!" . . . But Minnie's great, 
 gray eyes danced upon his senses, her gay laugh, her 
 soft, fetching manner. He sank down on the bench. He 
 loved the little girl. What a foolish child! He had 
 money to burn; he would be so good to her, he would 
 carry her about in his arms to save her footsteps. If 
 only she had some sense! What would a Yankee feller 
 do for her? Find fault. She had an example in that 
 Ratkin feller, who plagued her to make herself over. 
 What fools young girls were not to see who would make 
 them good husbands. He himself would always feel that 
 he had drawn a prize cherish her shield her. What- 
 ever she did would be golden in his eyes. 
 
 Morris Caplan's soul stretched out its arms to her 
 while Minnie, muttering to herself in astonishment : "He 
 really meant it, he really meant it!" and, laughing hys- 
 terically, ran faster and faster toward the wings of the 
 Alpha Home for Working Girls. 
 
 XLII 
 
 "I wish he asked me. You may bet I'd marry him 
 even if he is a kike. You fool, he has money. You've 
 forgotten already how we used to live when we were 
 poor. Money is a mighty good friend." 
 
 The propounder of this cynical philosophy was Ida. It 
 was the night after the two proposals and after Minnie's 
 first day of work at the Settlement. She and Ida and 
 Beckie were out walking together. Excited by the new 
 work, fagged out by a sleepless night following upon the 
 strange happenings of the day before, with her heart 
 full to the brim, she had taken the girls into her confi-
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 397 
 
 dence. Where else had she to turn ? Miss Liebman was 
 busy with her own friends, and it was out of the ques- 
 tion to tell Amelia. 
 
 Beckie, conjuring up delightful pictures of a married 
 sister living maybe on Riverside Drive, chimed in with 
 her advice: 
 
 "I think you ought to grab him. You get used to a 
 man." 
 
 Minnie felt she was in the presence of infinitely wise 
 people and silently marvelled at them. That marriage 
 was a way out had never occurred to her; in books and 
 in her own imagination marriage was a mating of love. 
 
 "You ought to see mama, how she looks. She looks 
 dreadful. All on account of the rotten bands. Bands 
 don't sell now, so she worries herself to a skeleton. But 
 if she had married a rich man instead of that habe nichts 
 (have nothing) of a Leopold, we would all of us be bet- 
 ter off now she, too." Ida, though bitterly resentful, 
 was genuinely distressed about her mother. Flat hats 
 had persisted, and the bands business had continued to 
 deteriorate. Ida had experienced her first shock when 
 her mother announced that she and Beckie must each 
 contribute two dollars a week more from their salaries 
 to the home. By their mother's efforts Ida had been 
 taught stenography and Beckie had procured a good po- 
 sition as saleslady. It was not until Sarah had been 
 drawing heavily from the bank for several months that 
 she resorted to this radical step. "Not, God forbid," 
 she solemnly vowed, "that ever in my life I will take 
 one cent from them for my own support. But themselves 
 it is time they supported." 
 
 Ida was feeling the sting of poverty. With a weak- 
 ness for pretty clothes, eight dollars a week, reduced by
 
 398 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 five for mere food and shelter, put her in a mood for the 
 practical appreciation of a rich "kike." 
 
 Ida's description of her mother's condition went to 
 Minnie's heart. The image of the mother of Henry 
 Street, toiling and harassed, blotted out the image of the 
 wife of Leopold who had neglected to visit the sick 
 daughter at a charity institution. 
 
 "Of course, I don't say anything about Mr. Maloney," 
 Ida continued. "He's a gentile. But Morris Caplan is 
 a Jew. If you've got all your life to teach him in, he'll 
 have time to learn to say 'truth' instead of 'throot.' Such 
 men make the best husbands." 
 
 "But I don't love him," Minnie ventured weakly. 
 
 "Nu and if you don't?" Ida pooh-poohed. 
 
 Ida's vulgar certainty undermined Minnie's confidence 
 in her own feelings. She made no retort. Was Ida 
 right, were love marriages a mere vagary of literature? 
 And because Mr. Maloney was a gentile was that the 
 only reason she ought not to consider him? 
 
 The girls' visit left Minnie more upset than ever. 
 She was sorry she had taken them into her confidence. 
 All she had achieved was a shaken belief in herself 
 perhaps she was sentimental and contempt of Ida's vul- 
 gar practicalness. 
 
 XLIII 
 
 The rolling gentlemen's voices and the warbling 
 women's voices of the Academy Settlement House were 
 to Minnie reverberations from a background of awe-in- 
 spiring culture. Self-confidence, never a staunch ally of 
 hers, now beat a complete retreat. She felt like a com- 
 mon house-fly that has strayed into a king's palace to
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 399 
 
 find that not another insect has had the same audacity. 
 She walked about on tiptoe and spoke in whispers, all the 
 while despising herself and fighting desperately to over- 
 come her timidity and assume a natural manner. There 
 were moments when she would shed a tear of homesick- 
 ness for the genial Maloney place. 
 
 The third day a young man of breezy western man- 
 ner, of a full, resonant voice, and of the unpromising 
 name of Grave, appeared upon the scene and dispelled 
 the clouds. 
 
 "This is Miss Mendel, is it?" he brawled. 
 
 Minnie, blushing, rose from her seat. 
 
 "Yes," she said with a puzzled look, and stood shyly 
 expectant of an explanation. 
 
 Mr. Grave danced his deep blue eyes over her face 
 and laughed pleasantly. 
 
 "Well, now, I'm Mr. Grave, one of the fourteen resi- 
 dent club directors of this Arcadia, and I have come to 
 you, the guardian angel of the world's elixir money to 
 cash a fifty-dollar check." 
 
 Minnie laughed a modulated giggle, blushed a trifle 
 deeper, inclined her head to one side, and replied, her 
 gray eyes sparkling: 
 
 "I am here to serve you now and always gladly, fair 
 sir." She looked up at his shock of blond hair and moved 
 to the safe in the corner of the office. Mr. Grave's jolly 
 glance followed her. Stooping to open the combination, 
 she looked up and their eyes met. They laughed. 
 
 "She's a bully sort," went through Mr. Grave's mind. 
 
 "What a nice man !" went through Minnie's mind. 
 
 He bowed graciously and thanked her cordially for the 
 cash. 
 
 "I know a man," said Minnie, "who would say 'danks
 
 400 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 a toy send times.' " Mr. Grave's laugh covered a full 
 scale of notes. 
 
 His carriage as he walked out of the office recalled 
 someone in the past to Minnie. She spent a few moments 
 wondering who it could be. 
 
 The little encounter colored her whole day. Every 
 now and then she found herself hoping Mr. Grave would 
 come in again and assuring herself he would. The pros- 
 pect buoyed her. 
 
 The air as she walked home seemed to have a fresher 
 tang. It was well after all, she rejoiced, that she had 
 left John Maloney's place. What was the use of the 
 same old thing day after day? New experiences added 
 vividness to life. She was glad she had made the change. 
 Abraham Ratkin had certainly been wrong when he said 
 that she would meet with the same trials at the settlement 
 as at the Charities. The settlement, though a philan- 
 thropy, was of a different character ; people did not come 
 there to cry; they came to amuse themselves, to dance, 
 to sit around and to have fun. And it had the advantage 
 of a far more cultured environment than the John Ma- 
 loney Paper Box Company. All seemed well with the 
 world to Minnie. 
 
 Mr. Grave came again the next day for a pencil, the 
 day after for a friendly word or two, which kept him 
 with Minnie for fully fifteen minutes; then he came in 
 for a telephone number, which detained Minnie fully ten 
 minutes after closing hour. Out of appreciation he asked 
 to be allowed to see her to the street car. 
 
 Walking beside Mr. Grave, talking, laughing with' him 
 as if he were a mere man instead of a god, transported 
 Minnie to a world of unreality. His voice sounded in 
 her ears like exhilarating music ; her own person seemed
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 401 
 
 a dream afloat. By the time he left her she was tingling 
 with excitement. 
 
 Thenceforth Mr. Grave paid daily calls. He seemed 
 to Minnie the perfect man, of incomparable manners. 
 And in spite of his perfection, he looked upon her, ap- 
 parently,^ someone from whom he could learn. Often 
 he laughed over what she said and called her a bright 
 little girl. She was intensely grateful. Praise was novel. 
 Morris Caplan's admiration, because it was evoked by 
 the things concerning which she herself felt confident, 
 had affected her differently. Her very name pronounced 
 at the Settlement Miss Mendel sounded fine and dig- 
 nified. She became less of a nobody to herself. And as 
 her timidity fell away, her efficiency increased. Every- 
 body came to Dr. Evangel's secretary with the assurance 
 tfiat what was asked of her would be properly attended 
 .to. Soon she became a person of standing at the Set- 
 tlement. 
 
 XLIV 
 
 Minnie was conscious of a joy in living. The days 
 with their whirl of interesting activities and the evenings 
 with their comparative comfort at the Alpha Home were 
 a song ; Mr. Grave was the sweet refrain. Life became a 
 pleasurable adventure with all sorts of thrilling possibili- 
 ties. Something interesting might happen any moment 
 when the door-bell at the Alpha Home sounded, or the 
 telephone at the Settlement rang, or a knock came at the 
 office door. Minnie was young. She had never been 
 young before. 
 
 The happiness she got from roaming among dreams 
 and fancies woven from the experiences of the day often
 
 402 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 drew her out evenings for long walks by herself. Be- 
 sides, she now enjoyed the life of the streets. A sense 
 of kinship for all these men and women colored their 
 doings with a new interest. Some instinct told her they, 
 too, had their dreams. Her step was buoyant, her eyes 
 eager. 
 
 One evening her attention was drawn by a crowd on 
 a side street just off a main avenue, and she heard a 
 man's voice above the rattle of vehicles, clear, strong, 
 vibrant. It came from an orator mounted on an im- 
 provised platform with his back against a large banner 
 displaying the emblem of the arm and torch. 
 
 "Much is said about the sacredness of life, but we 
 stow human beings away in East Side hovels to breed 
 disease, to suffer and decay " 
 
 The orator's voice sounded like Mr. Grave's ! 
 
 "Much is said about the sacredness of parenthood, yet 
 we send the father to the sweat shop and let him out when 
 he is too exhausted to think of anything beside 'his 
 wretched cot for rest " 
 
 Strange that his voice should sound so much like Mr. 
 Grave's ! Minnie recalled that at their first meeting Mr. 
 Grave had evoked something reminiscential in her. She 
 peered at the speaker but his face was partly in shadow 
 and she could not make out his features. 
 
 "Much is said about the divinity of motherhood, yet 
 we send mothers to other people's houses to wash and 
 scrub and back to the reeking tenement, wretched and 
 aching, to bestow a lick and a promise upon her own 
 babies. . . . 
 
 His words, sincere and sympathetic, which seemed so 
 to apply to her family's life, sent a queer little chill down 
 Minnie's spine. And his voice and the lift of his shoul-
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 403 
 
 ders were so like Mr. Grave's ! Now he took a step 
 backward his face fell in full light Gregory Chernin! 
 That's who it was ! Their eyes met. He seemed to see 
 the excitement in hers and smiled down upon her. His 
 smile seemed to ask that she wait until his speech was 
 over, to say that he would join her presently. She found 
 herself nodding and smiling back, feeling a happy peace. 
 
 "In the mills and the mines we crush our babies whom 
 we liken to birds and flowers, crush them before they 
 have a chance to open their petals. Then with well-serv- 
 ing stupidity we screw up our foreheads in perplexity and 
 make a scientific study of why homes are broken up, why 
 men desert wives, why there need be children's peniten- 
 tiaries, why there is insanity, theft and murder. We 
 avert our eyes from the uncomfortable truth " 
 
 Had she been able to put her thoughts into words, she 
 would have said just that. It seemed incredible to Min- 
 nie that there was another human being who thought so 
 exactly as she did. She had believed herself to be alone 
 in her philosophy, freakish, eccentric. She felt peculiarly 
 jubilant. 
 
 "We reduce a man to the level of a dog and then we 
 hang him because he does not behave like a man." 
 
 The audience laughed and clapped. Minnie was suf- 
 fused with the pride that one takes in the successes of 
 a blood relation. 
 
 Gregory, who seemed to be only the introductory 
 speaker, was soon shaking hands heartily with her on the 
 sidewalk, and inviting her to come with him to a nearby 
 restaurant, as he had not yet supped. She was keenly 
 and pleasurably conscious that he was glad to see her. 
 
 At table she allowed herself a full look at her tall, 
 manly companion. His face was altered from the col-
 
 404 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 lege lad's of her gaming days, and yet it was what Min- 
 nie felt she would somehow have expected. It was thin, 
 pale, and worn. His brown shock of hair was a little 
 thinner. His eyes were Olga's, large and brown, with 
 her love of humanity shining in them and an added touch 
 of reflectiveness and also of humor. He looked like one, 
 Minnie felt, of whom big things were to be expected. 
 But for his cordial smile, she might have felt self-con- 
 scious at being in the presence of someone obviously her 
 superior in learning and breeding. As it was, she was 
 experiencing peace, a happy peace, different from the 
 turbulent, agitating happiness of her association with 
 Mr. Grave. 
 
 The waiter came for the order. 
 
 "You'll have something to eat, too," Gregory urged. 
 
 His courtesy was delicious like Mr. Grave's. 
 
 The waiter disappeared with their orders. 
 
 Gregory settled himself in an easy posture, with his 
 elbows on the table and his hands clasped, his eyes rest- 
 ing on Minnie's face. He began gravely : 
 
 "You were on my mother's conscience. But it is quite 
 apparent she had no cause to worry." 
 
 At this blunt reference to a disreputable past, which 
 Minnie had flung behind her as Sarah had her poverty, 
 she flushed, looked up hastily, on the verge of annoy- 
 ance. She met a frank, disarming gaze. Gregory seemed 
 wholesomely detached from that past of which he had 
 as much cause to be ashamed as she. She felt somehow 
 assured that his and not hers was the proper attitude ; 
 that his was the bigger attitude, the impersonal one. She 
 dropped her eyes. 
 
 "How is your mother?" she asked. 
 
 "She's dead," Gregory answered simply. 
 
 "Oh!" Minnie exclaimed, experiencing the horrifying
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 405 
 
 sense of an adult's first contact with death. After a 
 pause, she asked: 
 
 "And your father?" 
 
 "He died too first. Mother died of the same illness." 
 
 Minnie caught the deep feeling beneath the simplicity 
 of his utterance. 
 
 "But tell me about yourself," he added. 
 
 She looked up at him with dimmed eyes. His pallor 
 and thinness connected itself painfully in her heart with 
 his parents. A tender feeling rose in her for Gregory, 
 a feeling of closeness to him. 
 
 "I have had lots of experience," she said, half smiling, 
 half weeping, "but you know how it is with experiences ; 
 they loom large to those who go through them, but in the 
 telling they seem small enough." 
 
 "Tell me anyway," he said, his voice and manner so 
 gentle that Minnie felt herself expanding toward him. 
 
 She told him everything, even of her engagement to 
 Louis "the paintner." Neither her mind nor her will 
 seemed to have anything to do with her frank outpour- 
 ing. It was as if the impulse came from Gregory. With 
 a little smile she ended : "And now I'm well and happy." 
 
 Gregory stroked his chin and looked into space, then 
 turned his eyes on her gently. 
 
 "You have had lots of experiences. They do not 
 seem little." He was silent a moment and then added 
 warmly : "You have outwitted the evil fate we all feared 
 was in store for you." 
 
 Minnie felt with a thrill the commendation implied in 
 his words and tone, the recognition that she had strug- 
 gled and achieved ; and by contrast the eternally fault- 
 finding Abraham came to her mind. Quickly she made 
 mental comparison of his dry presentation of Socialism 
 with Gregory's warm-hearted speech. She said:
 
 406 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "It was something so new to me your way of pre- 
 senting Socialism. I always think that way about life, 
 but I have a friend who tells me it is too formless, too" 
 she ruffled her forehead "too hysterical. He wants 
 me to read Value, Price and Profit " 
 
 Gregory laughed a short, hearty laugh. An exquisite 
 joy shot through Minnie's heart. He laughed exactly 
 like Mr. Grave! A fine, thin note of adoration made 
 music in her soul. 
 
 "Your friend must be a pedant," said Gregory. 
 
 Aha ! A pedant ! That's what Abraham was. Greg- 
 ory had summed him up for her. How well Gregory 
 understood everything ! How nice it was to talk to some- 
 one who understood ! It seemed to make one's thoughts 
 come easier. How nice it would be to have him for a 
 friend. Where was he living, what was he doing? 
 
 "I told you," she said, "all about myself. I think I 
 deserve that you tell me about yourself. I suppose" 
 her voice and look were full of sympathy "that being 
 without a home you have had to knock about a whole lot. 
 Tfiat's so hard." 
 
 Gregory gave her a look of appreciation for her com- 
 passionate insight. 
 
 His tale was simple. After graduating from college 
 he taught for some time, then, finding that he was 
 cramped by the conditions imposed upon the public school 
 teachers, he gave up the profession to become a propa- 
 gandist for the Socialist Party. 
 
 It was time to leave. As Minnie watched Gregory 
 settle with the waiter in a smiling way that reminded her 
 of Mr. Grave again, she was moved by a girlish ebul- 
 lition to discuss with this new-old friend who "under- 
 stood" a question that had occupied her and Mr. Grave 
 in the afternoon.
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 407 
 
 "Do you think," she began as soon as they were on the 
 street, "that happiness comes altogether from within? 
 Don't be surprised," she smiled, "at my question out of a 
 clear sky ; but I started out on a walk this evening espe- 
 cially to think about it when your audience attracted me, 
 and you've captivated my thoughts ever since." 
 
 Gregory smiled and reflected. 
 
 "Well, happiness, I suppose, does come from within, 
 but only if the external possibilities for happiness exist. 
 For instance, no amount of the 'within' will make a man 
 happy if he is forced to keep his toe on a red-hot stove." 
 
 Minnie laughed delightedly. Here were her own feel- 
 ings exactly expressed; here was her answer to Mr. 
 Grave, whose whole life had been smooth sailing and 
 who had insisted that happiness is entirely a matter of 
 "within." 
 
 At the door of the Alpha Home Minnie was seized un- 
 accountably by a panicky feeling. Would Gregory say he 
 would come to see her,, or ought she ask him to? 
 
 He held out his hand, and said as if in answer to her 
 thoughts : 
 
 "I am afraid I cannot see you soon again. To-morrow 
 I leave on a speaking tour of the New England States. 
 I'm awfully sorry." He shook hands with her. 
 
 For a moment she felt terribly forsaken. But Mr. 
 Grave she would see him in the morning. She felt light- 
 hearted again. 
 
 But as she made her way upstairs a vague emptiness 
 pervaded her soul, a tearfulness, a low-burning disap- 
 pointment. 
 
 XLV 
 
 A modest man retains his modesty until the thing of 
 which he deemed himself undeserving is actually denied
 
 408 SARAH AND. HER DAUGHTER 
 
 him, then he sees no reason under the sun why he should 
 not possess it. So it was with Morris Caplan. 
 
 The morning after Minnie's odd behavior, he awoke, 
 metaphorically speaking, with a dark brown taste in his 
 mouth. Everything was wrong with the world. He was 
 suffering, not from the sweet melancholia that the poets 
 would have us believe goes hand in hand with a love dis- 
 appointment, but from an irritability that turned every- 
 thing around him black. A slip of a girl, a waif in a 
 working girl's home had made a fool of him. He spat 
 out shreds of tobacco with unwonted vehemence. 
 
 In the course of the day, however, his mood changed : 
 he entered a demurrer against fate. Why should he live 
 always in a boarding-house and eat in restaurants ? Why 
 should he make money for nobody ? 
 
 When the summons came, Minnie was in her room en- 
 gaged in delightful reveries of a sprightly half -hour's 
 confab that day with Mr. Grave. She had been surprised 
 to find that he did not remind her so much of Gregory as 
 Gregory had, the night before, reminded her of him. 
 Even their voices had now a dissimilar ring ; the bantering 
 quality was absent from Gregory's tone. By the end of 
 the half-hour Mr. Grave had somehow seemed to rele- 
 gate Gregory to a dream-world in Minnie's mind. Her 
 meeting with him sank suddenly into a shadowy past, 
 while Mr. Grave remained vividly present, a substantial 
 reality of her daily life. 
 
 In the Alpha Home for Working Girls, no such formal 
 procedure was observed as the announcing of a visitor's 
 name. Minnie went downstairs wondering who the man 
 could be who had asked to see her. Abraham Ratkin, 
 possibly. But she was not expecting him until Sunday. 
 What could be bringing him so soon again? She wished
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 409 
 
 he would not come so unceremoniously, as if she had al- 
 ways to be at his disposal. 
 
 At sight of Morris Caplan she was greatly disconcerted. 
 She flushed, hung her head, and stammered a greeting. 
 
 He, too, had the earmarks of one not precisely at ease. 
 
 They seated themselves. Did Mr. Caplan want to see 
 Amelia perhaps ? He frowned and answered impatiently 
 that she knew very well he did not want to see Amelia. 
 How should she know, she demanded, while her mind 
 went round in a whirl had he actually meant that night's 
 proposal, had he actually meant it? In the excitement of 
 other things, she had more or less dismissed it from her 
 mind, as much as any girl can dismiss a proposal of mar- 
 riage from her mind. 
 
 Morris Caplan was determined upon having no non- 
 sense this evening; he would not take "no" for an an- 
 swer. Moreover, he would not go out where there was 
 the whole wide world for her to escape to, but would 
 keep her right there in the sitting-room, where in the 
 bright light she had to look him straight in the eye and say 
 definitely that she would marry him when and so on. 
 
 His heart fluttered as his mind strutted. 
 
 "Now, then, Mees Mendel," he began, "I meant what 
 I said last night, and you did a most insulting thing to 
 run away from me as if I insulted you." He went on, 
 in what struck Minnie as a disgustingly dictatorial man- 
 ner, to tell her it was her duty to give and his privilege 
 to have an answer, a direct, truthful answer (Minnie 
 noted with a little shiver coursing along her spine that 
 he said "throotful" and "answear"), and considering his 
 position a very successful real estate dealer it would 
 behoove a poor girl without a home or a family to think 
 seriously about it.
 
 4 io SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Poor Morris Caplan, he only succeeded in disgusting 
 Minnie, to whom it was not apparent that he was making 
 a desperate effort to keep his courage from oozing away, 
 or that his heavy gold watch chain rose and fell with his 
 labored heavings, or that the pulse of his neck was throb- 
 bing under his too roomy collar. His nerve ! a kike ! even 
 Mr. Maloney had spoken more respectfully, more as if 
 he were asking something of her than as if he were do- 
 ing, her a favor. His nasty money ! He spoke like an 
 onion grater ! Ida would have him why did he not pro- 
 pose to her ? Poor Amelia ! She was in love with him. 
 Served Amelia right for loving such a dub. Such a 
 dub! how could anyone love him! Yet he was a good- 
 hearted person. And how he used to laugh at her friski- 
 ness! Why could it not have continued? Now an end 
 of him an end of lessons. He was taking advantage 
 of her. Because she gave him lessons he thought she 
 was in love with him. If he touched her she would die. 
 Think of kissing him on the lips, his thick lips his red 
 face, his paunch almost like the landlord's they used 
 to have on Henry Street. Maybe he really owned those 
 twin tenements on Henry Street. The blood and the 
 flesh of the people there now, went to stuff his belly. 
 
 "Do you own any houses on Henry Street ?" 
 
 This resembled the questions that Morris Caplan's 
 gayer, more precocious young American lady friends 
 would ask him preparatory to looking him up in Brad- 
 street. A little resentment and disappointment shot like 
 pebbles through his heart. 
 
 "Nu, and if I have?" He sat alert. 
 
 She covered her face with her hands, seeing his en- 
 trails actually stuffed with the marrow of other people. 
 She groaned.
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 411 
 
 Morris Caplan was startled. He leaned forward to 
 take her hands away from her eyes. She edged away 
 and dropped her hands, and an expression of indisputable 
 resolution came into her face and voice as she said : 
 
 "Mr. Caplan, I do not want to marry you. I never 
 will. Please leave me alone. I never want to hear you 
 ask me again.'* He made a swift move in his chair as 
 if to contradict her, but she added more emphatically: 
 "Now, I never want to see you again if you don't throw 
 that rubbish out of your head. I won't marry you. 
 There now !" The last, feeling herself overcome by im- 
 potence, she flung out as though to spite him, like a 
 child. 
 
 Morris Caplan flushed. He was angry with her. At 
 the same time he was angry with himself for wanting 
 her when she refused him so emphatically. As though 
 charging her with not having carried through a business 
 deal fairly, he told her he had no intention of being cut 
 off from further chances of winning her. He was go- 
 ing to see her again, and again; he would make her 
 marry him. It was his policy never to take "no" for an 
 answer. 
 
 Minnie rose, telling him, in her turn, that she supposed 
 she had something to say in the matter, too, and choking 
 with impotence, strutted out of the room. 
 
 And Morris Caplan was left with a quarrel on his 
 hands, a void in his heart, and a consciousness of the 
 asinity of his behavior. Nevertheless he resented this 
 slip of a girl in a working girls' home. What in the 
 world did he want her for, as if there were not dozens of 
 other girls prettier, from nice homes, who would be 
 mighty glad to have him. Indeed, he would not come to 
 see her again. She could go to But how could he
 
 412 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 send her there when he wanted wanted her so badly in 
 
 his arms ? 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 In the flush of her indignation Minnie went straight 
 to Amelia's room and emptied her whole heart into the 
 other's lap, having had it on her mind, in any event, that 
 Amelia ought to know where Morris Caplan's affections 
 had strayed. She told Amelia everything, ending with : 
 "Now you mustn't blame me, Amelia, it's not my fault 
 if he is crazy enough to care for me. I always tried to 
 throw you two together. It makes me sick how every- 
 thing always comes out upsidedown and I hate him any- 
 way. He had no right to propose to me." 
 
 Had it not been for Minnie's very attitude of defen- 
 sive, Amelia's suspicions might not have been aroused. 
 Watching Minnie closely, she became convinced that Min- 
 nie was masking the truth. Why should Minnie be so 
 indignant about the proposal ? Why, indeed, but to throw 
 her, Amelia, off the track, so that later, she, Minnie, 
 could say that she had not wanted to accept Morris 
 did not Amelia remember ? but that he had insisted. . . . 
 Amelia sighed sarcastically, donned her wisest expression, 
 shrugged her shoulders, and with assumed nonchalance, 
 though her heart beat a tattoo, told Minnie she need not 
 go to all the trouble of masquerading. For her part, she 
 knew how to get along without things; she had had to 
 get along without enough in her life, and her character 
 was not so weak that she did not know how, like a good 
 sport, to hand a man over to a friend. 
 
 No expression can be given to the multitude of emo- 
 tions that swept into poor Minnie's heart and soul as the 
 wise, large-minded Amelia delivered her small sermon. 
 She felt herself being dragged through purgatory, taking
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 413 
 
 on herself the odor of decomposition, growing sick, faint. 
 
 When she reached her own room she fell on her bed in 
 a heap. Amelia's words and Morris Caplan's words 
 hummed and buzzed in her head. She felt like a stranger 
 to herself. A sickening aversion for the Alpha Home 
 came upon her, as if sewage had suddenly been exposed 
 in it. She turned from one side to the other in poisoned 
 restlessness. Her fingertips began to sting and her head 
 to ache. 
 
 The following morning she was too ill to go to work 
 and had to keep her bed. 
 
 XLVI 
 
 On Sunday, in accordance with his promise and plans, 
 Abraham Ratkin came to call on Minnie. He was 
 shocked to see how pale and worn she looked. All his 
 paternal self was roused to protectiveness. That work 
 that work in the charity place! Hadn't he told her it 
 would have an ill effect, first upon her body, then, as a 
 result, upon her nerves and her spirits ? She would soon 
 be taking people to task again and having to-dos. Why, 
 why, couldn't she be amenable to sane advice? 
 
 To prove that his prediction of troubles ahead was 
 false, Minnie blurted out the tale of the week's excite- 
 ments, concluding with her usual "There now!" They 
 had the sitting-room to themselves, and they could talk 
 freely. 
 
 Abraham felt himself jerked into an undreamed-of, 
 startling reality, in which, for self-protection, his soul 
 drew closer to the decision that it was time for him to 
 tell Minnie of his love and ask her to become engaged to 
 him. He would promise, he rehearsed mentally, that dur-
 
 414 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 ing their engagement he would devote himself to her as 
 her counsellor, guide, and good close friend and then 
 they would marry. 
 
 "You see, Minnie, I told you long ago you ought to 
 drop Mr. Caplan's lessons. You should have taken my 
 advice." Abraham spoke, not in his old scolding way, 
 but in a tender tone of loving admonition. 
 
 "Yes, but not because of that. You only thought I 
 would have more time to read." 
 
 Abraham blinked. 
 
 "That, too," he said, "but I could not take the liberty 
 of telling you so plainly." 
 
 They lapsed into meditation. 
 
 "I wonder when we'll be married," Abraham mused. 
 
 It sounded like a clock suddenly beginning to tick 
 the one-legged clock on the shelf over the sink in Henry 
 Street. "When you be a teacher," Minnie heard herself 
 piping. She saw the rock, the refuse of the air-shaft, as 
 in a vivid dream. 
 
 "I love you, Minnie. Isn't it odd that we should be 
 sweethearts after that long separation?" 
 
 Sweethearts! She became conscious of Abraham's 
 hands lying spread out on his knees, stubby, with sfiort, 
 blunt fingers. He turned his head at the sound of a 
 step, and for the first time, she observed dark hairs like 
 bristles in the lobes of his ear. Sweethearts ! They ! 
 It struck her as ludicrous and repellent. She remem- 
 bered the button in the back of his coat, and experienced 
 an uncanny sensation, as of dampness in the room. . . . 
 He in love with her! She was not in love with him! 
 The large blond and dark heads of Mr. Grave and Greg- 
 ory Chernin danced as one before her eyes, their reso- 
 nant voices rang in her ears. She saw the humorous
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 415 
 
 gleam of their eyes. Abraham Ratkin's cold calculative- 
 ness as compared with Gregory's human warmth whipped 
 upon her heart like a cold wet cloth. 
 
 "We cannot be married right away," she heard Abra- 
 ham saying. "I will prepare myself to take the principals' 
 examination a few years from now. We might have to 
 stay engaged five years. You are young. Twenty-five is 
 just the right age for a girl to be married. And really, 
 
 Minnie " he stumbled and added, "dear you ought 
 
 to live at home like a nice, sweet, sensible girl. We will 
 be engaged, and you will find it pleasanter than you used 
 to to be at home, because they always respect an engaged 
 daughter in a Jewish household. We will spend a lot of 
 time together. You will work, and without other dis- 
 tractions you will really concentrate your mind upon the 
 proper reading. Come, like a nice girl." 
 
 Abraham Ratkin's arithmetic of life had never left a 
 margin for complications. To him life was a sort of 
 Quaker Matron wearing a neat white cap and apron and 
 smiling beneficent acquiescence upon all his plans. 
 Never, in all his neat mapping out of things, had he al- 
 lowed for the possible need of removing a single hair 
 from this Quaker Matron's eye to make her see that 
 what he wanted he wanted justifiably, out of pure, good 
 reason. 
 
 He leaned forward in his chair, expectant. 
 
 A gasp came from Minnie to put his soul in a panic. 
 
 "Why, Abraham I never I did not think of mar- 
 rying you " 
 
 Abraham was taken aback. He flushed and waited be- 
 fore he spoke again. 
 
 "Well, of course, you have not said it to yourself. It 
 doesn't matter. A fact is a fact."
 
 416 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 What in the world did he mean, she wondered. What 
 in the world did all of them mean? Were they all 
 crazy? Abraham Morris Caplan Mr. Maloney? 
 
 "I don't want to marry you !" she said in a raised voice. 
 
 Abraham's heart made a leap and landed upside down, 
 causing the world to assume the queerest aspect. 
 
 Appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, Abra- 
 ham Ratkin was not conceited. He was simply not lack- 
 ing in the normal amount of self-confidence. The aver- 
 age man quite naturally expects that the average woman 
 will find him desirable for marriage. As John Maloney 
 so aptly put it, men are not to be found in five-and-ten- 
 cent stores ; a fact with which girls of experience are ac- 
 quainted. And when a young man and a young woman 
 can, moreover, look back upon a childhood affection as a 
 foundation, could a man possibly be more justified in 
 feeling secure? Abraham's heart pounded ridiculously, 
 and there seemed to be unsafe things lurking in the cor- 
 ners of the room. He was overcome with alarm. Bend- 
 ing forward, he said feverishly: 
 
 "I I love you. Surely you love me, too. I can't live 
 without you. Without you " 
 
 "You will have no one to bully," Minnie interjected. 
 Her feelings were at last crystallizing into definite ob- 
 jection. She saw before her the mathematical Abraham, 
 the calculating Abraham, the Abraham who was forever 
 right, who never had a gratifying thing to say to her, who 
 had figured out a five-year engagement between them in 
 order to make her his perfect counterpart, like the porce- 
 lain shepherdess that so perfectly matches the porcelain 
 shepherd at the other end of the mantel. Rising, she said 
 in a low voice with concentrated feeling: 
 
 "You all make me weary." Abraham made a move to
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 417 
 
 grasp her hand. Feeling she would break down if she 
 stayed in the room, yet hating herself for her weakness, 
 she jumped up and left. 
 
 Abraham's astonishment knew no bounds. But soon 
 he settled down o await her return. He even felt a bit 
 amused at her childishness. At the end of an hour, dur- 
 ing which she failed to come back, he left, patching up 
 his spirits with the thought that she was a little stubborn 
 and with the conviction that she would write. 
 
 Days passed, yet no letter came and he was just ap- 
 proaching the borderline of fear, when the mail brought 
 a missive in her handwriting. 
 
 DEAR ABRAHAM : 
 
 I have left the Alpha Home. 
 
 MINNIE. 
 
 The Alpha Home had become unbearable to Minnie, 
 and, while Abraham's thoughts had been dwelling with 
 her lovingly, she had been meditating escape from every- 
 thing associated in her mind with the Home. The long- 
 ing to get away became an obsession, to which she finally 
 yielded, and she engaged a room at the Young Ladies' 
 Lodge, a sort of working-girls' hotel, which aspired to 
 eliminate the characteristics of a philanthropy. 
 
 XLVII 
 
 "There is no such thing as a universal convention." 
 
 Mr. Grave, with a bit of leisure on his hands, was 
 
 keeping Minnie from her work. Minnie looked as if she 
 
 did not agree with him. She felt sure there must be one 
 
 thing in the world to which all people did adhere. But
 
 4i8 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 her geographical experience being as limited as it was, 
 she did not dare pit her opinion against that of her 
 august friend. 
 
 Whenever Mr. Grave came into the office to spend 
 time with her, Minnie's heart would go pit-a-pat, and, dis- 
 tracted by the fear that he might detect her agitation, she 
 always had to make the double effort of controlling her- 
 self and concentrating her mind upon the way to meet 
 him in conversation. 
 
 "Isn't there?" she asked. 
 
 "No, of course not; can you think of any?" 
 
 Mr. Grave was trying to convince her that there was 
 really no right and no wrong, since what was right in one 
 part of the globe was wrong in another; and the same, 
 therefore, held true of individuals. For a beggar it might 
 be right to steal, while for her it might be wrong. 
 
 As he seemed to have won the day, she backed water 
 into raillery. It was when making fun that they enjoyed 
 each other the most. 
 
 "Well, I should think stupidity at least was a universal 
 convention. For instance, here you sit stupidly forget- 
 ting that I am the paid secretary of the Settlement with 
 work to do." 
 
 Mr. Grave laughed, then fell into the mood of his own 
 name. She was undertaking too much work, he told her ; 
 the former secretary had not worked so hard, and it was 
 unwise to be at it morning, noon, and night. 
 
 At the Young Ladies' Lodge time hung heavy on 
 Minnie's hands. She felt lost there. From the Alpha 
 Home she had carried away a strong dislike for making 
 new friends among girls. But at the Settlement, after 
 she had shed her extreme diffidence, she found people 
 drifting to her, and she responded gratefully to the af-
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 419 
 
 fection that they manifested. She enjoyed her contacts 
 there; so much so, indeed, that almost every evening, 
 after having supped at the Young Ladies' Lodge, she re- 
 turned to the Settlement, where there was recreation, in- 
 teresting work, and Mr. Grave, who wafted in and out, 
 like a pleasant breeze. There she would keep herself 
 from brooding about Amelia's tirade, and the, to her, un- 
 canny conduct of Morris Caplan, Abraham Ratkin, and 
 John Maloney, which, when she was alone and unoccu- 
 pied, always beset her. She could not keep herself from 
 brooding when alone. 
 
 At Mr. Grave's advice not to overwork, Minnie 
 dropped her eyes. When he expressed such genuine 
 concern for her, a facetious retort seemed unfair, and 
 yet she could not bring herself to explain to him why 
 she clung to the Settlement. Her eyes grew moist. Un- 
 guardedly she looked up at him. 
 
 "Well, now," he rolled out, rising from his seat, "we 
 seem to have the blues." He waited a moment and 
 added : "How about theater to-night ?" 
 
 To theater with Mr. Grave! Minnie thrilled. 
 
 "Why, that would be perfectly delightful," she said, 
 successfully hiding her excitement. 
 
 After Mr. Grave was gone from the office she unac- 
 countably dissolved in tears. She could not make her- 
 self out. At the least provocation now she cried like a 
 
 sentimental old lady. 
 
 ***** * 
 
 Romance! It was a drama of love that set the young 
 a-yearning and kindled sweet memories of long ago in 
 the old. The novelty of an orchestra seat, to be sitting 
 beside the godlike Mr. Grave wrought a spell upon Min- 
 nie. There was a glamour over everyone and everything.
 
 420 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Once or twice Mr. Grave's eyes left the stage to rest 
 upon her profile. Observing her expression of almost 
 devout rapture, he was glad he had been the instrument 
 for giving her so much pleasure, and, as though to let her 
 know he was thinking of her, he leaned sidewise so that 
 his shoulder touched hers. A feeling of ecstacy, sharp 
 as a flash of lightning and as brief, shot through Min- 
 nie's being. Instinctively she moved away a bit, but he 
 inclined a little further, and for the rest of the act they 
 sat with shoulders touching. 
 
 When the curtain dropped, Minnie, trying to feel that 
 there was no reason for self-consciousness, looked up at 
 him and, with an attempt at naturalness, smiled. 
 
 "Well, little girl, did you like it?" he rolled out, smil- 
 ing down on her cordially. Minnie flushed and drew in 
 her chin timidly. 
 
 "Oh, yes, it was perfectly lovely." Then, forgetting 
 herself in a gust of enthusiasm, she asked : "Don't you 
 think she's just charming? And he oh, he makes me 
 think so much of a friend of mine, Gregory Chernin." 
 The actor was dark and tall and slender. "I used to 
 know Gregory when I was a little girl. I met him again 
 the other night. His voice was just like yours." She 
 broke off, self-conscious again. 
 
 Mr. Grave was amused by her zest and her childish 
 outburst and enjoyed the sparkle of her eyes. When the 
 curtain went up, he leaned sidewise again. His warm 
 breath grazed her cheek. 
 
 "You are as pretty as a flower, and your blue dress 
 makes a lovely vase for you." His deep tone vibrated 
 through Minnie like organ notes. She flushed. Her 
 heart fluttered. The blood pulsed warm through her 
 veins.
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 421 
 
 There was a new rhythm to the passionate words of 
 love breathed by the ardent, dark-haired lover of the 
 play. 
 
 Mr. Grave took Minnie's hand in his. A faintness 
 came over her and a sensation as if the stage had moved 
 miles away ; the voices reached her as through a heavy 
 forest in which millions of birds were twittering. She 
 made no attempt to withdraw her hand. 
 
 Throughout the rest of the act and on the way home 
 neither felt the desire for words. 
 
 Outside the door of the Young Ladies' Lodge Mr. 
 Grave looked down on Minnie as if to probe her soul. 
 
 "May I come to see you next Sunday?" he asked. 
 
 She hesitated, afraid to trust herself to speech. "Yes," 
 she finally brought out in a low voice, "I should be very 
 glad if you would come." 
 
 He was very courteous perhaps over-courteous 
 when he bade her good-night. 
 
 She dragged up the stairs unsteadily, like one recu- 
 perating from an illness. Keeping her room dark, she 
 drew off her clothes slowly. Her mind would not move 
 to a single definite thought. She got into bed. One by 
 one, as fleecy clouds traverse the heavens, thoughts of 
 the evening drifted through her mind, and new, warm 
 sensations wrapped her soul, which was at once mournful 
 and ecstatic. She wanted to cry ; she wanted to laugh. 
 She buried her face in her arm. Her hair fell in a chest- 
 nut mass over her back. The touch of it thrilled her 
 through and through. She stretched her arms forward, 
 and as if ashamed of the wish that came to her mind 
 she brought them quickly back and clasped them beneath 
 her chin. 
 
 "Goodness! I love him!" she cried and gave herself
 
 422 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 up to a flow of tears, while her whole being throbbed 
 with a new, strange gladness. 
 
 XLVIII 
 
 Abraham was at first shocked by Minnie's note, then 
 upon re-reading it, concluded it was not to be taken seri- 
 ously. He was sure she had written it in one of her 
 unaccountable moods, under the spell of the same per- 
 verseness that had taken her from the sitting-room the 
 day of the proposal. Abraham was not of the sort who is 
 easily thwarted in his ambitions, and since he had de- 
 cided to marry Minnie the insecurity he had experienced 
 was rapidly discarded. He braced himself and went 
 about his duties calmly confident that another letter 
 would soon come. But when two weeks passed and his 
 intuitions were promising to play him false he lost some 
 of his self-assurance and composure. He began to won- 
 der what he ought to do, whether he ought to wait longer 
 or get Minnie's address from Amelia Rubin or the Alpha 
 Home itself. He let another week pass in the hope of a 
 letter; then he became quite troubled. He worked up 
 great annoyance with Minnie. "]ust like a senseless 
 child, she makes it necessary for me to track her," he 
 said to himself disgustedly. Yet on Sunday afternoon he 
 started off for the Alpha Home. He would go straight 
 to the superintendent, he decided, though recalling with 
 mortification that she knew him to be a close friend of 
 Minnie's. He could have spanked Minnie. 
 
 At the superintendent's office, receiving no response to 
 his rap on the door, he opened it and found a large man 
 seated in a temporary attitude on the edge of a chair.
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 423 
 
 "Oh, is nobody here?" Abraham exclaimed, entering 
 and letting the door fall shut. 
 
 A moment's hesitation and a merry twinkle came into 
 the eyes of the Irishman. 
 
 "One feels pretty much like a nobody here." His 
 twinkling eyes glanced about the room, and his nose 
 worked like an animal's on a scent. According to John 
 Maloney's standard, the Alpha Home smelt cheap. 
 
 Abraham smiled. 
 
 "I meant an official." 
 
 "Oh, ye saw me, did ye ?" Mr. Maloney almost roared. 
 "Well, the official went to fetch me an address." 
 
 The door opened, and the superintendent entered. 
 
 "It is Mildred Mendel, Young Ladies' Lodge," she read 
 from a slip of paper to Mr. Maloney, who rose from his 
 chair and stood deferentially smiling. 
 
 Abraham stared. 
 
 Mr. Maloney picked up his hat from his chair, thanked 
 the superintendent graciously, and waddled out. The 
 eyes of the woman followed him with amusement. She 
 turned to Abraham. 
 
 "I came for the same," he admitted, feeling so monu- 
 mentally foolish that he could have shaken Minnie had 
 she been on the spot. 
 
 The genial superintendent laughed. Abraham, blush- 
 ing, mumbled his thanks, and left in pursuit of Mr. Ma- 
 loney. The paper-box manufacturer must not get there 
 ahead of him. What claims had the Irishman on Min- 
 nie anyway? He made a wild dash and overtook Mr. 
 Maloney at the next corner. 
 
 "Are you Mr. Maloney ?" 
 
 "Why, yes," came the reply a little dubiously in the 
 Irishman's deep, generous voice.
 
 424 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Abraham explained that he was an old friend of Min- 
 nie's, and had been alarmed because he had not heard 
 from her for three weeks. 
 
 They traveled together on their amorous mission, con- 
 versing pleasantly, though each in a subterranean region 
 of his being wished the other in Kingdom Come. 
 
 To judge by the exterior, the Young Ladies' Lodge was 
 a hotel, while the plainness of the interior offered con- 
 tradiction. The two men were puzzled as to the correct 
 procedure for locating a dweller in this unclassifiable in- 
 stitution. Finally Mr. Maloney led the way to a counter, 
 behind which sat a girl clerk. While she was gone to an- 
 nounce the callers, Mr. Maloney gazed about the prem- 
 ises, and his far-sighted eyes peered into a remote cor- 
 ner of the sitting-room and alighted upon his former 
 stenographer sitting beside a handsome gentleman. 
 
 "By golly !" 
 
 Mr. Maloney's exclamation startled his companion 
 competitor, whose gaze, as if drawn by a magnet, traveled 
 to the same remote corner. Simultaneously the two made 
 for the corner of Great Allure, Mr. Maloney calling back 
 to the surprised clerk : 
 
 "Never mind. Don't ye bother." 
 
 Minnie did not see the two men until they were close 
 by, and then was too dum founded to give them a proper 
 greeting, much less to introduce them to Mr. Grave, who 
 had risen with her and stood nonplussed and amused by 
 the sudden manifestations of extreme embarrassment in 
 the heroine of the occasion. She was flushing scarlet to 
 the roots of her hair. 
 
 "Why Mr. Ma Why, Abraham how did you 
 
 find " She put her hand to the back of her head, 
 
 which had begun to ache.
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 425 
 
 Mr. Maloney enjoyed her confusion and let out his 
 roar. 
 
 At last she* got over with the introductions. In an 
 agony that Mr. Grave might consider her clumsy, ill- 
 mannered, ill-bred, she asked them all to be seated. 
 
 As for Abraham Ratkin, never in his life had he un- 
 dergone such a shrinkage of his importance. One of 
 three ! Minnie seemed to be skating away from him on 
 ice while he was unequipped to pursue. Mrs. Ratkin's 
 gentle son was ready to blast his two rival suitors. How- 
 ever, giving no evidence of his will to murder, he asked 
 Minnie quite quietly whether she knew how much worry 
 she nad caused him by her silence. 
 
 Minnie was so nervous and uncomfortable, wondering 
 how Mr. Grave was affected by the intrusion, whether 
 he noticed that Abraham spoke with a Yiddish intona- 
 tion, while Mr. Maloney said "a" instead of "of" and 
 "ye" instead of "you," that she feared she would break 
 down under the ordeal. At Abraham's words, she started 
 nervously. 
 
 "I didn't think about it," she answered hastily, looking 
 away. 
 
 She realized she had to make a desperate effort to pull 
 herself together. Like a person in imminent danger, she 
 gauged her plight and sought the nearest refuge persi- 
 flage. Turning to Mr. Maloney, she asked, with the 
 friskiness he loved, whether he had changed his religion 
 since she had seen him last or whether he was still hob- 
 nobbing with the Pope. She knew Mr. Maloney was an 
 atheist and would not take offiense. 
 
 As it happened, Mr. Maloney had that morning, for 
 the sake of a novel experience, visited a Christian Science 
 Church. "It may do ye good to learn," he said, "that in 
 the eyes of the Christian Scientists, I am God's perfect
 
 426 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 child. Did ye ever know that I am perfect?" he roared. 
 
 "No," Minnie laughed, "but why did you have to go to 
 others to tell you so when you could have told it to your- 
 self so much more sincerely ?" 
 
 The men laughed, and Minnie was about to ask Mr. 
 Maloney what other convenient dogmas he had carried 
 away, when Mr. Grave sent a chill through her by ask- 
 ing if either of the two gentlemen had seen Romance. It 
 was as if he were giving his and her dearest secret 
 away. 
 
 "Why do you want to know?" She interrupted, ad- 
 dressing Mr. Grave. "Mr. Maloney's heart is wrapped 
 up in paper boxes through which romance can't possibly 
 penetrate, and Mr. Ratkin employs a whole police force 
 of logic and reason to safeguard him." They laughed 
 again and the two accused felt like both shaking and 
 hugging her. 
 
 The afternoon wore on slowly for Minnie. Her head 
 ached beyond endurance, and when the three men ob- 
 serving her fatigue offered, one promptly after the other 
 to leave, her relief was immense. Each was disappointed 
 with her ready acquiescence. 
 
 On his homeward way Mr. Maloney went off into a 
 cigar-smoke revery, in which he saw Minnie in his fine 
 home sitting on his knee prattling, laughing, cutting up 
 stunts. The picture faded into the tantalizing realization 
 that she was a young girl, with young "fellers" dangling 
 after her. He felt his middle age more than ever and 
 cursed his superfluous avoirdupois. He decided he might 
 as well step out of the game. 
 
 Abraham went home irritated with this nonsense of 
 Minnie's holding off, and he resolved upon another and 
 immediate visit when he would make a quick end of 
 matters.
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 427 
 
 As for Mr. Grave, he fell to thinking of a tennis-play- 
 ing, horseback-riding Gibson girl in the West to whom 
 he was engaged. 
 
 XLIX 
 
 The bands business was coming to nothing. 
 
 Leopold and Sarah could no longer close their eyes to 
 the disaster staring them in the face. Mrs. Tannenbaum 
 had reached the end of her imagination for advice. The 
 Mira Cohen woman, she said, had given up bands long 
 before and was making money in other kinds of milli- 
 nery; but, then, of course, Mira Cohen had relatives in 
 Boston. 
 
 They considered projects for a new business, but the 
 hardships connected with such a move at their time of 
 life seemed insurmountable, and they deluded themselves 
 into momentary cheerfulness with the hope that hat styles 
 might, after all, change and bands become fashionable 
 again. For Sarah their consultations always ended in 
 helpless despair, while Leopold regularly reverted in his 
 mind to a scheme which he hesitated to impart to Sarah. 
 
 At the end of a week in which not a single dollar had 
 been taken in, he plucked up courage and spoke. 
 
 "Sarah," he said, "the girls are grown-up and self- 
 supporting. How would it be for us to make a change 
 altogether?" 
 
 "A change altogether? How? What do you mean?" 
 
 Leopold ran his fingers through his graying hair. 
 Sarah's eyes followed the movement, and a pang shot 
 through her. Not so long ago she and Leopold had been 
 young lovers ; now she, too, was gray. Life was a chain 
 of gray circumstances. 
 
 "I have been thinking for a long time that we could
 
 428 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 just drop everything here and go to South Africa. It's 
 easier to start something new in a new place than in an 
 old- place." 
 
 Sarah was somehow not surprised, as if she had ex- 
 pected this very suggestion. She was in that state of de- 
 jection in which nothing startles. In an instant she took 
 in the full significance of the suggestion. She lowered 
 her head and made no reply. Her heart filled with a 
 blank mournfulness at the prospect of going to new sur- 
 roundings, away from everything and everybody familiar. 
 In her weary brain there rose a vision of her Jacob grown 
 to large manhood, and Ida and Beckie to womanhood. 
 To leave them behind! She saw Minnie as she had 
 looked the night of the graduation. . . . Sarah's mother 
 heart was torn with anguish. 
 
 Leopold continued rather ruefully : 
 
 "We are growing older. A new business here might 
 not be successful, we might lose our money. Then 
 what?" He raised his eyes to hers. "I don't know how 
 you feel about it, but I would not like to become de- 
 pendent upon the children." 
 
 Dependent! Sarah was startled out of her mood. 
 She would rather die, she cried, than be dependent upon 
 anybody, whether childern, mother, brother, father, even 
 husband. In an access of vigor she rose from her seat 
 and went about small tasks. 
 
 Neither spoke for a long while. Leopold broke the 
 silence to say he had to go out, and urged her gently to 
 consider the South African proposition seriously. 
 
 "But it will cost a great deal to get there. What if we 
 should not be successful?" 
 
 Leopold assured her there was no reason why they 
 should not be successful, since a small investment in any
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 429 
 
 business in South Africa would yield them a living, and 
 all they needed for their few remaining years was simply 
 a living, respectable independence. 
 
 They smiled wistfully, and Sarah, before he went out, 
 promised to think it over. She went about her tasks 
 slowly and preoccupied. For a long time past, life, for 
 all its other stress, had at least been free from economic 
 worry, and she wondered wherein she and Leopold had 
 so sinned that the very business they had chosen should 
 decline. Here her mind rested as if to absorb the fact 
 that things were really as bad as they thought. It seemed 
 impossible that their circumstances had come to a pass 
 that necessitated their contemplating so drastic a step 
 as migration to a remote corner of the earth, away from 
 everything and everybody they knew. A harrowing sense 
 of loneliness and despair overcame her, and in an effort 
 to save herself she clutched at the thought that other 
 mothers did allow themselves to be supported by their 
 children quite naturally. But this she could not contem- 
 plate. "Not for me, not for me!" she cried to herself 
 and hurried on with her work. 
 
 Abraham came again to call on Minnie the Wednesday 
 after the visit of the three. Without any preliminaries 
 he launched upon the subject of his proposal, and in al- 
 most a single breath begged her to discard trifling, to 
 think and speak soberly, and to bear in mind the serious- 
 ness of the matter. 
 
 "But Abraham, I have told you how I feel," she pro- 
 tested. 
 
 "You have not even given the matter consideration.
 
 430 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 How then can I accept anything you say as your de- 
 cision ?" 
 
 "But I don't love you. People don't have to think 
 whether they are in love or not." Minnie felt a hysteri- 
 cal determination to have the matter over with, and not 
 to allow his apparent reasonableness to reduce her, as it 
 always had, to impotence. 
 
 Abraham flushed and stared at her. He had a sinking 
 sensation. He felt adrift as though landmarks had sud- 
 denly been removed. His unnatural flush was succeeded 
 by a still more unnatural pallor. Minnie was genuinely 
 pained. 
 
 "Abraham, I'm awfully sorry. I really am. I wouldn't 
 hurt you or anybody for the world. But what can I do? 
 I don't love you." The tears were in her eyes and voice. 
 Abraham felt himself suspended in mid-air. There are 
 some people who are never prepared for a disturbance of 
 their serenity. They live in a peculiar security of belief 
 that while evil may befall others, they themselves will 
 always be immune. 
 
 Abraham, unable to look the future now threatening 
 in the face, abandoned himself to passionate pleading. 
 
 "Minnie dear, you don't mean you have seriously de- 
 cided not to marry me? Take time to think. I will be 
 good to you. I would sacrifice my life for you. You 
 are alone and need someone to be devoted to you. What 
 would I not do for you ! You are dearer to me than my 
 own life." He took her hand in his. 
 
 Pity and then aversion swept over Minnie, like a wind 
 that leaves behind a trail of dust. 
 
 "Abraham, please Oh, Abraham, I can't. I don't 
 
 feel well. Please don't excite me." 
 
 She began to cry. Abraham, agonized, released her
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 431 
 
 hands, but still continued to plead, leaning eagerly for- 
 ward in his chair. 
 
 "Won't you take time to think about it?" he asked, his 
 voice quivering. 
 
 Minnie wiped her eyes. 
 
 "Abraham, I haven't been feeling well. I get such 
 headaches and palpitations. Please don't upset me so. I 
 am sorry for you but I am not happy myself either. I 
 can't bear to make you so miserable." 
 
 He sat helpless for a moment ; then, becoming mindful 
 of the virtue of self-forgetfulness in the face of distress, 
 he urged her to calm herself, assuring her he had not 
 meant to upset her so and impressing upon her that if she 
 was not well, she ought to go to a doctor. He soon rose 
 to go. 
 
 When the front door closed on Abraham, Minnie stood 
 in the hall utterly numb, in a state of mental collapse. 
 A ruthless hand was drawing and twisting her vitals. 
 She could not have told how she got upstairs and into 
 bed. And bed was no relief, nor was it a relief to close 
 her burning lids. The thoughts came crowding; every 
 detail of the evening was a separate torment, every word 
 of Abraham's pleading, her own answers, her tears. She 
 had cried again. She was thoroughly mortified ; she had 
 no patience with this new thing her facile overflows. 
 The whole scene had been obnoxious, Abraham's part in 
 it, her own part in it. Somehow it should not have oc- 
 curred. And Mr. Maloney's proposal and Morris Cap- 
 lan's two proposals should not have occurred. Each de- 
 tail of these events became a separate torment. She felt 
 as if it would never be possible for her to stop her 
 thoughts, as if she had to submit to them as to a hard 
 master. And she was so tired, so dreadfully, so unnat- 
 urally, so unmercifully tired! . . . "You ought to go to
 
 432 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 a doctor," sounded Abraham's voice. Abraham was so 
 earnest, so whole-souled, so trustworthy, good as gold 
 her pal of Henry Street. He needed her to make him 
 happy. She felt mean and worthless to inflict suffering 
 upon him instead. A deep longing for the power to love 
 him to make him happy possessed her. But she re- 
 mained cold. . . . With sudden passion, feeling hope- 
 lessly abandoned, lonely, she cried to herself : "Oh, if 
 
 only I had someone to tell it all to someone " A 
 
 hard-hearted mother standing over an over-worked little 
 Beckie flitted before her closed eyes. 
 
 The rising bell clanged upon a deep sleep which had 
 not come until morning. Minnie dressed with a heart 
 palpitating from the shock of the awakening; the comb 
 fell from her hands ; she fumbled with her shoe laces ; 
 dressing seemed to be an endless, insurmountable diffi- 
 culty. She left the breakfast table for work without a 
 mouthful of food; she could not swallow even a cup of 
 coffee. 
 
 For days Abraham was the most wretched lover that 
 has ever found himself spurned. He hated the food he 
 ate, his daily routine, the voice and the sight of his 
 mother, whose design it had been to bring this very mis- 
 ery upon him. 
 
 Each succeeding visit to Minnie only drove a new nail 
 into the coffin of his hopes. She remained unshaken. 
 The fact that Minnie Mendel, his playmate of Henry 
 Street, was unwilling to be his wife, finally struck him 
 as unalterable, and a pall of gloom settled upon his heart. 
 His step became heavy as a middle-aged man's ; his spir- 
 its crumpled up like a dried plant.
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 433 
 
 To add to his unhappiness he began to suffer the pangs 
 of jealousy. Minnie, it had become evident to him, was 
 in love with Mr. Grave. On his regular Sunday visits he 
 invariably met the delightful gentleman in her company. 
 When Abraham would observe her flush and quiver 
 under Mr. Grave's gaze or touch or praise, it took every 
 bit of his self-control not to evince the concern he felt 
 on her account yes, he assured himself, wholly on her 
 account. Very obviously Mr. Grave was not in love with 
 Minnie, and in any circumstances the affair was objec- 
 tionable because Mr. Grave was a Gentile. Abraham was 
 very Jewish in his feelings. He believed so much in the 
 individuality of his people that he gave his support to 
 the Zionist movement, which has for its program the re- 
 establishment of Palestine as a Jewish homeland. The 
 time came when he could no longer maintain silence. He 
 warned Minnie. To fall in love, he said, with a man to 
 whom she was so obviously only a pastime was quixotic. 
 
 Minnie turned pale, bit her lips, suppressed the resent- 
 ment that rose in her heart, and told him with dignity 
 that it was her own private affair, and he was taking a 
 liberty in giving her unsolicited advice. 
 
 Abraham's warning, however, had its effect upon Min- 
 nie. Thereafter she carefully weighed Mr. Grave's at- 
 tentions, placing her own feelings in the balance. Each 
 time he left the office with the least show of haste, her 
 heart stood still in an agony of doubt. If he loved her, 
 she reasoned, he would never for any reason be in a hurry 
 to leave her. She would watch for his smile of approval 
 as a mother watches for the smile of an ailing child, and 
 if a Sunday passed on which he did not come to see her, 
 the whole world was wrapped in gloom. When they were 
 alone together, she would tremble with the anticipation of 
 his love avowal, tortured all the while by the sound of
 
 434 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Abraham's voice telling her mockingly that she was only 
 a pastime. 
 
 She began to look pale and pinched and to act so mirth- 
 lessly that Abraham, whose kind heart was torn to its 
 core, took his courage in his hands once more, and, pre- 
 pared for any sacrifice of Minnie's good-will, warned her 
 a second time, on this occasion going the full length of 
 explicitness. It was obvious, he said, that Mr. Grave 
 enjoyed her company, but so far as marriage was con- 
 cerned, his mind was as remote from it as from the 
 Pacific Ocean. 
 
 Minnie turned upon him like a tigress. 
 
 "You take the liberties of a relative," she burst out. 
 "If you had the least delicacy of feeling, you would keep 
 quiet. I hate you. Please don't ever come to see me 
 again." They were out walking and she quit him then 
 and there to rush back to the Young Ladies' Lodge, where 
 she threw herself on her bed, her soul writhing in an 
 agony of doubt. . Every little thing Mr. Grave had ever 
 done to indicate liking rather than love rose to torture 
 her. 
 
 As for poor Abraham, he returned home an even sad- 
 der man. The night held no sleep for him, and in the 
 morning he poured out his full heart on paper. When 
 he posted the letter to Minnie, a hope like a fervent 
 prayer rose within him that his written word at least 
 might reach her soul. 
 
 DEAREST MINNIE: 
 
 The psychological steps resulting in action take place in the 
 following order: thinking, feeling, willing, acting. In a 
 strong mind all these processes are strong; in a weak mind 
 they are weak. Therefore, after reading the tale of woe I 
 hereby relate, betraying my strong feeling, do not condemn 
 me as a weakling. I am far from being that.
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 435 
 
 Neither should you convict me as being filled with great pas- 
 sion. You well know how my conduct toward you is absolutely 
 free from anything passionate, not because I am a prude, but 
 partly because I respect you and know you would not tolerate 
 anything material and, above all, because my training has put 
 my passions under my control, so that I must make an effort 
 to yield to them. All moral people are that way. 
 
 Nor can you call me a boy. My training has made me men- 
 tally older than my years, and the preliminary economic 
 struggle, of which you know much yourself, has broadened 
 my mind more than the average young man's of my age. I 
 deprecate self-laudation, but I have friends older than my- 
 self who, I know, are fond of me. 
 
 Finally, Minnie, do not think I am excited. I can prove my 
 sanity even now on the question under discussion, even on the 
 two individuals under consideration. I proposed to you after 
 mature deliberation, for I had thought about it long before 
 you ever suspected. When I met you while I was still at college, 
 I loved you, and you seemed unable to believe that I really 
 meant it. Then, later, you assured me that I did not mean it, 
 even if I thought so, for if I did, I could not find so much fault 
 with you. Oh, Minnie, it is because I love you that I want to 
 exert a good influence over you. I have been waiting patiently 
 for you to come to this understanding, but, instead, you seem to 
 be turning to other men who do not criticize you, thinking that 
 by this they prove that they have greater regard for you. It 
 is not so. 
 
 I do not know how to write poetically. I have not read 
 enough novels to have learned the tactics of winning a woman's 
 heart. I must confine myself to the truth in my own crude way. 
 But I am sure you will recognize it as the truth. The Talmud 
 says : "Words that leave the heart enter the heart." 
 
 Please do not consider the following a flattery of myself. 
 You must admit that it is an accurate analysis of your mind. 
 You cannot stand injustice. I have tried to make you believe 
 that this quality is Judaic, and you have interpreted me as 
 being narrow-minded, as desiring to influence you against 
 association with Gentiles. I have tried to make you see 
 that the work that you are spending your strength on now,
 
 436 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 like your promiscuous attempts to make converts to a mis- 
 conceived Socialism before, is a waste of time. The work 
 you are doing now is good enough for the men and women 
 who see conditions only on the surface. For real thinking 
 men and women the trouble lies too deep to be cured by 
 such a mild measure. For trying to exercise my influence 
 upon you, I have gained only your displeasure ; but if it has 
 also jeopardized my chances for ever gaining your love, then 
 you have allowed yourself to feel too great displeasure to be 
 fair to me. 
 
 Oh, Minnie, I love you so ! I love you with every bit of my- 
 self, with every throb of my heart In these months of uncer- 
 tainty let me tell you how I have spent my time. It was much 
 like years ago when I was a boy and had a toothache. I would 
 long for the day at night and for the night by day, in the hope 
 of getting relief. So it has been these months. I have longed 
 one day for the next in the hope of getting some encouragement 
 from you. When the uncertainty of my future dawns upon me, 
 when I think of having to live without you my skin quivers, my 
 eyes fill with tears, and I must perforce think of something else. 
 I wish I could invoke the aid of Shakespeare's analytical mind 
 and Milton's muses to describe to you my suffering. I have not 
 read a single page of anything in weeks, although I sit for hours 
 at my books. I loathe the very food that is set before me. I 
 am miserable without you. The world looks so uninteresting and 
 so hollow with all the room for charity! Tears roll down my 
 cheeks as I write now. I shudder at the wretched life that I 
 may have to live. 
 
 The Talmud says : "Forty days before the birth of the in- 
 fant, a voice from heaven proclaims: 'The son of this man for 
 the daughter of this man.' " Oh, Minnie, I feel that we two 
 were destined for each other. Can you think of Henry Street 
 and feel otherwise? Why, Minnie, don't you remember the 
 lunch hour we spent in the air-shaft when the refuse came 
 down on our heads, and the afternoon we spent afterwards in 
 Rutgers Street Park? 
 
 Even if I try to direct you, with me you would live the free 
 life of a bird, for I believe in the freedom of women. Your life 
 with me would be replete with real joys and real pains even a
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 437 
 
 bird has pains. What man or woman understands you better 
 than I do? None. Oh, Minnie, I feel our souls are counter- 
 parts of each other; fused together they would form a living 
 symphony. 
 
 And does the thought ever occur to you that you would dis- 
 card Abraham for a broader-minded man? (I hereby affirm 
 that I have no individual in mind.) [Can it be that Abraham 
 was not thinking here of Mr. Grave?] How unjust! Minnie, 
 you who want and strive to be so just, can you feel about me 
 that I am narrow-minded because I do not approve of every- 
 thing you do and say? You cannot condemn me so and dis- 
 card me! Our souls are too tightly entwined in each other's. 
 You have been my biggest influence all the years. Have I not 
 been any influence in your life at all? If you should tear your- 
 self away from me a part of you would ever be with me. No 
 man can have you complete. Oh, Minnie ! 
 
 Now I suffer. I am miserable. But at times I am hopeful. 
 Should that hope be shattered I will live always a hollow ex- 
 istence, my strong sense of duty keeping my body up. 
 
 You may do what you like live away from your family, 
 quarrel with them, continue in your Settlement work, you may 
 burn, kill, steal I will love you. My love for you is as much 
 a fact as the sun. I hereby state that I would sacrifice my 
 honor for you. Thinking people agree that this and this only 
 is true love. 
 
 Dearest Minnie, say yes ! 
 
 Dearest Minnie, say yes ! 
 
 The man whose life you are, 
 
 ABRAHAM. 
 
 LI 
 
 At sight of the thick letter lying on her desk in the 
 Settlement the next morning, Minnie fell into a nervous 
 tremor; she could scarcely tear the envelope open. But 
 she read her lover's outpouring from beginning to end.
 
 438 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 She went about her work dully, under the shock of the 
 first realization of Abraham's intensity of feeling. It 
 dragged on her like a load. She could not cope with it ; 
 she could not meet his ardor with even the feeblest glow. 
 To be unresponsive to such love seemed to indicate a 
 meanness in herself. Abraham was good, he deserved 
 her love. She had been hard. With her mind, of course, 
 she had taken in that he, well not exactly that he loved 
 her his feelings had never impressed her as love. Now 
 she was moved profoundly. But what could she do? She 
 chided herself endlessly for her unresponsiveness. Her 
 sense of guilt was making her wretched. 
 
 At lunch hour she read the letter over again. Para- 
 graphs struck her that had been overshadowed in the first 
 reading. Abraham wrote that if she listened .to an inner 
 voice, she would hear that she loved him. As if she were 
 superficial! Abraham always acted as though he knew 
 her inner feelings better than she did herself. And there 
 he was saying again that Mr. Grave had no regard for 
 her. So she construed : "You seem to be turning to other 
 men who do not criticize you, thinking that they thereby 
 prove they have greater regard for you." And upon this 
 thought, that Mr. Grave had no regard for her, her mind 
 dwelt persistently until, in her sensitiveness, the two short 
 lines were trumpeting: "You are nothing but an insig- 
 nificant little Jew girl from the dirty East Side with a 
 charity record behind you; a mere nobody even yet in 
 a working-girls' home." 
 
 "Hello, girlie!" called Mr. Grave from the threshold. 
 "How are you? There's so much work waiting for me 
 upstairs that I haven't the time even to talk about the 
 weather." 
 
 Mr. Grave made no reference to a thick letter from
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 439 
 
 the West in his breast-pocket, which he was hurrying up 
 to his room to read. 
 
 After he disappeared, Minnie kept staring into the hall 
 to retain the mental vision of his elastic figure bounding 
 up the stairs. She felt tremulously in need of him of 
 the greater perfection he stood for. The next morning 
 Abraham was marvelling at her cruelty. She had writ- 
 ten him a short, cold letter. 
 
 LII 
 
 Abraham, who had resigned himself to a period of 
 waiting, during which he trusted circumstances would 
 right themselves, continued to visit Minnie, though he 
 sedulously refrained from speaking his mind, even when 
 he felt that doing so would hasten her restoration to 
 sanity. 
 
 As for Mr. Grave, he kept up his rainbow appearances 
 in Minnie's sky, leaving behind sunshine or. clouds, ac- 
 cording to the degree of his friendliness. His manner 
 was so unfailingly affable and he showed, on the whole, 
 so much pleasure in her company even when he re- 
 mained only a moment or two that by degrees the effect 
 of Abraham's comments almost wore off. 
 
 But her health began to suffer. She lost her appetite, 
 and slept poorly, and always felt fagged. In addition 
 Ida and Beckie brought distressing news of the business 
 and the South African project. Within a short time a 
 vast amount of maturity seemed to settle upon Minnie. 
 She brooded over her mother's hard lot and charged her- 
 self with having contributed to it. She impressed herself 
 now as having been the intolerant one, the peace dis- 
 turber. Everything would have been different, she im-
 
 440 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 agined self -accusingly, had she not left home. Often it 
 tortured her that she might have gone to college and de- 
 veloped into a person whom Mr. Grave could look upon 
 as fit for him, while her own love sufferings made her 
 regard her mother's marriage as quite a natural thing and 
 gave her a sense of guilt toward Leopold. For Abraham 
 she felt a new kindness and warmth ; her manner became 
 more patient, her every act gentler. Her thoughts went 
 back penitently to Morris Caplan, to the peremptoriness 
 with which she had dismissed him, and she had inter- 
 mittent impulses to write and tell him she regretted her 
 harshness. And now and then a feeling of moral re- 
 sponsibility toward Louis "the paintner" stabbed her soul. 
 She seemed to have been drawn out of herself into a 
 
 world of others. 
 
 ****** 
 
 No sooner had Sarah consented to the South African 
 plan than she was assailed by a brood of ominous fears. 
 The parting framed itself in her mind as a definite one 
 for all time. She would never return, never see her 
 children again. Inevitably regrets began to stir in her 
 breast. She blamed herself unreservedly for not having 
 hunted Minnie up as soon as the child left home. Though 
 she dreaded making the admission to her own soul, she 
 believed superstitiously that this new visitation was the 
 chastisement for her conduct, and pictured herself in all 
 sorts of attitudes, begging Minnie to forgive her. Often 
 she retired into privacy to wring her hands and sob out 
 her grief. 
 
 During the weeks that Sarah had held off without mak- 
 ing up her mind regarding South Africa Leopold had 
 waited eagerly for her assent, so that his first reaction 
 when she gave it was relief ; but as he began to visualize
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 441 
 
 the possible course of their life in South Africa, he re- 
 called that his previous sojourn there had not been ex- 
 actly "golden," and came to the conclusion, after much 
 thought, that it would be wiser for him to go alone and 
 if he found conditions favorable, send for Sarah after- 
 ward. He told Sarah so. She stared at him as if he 
 had slapped her, undergoing the agonies of the deserted 
 wife deserted, she wailed inwardly, because her bands 
 business was no longer her alluring partner. Leopold 
 surmised what was going on in her mind. He took her 
 in his arms. 
 
 "My dear," he said, "you are more precious to me than 
 ever. Don't think with this trouble upon us both I would 
 desert you." He stooped and kissed her. She began to 
 weep. "I want to go ahead because I think it will be 
 safer. I do not want you to go to hardships. Upon my 
 honor as a man, I will let you know the moment I can 
 whether it is safe for you to come, and if it is not I will 
 come right back to you. We will suffer together, not 
 apart." 
 
 They embraced and wept silently. 
 
 Soon afterwards Leopold decided upon the date of his 
 sailing and bought his ticket. 
 
 The household became enveloped in gloom. Even the 
 girls, who by now had become accustomed to Leopold 
 and his ways, and in whose heart he had found a place, 
 were saddened by the approaching departure. In this 
 period he treated them with an even more marked pa- 
 ternal kindness and gentleness than he had been showing 
 since the business had begun to decline and his hair to 
 turn gray. When they returned from visits to Minnie, 
 he would listen to what they had to say of her with an 
 interest he had never before shown. Once or twice he
 
 442 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 found Sarah watching him intently and dropped his eyes, 
 wondering whether she guessed that he was feeling re- 
 morseful and that he wished now more than ever that 
 Minnie had not spurned the home. 
 
 One night, not long before the day of his leaving, 
 Sarah asked him diffidently whether he would consent 
 to go to the Settlement with her to say good-by to Min- 
 nie. With some impatience, somehow anxious to hide his 
 true feelings, he declined, though the jerk of his shoul- 
 ders and his overemphasis revealed to his wife his real 
 wish in the matter that Minnie should come to him. 
 
 All night Sarah tossed from side to side, hardly daring 
 to formulate the plan that burned within her. In the 
 morning she braced herself to the execution of it. As 
 soon as Leopold and the girls left the house, she donned 
 her street clothes and made for the Academy Settlement. 
 If Leopold would not go to Minnie, she would bring 
 Minnie to him. 
 
 Strong as was her resolution, she was dragged back by 
 doubts and fears as to how Minnie would receive her. 
 She stopped time and again on the street to draw a deep 
 breath. Her spirit was faint. Her very soul seemed to 
 be graying. When she reached the building, she looked 
 about cautiously as if in dread of an attack, then en- 
 tered the vestibule, where she stood a moment or two 
 shifting her weight from one foot to the other. A man 
 entered and she inquired timidly for the office. "At the 
 head of the stairs." She waited for the man to disap- 
 pear before she plodded up the steep flight. 
 
 The office door was closed. Sarah stood outside grasp- 
 ing the knob nervously, fearful of turning it. It moved 
 a little, and she started. Her upper lip twitched inces- 
 santly. Her short black jacket and black skirt, sagging
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 443 
 
 in the back, accentuated the forlornness of her figure. A 
 few strands of hair escaped from under her hat and lay 
 along the side of her cheeks. Her lips were blue, and 
 her face, though pale, looked heated. Small beads of 
 perspiration stood out on her forehead. Whenever she 
 thought she heard footsteps she would look about the hall 
 cautiously and bring a sickly smile to her face, thinking 
 her smile would make the object of her presence less 
 obvious. 
 
 "God in heaven, will she chase me out? Will she chase 
 me out?" her heart cried. The lines on her face would 
 have made a stone weep with sympathy. 
 
 At last she gained the courage to open the door par- 
 tially, but instantly let it fall shut again. 
 
 Minnie, who was alone in the office and was attracted 
 by the mysterious swinging of the door, was too preoc- 
 cupied, however, to rise and investigate. 
 
 "Minnie! Minnele!" Sarah wailed behind the closed 
 door, wringing her hands. She took a deep breath, and 
 ventured to open the door again, a little wider. She con- 
 trolled the workings of her face to frame a smile, though 
 the tears streamed down her cheeks, and thrust her head 
 in a little way. 
 
 Minnie's eyes met her mother's. Sarah opened the 
 door still farther, exposing her full front. Minnie rose 
 from her chair and stared, actually believing that she 
 beheld an apparition. 
 
 Sarah entered quickly, letting the door fall shut behind 
 her. 
 
 "What's the matter, mama?" cried Minnie, rushing to 
 her, for Sarah looked ghastly. 
 
 Sarah gulped. Unable to bring out a word, she broke 
 down in a fit of weeping. Minnie stood helplessly at her
 
 444 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 side for a moment or two, possessed by that sense of un- 
 reality in which people can do things altogether alien to 
 them. In all the periods of brooding about her mother, 
 Minnie had never thought of reconciliation, and now she 
 took her in her arms and kissed and petted her and talked 
 caressingly. 
 
 "Don't cry, mama. Come and sit down. Don't cry, 
 mama." She led Sarah to a chair. She removed her hat 
 and put the loose strands of hair in place, her heart ach- 
 ing at their grayness. Minnie bent over her, put her 
 arms about Sarah's shoulders and laid her head against 
 hers. "Mama, don't cry. Why are you crying?" Then, 
 waiting by Sarah's side, she stood silent, helpless, pale 
 and trembling. 
 
 It was fully ten minutes before Sarah could master her- 
 self. Then she asked Minnie to sit down and wanted to 
 know if there was any objection to her being there, if she 
 was taking Minnie's time against the rules of the insti- 
 tution. Minnie, eager to put her mother at ease, reas- 
 sured her with feigned sprightliness. 
 
 At last Sarah spoke of the purpose of her coming. 
 
 "Your uncle," she said, "is going to South Africa. It 
 is a long way and you may never see him again. If any- 
 one was at fault for the past, I was more to blame than 
 he. God forgives, too. Come and say good-by to him 
 and let him sail with a glad heart. He loves you. It will 
 make me happy, too." 
 
 The sight of a proud person humbled in repentance is 
 keen misery. Minnie suffered at seeing her mother so 
 reduced. It was too much for her in her overwrought 
 condition. A great faintness was stealing upon her ; she 
 made a prodigious effort not to succumb and said huskily
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 445 
 
 that she herself had been to blame; she had been too 
 young to know better. 
 
 The two were silent, struggling to conquer a multitude 
 of emotions. 
 
 Voices sounded in the hall, and Minnie, thinking she 
 heard Dr. Evangel and not wanting him to find her idle, 
 hurriedly assured Sarah that she would come that very 
 evening. Sarah, assuming that Minnie wanted her to 
 leave, rose, but the voices receded, and Minnie, who 
 feared that she might have appeared anxious for her 
 mother to leave and have hurt her feelings, urged 
 her to stay, and mustered up a fictitious vivacity. She 
 chatted about all her affairs, her proposals of marriage, 
 her lovely position, and, finally, to enliven Sarah par- 
 ticularly, told of Chayim Schlopoborsky, upon whom, she 
 remembered clearly, Sarah had many a time wished ill 
 luck. Now was the moment when she could have her 
 satisfaction. To Minnie's surprise, however, Sarah only 
 looked away and muttered mournfully : 
 
 "Poor man ! Poor, poor man !" 
 
 What had changed her mother so? Minnie wondered 
 sadly. 
 
 "My dear child," Sarah broke out after a pause, "Mr. 
 Caplan is a rich man ; you are a poor, homeless girl, and 
 you are not very strong. You were in the Helina Hei- 
 math once. Look how pale and thin you are. All you 
 need is a few years of hard work and what is to pre- 
 vent you from landing there a second time ? You should 
 think carefully before you throw such a chance over." 
 The mother sighed and wiped her eyes. A feeling of ill 
 omen shot through Minnie, followed by an almost over- 
 powering faintness. She had a flitting wish that her 
 mother would leave. Simultaneously Sarah rose saying
 
 446 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 that she had better go. Minnie accompanied her to the 
 door, where Sarah made her reiterate her promise to 
 visit them that very evening. She kissed her daughter 
 and left. 
 
 Before Minnie had time to overcome the effects of the 
 momentous visit, Mr. Grave came skipping up the stairs 
 and bounded into the office. Minnie stared at him un- 
 seeingly. Mr. Grave, who had no eyes for the girl's 
 startling pallor, cried happily : 
 
 "Say, Miss Friskie, what do you think ? The best girl 
 in the world is coming this afternoon." He took a tele- 
 gram from his pocket. "It's a great surprise to me. 
 She's coming Marjorie Bell we're engaged, you 
 know." He fairly danced about the room. 
 
 The ground slipped from beneath Minnie's feet, some- 
 thing whirled round and round in her brain. Then every- 
 thing became a big black blur. 
 
 She found herself in bed at the Young Ladies' Lodge. 
 It was the day after her promised visit home. 
 
 LIII 
 
 When at half-past eight Minnie had not yet come, 
 Sarah, a little worried, said to Leopold: "Maybe she is 
 detained in the office." By nine o'clock she felt very un- 
 comfortable and maintained silence. By half-past nine a 
 horrid suspicion possessed her a suspicion that her 
 daughter had only pretended friendliness and had lied 
 when she had said she would come. She kept her eyes 
 averted from Leopold's and started at every sound in the 
 hall. At half-past ten she turned to Leopold in a frenzy 
 of indignation, and cried: "Did you ever meet with such
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 447 
 
 confounded duplicity in your life?" Leopold, full of 
 pity for his wife, turned away and said nothing. 
 
 Four days later, a few hours after Leopold had em- 
 barked for South Africa, a postal card came from Min- 
 nie, purposely couched in the past tense in order to spare 
 her mother worry, explaining that she had been ill and 
 saying she hoped to visit them in a few days. As Sarah 
 had told Minnie just when Leopold would sail, the girl's 
 apparent evasiveness incensed her so that jhe tore the 
 card into bits and flung it from her as though it were a 
 reptile. 
 
 After this Minnie's name might not be mentioned in 
 the household; Ida certainly, and even Beckie, were im- 
 bued with their mother's sense of outrage. Ida took it 
 upon herself to write Minnie a note telling her that they 
 were "on" to her tricks. 
 
 It had taken much effort for Minnie to shake off her 
 torpidity and write the card. After it was despatched 
 she lay back in bed wondering who of the family would 
 come to see her. The next day the letter in Ida's hand- 
 writing was brought to her; for no definite reason the 
 sight of it filled her with misgivings. Everything now, 
 voices, footsteps, the faintest sounds set her heart gal- 
 loping. 
 
 She took in the contents of the letter in a blurred sort 
 of way, for after the first sentence or two her mind 
 seemed to stop functioning. She read it again. Each 
 word stung, tore, cut. . . . She let it drop from her 
 hands and fell in a heap upon the bed weeping and moan- 
 ing until she was exhausted. . . . When she recovered 
 herself, she did as Sarah had done with her card ; tore the 
 letter into tiny pieces and flung it from her as though it 
 were a reptile. They were a nasty, suspicious lot; she
 
 448 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 would never in her life have anything more to do with 
 them. 
 
 As the next few days brought no change in her con- 
 dition, she sent word to Ella Liebman, who, in turn, sent 
 word to Abraham, and the two consulted with the physi- 
 cian. His diagnosis was "nervous prostration." By their 
 prompt endeavors Minnie was despatched to a New Jer- 
 sey hill, where diversion, rest, fresh air, good food were 
 
 to work her recovery. 
 
 ****** 
 
 For weeks Minnie lay unable to exert herself. She 
 would wonder and wonder, as her mother long ago had 
 wondered about Elias, how she had become so ill when 
 it seemed as if she had felt well only the day before her 
 collapse. She had forgotten how for weeks she had 
 dragged herself around and had hidden her exhaustion 
 beneath chatter and laughter. We always reach the end 
 of our tether unexpectedly. 
 
 She was so tremulous now, so constantly beset by 
 fears and worries ! She hated herself for being afraid of 
 the least little thing. Her heart pounded at the sight of 
 anyone and anything; the prospect of disapproval sent 
 her into a veritable panic, destroyed completely every ves- 
 tige of her self-confidence and foolishly magnified the 
 might of others. She was full of weakness and meek- 
 ness, both of which she resented as if with another self, 
 a stronger and yet an ineffective self. And how the 
 thought of an unpleasant letter made her tremble ! 
 
 Her friends thought, wrongly, that she was brooding 
 over Mr. Grave. The fact was, he had been dispelled 
 from her mind as by a magic wand. She seemed even to 
 lack the power to think of him. 
 
 "Then what do you think about all the time while you
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 449 
 
 lie silent with your forehead wrinkled ?" Abraham would 
 ask. 
 
 "Nothing especially. I am so tired all the time." 
 
 She would have told him, had she thought he could 
 understand, of fears that stole upon her with the slimy 
 wariness of a burglar in the night, how she struggled 
 against them furiously as if in defense of her life. She 
 would have told him of moods of foamy lightness, differ- 
 ent from the light moods of before; they always held 
 a diabolic threat, the threat of bursting like bubbles and 
 scattering fears fears 
 
 She feared death she feared a mean letter she 
 feared a scolding. Fear held her in a relentless grip. If 
 her breath came short she would grow rigid, and wait 
 transfixed, for the awful horror, death, to descend upon 
 her. When her breath came normally again, she would 
 laugh at herself and reason against her foolishness; she 
 would say to herself, sanely enough, that death was the 
 common fate of all and it mattered little whether it came 
 to-day or later. But did her breath come short again, 
 her reason was trampled under foot, and fear rode over 
 her heart in ruthless disregard of her sanity, torturing 
 her so that only by the mightiest will did she hold from 
 shrieking for help. A maniac desire would possess her 
 to run the full length of the universe out of reach of the 
 horrible demon, death. She would have wished to strike 
 out against it with the giant might of a beast. . . . And 
 when the inward struggle was over, she would lie, her 
 face pale, her energy spent, her eyes red-rimmed and 
 tearful, her soul limp. 
 
 The agonies of the damned must be mild in compari- 
 son with the mental torments of the patrons of that com- 
 monly supposed pseudo-illness, nervous prostration.
 
 450 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Abraham Ratkin, who promptly proceeded to supply 
 himself with a store of information on the subject of ner- 
 vous breakdowns, arrived at the generally accepted theory 
 that distractions and activity should be forced upon the 
 patient. 
 
 "I don't feel like walking now." 
 
 "But you must." 
 
 Tearful, tired, Minnie, outwardly acquiescent, would 
 get up and walk until too exhausted to go farther. 
 
 "You have no will power." 
 
 In the early stages of the illness when Abraham made 
 this charge, she would be crushed with the absurd dread 
 that he might yes, strike her; and though she knew it 
 was absurd, she would cower pitifully, gulp and choke 
 and remain silent, struggling against another terror 
 that she might shriek out loud and so betray her insanity. 
 
 But later, when a little of her strength came back, she 
 attempted refutations. 
 
 "You think I am sick from sheer stubbornness." 
 
 "No, I think everything depends upon exerting will 
 power. If you would make up your mind that you are 
 well, you would be well." 
 
 "But maybe the reason I can't make up my mind is 
 because I am sick." 
 
 "You seem to know more than eminent physicians." 
 
 "I am having the experience and am not exactly an 
 idiot. Even a dumb animal knows when he feels sick ; 
 why shouldn't I?" 
 
 So their conversations would always end in mutual dis- 
 approval. 
 
 Abraham, who now had no rivals in devotion to Min- 
 nie, felt entitled to the veritable obedience that husbands 
 may exact. When he found Minnie holding to her own
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 451 
 
 way in spite of her weakness, it was as if ice drippings 
 were trickling down on his heart. 
 
 Minnie, for her part, after their altercations, was left 
 regretfully brooding over her part in them. She ought 
 to take his false charges in silence, for who else was de- 
 voted to her? And he surely meant it all for her good. 
 He was so kind. She felt an ungrateful wretch. He 
 was the only one, except now and then Ella Liebman, 
 who ever came to see her. Some of the Settlement folks 
 had at first sent cards and letters. Even these had now 
 ceased. How meaningless their friendliness had been; 
 they had not sincerely cared for her. How right Abra- 
 ham had been about this and about Mr. Grave, too. Mr. 
 Grave had not been a friend in earnest. She had simply 
 amused him. Now that she was sick, he was over and 
 done with her and someone else was amusing him. He 
 had sent her a letter, and there his concern had ended. . . . 
 Abraham came every week to see her; he worried and 
 scurried for her; he was a real friend. Even if he was 
 wrong about some things, he was sincere and earnest and 
 dependable. She was filled with solemn appreciation, 
 the solemn appreciation of goodness that comes to the 
 older, battered ones of the world. At his next visit, she 
 determined, she would make an outward show of appre- 
 ciation. 
 
 At one time during Minnie's illness, when he had felt 
 that others beside himself ought to be concerned about 
 her, Abraham had suggested that she call upon her fam- 
 ily. She had flaied up resentfully. Now her mildness 
 of manner lasting through several visits, emboldened him 
 to mention the matter again, as it had become a fixed idea 
 of his that the best time for a reconciliation was while she 
 was ill.
 
 452 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "You really ought to make up with your people, Min- 
 nie," he insisted. "They merely misunderstood you." 
 
 This was too much. In spite of Minnie's supreme ef- 
 forts at self-control, her rebellious feelings triumphed. 
 
 "Don't you realize," she burst out, "that they suspected 
 me of deceiving them? And don't you realize the bru- 
 tality of Ida's letter? I never, never want to have any- 
 thing to do with them again." 
 
 Hardly were the words out of her mouth when repent- 
 ance set in again. She had meant always to be agreeable 
 to her good friend. 
 
 Abraham frowned. His heart, tired and tried, re- 
 sponded to nothing in the girl but her sad incorrigibility. 
 
 They sat silent for a long while, Abraham wondering 
 with misgivings how it would be to have on his hands 
 the rest of his days a wife like Minnie, stubborn, with an 
 unbendable will ; and Minnie plaguing herself that, con- 
 trary to her resolutions, she had again given offense 
 where gratitude was due. "If only he could know how 
 sorry I am. How I wish he would only understand my 
 side." Despite herself other thoughts crept in: "He has 
 eyes for nothing but the normal and makes suggestions 
 always that admirably fit nothing but the normal. He 
 does not see that there are no rules for exceptions. . . ." 
 Then her heart went back to him. He was pale and 
 seemed to be suffering. She wanted to lay her hand on 
 his, to stroke his hair. Perhaps she ought to kiss him 
 good-by then perhaps he would forgive her outburst. 
 She moved her hand slightly to place it on his, but with- 
 drew it, out of timidity and the unprecedentedness of 
 such a manifestation in her. Nevertheless, impatient with 
 herself for her wavering, she clung to the thought of kiss- 
 ing him when he left. "I'll just kiss him naturally," she
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 453 
 
 reflected. . . . "I'll say : 'Abraham, won't you kiss me ?' 
 . . . I'll say: 'Abraham, you're so good,' and just kiss 
 him." She got herself nervous, confused, excited, anx- 
 ious to have it over with. 
 
 When finally Abraham rose to leave, she jumped hast- 
 ily out of the hammock. Her breath came quickly. He 
 held out his hand. She felt as if danger were lurking. 
 He was going she couldn't say it he would never know 
 how grateful she was to him for everything. . . . Her 
 pulses throbbed. "Hurry up! Hurry up!" sounded in 
 the turmoil of her mind. 
 
 "Kiss me, Abraham," she said tremulously. 
 
 It came much too suddenly for Abraham, who was not 
 a man of impulse. He hesitated. An obstruction was 
 removed, leaving a clear view in which Minnie stood out 
 a too-easily procurable wife; he could have her now, at 
 once. But his desire was somehow not present. Instead, 
 there was a much increased sense of the hazards of a 
 union with so odd a creature. With schoolmasterly pre- 
 cision he said : 
 
 "You had better control yoursdf. Don't fall in love 
 with me now. We will wait until you get well and then 
 talk it all over." He fluttered his lids. 
 
 Minnie was struck dumb by an immense shame. But 
 somehow, mechanically, she got through with the leave- 
 taking, Abraham's figure a blur before her eyes, his voice 
 sounding muffled and indistinct. . . . When he was gone, 
 she sought to emerge from her stupor and grasp the ac- 
 tuality of what had passed. She gave herself a mental 
 shake, as it were. The humiliation was horrible, hor- 
 rible. She hid her face in her hands and dropped into 
 the hammock shaken by dry sobs. . . . The supper-bell 
 rang; each clang was a lash on her bruised nerves. She
 
 454 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 remained with her head buried low in the hammock until 
 long after nightfall. 
 
 LIV 
 
 For three months the Settlement sent Minnie her 
 weekly salary. Then came a pleasant letter from Dr. 
 Evangel (in response to one from Minnie informing him 
 that though the three months' vacation had improved her 
 health she was not strong enough yet to work), which 
 said cordially that she was to take as much vacation as 
 she needed, the position would be kept open for her; 
 but since it was now necessary to engage a substitute in 
 her absence, the Settlement could no longer continue to 
 pay her salary. 
 
 When Abraham, a week later, found her looking 
 poorly, he wondered somewhat contritely whether his 
 unresponsiveness at the previous visit had given her a 
 setback. Minnie, divining his suspicions, promptly told 
 him of Dr. Evangel's letter. 
 
 Here was a problem ! 
 
 "It was very nice of them to pay me for as long as 
 they did," said Minnie. 
 
 "Yes, it was." 
 
 Nevertheless, here was a problem! Minnie had no 
 savings. 
 
 Abraham sat silent, with lowered, meditative eyes, 
 which he raised to Minnie once or twice scrutinizingly. . 
 
 "Just how do you feel ?" he asked finally. "Don't you 
 think you are well enough to go back to work? Maybe 
 if you made up your mind " 
 
 She was tempted to say she would try, for his suspicion 
 that she was weak of will somehow always stung her as
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 455 
 
 if it were a reflection on her character. But her better 
 sense rose to warn her that if she went to work prema- 
 turely she would break down again. 
 
 "You see, Abraham," she said, "I am feeling better 
 now, and I know I am better. In the same way I would 
 know if I were altogether well. I think it would be un- 
 safe yet for me to go back to work. I don't feel strong 
 enough, but I will be soon, I think, if I don't have things 
 to worry me and set me back, like this letter. I haver?t 
 slept for two nights." 
 
 A long pause, during which Abraham looked as if he 
 were solving a problem in higher mathematics. Then he 
 said: 
 
 "You will have to take money from me until you think 
 you are well enough to go back to the Settlement." 
 
 She started. "I won't go back to the Settlement," she 
 cried excitedly. 
 
 "What do you mean?" Abraham was astonished. 
 
 "I have a feeling of terrible aversion for anything of 
 the old. It's like thinking of the dead in the grave." 
 She was in a panic as if it were in Abraham's power to 
 force her to return to the Settlement and the old. 
 
 How should Abraham have known that it is from pre- 
 cisely this aversion for the old that the more fortunate, if 
 same kind of sufferers as Minnie, are impelled to seek 
 foreign shores and real diversion? 
 
 Abraham laughed, not heartily nor merrily ; he laughed 
 good-naturedly at this new idiosyncracy. Minnie heard 
 a ring of Ida's voice in his laugh; it was mocking her: 
 "Highfalutin fancy high-tone." She shuddered and 
 felt the clammy hand of fear, now a much less frequent 
 visitor, clutching at her heart, curling itself about her
 
 456 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 spirits like a serpent. It was fear of being outwitted in 
 
 her resolution not to return to the Settlement. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 Abraham had left the landlady of the New Jersey hill 
 money for Minnie's board for the week and was quite 
 willing to pay for her regularly until she was well. As a 
 thing apart from the question of support, he told himself, 
 Minnie's mother and sisters ought to be made to realize 
 that she was really sick and that they were guilty of neg- 
 lect. If he had been as close to them as to Minnie, he 
 would have urged them, instead of Minnie, to take the 
 first step toward reconciliation. 
 
 After deliberation, he paid the Mendels a visit. 
 
 They met his suggestion with a tirade ; he was lending 
 his protection to a traitor and pretender. They swept 
 the air with their respective hands and vowed it made 
 no difference to them if she died. Indeed, they were cer- 
 tain she would surely outlive them. "A convenient bluff, 
 this nervous prostration," was the finale. 
 
 Abraham would not have wished to be guilty of neg- 
 lecting a sick person, but the responsibility of nurturing 
 imaginary or pretended illness was just as bad. While 
 he was not persuaded by the Mendels into their view, 
 yet he found himself wishing that Minnie would brace up 
 and become her own keeper again. He felt as must the 
 parent of a trying adolescent who looks forward to the 
 time when his child will have crossed the threshold of 
 safe maturity. He made no answer to Sarah's onslaught : 
 "My daughter ? She is not my daughter. She is dead to 
 me. A trickster! Only a girl with a stone for a heart 
 would have done such an outrageous thing, pretended to 
 be sick just at that time. If she had said she did not 
 want to come, it would not have been one-thousandth as
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 457 
 
 vile. I am through with her forever." Though he felt 
 the injustice of the accusation, he could not muster up 
 the righting spirit to convince this infuriated mother of 
 her mistake, and allayed his conscience by persuading 
 himself that the attempt would in any event be futile. . . . 
 Anyway, the Mendels disgusted him. 
 
 He walked home slowly, weighted down by his respon- 
 sibility. For the first time since matters had assumed 
 their abnormal course, he frankly and clearly hoped that 
 Minnie was not in love with him. He wondered how it 
 was he had never before realized their incompatibility 
 and had overlooked the intrinsic, basic deficiencies of the 
 Mendels' morals. Minnie would as certainly, he felt, 
 develop into a Sarah as two peas develop alike in a pod. 
 He found himself shrinking from the thought of her as 
 a wife. Abraham's soul craved a loving, tender crea- 
 ture, domestic peace and harmony. 
 
 LV 
 
 The next day the Mendels, in a cooler mood, discussed 
 Minnie among themselves and decided with all generosity 
 that, to be on the safe side so far as their moral respon- 
 sibility was concerned, they had better send her five dol- 
 lars to help her with her expenses. Ida undertook to 
 execute the family's resolution. With the money went 
 an epistle. Minnie was not to believe she could have a 
 single cent more, Ida wrote ; and as for her nervous pros- 
 tration, its elements were imagination, exaggeration and 
 affectation ; she couldn't fool them! If Abraham had any 
 sense, she couldn't fool him either ; and if he chose to 
 spoil her he could do so on his own money, not theirs. 
 
 In the violent rush of indignation that swept upon Min-
 
 45 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 nie when she read the letter, she came near tearing it up, 
 five-dollar bill and all, but what was that about Abra- 
 ham? What had Abraham to do with it? She read the 
 letter again. No other conclusion than the right one was 
 possible. She marvelled at his audacity ; outrage tore at 
 her soul. . . . On the spur of an impulse she snatched 
 a sheet of paper and wrote Ida : "Go to hell and use the 
 five dollars to pay your way," and thrust the currency 
 bill, along with the note, into an envelope. Too spent by 
 the burst of frenzy to post it immediately, she dropped 
 heavily into a chair at the window and looked out. The 
 tree-tops which seemed so merrily to be reaching to the 
 sky drew her eyes, and she stared and stared without 
 moving, thoughts of all sorts staggering through her 
 mind. Envy of these living things which did not know 
 of the sordidness of human relations brought tears to 
 her eyes. For the first time in months she thought of 
 Gregory Chernin, of the fineness of soul that his whole 
 personality distilled, and she felt an at-oneness with him, 
 a yearning and a craving for contact with the beautiful. 
 All her anger mellowed into a sadness, into a depressing 
 realization that she was a foreigner in her world, a mis- 
 fit. She rose, took the note she had written, tore it up 
 and returned the money without explanation. 
 
 When Abraham came the next Sunday she could 
 hardly wait to question him. 
 
 He flushed and dropped his eyes. "Why ?" he asked. 
 "Did any of them come to see you or did they send you 
 money ?" 
 
 "They sent me money." 
 
 His eyelids fluttered with pleasure. His visit had, after 
 all, been effective. The Mendels were not as bad as 
 their bark.
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 459 
 
 "Well," he said, "then you should be satisfied." 
 
 "You really were there then?" 
 
 "Yes. I could not see that there was anything else to 
 do. They owe it to you to look out for you when you are 
 sick. If I were not your friend, for example, what would 
 you do then? It is their duty, their moral duty, to take 
 care of you." 
 
 Minnie's blood rushed to her face. 
 
 "But I did not give you permission to go. Ida sent 
 me a note along with the money and, it seems, she spoke 
 for the family ; she wrote as though I had sent you to beg 
 for me. She said they were sending me five dollars and 
 would not send me one cent more, that I need not ask 
 for more. How do you suppose I feel?" 
 
 Abraham was shocked, staggered. His mission had 
 been too well meant for such results. His lips opened 
 once, twice, and made no sound. 
 
 They were silent for some time, cogitating. Minnie 
 concluded that Abraham's recourse to the family came 
 from his unwillingness to pay her board. 
 
 "I am sorry it turned out so badly," Abraham broke in 
 on her thought. "I meant well. You must not think I 
 went because I want to be relieved of the financial re- 
 sponsibility I have undertaken." 
 
 Minnie made no reply, but when, on leaving, he handed 
 her a roll of bills, she refused to take them, and all his 
 efforts to persuade her were vain. 
 
 "What are you going to do?" he asked, truly dis- 
 tressed. 
 
 She tried to evade, but upon his insisting said : 
 
 "I lent a friend money once, and now that / am in 
 need she will return the courtesy, I feel sure." More 
 quietly she added : "As soon as I go back to work, I will
 
 460 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 return everything I have borrowed." Her tone forbade 
 arguing. 
 
 A shade of a shadow of relief flitted across Abraham's 
 face as he placed the bills back into his pocket with a light 
 sigh. 
 
 She sat for a long time after he left immersed in 
 thought. She had slaved from very infancy, and now 
 that she was used up she was nobody's responsibility. 
 She had served the world as a worker, yet the same world 
 seemed to consider it none of its business that she had 
 worn herself out serving it. If it was possible for her to 
 scramble up again, well and good, it seemed to say ; and 
 if not, well and good, too. And yet as soon as she was 
 again equipped, this world would commandeer her work- 
 ing powers once more. "What an awfully unfair game !" 
 She seemed to be living through an immense moment 
 one of those moments during which life flares up in great 
 gleams. . . . "Only a hair's breadth divides me from the 
 Helina Heimath, from the Peoples Charities. ... As if 
 it is my fault that the world did not remunerate me for 
 my best efforts sufficiently so that I could provide against 
 this emergency ; and the world has the right to punish 
 me besides by making me an object of to-day's charity 
 equal to the slops thrown a pig. . . . Something's wrong 
 somewhere. . . ." She seemed to hear Gregory Chernin 
 agreeing with her ; she seemed to feel his presence close, 
 his soul at one with hers, as if he of all the world felt 
 with her. . . . She wondered where he could be at that 
 very moment perhaps thinking of her, too. ... By a 
 swift combination of thought and emotion she began to 
 wonder whether Boston wouldn't be a better place to go 
 to than New York. New York loomed up grimy, hold- 
 ing nothing more for her than a repetition of the old hard-
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 461 
 
 ships, terminating in another spell of sickness. It would 
 be getting up in the morning, with the subway crush and 
 the nightly rush to get home in time for supper; with 
 the evening either empty or spent at work in the Settle- 
 ment, or in a stuffy theater, or listening to the false charm 
 of music false because it stirred a multitude of divine 
 emotions which would only go to smash in the morrow's 
 drabness. . . . The prospect of all this over again filled 
 her with unmitigated aversion. She marvelled now that 
 so many people were willing to live exactly that sort of 
 thing for a whole lifetime. . . . "Boston has such lovely 
 suburbs, everybody says. Maybe I can get work in 
 one. . . ." Her heart swelled with hopes. 
 
 LVI 
 
 Poverty, the devoted cur, is not to be shaken off by a 
 mere change of locality. 
 
 Minnie reached Boston with only five dollars in her 
 pocket and enough experience to know she was standing 
 on thin ice, but an unshaken will not to take more money 
 from Ella Liebman, kind and urgent though she had been. 
 Minnie was depending upon the Fates to be quick in find- 
 ing her work, and quick they were. Though exhausted 
 from the trip, she went straight from the railroad station 
 to an employment agency and was promptly engaged as 
 stenographer by a Mr. Little of Little's Hotel. She saw 
 in this good luck a desire on the part of the Supreme 
 Being to redeem Himself, and out of sheer gratitude she 
 could have hugged the telephone to her breast when Mr. 
 Little's voice came through the receiver saying: "I shall 
 
 expect you then this evening at eight o'clock." 
 ****** 
 
 Little's Hotel, in one of Boston's lovely suburbs, with
 
 462 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 the very best service and fare to recommend it, boasted 
 of even more to do the same. What this was Minnie 
 did not learn until after she had been in Mr. Little's em- 
 ploy two weeks, had written Abraham that all his fears 
 had been groundless, as she was ideally placed, had sent 
 three joyous missives to Ella Liebman, and had decided 
 that she was quite the luckiest person in the world. Then 
 came knowledge and a turn in her affairs. Mr. Little 
 asked her to read proof of a new edition of the hotel's 
 descriptive booklet. 
 
 "HEBREWS, DOGS, CONSUMPTIVES, AND OTHER OBJEC- 
 TION ABLES NOT ACCOMMODATED/' 
 
 Minnie looked at "Hebrews" with the incredulity with 
 which one views one's own name in print, and tried to 
 associate it, for its serious meaning, with the last words, 
 "not accommodated." From some perverse impulse she 
 wanted to laugh, and smiled in compromise. She held 
 the proof off at arm's length. "Gracious! What can it 
 mean?" she asked herself, and decided to put the ques- 
 tion to Mr. Little. But Mr. Little always wore such a 
 drawn brow, as if something provoked him, and had such 
 an intimidating, way of looking over the heads of his em- 
 ployees that she could not pluck up the courage to ap- 
 proach him. 
 
 The matter lingered with her like a bad odor, though 
 she made every effort to forget it, and tried to persuade 
 herself that it must apply only to the unrefined. But 
 her mind carried her on with faultless logic there were 
 unrefined Italians, unrefined Irish, unrefined Americans, 
 too. The booklet did not discriminate against these. All 
 Jews were referred to. It was difficult to accept the fact. 
 
 A few days later Mr. Little turned a perplexed face 
 upon Minnie, with whom he was alone in the office.
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 463 
 
 "Miss Mendel," he asked, "have you ever heard the 
 name Pashenz ? Does it sound Hebrew to you ?" 
 
 Minnie's color rose. She straightened her shoulders 
 and rested her eyes on him. 
 
 "No, it does not." 
 
 a l didn't think so either. But this is," he said, holding 
 up another letter signed Moskowitz. 
 
 "Yes, it is," replied Minnie quietly. 
 
 Mr. Little faced his desk again. 
 
 Minnie, stiffened into immobility by a prickling swarm 
 of peculiar sensations, sat staring at his back. Presently 
 he turned and asked her to take dictation. She crossed 
 over to him with an unconscious air of haughtiness, a lit- 
 tle above herself. 
 
 To Mr. Pashenz went a letter offering him the widest 
 choice of rooms. Mr. Moskowitz was told that the hotel 
 was crowded to its capacity. 
 
 She walked back to her desk listlessly, overcome by a 
 new kind of depression, in which feeling for self was ex- 
 alted to a lofty sympathy with others. For the first time 
 she realized she was Jewish, that there was a Jewish 
 world, distinct and apart, which suffered and was at the 
 mercy of others. She felt the fibers of her heart branch- 
 ing out. 
 
 "You are a Jew," the keys of the typewriter clicked, 
 "you are not welcome here." The cloud that had lifted 
 for the two brief weeks descended again, seeming to gloat 
 in its smugness. "What will you do? You cannot stay 
 here!" Tears came to her eyes. "You have no money 
 and you are not altogether well and you have no place to 
 go to," the keys clicked on melancholically. She felt like 
 a beast with a bit much too thick for its mouth. She was 
 aghast at the problem that faced her.
 
 464 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "Are all Christians like Mr. Little?" she asked the 
 clicking keys. "No one at the Settlement was like Mr. 
 Little. Doctor Evangel wasn't. No one was not Mr. 
 
 Grave " She rapped the keys for mentioning this 
 
 name. The keys redeemed themselves. "Mr. Maloney 
 was a Christian, and he loved you and wanted to marry 
 you. He certainly did not hold your Jewishness against 
 you." Minnie smiled at her whimsical conversation with 
 the keys, and for a moment felt as if Mr. Maloney's 
 spirit were hovering over her protectively against Mr. 
 Little. When Mr. Maloney's spirit departed, she felt 
 lonely. "Oh, dear!" she thought, "I ought not to have 
 gone away from everybody I know. Abraham was 
 right." She wiped tears away so that she could type the 
 letter to Mr. Moskowitz telling him there was no room 
 for him at Little's Hotel. Abraham was right about many 
 things, she suddenly saw. The keys clicked to her in his 
 words : 
 
 "Thus has all your race been hounded throughout the 
 centuries. Thus have they come by their despised faults, 
 aggressiveness, greed, servility. These are their weapons 
 of self-defense." 
 
 Things personal to her seemed to shrink, while her 
 heart expanded with what was akin to maternal love for 
 the Schlopoborskys of the world, the Henry Street neigh- 
 bors, the Morris Caplans. 
 
 LVII 
 
 The physical geography of Mr. Pashenz proclaimed 
 him a member of the unwelcome race. Mr. Little was 
 provoked. Of course, it was not Minnie's fault, he al- 
 lowed; the man's misdemeanor was not written in his
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 465 
 
 name. But Mr. Little instructed Minnie to be miserly of 
 civility to the gentleman. That, he said, was his success- 
 ful method for giving an unwelcome guest to understand 
 that he was to take himself off. 
 
 Minnie's color rose furiously. A thousand different 
 feelings seemed to explode in her heart. She jumped 
 from her seat and, contrary to a well-thought-out reso- 
 lution to remain in her present position until the last of 
 the month, when her salary would afford her a margin 
 of safety, she burst out : 
 
 "Mr. Little, you had better get someone to take my 
 place. I am a Jew, too." Contempt rang in her voice 
 and blazed in her eyes. 
 
 Mr. Little, shaken out of his equilibrium, looked up at 
 her without replying. He tchicked his lips in sheer em- 
 barrassment. Then, after a moment's pause, he said with 
 all courtesy and sincerity: 
 
 "I am sorry. I assure you, some of my best friends are 
 Jews, but in a hotel they cannot mix." 
 
 It was queer that some of his best friends should be 
 Jews. Minnie was muddled, but her paramount feeling 
 was of insult. 
 
 "I have Gentile friends, too," she said with dignity. 
 "None of them were ever so insulting." Tears of impo- 
 tence sprang to her eyes. 
 
 Mr. Little said nothing more. Minnie went to her 
 room, where she hastily flung into her hand-bag all her 
 worldly possessions and soon re-appeared for her salary. 
 At the desk she found Mr. Pashenz calling Mr. Little's 
 attention to an overcharge. 
 
 "These cigarettes amount to $1.17. You've got me 
 charged with $1.27." 
 
 Mr. Little rectified the error with perfect courtesy but
 
 466 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER f 
 
 with a faint expression about the corners of his mouth 
 which said: 
 
 "You'd think it was ten dollars. Not a cent ever es- 
 capes them." 
 
 It was Minnie's turn. 
 
 "Let's see," said Mr. Little, "your salary is thirty dol- 
 lars a month. You are leaving two days in advance 
 that's about $27.50 due you." He made a rapid calcula- 
 tion. "No, $27.09." 
 
 Turning to leave, Minnie found herself facing Mr. 
 Pashenz, an undersized man, with dark, melancholy eyes, 
 out of which he looked from down up as if probing space. 
 
 "You're not wanted here," was on the tip of her 
 tongue. 
 
 Around the man's mouth played a cynical smile, which 
 threatened a hard, bitter laugh. Minnie lowered her head 
 and hastened out. A few moments afterwards she was 
 on a car bound for Boston. 
 
 She reached the city late in the afternoon and stood 
 irresolutely looking up and down the street. Her hat 
 was blown slightly askew, some loose strands of hair 
 straggled over her eyes and down her cheeks. Her hand- 
 bag, pulling her lop-sided, gave the appearance of being 
 heavier than it actually was. Her face was wan. She 
 was a forlorn figure. With the timidity of a sensitive 
 person with whom insult lingers she approached a police- 
 man and asked him if he could recommend a place for 
 her to stay overnight. It would have taken less keenness 
 than this shrewd officer's to observe that his customer 
 was of the class that toil and spin. Her worn raiment 
 identified her. 
 
 "There's the Elizabeth Home for Girls, Miss," he said 
 and let the statement hang in midair until Minnie say-
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 467 
 
 ing "Thank you," he straightened up in the way of a 
 policeman when he would like to vaunt his omniscience. 
 He directed her, swinging his club expansively. 
 
 One can never be sure in Boston when a simple errand 
 will resolve itself into a journey, a tour, a pilgrimage. 
 You feel like a spinning top as you wind your way 
 through the puzzlesome streets. By the time Minnie 
 finally reached the Elizabeth Home she had been re- 
 signed to the fictitious existence of such a Home and 
 her doubts had been strong as to whether Boston em- 
 braced more than the one corner from which she had 
 started out an X-number of times. 
 
 The Elizabeth Home and the Young Ladies' Lodge 
 were identical in character, with the exception that the 
 Elizabeth Home was a strictly Christian institution, as 
 proclaimed by a large oil painting of the crucified Saviour 
 in the lobby. 
 
 The lady stationed at a desk in the hall to receive new- 
 comers wore somber black and a facial expression that 
 would have dampened the spirits of a sunny day. Since 
 the institution was, first and foremost, respectable, each 
 prospective guest was required to state her pedigree and 
 give information on such personal points as the church 
 she attended and the regularity of her attendance. 
 
 When an outlaw escapes from one officer of the peace 
 only to fall into the clutches of another, he must experi- 
 ence some such sensation as did Minnie at the last ques- 
 tion. Her heart gave a leap, her eyes a swift dart to the 
 door. She had the impulse to give the somber little lady 
 a neat slap in the face and run away. But the beauty of 
 normal people is that their criminal and insane impulses 
 come like lightning and are dispelled like a whiff.
 
 468 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "I am a Jewess," Minnie replied quietly, "I do not go 
 to church." 
 
 The lady floundered, then expressed herself as having 
 no objection to Minnie personally ; the institution, how- 
 ever, made sectarianism a principle ; but, of course, since 
 she was a stranger in the city and night was advancing, 
 she could remain, and every effort would be made for 
 her comfort and every help extended to find another 
 home for her in the morning. 
 
 No queerer place than this world seemed possible. 
 Minnie shrugged her shoulders and looked hard at the 
 little woman in somber black. Had all of the world's 
 lunatics been dumped in Massachusetts? A smile played 
 on Minnie's lips, in her heart was a moan. Could she 
 have seen herself at that moment, she would have recog- 
 nized Mr. Pashenz' own expression. 
 
 She rose, picked up her hand-bag, thanked the little 
 lady, and said she would find another place. The little 
 lady followed her to the door, assuring her again with all 
 courtesy that she was welcome for the night if she cared 
 to remain. 
 
 An exaggerated calm possessed Minnie, the calm that 
 comes from the realization that in calm alone lies safety. 
 "It's no use zu talkin' " in dark moods she joked with 
 herself in Morris Caplan's lingo ; at this moment she ex- 
 perienced a fleeting homesickness for him "I'm up 
 against it more than I bargained for." The very terror 
 that struck at her heart warned her to keep her mind 
 clear. She was alone in a big city ; it was dusk already. 
 
 Across the street was a park. She was very tired and 
 would rest there a moment. On the nearest bench sat a 
 woman, a little farther away, on another bench, was a 
 man with his back turned. The woman, looking up as
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 469 
 
 Minnie approached, so greatly suggested the somber lady 
 of the Elizabeth Home that Minnie was taken by a freak- 
 ish impulse. 
 
 "Madam," said she, smiling and bowing deferentially, 
 "have you any objections to my sitting beside you? I 
 am a Jew." 
 
 The weazened little woman lifted a thoroughly scared 
 face. She rose and edged away cautiously from this 
 lunatic. 
 
 At the first word from Minnie's lips the solitary man 
 sitting on the next bench turned round and stared. A 
 look of delight lit up his face. He rose and stepped 
 towards Minnie, whose eyes, following the retreating 
 little figure in black, encountered his. 
 
 "Gregory!" 
 
 "Minnie !" He took her in his arms. 
 
 LVIII 
 
 The train was speeding through a spring landscape. 
 It was a day of burgeoning. The trees swelling out of 
 their winter starkness, the fresh green blades peeping out 
 where the dead brown leaves had been swirled away by 
 the wind, the tender spikes of forest growth pricking up 
 out of the black soil all seemed to say: "We are alive 
 again." 
 
 Looking out of the train window Minnie felt her soul 
 akin to this budding joyousness. Like a mother, whose 
 attention is engaged elsewhere, by half conscious effort 
 discourages a child's interruption, she discouraged a 
 minor note of melancholy that tugged at her heart. How 
 impossible it was to realize with dear Gregory sitting 
 there beside her, holding her hand, smiling his all-embrac- 
 ing smile whenever she raised her eyes to him, that a
 
 470 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 blight was eating at their spring joyousness! He did not 
 even look like a sick man. His color was better, his eyes 
 brighter than on the night of the street meeting. But 
 mercy, the eyes were too bright, the color too good ! A 
 pain like a sharp, thin needle drilled through her heart, 
 and the spring landscape merged with an autumnal wind 
 that groaned weirdly : "Your lover is sick ; the Alkrusht 
 Sanitarium for him." 
 
 To divert her mind, she turned to Gregory and said: 
 
 "By the way, dear, I wrote Dr. Judson that I am a 
 Protestant." 
 
 Gregory smiled. It was a joke between them that 
 he had saved her from the maws of sectarianism by tak- 
 ing her with him to his own boarding-house where there 
 had happened to be a room vacant. In order to be with 
 him at Saranac she had applied for a position as secre- 
 tary and, since a Protestant was required, she had 
 promptly subscribed to the faith. 
 
 "You're a little liar," said Gregory, "what would Mr. 
 Little say?" 
 
 She would have sworn her soul away to be with him. 
 She pressed his hand and smiled up at him wistfully, and 
 such a passionate yearning to save this dear one from ill 
 fate welled up in her that the tender words fairly burst 
 from her lips : 
 
 "Oh, Gregory, dear, I love you so !" 
 
 He looked down on her tenderly for a moment and 
 then looked away. 
 
 Oh, if she could only convince him that it had not been 
 wrong for him to admit his love for her ! She lived over 
 again their hour together in the Boston Public Gardens 
 when his love avowal had come, as he later put it, inde- 
 pendently of his better reason. The night of the street 
 meeting he had already known that he was sick ; and that
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 471 
 
 night he had known for certain that the little gray-eyed 
 girl of the gaming days was an integral part of his being, 
 that when years before he had urged his mother to look 
 her up at the Argushes and explain away her misunder- 
 standing, he had urged it in the hope that she would come 
 again to their home, for he had missed her greatly ; and 
 that when word came later from the Argushes of her 
 disappearance, his scanning of remote corners of the tene- 
 ment halls for a letter from her which the careless letter- 
 carrier must certainly have misplaced, was from a feeling 
 deep, deep-rooted. 
 
 She sighed as she looked up at the dear averted face, 
 every line of which told of the soul within, the soul 
 which she had loved in Mr. Grave's shell. She leaned 
 her head lightly against his shoulder. . . . She was be- 
 trothed to this man, this man of real heart and mind and 
 soul, this man who was the answer to the deepest call of 
 her being. How she loved him ! Her life, her devotion, 
 her everything would be dedicated to him. He would 
 grow better in the Alkrusht Sanitarium. She needed 
 nothing for herself, everything, every bit of everything 
 would go to him, to bring the normal color to his cheeks, 
 to reduce the feverish glitter of his dear eyes to save 
 
 him Next spring all would be well. It would be 
 
 just such a day of burgeoning when they would go to a 
 little home of their own they would live where there 
 was a lovely landscape she would keep him in the sun- 
 shine there would be sunshine everywhere 
 
 "Saranac! Saranac!" called the conductor. 
 
 LIX 
 
 In the mournful glamour of the reds and yellows of 
 decaying nature* Minnie walking alone where she and
 
 472 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Gregory had walked before, sitting alone where she and 
 Gregory had sat before, her great gray eyes searching 
 vacancy, made a dejected, listless figure. One day Dr. 
 Judson called her to his private office. 
 
 "My dear," he said, "won't you try to rouse yourself, 
 to cry, to let loose ? It would do you so much good." 
 
 "I can't." 
 
 "Then make a change, seek something new, go home 
 to your people, your old friends. It will take you away 
 from your grief." 
 
 Take her away from her grief ! As if her grief could 
 be left behind, as if the emptiness of the world would not 
 follow her elsewhere ! A sigh mingled with a wan smile 
 of appreciation. 
 
 "You are very good. But won't you let me stay here ? 
 I would so much rather." 
 
 "Certainly. Yes, indeed. I'm mighty glad to have 
 you ; I was thinking of what might be best for you" 
 
 "It's best for me to stay." 
 
 ****** 
 
 Minnie's soul basking in the sunshine of memories of 
 Gregory flowered into the beauty of its promise. Not a 
 thought, not a feeling of hers was apart from his in- 
 fluence. Big in mind, vast in spirit, with a thorough com- 
 prehension of men and things, alive to weaknesses, tol- 
 erant, with a heart of love and with a tempering sanity, 
 he had raised Minnie to the standard to which she had 
 blindly, unknowingly reached out. The world was no 
 longer the same to her, nor were things, nor were people. 
 What had seemed vice, now in the illumination of Greg- 
 ory's tolerance and love, was mere involuntary fault, sel- 
 fishness a mere weapon of defense in the ugly competi- 
 tive game ; "slickness" Gregory had called it with tolerant
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 473 
 
 pity. . . . Behind Abraham's pedantry and arbitrariness, 
 likewise, he had discerned a fine, upright, trustworthy 
 man; once even he had said of him, more serious 
 than she had taken it, that he would feel easy with 
 her in Abraham's care if he could not himself take 
 care of her. . . . Through association with this man, 
 who combined profound human insight with his in- 
 tellectuality, she saw her old self now as Abraham 
 must have seen her a creature whose intellect and 
 Heart had wanted to branch like a wild plant and had 
 recoiled from attempts at pruning. Where Abraham had 
 failed to make her understand, Gregory had succeeded; 
 but Gregory's success gave her sympathy with Abraham's 
 attempts. . . . She began to wonder how, with her ma- 
 turer understanding, she would now get along with her 
 family, to whom her thoughts also began to turn. Was 
 her mother doing well in South Africa? Minnie had 
 never approved of the venture and was terribly afraid 
 her mother might be suffering again. . . . And Beckie 
 and Ida and Jacob how were they getting on without 
 their mother ? One day, lonely and longing, she wrote to 
 her sisters. A reply came promptly containing a history 
 of the family's fortunes. Sarah had left for Africa, and 
 Jacob, to help maintain the home, which otherwise would 
 have had to be broken up, had returned to live with his 
 sisters. For some time the arrangement worked well ; 
 then Jacob bolted. Sick of school-teaching and satisfied 
 that in this age of woman's equality with man his sisters 
 could shift for themselves, he had gone off on a trip .to 
 Europe for a change from the daily grind. The girls 
 could not keep up the home and were just deciding to 
 store the furniture against their mother's return (they 
 were sure she would return ; and a nice big bill for stor-
 
 474 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 age she would have to meet!) when Minnie's letter ar- 
 rived. Minnie ought to come back and help keep up the 
 home and shoulder her responsibility "for once." 
 
 Minnie did. And Abraham was convinced that she 
 was at last coming to the normal sense of normal people, 
 though at the same time a resentful feeling was blown 
 into flame that Minnie never could be convinced until the 
 bitter end was reached. 
 
 LX 
 
 Beckie and Ida were still the same, squabbling over 
 trifles, loving in their crude fashion, agreeable and dis- 
 agreeable in their simple way. Curious as to the change 
 in Minnie, they often remarked to each other on her 
 gravity, her softness and poise, in smiling whispers be- 
 hind her back though there was that about her personality 
 which in her presence compelled respect and convinced 
 them of her sincerity. Outlets for their disrespectfulness 
 were confined to healthy discharges upon each other. 
 
 The two younger girls had a natural family affection 
 for each other, while for Minnie even Beckie had only a 
 tempered love and Ida none at all. They felt constrained 
 with her as with a stranger. 
 
 After a while, with closer and more familiar associa- 
 tion, they began to suspect her of affectation, resenting 
 her new ways as Sarah's neighbors had resented her 
 aloofness. Ida particularly, whose ideal henceforth be- 
 came ultra-simplicity of manner, felt contempt for her 
 sister for "putting on airs" and in counter-distinction be- 
 gan to cultivate an exaggeratedly Yiddish inflection and 
 a louder voice, and abstained from the commonest shows
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 475 
 
 of politeness. For a sister to say "thank you," "if you 
 please" was a disgusting affectation. 
 
 Once Minnie called Beckie "dear." That decided Ida. 
 She let loose her pent-up contempt. Thenceforth "pre- 
 tender" addressed to Minnie was as frequent and facile 
 an epithet on her lips as "pig" addressed, on provocation, 
 to Beckie. Had not Minnie now had the balancing 
 weight of maturity, quarrels might have ensued. Ida's 
 fire, however, could not feed on Minnie's silence, and 
 her respectful attitude, the next time the two had com- 
 munication, would quench the blaze completely. 
 
 The home was lonely. The world was lonely. Minnie 
 was grateful for Abraham's visits to which she grew to 
 look forward eagerly. Her deference and gentleness 
 rather puzzled him. In spite of a desire to be appreci- 
 ative, he had an inner shrinking from this strange Min- 
 nie. He, too, in the privacy of his being, smelt affecta- 
 tion in her present agreement with his opinions. 
 Breathes there the man who hankers after the attain- 
 able! 
 
 LXI 
 
 Yetta Grubicha was the chief office clerk of the Para- 
 gon Knee Pants Company, which occupied a loft in the 
 same building as the firm in which Minnie was em- 
 ployed. 
 
 Yetta outwitted her destiny. In one of the Fates' 
 rare moments of unwariness, she slipped from between 
 their fingers. One week of machine-operating convinced 
 her there was no prestige in it and confirmed her in the 
 determination to fight her mother into letting her study 
 stenography.
 
 476 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "You are not even a school graduate," objected her 
 mother. 
 
 "Mind your own business," quoth Yetta. 
 
 Some secretarial school of light conscience admitted 
 her as a pupil and in three months' time turned her out 
 a full-fledged stenographer. But she could not slough 
 her inherited strain of commonness as she had cast be- 
 hind her the work-shop. It jumped to the light in her 
 emphatic clothes, her pretentious friends, and her adora- 
 tion of near-classics in music, the drama, and fiction. 
 
 Once, recuperating from an illness, she spent several 
 weeks with her employers in the country. Their sister 
 was a soft, refined, sweet-mannered person, whose ways 
 made such an impression upon Yetta that ever afterwards 
 she went about imitative, putting into her voice the oth- 
 er's lingering sweetness of tone and into her eyes the 
 same gentle, intimate expression. In the practice of her 
 mannerisms she never arrived at unconsciousness. They 
 never came quite natural to her. Those who had known 
 her before her "conversion" smiled at it, while her par- 
 ents scoffed at her for aspiring to "whole ladyship." It 
 was for such as she to remain with tastes befitting her 
 station. Their fear was that she would refuse to marry 
 any man who was not a doctor or a lawyer, to which class 
 of gentlemen, as they understood matters, every "high- 
 tone lady" aspired. All they needed, nee! to complete 
 their earthly happiness was to have an old maid on their 
 hands ! As if they did not have worries enough with all 
 sorts of family troubles and wrangles and an unruly boy 
 who had landed in a reformatory. Yetta resented their 
 interference. Quarrels arose in which she discarded her 
 veneer, meeting her coarse parents on a level. The 
 oftener they cautioned her to "stay in her own back
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 477 
 
 yard," the fiercer became her defiance and her longing 
 and resolution really to get herself a professional man if 
 only to spite them. 
 
 She joined a club in contemporary drama to which, 
 she had been told, nice girls belonged. Through nice 
 girls, she calculated, one was likely to meet nice men. 
 Nor did she confine herself for nice girls to the class in 
 contemporary drama. She ferreted them out in all the 
 walks of life, and spotting Minnie as a nice girl among 
 the female employees of the office building who came to 
 the women's room, she made advances to her. Though 
 Minnie was at first repelled by this maiden of big bulk 
 of bust, dusky skin, and large, coarse features, Yetta's 
 manners were so deceptive that by degrees Minnie, who 
 had no feelers out for guile of any sort, was drawn to 
 her. The two began to eat lunch and walk home to- 
 gether. 
 
 Once Yetta paid Minnie a visit. She met Abraham. 
 That one visit increased her devotion to Minnie a thou- 
 sandfold ; and when at another visit she met a friend of 
 Abraham's, a Doctor Henry Flegal, her ardor grew so 
 intense that it had to expend itself in gifts and treats of 
 all sorts. Minnie was reduced to affection for Yetta and 
 tears of gratitude. Yetta's visits increased in number. 
 
 By making Minnie the repository of intimate confes- 
 sions she maneuvered herself into her confidence, and 
 once she deftly lured Minnie on to admit that she would 
 be willing to marry Abraham and was suffering from 
 his present indifference. Minnie blushed and trembled 
 after the confession. She had not even formulated her 
 feelings before. Yetta, like a beckoning finger, had led 
 her on to the ripening of the thought in her mind and to 
 the admission. When Yetta was gone, she threw herself
 
 478 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 on her bed and buried her head in the pillow. "Gregory, 
 Gregory !" she moaned, while the loneliness and empti- 
 ness of her life tore her spirits to the core. "I have noth- 
 ing nobody You said you would feel easy if I 
 
 were in Abraham's care. He is good I could atone 
 to him for what I made him suffer. What more does 
 life hold with you gone? Oh, Gregory! If I were edu- 
 cated, had had a decent start, I might devote myself to 
 some big thing, something outside myself, but as it is, 
 what more can I ask for than the commonplace?" 
 
 She sobbed until her body ached and then lay quietly 
 watching a ray of the dying sun playing on the wall. 
 
 LXII 
 
 Among the many convictions at which the Abraham of 
 twenty-seven had arrived was the conviction that a man 
 of clean morals must marry. He was of the philosophy 
 that man is history and it is only natural that history re- 
 peat itself. Everybody said so. All the laws pointed that 
 way. He took no advantage of the license for promis- 
 cuousness granted his sex when the world began. To his 
 moral way of thinking what was sauce for the goose 
 was sauce for the gander. A man of unchaste morals 
 had no right to exact greater perfection of a woman. 
 Abraham was a just man. 
 
 On the subject of marriage without love he was of a 
 twofold opinion. The sanctifying passion was, of course, 
 infinitely preferable, but however much in love a man 
 and woman might be, if their temperaments threatened 
 incompatability, by far the wiser course for them to pur- 
 sue was to remain apart. Progeny were entitled to an 
 harmonious parentage. Yet at the thought of entering
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 479 
 
 marriage without love he felt a vague regret, a sadness as 
 like an intense emotion as the mist is like the rain. At 
 such times, visited by a faint melancholy, he would come 
 oftener to see Minnie, under much the same impulse that 
 sends the living to visit the graves of the dead. He would 
 talk more vivaciously than had been his wont since her 
 return to New York and try his best to work up his old 
 interest in her. But she was not the same Minnie. She 
 was a pleasant, soft-mannered young woman, who now 
 fully assented to the doctrine that "public ownership of 
 the means of production, that is, the government owner- 
 ship of mines, mills, factories and all public utilities, 
 would eliminate the exploitation of one human being by 
 another and so rid the world of the great evils of the day, 
 poverty, child labor, etc." She was now as fully con- 
 vinced as he that the Jews should possess a land of their 
 own, like all the other nations, and so be freed from soul 
 oppression, the better to perpetuate the wonderful quali- 
 ties of mind and spirit that kept them, though persecuted 
 and scattered, a unit through the ages. And most dis- 
 concertingly, she was now assured that every person 
 ought to be informed about the sanctuary of his soul, his 
 body. Martin's Human Body ought to be widely read. 
 Abstract reasoning and thinking had unfolded in her like 
 a butterfly within its cocoon. 
 
 Her agreeableness irritated Abraham much as an ultra- 
 excellent quality in a first wife will irritate a husband. 
 He would squirm in his chair ; "affectation" would sound 
 in his mind. But worst of all, her agreeableness smelled 
 like a bait. Abraham, like all men, was not of a mind to 
 be caught. 
 
 Although he tried to overcome his increasing indif- 
 ference, he grew more and more convinced that Minnie
 
 480 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 was not for him. . . . But "a man must marry" and 
 since the passion that he had felt for Minnie could not 
 come to him again for another woman, he would be 
 obliged to make a practical match. He would have to 
 find a simple, sensible girl, healthy above all, with no non- 
 sense about her. His sisters' friends, to whom he now 
 began to pay attention, were nice girls, but none of them 
 had qualities that seemed to fuse into a desirable whole. 
 He would hold each up for mathematical survey. One 
 had good sense and a pleasant manner, but a foolish 
 laugh. One had nice manners, a nice laugh and was 
 even pretty, but looked anemic, as if she might have a 
 nervous breakdown. 
 
 Of all the girls he knew it was in Yetta Grubicha that 
 the good qualities outweighed the bad. Her homeliness 
 might be a drawback, but upon due cogitation he decided 
 that, on the contrary, it might be a virtue. It would make 
 her the more devoted to him. He tested her intellectual 
 capacity by specific quizzing, and though he found her 
 beneath the standard of even the Minnie of old, she was 
 always as eager as a child to learn and listened to him as 
 to an oracle. It would be rather pleasant, he concluded, 
 always to have her by his side to teach. To be sure she 
 irritatingly used "seen" for "saw" and "says" for "said." 
 But it was a very minor fault, taken all in all. Experi- 
 ence with Minnie had taught that when a man is out on 
 the business of wife-hunting, it is the larger things that 
 count. Yetta Grubicha had a healthy body which gave 
 promise of repeated motherhood without hysteria, and 
 she had the second wife's agreeableness that men always 
 appreciate. 
 
 And Yetta, with native shrewdness, divining Abra- 
 ham's state of mind, played upon him at every oppor-
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 481 
 
 tunity. Insofar as her obligations to Minnie were con- 
 cerned, she took a convenient, clean-cut road to the con- 
 clusion that she was not guilty of theft, since Abraham 
 was not in love with Minnie. And even if he were, mar- 
 riage to-day was a business. Until then her own hori- 
 zon had kept uncharitably clear of such "grand chances" 
 as Abraham, whereas Minnie's had not. Minnie was 
 likely to have other chances. 
 
 "I'll be hung," was her ultimatum to herself, "if I'll let 
 foolishness stand in my way." 
 
 To divert Minnie's suspicion, she pretended that she 
 spent a great deal of time with Doctor Henry Flegal and 
 was eloquent in his praise. And on the score of Abra- 
 ham's divulging anything she rested easy. Men never 
 spoke of their second choice to their first choice. 
 
 Minnie was successfully put on the false scent. With 
 the matchmaker's instinct present in every woman, she 
 had dreams of helping her homely but nice friend win 
 the idol of her heart, Doctor Flegal, and often puzzled 
 the gentleman with rhapsodies in eulogy of Yetta 
 Grubicha. 
 
 LXIII 
 
 One evening Abraham, in a mood for woman, made his 
 way to Yetta's home on the chance of finding her in. 
 He walked slowly, as if giving earnest contemplation to 
 each step. It was not until he awaited the response to 
 his ring of the lower bell that he realized he would be 
 disappointed if he did not find Yetta at home. The 
 sound of the answering click was a distinct pleasure. 
 
 At the door of the apartment he was met, without his 
 having to ring, by Yetta clad in a kimona of becoming
 
 482 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 red silk. She had been preparing for bed and had as- 
 sumed it was one of the family, who were all out, that 
 had rung. 
 
 Gathering her kimono hastily about her uncorseted 
 form, she hesitated an instant, then sang out coyly : 
 
 "I'll run into my room and get dressed ; you go into 
 the parlor. I'll be out in a minute." 
 
 Her heavy hips quivered as she ran to her bedroom. 
 As he reached the parlor, she closed the door separating 
 the two rooms. 
 
 Abraham sat idly a few moments, looking from the 
 window to the door and back again, and listening to her 
 footsteps as she moved between the dresser and the closet. 
 In his mind lingered the picture of her large, shaking 
 hips. 
 
 Soon she called out with a sensuous softness in her 
 voice : 
 
 "I'm coming soon." She was wondering excitedly, all 
 a-quiver with the triumph, what had brought him. Until 
 then he had announced his visits. Though the two were 
 already sufficiently familiar to call each other by their 
 first names, there was something more deliciously inti- 
 mate in this informality. Taking every precaution to 
 look her best, she hesitated between two dresses and 
 finally chose the one that accentuated the curves of her 
 figure. 
 
 Abraham cleared his throat and replied: 
 
 "Don't hurry." 
 
 He looked toward the door of the bedroom, fancied 
 her partially garbed figure, and colored. To distract his 
 mind, he picked up a magazine on the table and began 
 to read; he raised his head every moment at the sound 
 of her footsteps to glance toward the door expectantly.
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 483 
 
 At last she appeared. Smiling, with her assumed ex- 
 pression of warmth and intimacy, she crossed the room 
 to shake hands. Abraham rose quickly, flushing. An 
 expanse of red, purple and yellow bead embroidery, 
 which radiated a warmth, drew his eyes to the bosom of 
 her dress. His mind became momentarily clouded and 
 his feet a trifle unsteady. He controlled himself, and it 
 was not in the least observable that he had undergone 
 emotion. 
 
 They shook hands and then seated themselves with 
 the room's length between. Yetta's heart was pounding. 
 And Abraham, though outwardly calm, was ill at ease. 
 
 Yetta said : "I did not expect you. I was thunder- 
 struck when I seen you." 
 
 The "seen" restored Abraham to equanimity. He felt 
 the superior at once. It gave him poise. 
 
 "I told you many times to say 'saw,' " he said with 
 schoolmasterly kindness and the fluttering droop of his 
 eyelids. 
 
 Yetta colored and looked appreciative, like a little girl. 
 When Abraham tried to teach her, she affected a child- 
 like way of paying attention. 
 
 "Saw," she repeated coyly, dropping her eyes and 
 raising them again and thrusting her chin forward as a 
 child does when it capitulates. She was conscious of 
 pleasing Abraham. 
 
 A moment's silence followed, during which Abraham's 
 eyes traveled over the beaded expanse. The instant Yetta 
 addressed him again, he removed his eyes and turned in 
 his chair guiltily. 
 
 "Have you been thinking of me ?" she asked, proposing 
 to be the leader if need be. 
 
 Abraham smiled self-consciously. Truth to tell, he
 
 484 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 had not been thinking of her especially. He had been 
 thinking rather of her sex and to this he could not very 
 well admit. 
 
 "Why, yes," he replied, still smiling, his voice and man- 
 ner betraying discomfort. 
 
 "What were you thinking?" she asked, leaning for- 
 ward so that the opening at her throat brought to view 
 the part between her breasts. An electric thrill went 
 through Abraham. He dropped his eyes, coughed and 
 became ultra-dignified. But the exact state of his feel- 
 ings were revealed to the wise Yetta by the contraction 
 and the moisture of his eyes when he raised them again. 
 She moved from one side of her chair to the other, while 
 she placed both her hands upon her hips and took a deep 
 breath, expanding her chest. 
 
 Abraham watched the movement and frowned, wish- 
 ing he were not so conscious of her that evening. He 
 disliked himself in such a mood. But it was this very 
 mood in the smouldering that had brought him to her 
 door. It was the same mood that would have taken an- 
 other man to the door of a public woman. 
 
 "I've worked awfully hard to-day," she said, "I'm 
 quite tired. I was going to bed. We have ever so many 
 orders for a new kind of pants that the firm is manufac- 
 turing. They engaged two more salesmen. . . . I'm 
 tired," she said again, stretching her hands forward as 
 if to clasp something. 
 
 Though Abraham affected interest, he hardly heard 
 what she said. When she stretched her hands forward, 
 he had an almost overwhelming desire to jump from his 
 seat and meet her in an embrace. 
 
 "Is that so?" he asked merely to say something. 
 
 "And last night I was up late in the contemporary
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 485 
 
 drama class. Oh, we're getting on fine there. We're 
 learning parts of Shakespeare's Macbeth" She waxed 
 enthusiastic. 
 
 This really interested Abraham. He had aspirations 
 for Yetta, too. Learning appealed to Abraham above 
 everything else. 
 
 "Do you expect to become an actress ?" he asked face- 
 tiously. 
 
 Yetta thought he was making fun of her and actually 
 felt a little hurt. It came to her that the sense of hurt 
 was a good emotion to play up, and she met his look in 
 a steady gaze lasting a moment, the while bringing tears 
 to her eyes. 
 
 "You're making fun of me !" she cried in a low voice. 
 
 Abraham was stung with regret, which increased as she 
 dropped her head into the palms of her hands. Good- 
 ness, was she crying? He jumped quickly from his chair, 
 and the next instant was by her side. At the same mo- 
 ment she raised her eyes to him moist but smiling. 
 
 "I'm not crying!" she said sweetly, shaking her head. 
 "Silly thing!" she added, laying her hand on his arm. 
 
 They remained for a moment in that position, he look- 
 ing down upon her. Then he moved back to his chair, 
 picked it up and brought it close to hers. 
 
 His sudden nearness so overwhelmed Yetta that she 
 craved his embrace, whether he meant to propose to her 
 or not. From the intensity of her feeling she was silent. 
 He, too, was silent. 
 
 Finally he laid his hand in her lap. She raised it and 
 land it on the arm of her chair. He was puzzled. It 
 reached him hazily that she was as much aquiver as he, 
 but this slightly repellant action daunted his assurance. 
 Manlike, however, he immediately did the same thing
 
 486 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 over again. This time Yetta raised his hand from her 
 lap, but allowed it to rest in her hand. They sat in si- 
 lence, each full of emotion. He fondled a ring on her 
 finger, a large gilt ring of clumsy make, obviously a 
 man's. 
 
 "Oh, where did you get that?" he asked as though out 
 of great curiosity, smiling and raising his clouded eyes 
 to hers. She met his glance only for a fraction of a sec- 
 ond as she was fearful of a tell-tale expression in her 
 own eyes. 
 
 "A gentleman friend of mine gave it to me," she said. 
 
 He did not hear her. He was looking at her hand, a 
 shapely, fleshy hand, soft and warm. He raised it to his 
 lips and kissed it. With that the passion eating in his 
 blood surged up. He leaned over. In the movement his 
 hand came in contact with the softness of her bulk of 
 bust. He was stunned. He dropped his head upon her 
 bosom, called her peevishly, pleadingly, "Dear," as if in 
 advance to silence protest, and then gently brought her 
 head down to meet his. She led in a passionate kiss. 
 They remained in silent embrace. 
 
 She stroked his scanty hair. "Why didn't you tell me 
 sooner ?" she cooed, bringing the soft, intimate expression 
 into her voice and ieyes as she looked down upon him, 
 bending at the same time to kiss his forehead. The act 
 stirred a momentary feeling of sanctity in Abraham's 
 breast. It was a mother act. He warmed to the mother 
 in Yetta. 
 
 "Why not?" crossed his mind with melancholy resig- 
 nation. He was not in love with Yetta. He knew it even 
 in this moment of passion ; but she made promise of such 
 a satisfactory mate! He was sure that the girl was in 
 love wih him. He closed his eyes. A shadowy longing
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 487 
 
 for Minnie in Yetta's stead crossed his heart. He 
 sighed. His life was not to be one of romance. . . . 
 Yetta, seeing the fleeting pain on his face, bent down 
 and kissed his lips with passion. All the world swept 
 out of existence for Abraham. Her breast rested upon 
 his chest. He caught her passionately in his arms and 
 pressed her to him with all the recklessness of star- 
 vation. 
 
 LXIV 
 
 In South Africa Leopold Pollack met with a lukewarm 
 reception, but before he had time to warn Sarah, she 
 packed up and went to join him. In his eagerness to 
 escape possible dependence in America he had partially 
 blinded himself to the fact that human nature is the 
 same the world over and dependence in South Africa is 
 as little sweet as elsewhere. Leopold's relatives, after 
 their first silent amazement, began to talk among them- 
 selves. What could the two have thought by coming such 
 a distance to plant themselves sans sufficient funds among 
 people who until then had been happy ? Their unfriend- 
 liness, especially after Sarah's arrival, grieved Leopold 
 so that he began to ail. Sarah was alarmed and looked 
 into a black future, yet, with her eternal love of life, she 
 defied facts again. 
 
 "What," she cried to Leopold when a year had gone 
 by, "are you grieving so for? God mine! So we'll tell 
 them to go to the devil and return to America. We have 
 enough for traveling expenses, and when we get back 
 something will turn up. If you make yourself sick what 
 will it avail us ?" 
 
 She cheered and petted him, and at times even worked
 
 4 88 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 herself up into hopefulness. Only in the darkness of the 
 night would the actuality stare her in the face like a 
 grinning skeleton. She would curl up in a knot, the goose 
 flesh would stand out on her skin, and her tongue and 
 lips would grow dry. What would she and Leopold go 
 back to in America? In the daytime, however, she kept 
 up a show of optimism. But Leopold was not without 
 eyes for her deepening sallowness and loss of flesh. 
 
 In the end her hopes prevailed, and they set sail for 
 New York. Though it was tacitly understood between 
 them that they were not to go to the children, they made 
 no plans for another home, each too tight with worry 
 for words ; and when the dock in New York was reached 
 they exchanged glances of terrified helplessness. Sarah, 
 frenzied by the sight of Leopold's haggard face, cried 
 involuntarily : 
 
 "I know a nice two-room house on Henry Street. Let 
 us go there. There always used to be rooms. We'll take 
 two rooms." 
 
 Leopold bowed his head. Like two pilgrims they 
 walked silently to the Henry Street tenement of Sarah's 
 past. There were two rooms vacant on the ground floor. 
 
 As Sarah stood with Leopold and the janitress looking 
 about the melancholy premises, a ton weight rested on her 
 soul. She pressed the top of her head with one hand 
 and bit her upper lip to hide its quivering. When Leo- 
 pold paid a deposit a groan almost escaped her. 
 
 When they were alone, assuming a calm demeanor, she 
 said : "There must be a second-hand furniture shop in the 
 neighborhood ; let's go out and buy a few things." 
 
 n ni go alone, you stay here and rest," he said, and 
 left. 
 
 Sarah turned aimlessly about the empty room, stood a
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 489 
 
 moment clenching her fists, then she walked with shuf- 
 fling steps to a barred window opening upon the tiny 
 yard. Blurred visions of Foxy, Minnie, Abie, Bubbele, 
 and Mrs. Ratkin passed through her numbed mind. A 
 shadow of Elias ascended through a rift in the sky. It 
 went up, up, up and then was closed out of sight. 
 Sarah's eyes dropped upon the offal litter in the yard. 
 She clenched her fists tighter and moved hastily to the 
 middle of the room. Her gray hair, loosely pinned, tum- 
 bled over her shoulders. She turned her face upward 
 between lifted shoulders and threw out her hands, palms 
 open, as if challenging the Unknown to explain her fate. 
 A groaning figure with head bowed in hands crouched 
 on the dirty, dust-laden floor. 
 
 LXV 
 
 Sarah, and not Leopold, succumbed to illness. In less 
 than a month's time she was so reduced that she had to 
 spend many hours on the lounge, but with her usual 
 stoicism she denied the necessity for summoning a doc- 
 tor, assuring Leopold each day that she would be well 
 by the morrow. 
 
 "Don't you think," Leopold suggested once when 
 Sarah looked particularly ill, "that since you are sick we 
 ought to let the children know we are here?" Before 
 putting the question, he had considered long and seri- 
 ously. 
 
 "No, no!" cried Sarah passionately. It had become a 
 mania with her to keep their return a secret from every- 
 one, especially her children. They must not know of her 
 reduced circumstances. And she was too worn to give 
 logical thought to what might be the end of it all.
 
 490 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Leopold went to work daily in a cigarette factory in 
 much the same capacity as Elias, though the shop was 
 spacious and modern. On his return home evenings he 
 would find a sick wife and as sick a supper awaiting 
 him. 
 
 And so the days passed, seemingly leading nowhere. 
 
 LXVI 
 
 Two Sundays went by without a visit from Abraham. 
 Minnie thought he might not be well, but refrained from 
 writing him for fear of appearing indelicate. The next 
 Sunday a full hour went in the vain expectation that each 
 masculine figure on the street would prove to be Abra- 
 ham. 
 
 The next day at lunch Minnie deliberately asked Yetta 
 if she knew whether Abraham was well. Yetta dropped 
 her lids. She was sure he was well ; Doctor Flegal, whom 
 she had seen several times, had said nothing of his being 
 ill. Minnie was relieved. She had not noticed that Yetta 
 spoke too eagerly. 
 
 The rest of the week Minnie went about wondering 
 why it was that now when she was fitted to be Abraham's 
 helpmate, he should be indifferent. "Fate delights in 
 mean tricks," she said to herself in a dawning perception 
 of life's ironies. 
 
 The fourth Sunday her sisters exchanged silent smiles 
 over the persistent figure at the window, and shrugged 
 their shoulders because of Minnie's lack of pride. When 
 a man turns cold, it was their belief, a woman should 
 congeal. Toward evening Minnie retired to her room. 
 When she reappeared, her eyes were red-rimmed. She 
 was lonely, her heart was heavy. She wanted something
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 491 
 
 to live for, somebody to mean something to her, some- 
 body to mean something to. Life was barren, empty. 
 "Gregory, oh, Gregory!" she cried within herself. 
 
 After one more long vigil by the window on the fol- 
 lowing Sunday, her heart was convulsed with forebod- 
 ings. "Can it be that Abraham is in love with someone 
 else?" 
 
 He had written: "You may steal, kill, make yourself 
 detestable in my eyes, I will love you." She felt a mo- 
 ment's peace. 
 
 "Then why has he stayed away so long ? He never did 
 it before." A dark shadow was on her heart. 
 
 "Wait until you get well and then we will talk the 
 whole thing over," he had said on the New Jersey hill. 
 
 "He is honorable ; he would not go back on his word." 
 
 The next morning she rose in a stupor from a torment 
 of nightmares. On her way to work she decided she 
 would take Yetta into her confidence. 
 
 As she entered the office the telephone bell rang. She 
 took the receiver off the hook. 
 
 "Is that you, Minnie?" came Yetta's voice. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, I simply couldn't wait till lunch to tell you a 
 perfectly wonderful piece of news." 
 
 A dramatic pause, during which Minnie's intuitions 
 leapt to the truth. 
 
 Time for dramatic suspense to be up, came the an- 
 nouncement. 
 
 "Abraham Ratkin and I are going to be married." 
 
 A sickening quiver rent Minnie. She was paralyzed. 
 In a daze, she hung up the receiver and stood stark. Her 
 hand went quickly to her throat, feeling its outline. 
 Then a sort of panting indignation pervaded her. In a
 
 492 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 moment others came into the office and she braced her- 
 self and set to work. ... It was impossible to accom- 
 plish a thing. "She deceived me, she deliberately falsi- 
 fied!" The inconceivable effrontery thrust itself in the 
 way of every other thought. . . . 
 
 Minnie's ashen face was plea sufficient for her em- 
 ployer to let her off early in the morning. 
 
 At home the thoughts throbbed on and on, and a flood 
 of driving emotions racked her. She was thrust out, 
 and the stranger Yetta Grubicha occupied her place with 
 Abie of her childhood days! . . . She saw herself mak- 
 ing confidences to a trusted friend, then saw the same 
 friend a traitor. When she saw the one she could not 
 believe in the other. She was jerked sickeningly by al- 
 ternate belief and disbelief. It was a revelation of mean- 
 ness and ugliness that did not reveal but blinded and 
 stunned and sickened. And that Abraham should have 
 failed to adhere to his promise to talk it all over when 
 she got well, and love her even if she stole, killed or 
 made herself detestable in his eyes seemed incredible. 
 She felt herself in a world of unreal beings. 
 
 Finally, in a revulsion from this mood, her mind 
 groped its way upward out of the slime. She felt herself 
 lifted in Gregory's arms to his heaven. She was not 
 meant for Abraham. She belonged to Gregory's memory. 
 It was for her to live a life outside herself. Though she 
 was unfitted for a part in the big things to be done in the 
 world, she could live big in spirit, step aside, as it were, 
 and let him who would rush, hustle, bustle over the ruin 
 of others to their success. She was meant to live within ; 
 to dream of what might have been and worship what had 
 teen. Sighing, with a dull, corroding ache in her heart, 
 she rose and wrote Yetta asking her not to misconstrue
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 493 
 
 her odd behavior at the telephone. "I wish you happi- 
 ness," she ended, "and though for me just now it is as if 
 the light of the world has gone out, I am sure I will soon 
 be myself again." 
 
 But she was not convinced of it. Something within 
 was dead no, dying and it raised a piercing, pleading 
 cry : "Abraham, oh, Abraham, now when I long to make 
 you happy !" 
 
 LXVII 
 
 Minnie's letter put Yetta, against her practical sense, 
 through a period of pious reflection. She was certain 
 that even though Minnie had "played up," she held a 
 pretty caustic opinion of her in reserve. Yetta would 
 have preferred attack. The tables of baseness, treachery, 
 cruelty, could then have been turned upon Minnie, while 
 Yetta could have lashed herself into a fine frenzy of 
 anger to nullify her sense of guilt. As it was, she had 
 a superstitious dread of punishment in some form or 
 other; she trod timidly as if to hide from the watchful 
 eyes of the Fates. 
 
 When Abraham came in the evening, she rose from 
 her seat at the window with a start as if awakened from 
 a trance. She went toward him languidly, kissed him 
 passionately on the lips and let the tears gather in her 
 eyes. 
 
 "What's the matter?" Abraham asked at once in con- 
 cern. She turned her head away, began a sigh and as if 
 becoming conscious of it cut it short. She moved lan- 
 guidly toward the window. "What is it, dear?" he re- 
 peated, in alarm, following her. Something must be very 
 wrong, he believed in his sincerity, if Yetta was so dis-
 
 494 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 tressed. She sank into her chair and turned her head 
 to the window. He stood beside her while removing 
 his hat and coat. 
 
 "I'll take them," she said languidly, holding her hand 
 out gracefully for his garments and half rising in readi- 
 ness for service. 
 
 He held her off with "I'll do it myself," and laid the 
 things down on a chair ; then he seated himself beside her, 
 bent forward, took her hand, and insisted, this time im- 
 peratively, upon knowing what was the trouble. 
 
 Yetta turned liquid eyes upon him pleadingly. He 
 inferred she did not wish to be questioned and so sat si- 
 lently holding her hand. She turned her eyes away again. 
 With the cunning that in vulgar yet aspiring natures re- 
 places genuineness, she assumed all the outer manifesta- 
 tions of an inward struggle. She sighed and quivered 
 and palpitated. 
 
 Abraham's heart was genuinely wrung. 
 
 "What is it? Please tell me, I beg you," he pleaded. 
 
 She dropped her head on his shoulder. He took her in 
 his arms. She broke into gentle Weeping, by degrees 
 working herself up into real unhappiness. 
 
 "I am so miserable !" 
 
 "Miserable?" Abraham cried. It was a ruthless pluck 
 at his man's pride. He thought somehow he was the 
 cause. Divining his suspicion she hastened to allay it. 
 
 "I had a dreadful letter from Minnie." 
 
 He bit his lips. The mention of Minnie's name cast a 
 blight. He was irritated. Yetta nestled her head more 
 lovingly on his shoulder. She languished and she sighed 
 according to all the rules of contemporary drama. And 
 the more marked Yetta's distress, the more Abraham 
 was upset and the angrier he grew at Minnie. He sup-
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 495 
 
 posed her letter had been offensive and abusive. Dis- 
 gust with the Minnie he had been deceived in mounted 
 by rapid degrees. 
 
 "Don't take it so hard," he coaxed, his whole body quiv- 
 ering. 
 
 In time Yetta's emotion subsided, and it was possible 
 to hold smooth converse. 
 
 Abraham asked to see the letter. Yetta had destroyed 
 it. Just as well, Abraham concluded. He told Yetta she 
 should not reply, nor, for that matter, should either of 
 them have anything more to do with Minnie. With the 
 inexorableness with which a surgeon performs an am- 
 putation, they should remove Minnie from their lives so 
 as to leave their matrimonial platform clear of all en- 
 cumbrances. 
 
 "You know best, dear," Yetta acceded, cuddling up to 
 him. 
 
 A prayer of gratitude went up from Abraham's heart. 
 This woman that God had given him was so amenable, 
 so gentle, so good. 
 
 LXVIII 
 
 Though Sarah was merciless with herself in endeavor- 
 ing to overcome her weakness, her spirit was unable to 
 buoy up her body. Every day it came harder to her to 
 go through with her meager household tasks. Yet she 
 made no moan, bowing her head like a horse in a storm. 
 
 Only her rnind went on tirelessly. 
 
 "Is my life coming to an end? What is life? Who 
 has the say over it? Surely not the individual. Where
 
 496 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 does it lead to ? Is it meant as a game or a lesson or a 
 joke? ... I have toiled with my very marrow up a very 
 mountain to be rid of poverty ; with my blood I watered 
 the ground for my children to grow in more easily than 
 I, and now, through no neglect of mine or my children's, 
 I am ruthlessly plucked and returned to the rotten soil 
 of poverty to decay. I am no longer fit to make a strug- 
 gle. Whoever the evil perpetrator of my fate is, he has 
 won. Where is the justice? Whose is the guilt? I am 
 broken, wholly broken. And so is Leopold. And how 
 much more than a hair's breadth divides my children 
 from my very fate !" 
 
 Her children lived in her as mere memories. She 
 mourned as though they could never be restored to her. 
 Time and again she worried with a new sort of worry, a 
 worry bereft of all poignancy and yet deep as her being, 
 whether they had been comfortable while she was in 
 South Africa. She had learned from Beckie and Ida that 
 Minnie had come home to live, and her conscience smote 
 her. She scourged herself for having misjudged the girl, 
 and looked back upon her period of violent indignation 
 as though it had been a spell of insanity. She could 
 hardly believe she had ever been capable of it. "She 
 was sick ; I was concerned only about myself. I've been 
 a bad mother, a bad mother." She wrung her yellowish 
 hands in abject desolation, and felt herself a stranger to 
 the old Sarah. The new Sarah knew no grudges, no 
 malice. Recollections of the children each in turn as 
 little ones with their individual wiles and pranks would 
 contract her heart with pain. Now Minnie was refusing 
 to go steal a band from Mira; now she was helping to 
 plu'ck chickens; now she was doing washing, scrubbing 
 floors, tying Bubbele's shoe laces. "She was a golden
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 497 
 
 child. God grant her better luck than her mother has 
 had," Sarah would moan to herself as, shuddering, she 
 would look about the two grimy rooms that everywhere 
 smelt of decay of the end of all. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 Minnie, for all her resignation and for all that she had 
 written to Yetta, went about with the peculiar feeling 
 that the inevitable would somehow be forestalled. The 
 more she thought of it the more incredible it seemed that 
 Abraham who had loved her so should so unceremoni- 
 ously have discarded her for one as different from her- 
 self as Yetta Grubicha. Every day she expected a letter 
 which would eradicate the whole affair as a misunder- 
 standing. But the letter never came, and Minnie began 
 to feel a peculiar shrinking from life, an unwholesome- 
 ness about life, as if it were ill with a malignant disease. 
 
 One day coming down the lobby of the office building 
 Minnie saw Yetta and Abraham standing at the entrance 
 door talking. Yetta's eyes met hers. Turning color, 
 Yetta quickly lowered her lids and floundered in the con- 
 versation. Abraham glanced into the lobby. His heart 
 leapt at the sight of Minnie. By a gigantic effort, he 
 continued conversation with his bride, whose heart, like 
 his own, he knew, palpitated entirely out of keeping with 
 their cold-blooded resolution to lop this disturber from 
 their lives. 
 
 Minnie hesitated for a fraction of a second before 
 passing them, uncertain that she rightly discerned their 
 wish to ignore her. But there was no mistaking their 
 intention. Choked with grief and outrage she fairly 
 stumbled out on to the street. Out of their sight she 
 broke into a run and ran and ran until suddenly she
 
 498 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 found herself lunging into someone. The conventional 
 "Beg pardon" was on her lips when she felt a restraining 
 touch on her arm. 
 
 It was Leopold Pollack. 
 
 LXIX 
 
 Leopold was also returning from work and walking 
 hurriedly with lowered head, worried by thoughts of 
 Sarah, whom he had left in the morning feeling partic- 
 ularly sick. He had made up his mind that if on his re- 
 turn he found her no better, he would summon a doctor 
 and notify the children. "Since I am working," he 
 argued with himself, "and, thank God, making enough 
 for the little we need, why should we keep our presence 
 a secret? Nonsense!" 
 
 Minnie and Leopold stood a moment speechless. 
 
 "Is mama back, too?" she finally asked, her face pal- 
 lid. 
 
 "Yes, dear." There was a catch in Leopold's voice and 
 the tenderness that comes from exhaustion. "She is 
 sick your mother is " he ended in a quiver. 
 
 A dreadful surmise leapt to Minnie's mind; that her 
 mother might be dying, and in the Helina Heimath. Her 
 throat felt strangled. The words came thickly, with a 
 prodigious effort. 
 
 "Where where is she?" 
 
 Sarah had not told Leopold that their living in the 
 Henry Street tenement was a repetition of history, and 
 he could not account for Minnie's stare as he mentioned 
 the street and number.
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 499 
 
 "Mama back on Henry Street?" Her eyes looked 
 wild. "Take me to her," she added hoarsely. 
 
 Sarah was asleep on a broken lounge which Leopold 
 had bought in the second-hand basement furniture shop 
 for ninety-five cents. Her face was yellow and lined. 
 
 Minnie and Leopold walked softly over and stood by 
 her side. A mad desire to shout at the Fates, at heaven 
 and God, to spit in the face of all life almost suffocated 
 Minnie. 
 
 "She looks worse than when I left her this morning," 
 Leopold whispered. 
 
 Minnie turned abruptly away and staggered over to the 
 window. 
 
 She was a little girl again with Foxy tugging at her 
 skirts ; Abie assailed her with "Fights." Her thumb was 
 in her mouth. From the top-floor window Sarah called 
 "Minnie!" She was back again in the present with a 
 broken heart and silent sobs rending her being. 
 
 Sarah stirred on the broken lounge. She opened her 
 eyes and smiled pathetically and apologetically up at 
 Leopold. 
 
 "Are you home already?" she asked in a weak voice. 
 At the same instant she recognized Minnie and turning 
 even yellower tried to raise herself. 
 
 "I walked right into Minnie, Sarah," Leopold explained 
 hastily. 
 
 Minnie rushed to her mother and, raising her to a sit- 
 ting posture in her arms, dropped down beside her on 
 the edge of the lounge. Sarah, dazed, could not say a 
 word. Leopold turned away. Sarah began to weep. 
 Minnie lowered her head on her mother's shoulder and 
 also wept.
 
 500 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "Minnie, Minnele !" with a shaky hand Sarah stroked 
 the girl's hair. 
 
 "Mama, mama dear !" 
 
 Suddenly Sarah grew limp in Minnie's arms. 
 
 "Mama!" Minnie shrieked. 
 
 No answer. 
 
 An agonized glance passed between Leopold and Min- 
 nie. Leopold dashed out for a doctor. 
 
 The room was dark. In a frenzy Minnie stumbled 
 about for the matches. Lighting one, she applied it to 
 the gas jet, but no flame came. The quarter meter had 
 run low late in the day and Sarah had not had the energy 
 to go out and convert loose change into the one coin. 
 Swiftly remembering the character of the tenement's gas 
 service, Minnie dug into her purse, and jumped up on 
 a chair to reach the slot. 
 
 "Don't you DARE!" came from Sarah, who had re- 
 vived and whose eyes had been following her daughter. 
 
 Minnie's hand jerked and the coin fell to the floor. 
 She flew to Sarah and sank down on her knees beside 
 her. 
 
 "Mama, mama dear." 
 
 Sarah, exhausted, sank deeper into the lounge. 
 
 Minnie stroked her hair. Regretting her impulsive 
 show of indignation, Sarah took the girl's dank hand in 
 hers and fumbled with it clumsily. 
 
 "No, no!" she muttered and paused. "No, it's not 
 for you to give me." She paused again. "I was a bad 
 mother to you." She seemed to be speaking to herself. 
 She left off and turned her head to the wall and dropped 
 Minnie's hand. In a moment she felt again for the hand ; 
 she tightened and loosened her hold spasmodically. In a 
 voice not like her own, in a husky, low voice, with a
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 501 
 
 quaver as from old age, she brought out : "You have more 
 
 character in one of your little fingers than " 
 
 Leopold and the doctor came in. 
 
 LXX 
 
 The three girls sat up until midnight discussing their 
 mother and Leopold. 
 
 "They certainly should not have squandered all that 
 money at their time of life. It took a fortune to go to 
 South Africa," quoth Ida. 
 
 "But I think it was because they were so afraid of 
 growing dependent," said Minnie. 
 
 "And what about now?" demanded Ida, impatient of 
 Minnie's reasoning. 
 
 "They didn't foresee this." 
 
 "Oh, stop arguing," broke in Beckie. "What differ- 
 ence does it make how it happened? Mama's sick, and 
 we ought to make her come home. The idea of going to 
 Henry Street to live!" 
 
 All out of patience, Ida raised her voice. "But she 
 won't come home." 
 
 Minnie had coaxed Sarah and Leopold to return 
 with her that very night. Leopold, for Sarah's sake, was 
 ready to do so. Sarah, however, persistently declared 
 that now that the doctor had seen her and prescribed she 
 would soon be well and it would be time enough then 
 to make plans. 
 
 Ida resented this sudden disturbance of her peace. 
 Now that she might have used her earnings wholly for 
 herself and breathed freely after the many years of work 
 and responsibility, this had to come ! She sulked within 
 herself that forever since childhood it had been necessary
 
 502 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 to make one sacrifice or another for this one or that one 
 of the family. During the summer, before Minnie had 
 come home, Beckie had lost her position, and she had 
 wanted Ida to forego her vacation so as to reduce her 
 own living expenses, because if Ida went away, Ida's 
 weekly contribution would not be forthcoming. "As if," 
 Ida had thought petulantly, "one is not entitled to live 
 for oneself! . . ." Yet she was concerned about her 
 mother. The great nuisance, however, lay in the fact that 
 concern was not sufficient. 
 
 "I suppose if she won't come home, we'll each have to 
 chip in something every week until she gets better." Ida 
 sighed resignedly. 
 
 Looking into space, Minnie said: "I'm afraid she 
 won't take money and she won't come home either." She 
 had the gas meter incident in mind. 
 
 Minnie's notions were too much for Ida. "So what 
 will she do?" she exploded, reddening to her temples. 
 
 Minnie shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 ****** 
 
 When the three girls reached the Henry Street rooms 
 in the morning, they found Leopold at home ministering 
 to Sarah, in the hope that if he gave himself up to her 
 for the full day and carried out the doctor's orders punc- 
 tiliously, an immediate cure might be effected. 
 
 Warmer than her greeting of the two people was Ida's 
 show of contempt for the freakishness which had taken 
 them again to the pesty East Side. "Such an idea !" she 
 burst out immediately. She might have restrained her- 
 self if Sarah had made the miserable picture that Min- 
 nie had prepared her for. But Sarah, reacting to her 
 pleasure in Leopold's presence and excited by the chil- 
 dren's appearance, was flushed and smiling and looked
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 503 
 
 rather well. She cowered imperceptibly at Ida's harsh 
 words. With the supersensitiveness of the invalid, her 
 heart: began to pound and her temples to throb. With a 
 suppressed gasp, she begged Ida : "Childie, be friendly to 
 your mother," and a sob escaped her. Ida was silenced 
 by a warning look from the other three. 
 
 To divert Sarah's attention, Leopold launched upon 
 their South African experiences. While he spoke, Ida's 
 mind was torn between pity and defiance. "I certainly 
 won't mention coming home to them now. As if I didn't 
 mean what I said for their own good ! When they have 
 a real home to go to, they turn to this rotten hole ! Now 
 they can come if they want to, and if they don't is nisht 
 gefiddelt so far as I'm concerned." 
 
 When. Leopold had finished, Ida rose to go. "I'm an 
 hour late already for work," she said, seeing her mother's 
 disappointment. 
 
 The three girls exchanged looks. Ida's said : "I won't." 
 Beckie's said to Minnie : "You do." Minnie's said : "All 
 right." She walked to her mother and leaning over she 
 said gently : "Ma, we'll get a carriage and take you home. 
 You can't stay here. Please, ma." 
 
 Sarah flushed. She was annoyed at the tumultuous 
 beating of her own heart. She waved her hand depre- 
 catingly. "I'll be well soon and make money and furnish 
 a home and then invite you to my home." It was obvious 
 that there was no use arguing with her. She was a rock 
 of determination. 
 
 Ida turned away disgusted. Beckie felt tearful. Min- 
 nie, too, felt tearful. Leopold hung his head. 
 
 When Ida was going out, Sarah begged the other two 
 not to let themselves be detained either : they might come 
 again in the evening if they cared to ; she would be glad
 
 504 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 to see them. When Minnie and Beckie kissed her, she 
 wiped away tears from her eyes. Ida, touched, returned 
 from the door and also kissed her mother. 
 
 An hour later Sarah lapsed into unconsciousness. Leo- 
 pold rushed out to summon the doctor. Soon afterward 
 Sarah was no more. 
 
 LXXI 
 
 Bad news travels fast and far. 
 
 Almost simultaneously there flocked to the house of 
 death all the relatives Sarah had ever had in days happy 
 and unhappy. And Mira Cohen, too, proprietress of the 
 Cohen Millinery Bargain House, her hair Marcel-waved, 
 bustled in breathless with excitement. She wrung her 
 hands. She charged Leopold Pollack : 
 
 "Why, why didn't you let me know ? Woe is me, why 
 didn't you let some of us know? Wouldn't I have helped 
 you? Why are we human beings if not to help one an- 
 other?" 
 
 Was it sincere, Minnie wondered, or was it hypocrisy, 
 or the dictation of imbecile minds and shallow hearts? 
 . . . What had Ida's wailing and moaning in common 
 with her hard-hearted attitude before Sarah's death? 
 Minnie looked at her, recalling, with the utter amazement 
 she had felt at the time, the scene when Ida had learned 
 of her mother's death. This had been in the vestibule 
 of the Henry Street tenement; Ida had run out on the 
 street as in a fit of madness ; had flung away her purse, 
 and torn her hat from her head, crying : "Mama, oh, my 
 mama !" 
 
 "Ida, Ida, dear, control yourself," Minnie had begged. 
 
 "Oh, don't bother me. Your fancy words make me
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 505 
 
 sick. 7 want to cry for my mother. If you don't want to 
 cry for yours, don't!" 
 
 Minnie stared at the mourners and shrugged in the 
 utter incomprehension with which duplicity inspires the 
 straightforward. Frequently her eyes traveled to where 
 her mother lay, the humble coffin covered with a black 
 cloth, the lighted candles at the head. 
 
 "What an end ! What an end !" she mourned, feeling 
 that something within her had also died. 
 
 LXXII 
 
 For several months Minnie and Beckie had their time 
 taken up by Ida, who succumbed to a nervous breakdown. 
 Minnie took her to the hill in New Jersey where she 
 had recuperated from this same of the many of her past 
 blessings. Though Minnie pointed to herself as a living 
 example of the disease overcome, Ida was certain that 
 in her case there would be no cure. Minnie might have 
 had a nervous breakdown, but it had not been like hers. 
 In time she recovered and went back to work. 
 
 Then came some joy. Beckie, sweet and pretty, was 
 wooed, was married, and went to another city to live. 
 
 Ida and Minnie decided to go their separate ways, 
 one of their reasons being that it was impossible for the 
 two of them alone to maintain the home. Ida took a 
 room at the Young Ladies' Lodge. Minnie, averse to a 
 repetition of any past experiences, chose a home from out 
 of the newspaper columns of "Boarders Wanted." 
 
 LXXIII 
 
 
 
 The time was about eight o'clock in the evening/: the 
 place was the skylight room of a first-class boarding-
 
 506 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 house kept by a refined Southern lady in reduced circum- 
 stances who condescended to take in a few paying guests. 
 Minnie Mendel was sitting perched on the top rung of a 
 slim ladder that led up to a glass dome opening on the 
 roof. Smoke spouting up hurriedly from a nearby chim- 
 ney as if anxious to escape confinement tumbled in a mass 
 mingling with the grayness of the night. 
 
 "It's funny to have to climb a ladder for a whiff of 
 air a funny place to live in, a skylight room a funny 
 life," Minnie mused, an odd mixture of smile and sigh 
 playing in her heart. 
 
 The time had passed quietly. Her poignant grief at 
 her mother's death had settled into an even sorrow. And 
 Abraham's marriage had sunk below a misty horizon. 
 Now there was just loneliness. And the world seemed 
 to hold no balm for all the bruises of the past. Life be- 
 came again a round of work, eat, sleep, with here and 
 there a snatch of gladness, in the form of a cheerful let- 
 ter from Beckie, a talk with a friend, a bit of music, a 
 play. But in the main it was empty, for the spirit craved 
 big things and was fettered by lack of training and op- 
 portunity. Bitterness stirred in her soul as she sat 
 cogitative on the ladder. She tried to reason it away 
 by telling herself she was an infinitesimal part of a 
 gigantic whole. "But then I am a part," she argued 
 on the side of bitterness. "Without me there is no 
 whole. No human being must be disregarded as if he 
 were a mistake. . . ." She looked up and watched the 
 gray clouds sail by. Slowly forward they were moving, 
 sure as could be mama, papa, Foxy Minnie wiped tears 
 from her eyes. "It's been a terrific struggle. Mama 
 climbed about as high as this ladder and they would not 
 even let her stay there." In the wake of her grief over
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 507 
 
 her mother swept a horrible fear. "I am afraid of life, 
 I'm not feeling a bit well. My heart pounds pounds 
 pounds all the time. I don't sleep I don't feel well. If 
 I break down, then what?" She shuddered. That way 
 lurked horror. Up in the clouds a rift was made; two 
 brown eyes looked into hers. "Slick slick oh, yes, I 
 should have been slick. I am afraid of life, of its ter- 
 ribly sharp edges. I should have married money and 
 made the edges dull for myself. There was Morris Cap- 
 Ian John Maloney. All the girls who are afraid of the 
 sharp edges do it; you see them on Seventh Avenue, on 
 Broadway, on Fifth Avenue. They are afraid of the 
 sharp edges. I am just as afraid, only I am not as slick. 
 What if the wedding march does toll the knell of a soul ? 
 To live with a soul in a skylight room lovely quarters 
 for a soul a place to thrive in surely." She wiped away 
 tears. From somewhere in her being rose the thought : 
 "A better way for all maybe has miscarried : who knows, 
 perhaps it will be restored to us some day by the Mes- 
 siah papa's Messiah." She smiled and wiped tears 
 away, and then descended from the ladder because her 
 back ached. 
 
 The dismalness of the tiny room lit by a puny gas jet 
 was too well attuned to her melancholy; she put on her 
 hat and went out. 
 
 She walked slowly toward Fifth Avenue, which was 
 not far from her boarding-house. At one corner the 
 traffic was having the right-of-way. She waited. 
 
 A fat gentleman had walked as fast as he could behind 
 her. When she stopped he had a chance to make sure of 
 the correctness of his guess. 
 
 "Well, Miss Mendel ! I thought to myself 'that's she,' 
 but I wasn't sure." Mr. Maloney seemed to have fed
 
 5o8 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 well during 1 the years ; his girth was monumental, the tip 
 of his nose red and shiny, his eyes murky, his lids puffy, 
 and his cheeks bloated. . . All of which made no differ- 
 ence to Minnie. . . His voice was like an echo of the! 
 past that had held laughter and fun-making. 
 
 "Mr. Maloney!" 
 
 She shook his hand warmly. He pressed so hard that 
 she cried out. An old trick of his, and an old way of 
 hers. "Well, I see yer after objecting to the same things 
 yet." It was on the tip of Mr. Maloney's Irish tongue 
 to ask whether she also still objected to "fellers" like him. 
 
 "Are ye after losing anybody ?" he asked instead. She 
 was dressed in black. 
 
 "Yes, I've lost my mother." She dropped her eyes. 
 "But I've been out of mourning a long time." How could 
 she tell Mr. Maloney that she could not live in a cheap 
 boarding-house with its smells and noises and atrocious 
 food and boresome company, and that the skylight room 
 of a first-class house took so much of her salary that no 
 margin was left for clothes; and though she hated the 
 sight of black she brushed and furbished up her garments 
 to last an eternity? The consciousness, however, that in 
 spite of her old mourning she did not look dowdy helped 
 her meet Mr. Maloney's eyes squarely. 
 
 "That's too bad," he said earnestly and took note that 
 slie looked pinched and that lines of age were visible 
 around her nostrils and the corners of her mouth, and 
 she was not so pretty any more. The mirthful twinkle 
 in her great gray eyes had been much more becoming 
 than this wise stare. He gave a little cluck and tried to 
 suppress a bit of satisfaction that she was apparently not 
 prosperous. 
 
 "Married?" he asked.
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 509 
 
 "No." 
 
 Another triumph. 
 
 "Are you?" 
 
 His "no" cast a ray of gladness on Minnie's heart. 
 She was ashamed of it. 
 
 "Are ye bound for any place in particular?" 
 
 "No, I live near here and am just out for a walk." 
 
 "How would ye like to take in a movie ? I'm free, too. 
 
 Let's go down to Forty-sec Here there " He 
 
 hailed a taxi and hustled Minnie in before she had time 
 to accept or reject his invitation. It was his purpose in 
 thus hailing the taxi to remind Minnie of the opportunity 
 for well-being she had spurned. His object lesson was 
 successful. She might now, it crossed her mind, be roll- 
 ing in padded cars along Fifth Avenue. She felt a vague 
 regret coupled with a bitterness as if life were a cruel 
 schoolmaster who knew no bounds in its chastisement for 
 disobedience. 
 
 "How's that feller, that high-brow feller of yers?" he 
 asked when they were settled in the car. 
 
 "Mr. Ratkin ? Oh, he's married." Flushing, she tried 
 to evade his eyes. 
 
 What was the matter with the girl? She didn't seem 
 able to smile. Been having a hell of a time of it any- 
 body could see that. Mr. Maloney could somehow not 
 feel sorry. 
 
 "Where you working?" 
 
 "In a book house." 
 
 "Making lots of money?" 
 
 She smiled a wistful, tired smile that went straight 
 to Mr. Maloney's heart through the layers of his bulging 
 flesh, for she looked pretty again at that moment. 
 
 He himself had been lonely. There had been no one
 
 510 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 to make use of all the thousands piling up in his name. 
 And even a suite of rooms in a fine family hotel palls on 
 one's spirits. The sufferings of the heart do not differ 
 much, no matter in what heart they are lodged. 
 
 "How conies it yer not married? Ye were so popular 
 like sort " 
 
 "How comes it you're not?" She interrupted him for 
 refuge from her embarrassment. She smiled and flushed. 
 The thought that she was already an old maid, that the 
 time had come when people regarded her as an old maid, 
 as an unattractive, undesirable female, flung through her 
 mind and stung her to the quick. She felt ashamed as if 
 she were guilty of defilement. Her soul reaching out 
 like the drowning man for the straw caught on to a ray 
 of hope that Mr. Maloney might ask her to marry him. 
 "How glad I would be!" her heart cried; and while the 
 finer instinct that in previous years had told her that 
 love was the basis of marriage raised its voice even now, 
 her instinct for life submerged it. "Why not? Every- 
 body does it!" She grew angry with herself somehow 
 for standing in her own way. 
 
 As if Mr. Maloney divined her thoughts, he laicf his 
 hand on hers. Her heart began to beat fast. Though 
 the contact was distasteful, she allowed his hand to rest 
 there. "I'm NOT going to be a freak any longer. I'm 
 
 going to be slick. They all do it slick Gregory " 
 
 Her heart laughed a sardonic laugh as she smiled en- 
 couragement upon Mr. Maloney. 
 
 Four hours later they were seated in a private dining- 
 room of a hotel. They had been to a motion-picture thea- 
 ter. He had held her hand all through the performance. 
 Aha, she was attainable, was the conclusion John Maloney 
 had come to after very little thinking. Her price had
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 511 
 
 come down. He was a winner. . . . But he was an old 
 bachelor, with idiosyncrasies, fixed habits, hard to get 
 along with, and he really didn't care to marry. Maybe 
 she'd meet him half way. If she had come as far as she 
 had, she would come farther. There was every evidence. 
 
 He hesitated some time, however, before he gathered 
 the courage to bend over to her side of the table and 
 kiss her. Her soul shrank ; she gritted her teeth. From 
 the tablecloth Gregory's brown eyes looked "slick" at 
 her. 
 
 "Now why can't ye" Mr. Maloney coughed "have a 
 nice, fine little apartment a swell place of your own; 
 
 sport sealskin and grand clothes " He bobbed his 
 
 head "I'm a rich feller " He dug one hand in his 
 
 pocket while he wobbled in his chair. 
 
 Her heart thundered in her ears. 
 
 "I'm too old to marry don't ye know too too" 
 he brushed the air away with his hand "set in my ways." 
 He spread his fat knees farther apart. "But yer a sen- 
 sible girl now. I'll do right by ye " He coughed. 
 
 She stared at him. What could he mean ? 
 
 "There ain't much to this marriage business anyway 
 nowadays. I'll give you a grand salary income sort 
 
 of and treat you square " He bent over, his hreath 
 
 coming in gusts like a locomotive starting off; A crumb 
 of bread was lodged on his lower lip, and his face looked 
 terribly bloated. 
 
 Minnie was still not sure she understood, yet she felt 
 alarmed. The male in Mr. Maloney rose in a great gust 
 of resolution. This time she would not make sport of 
 him. He raised his voice to a more compelling pitch. 
 
 "That decency business rot " he brought out like 
 
 a thick sneeze "Look at ye " He pointed at her
 
 512 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 with his pudgy hand; "years flying opportunities 
 betche ye haven't had a proposal of marriage in a blue 
 moon. If a feller like me offers ye money comfort " 
 
 Was he making an indecent proposal? He leaned 
 closer to her ; she drew away ; he grew very red in the 
 face and breathed very hard while he looked at her with 
 bulging eyes. . . . She felt certain now. A wave of 
 humiliation swept upon her. It was as if someone had 
 slammed a door in her face. 
 
 "Come on now " said Mr. Maloney, his fat chest 
 
 heaving. 
 
 She jumped up and without a word left him alone in 
 the room. 
 
 LXXIV 
 
 The lights in the Helina Heimath were turned off at 
 nine o'clock, and no exception was made when it wel- 
 comed back old guests. 
 
 The ward was dark and quiet except for an occasional 
 cough, an occasional groan and an occasional call for the 
 attendant, who called back "s-sh" or "shut-up" according 
 to her mood of the moment. 
 
 Though she was tired, sleep would not come to Min- 
 nie. She tossed from side to side. Then, bethinking her- 
 self that her restlessness must disturb her neighbor, she 
 lay still, staring out of the window. "This is the 'pur- 
 fectly lovely' view again!" She smiled wistfully. "It 
 seems dark and dismal to me. I guess much depends 
 upon the point of view." She gave a fatalistic shrug, 
 shifted her position and stared and stared out upon the 
 view, which in the night was merged into one blot of
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 513 
 
 black. What a somersault her life had taken! In 
 ruins lay all her hopes a sorry mess. She was once 
 more a bit of scum of the earth in a Human Job-Lot 
 House. Like her mother she had made the ascent and 
 the descent. . . . Why? Why? The question tossed in 
 her head desperately. But there seemed to be no one to 
 whom to put it. Her heart wound itself into a tight knot, 
 her lips began to feel drawn as with acid. A sense of 
 outrage welled up from the nethermost of her being. 
 The world had it so slickly arranged that there was no 
 one to ask, no one to challenge, no one to blame. Her 
 eyes wandered out into the corridor and then into the 
 vast ward opposite where lay thirty other human beings 
 cheated and mangled like herself. Above them were 
 more, below them were more ; to the right and to the left 
 
 were more. There were more, more, more All over 
 
 the world there were humans, cheated, mangled, like 
 these, like herself. Her chest heaved ; her eyes blazed ; 
 her heart vacillated between anguish and disgust. "The 
 host who make their march triumphant, trampling us 
 down on their wlay, do so because we let them because 
 we let them. We let them because we have not enough 
 spirit to rebel effectively. Poverty is a sin a vice a 
 wrong a shame a disgrace to all of us called civilized. 
 The conditions that make it possible must be hewn down 
 and swept away. The world must be exterminated or 
 
 readjusted." 
 
 ****** 
 
 The morning after Minnie's meeting with John Ma- 
 loney the maid of the boarding-house had found her ill 
 in bed, and the landlady who had had troublesome expe- 
 riences with inmates of the skylight room when she had 
 been dilatory in summoning a doctor, now sent for one
 
 514 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 post-haste. The physician, who saw that proper care 
 was not to be had here, despatched Minnie to a hospital 
 where her various symptoms were grouped under the 
 dignified designation "endocarditis." After a time, ac- 
 cording to the rule of the institution, she was to be trans- 
 ferred to a place where patients were kept for protracted 
 periods. When the ward physician came to tell her she 
 was to be removed to the Helina Heimath and her eyes 
 looked amazement and a lividness spread over her face, 
 little did he suspect that his whisking her under the chin 
 and calling her a "scared little girl" and assuring her she 
 would be "all right" in the Helina Heimath was like 
 holding up a stick to stay a tornado. How could he pos- 
 sibly have suspected when a dignified "all right" said 
 nothing of a convulsed heart? Nor had he looked back 
 and seen her bury her head in her pillow. 
 
 "The Helina Heimath! The Helina Heimath!" 
 The cry had broken upon unattending ears. 
 
 LXXV 
 
 A group of young inmates of the Helina Heimath, 
 gathered in the corridor on wheel-chairs, were singing 
 lustily : "Those Bells Are Ringing for Me and Mah Girl." 
 
 Minnie was in her room alone, staring, thinking. It 
 was three months since she had come to the Heimath. 
 She was over the acute stage of her illness and could be 
 up and about. Much to the chagrin of the good-hearted 
 authorities, however, she was not "lively." For instance, 
 one never found her among those singing in the corri- 
 dors, and one never found her participating in the in- 
 stitution's jollifications, its entertainments, its concerts,
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 515 
 
 its parties magnanimous treats of the Ladies' Aid So- 
 ciety, or parties arranged to punctuate philanthropically 
 the birth or wedding of some interested benefactor of 
 the Heimath. She was glum, mum, exclusive. She had 
 won the title "pessimist" from the authorities. Whether 
 they whisked her under the chin, or severely called her to 
 task, "pessimist" was always prefixed; and her pessi- 
 mism, they had it, was centered upon her physical condi- 
 tion; she delved into minute crevices of her aches and 
 pains, emerged with her own gloomy diagnosis, and then 
 brooded, brooded, seeing ahead more disease, worse dis- 
 ease, the dismal, dark grave. . . . And Minnie, just as 
 she had known when she was a child that few could un- 
 derstand the subtle reasoning by which she drew the, to 
 her, justifiable conclusion that she was an orphan, so she 
 now knew that to take these healthy, wholesome beings, 
 beings whom life had met half way with its bounty, into 
 the secret chambers of her heart and soul would be to 
 take them into a country in which they would not know 
 their way, which they would declare unfertile for good. 
 If she told them what was in her heart, a suffering in 
 which personal tragedy and the tragedy of mankind were 
 blended, they would hear a voice out of tune; for they 
 were living in an harmonious world ; they had not been 
 mauled and smashed ; their hearts were whole, not broken 
 into bits, each of which ached in its own corner for self 
 as part of all tragedy. They could not understand the 
 maternal tremulousness with which she watched and 
 waited for the promised offspring of the World War 
 Democracy; how hungrily her eyes devoured the daily 
 reports ; how stirred to its root her soul was each mid- 
 night by the infinitely sorrowful notes of Taps, which
 
 516 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 from a distant cantonment were wafted across the dark 
 
 expanse into her open window. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 It was the day of a party; one of the daughters of a 
 Lady of the Aid Society was marrying. The inmates 
 of the Heimath should share in the joy. Minnie's dis- 
 inclination to participate was ruled down by the ward 
 physician. She was compelled to go. 
 
 Long, narrow tables, which reminded one of loaves of 
 stale French bread, were subdivided into tiny spaces upon 
 each of which was placed a heavy crockery mug filled 
 with mulatto-colored coffee ; alongside the mug on the 
 oilcloth covering rested a piece of sponge cake. That was 
 the treat. When it was devoured, the chic ladies en- 
 couraged singing, and soon male and female voices broke 
 out into "Johnny Get Your Gun, Get Your Gun, Get 
 Your Gun." 
 
 Minnie sat listlessly back in her chair. The gathering 
 receded. She felt herself in a mist. "These poor ghosts," 
 she wondered as she gazed upon the blurred, crippled 
 images, "do they realize the night of their existence?" 
 Her eyes lighted unexpectedly upon the exquisite real 
 lace collar of a lady flitting to and fro. "Does she ever 
 stop to think, I wonder, what tragedies may be inter- 
 woven in the pattern of that collar ? . . . No, she doesn't. 
 If she did she would not take this party so seriously. She 
 would see that it sets no evil right. These women have 
 not their blinds completely down on the sufferings of the 
 world; they are better, much better than many others. 
 But for all their goodnesses how small is their vision ! 
 They think philanthropy takes the world a step forward ; 
 they feel sorry for us but they do not know the weal and 
 the woe of mankind." She had a curious second of de-
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 517 
 
 tachment, during which she was in luxurious quarters 
 with Mr. Maloney, and then clear vision again. Beside 
 her stood a lady jeweled, overdressed, with a fleshy face. 
 She patted Minnie on the head. 
 
 "Sighing again? Thinking again? Why don't you 
 sing sing with the others ? Bad girl " 
 
 "Bad girl nice girl in the Helina Heimath " ran 
 
 through Minnie's mind. 
 
 "Emma! Emma!" called this lady to another. 
 
 A woman dressed in clothes of tempered elegance, 
 beautiful and young, gazed round the room. Her eyes 
 lighted up with a smile of recognition. She made her 
 way between the tables to the lady at Minnie's side. 
 
 "Tell me," the lady, again patting Minnie's head, said 
 to the other, "what shall we do with this girl? She 
 mopes and mopes. Never livens up. Eh?" she added 
 caressingly, looking down into Minnie's upturned eyes. 
 
 Minnie flushed with embarrassment and resentment. 
 "Shut up !" ran through her mind. She said nothing. 
 
 "The other day," the lady continued, "I passed her 
 room; there she was sitting by the window all hunched 
 
 up " She spoke slowly, with a rhythm, as if she 
 
 were intoning a lullaby. 
 
 "Mind your business !" rushed through Minnie's mind, 
 while her heart was suffocated by distaste. 
 
 "Reading 'Looking Backward ' " 
 
 "Aha, instead of being out in the sunshine and play- 
 ing with the other young ones," knowingly chimed in the 
 other, in a lovely, soft voice. She smacked her lips, how- 
 ever, and drew her face so that she looked slick 
 
 A convulsive feeling of rebelliousness seemed to wrest 
 Minnie's soul from its lodging. 
 
 "My redeemers! my mentors! Suppose I should tell
 
 518 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 them that I don't like the lines of their clothes, that they 
 vulgarly accentuate their figures, they would tell me I'm 
 cheeky. They are ladies I'm a girl in tae Heimath " 
 
 "Oh, Emma," called a third. 
 
 The twp turned abruptly away. They would not have 
 hurt Minnie for the world. But she was left behind 
 feeling small, as insignificent as a louse in shaggy wool. 
 She grew hot and trembly. She hated life. 
 
 When the summons for dismissal came a moment 
 later, she jumped up eagerly. In the way of her hasty 
 exit were wheel-chairs wheel-chairs wheel-chairs 
 with lame, blind, diseased. 
 
 How she loathed it all ! If she could have hurled these 
 people aside destroyed exterminated them in one blow, 
 she would have done so. "Fools damn fools !" slapped 
 against her brain. "Grateful and ingratiating hood- 
 winked by a bit here and a snip there." 
 
 She hurried out and, disregardful of the sick, pounding 
 heart, rushed to her room, taken by a burning resolution. 
 If they would not rebel, she would for herself and them. 
 She would rebel for all the world's poor she would be 
 poor no longer she would refuse docilely to swell the 
 number of the world's idiots the world's fools 
 
 In her room she flung the drawer of her tiny table 
 open and took out pen, ink and paper. 
 
 "Dear Mr. Maloney," she wrote, "I have been sick 
 and in the Helina Heimath for six months. I am much 
 better now and ready to do as you asked me to if you 
 will make me independent." 
 
 With resolute steps she retraced the corridor to the 
 post-box. Her cheeks burned, her eyes, rooted to the 
 floor, were glassy like the bottoms of bottles. 
 
 "Mees Mendel !" reached her as through a fog.
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 519 
 
 Morris Caplan was on his way to Amelia Rubin, dying 
 of cancer, in another ward. 
 
 LXXVI 
 
 One year later Mrs. Ratkin's eye fell upon a news- 
 paper announcement of the marriage of Mildred Mendel 
 to Morris Caplan. She could have been knocked over 
 with a straw. 
 
 Truth to tell, Mildred Mendel had been much on Mrs. 
 Ratkin's mind, especially since the second choice of her 
 very estimable son appealed to her heart even less than 
 his first choice. For one thing Yetta Grubicha was not 
 a bit better-looking, in fact not as good looking as Mil- 
 dred Mendel ; nor had she greater wealth to boast of, nor 
 did she hail from better stock. If no arrest of the father 
 had occurred, there was a brother, a young boy to be 
 sure, serving a term in a penitentiary. Young or old, it 
 was no point for boasting. To boot, the Grubichas were 
 of Galician stock ! Of the Mendels it could at least be 
 said that they were German 
 
 During Abraham's and Yetta's short engagement Mrs. 
 Ratkin, as she observed what seemed to her their obvious 
 incompatibility, had often sighed and shed tears, but this 
 time she had resolved not to interfere. She had suffered 
 too keenly when Abraham was going through the pangs 
 of Minnie's rejection to be a voluntary agent of another 
 such experience for him. 
 
 When Mrs. Ratkin had heard of Sarah's death, then 
 of Minnie's illness, and later of Leopold Pollack's death 
 a few months after Sarah's, she had been thrown into a 
 state of great awe. A superstitious fear overwhelmed 
 her that the two dead ones would intercede with the
 
 520 SARAH AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Deity to visit disaster upon her progeny. Her daughters 
 would remain old maids, Yetta Grubicha would turn out 
 to be a demon in disguise, she herself would become lame, 
 blind, dumb ! How Mrs. Ratkin suffered in the anticipa- 
 tion of this vengeance ! Time and again she prayed for 
 forgiveness from the harmless Sarah, and begged God's 
 blessings upon the poor orphan Minnie, whose qualities 
 of refinement, goodness, low-voicedness and especially or- 
 phanhood she called earnestly to the good God's atten- 
 tion. 
 
 In a great heat of excitement she cut out the announce- 
 ment from the newspaper and, donning her street clothes, 
 made straight for the home of her children. She ar- 
 rived hot, panting and puffing. Scarcely was the greeting 
 over, when she rummaged in the bosom of her dress and 
 produced the clipping. 
 
 "LOOK !" she cried to her son. 
 
 Mrs. Ratkin seated herself beside Yetta, who was hold- 
 ing a five-months'-old daughter on her lap. Yetta looked 
 up at Mrs. Ratkin's raised hand and then at the tiny slip 
 and next at Abraham who stood some distance away. 
 "Look at mother's piece of paper, dear," Yetta said to 
 him. Abraham stepped over to his mother and, with a 
 smile anticipatory of some joke, took the clipping from 
 her hand. There was a moment's silence. The smile on 
 Abraham's face faded. He held the clipping down for 
 Yetta to read. Mrs. Ratkin transferred her interested 
 gaze from Abraham to Yetta. A tiny smile now played 
 about Yetta's lips. After reading the announcement, she 
 handed it back to Mrs. Ratkin, and looked up at Abra- 
 ham. A glance that did not lend itself to Mrs. Ratkin's 
 interpretation passed between the two. Yetta fingered 
 thejace yoke of her baby's dress. In a low voice she
 
 SARAH'S DAUGHTER 521 
 
 said, assuming that manner of hesitancy which was to 
 distinguish her remark from unadulterated petty criti- 
 cism: 
 
 "Isn't he the fellow she used to call 'kike' ?" 
 
 A glance of subtle understanding passed between hus- 
 band and wife, and they leaned closer to each other. 
 Abraham stroked Yetta's kinky hair, while a peaceful 
 feeling of gratitude pervaded his heart for the woman 
 God had given him. 
 
 From their attitude Mrs. Ratkin could not decide what 
 manner of comment was expected of her. On an impulse 
 and as a way out, she grabbed up the granddaughter from 
 Yetta's lap and, dancing her in the air, burst into song. 
 "Ei, tiddle, liddle, liddle; ei, tiddle, liddle, urn, turn." 
 
 Yetta clapped her hands. Abraham smiled. 
 
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