As David went out, his mother trailed behind him into the hall.
“Are you going down with him too?” his father inquired.
But without making a reply, she leaned over David and whispered. “Hurry down! I’ll wait!” And aloud as if giving him the last instruction. “The candy store on the corner.”
David went down as quickly as he could. The cellar door was brown in the gaslight. The raw night air met him at the end of the doorway. He went out. Rain, seen only where it blurred the distant lamps, still fell, seeking his face and the nape of his neck with icy fingers. The candy store window glimmered near the corner. His breath an evanescent plume, he hurried toward it, splashing in hidden puddles, his toes curling down against the rising chill. The streets were frightening, seen in loneliness this way, rain-swept, dark and deserted.
He didn’t like his father. He never would like him. He hated him.
The candy store at last. He opened the door, hearing overhead the familiar tinny jangle of the bell. Gnawing a frayed chicken bone the half-grown son of the storekeeper came out of the back.
“Waddayuh want?”
“De Tageblatt.”
The boy lifted a newspaper out of a small pile on the counter, handed it to David, who having taken it, turned to go.
“Where’s your money?” demanded the boy impatiently.
“Oh, hea.” David reached up and handed over the dime that he had been clutching in his hand all this time.
Clamping the bone between his teeth the boy made change and returned it, greasy fingers greasing the coins.
He went out, hurried toward the house. Walking was too slow; his mother would be waiting. He began to run. He had only taken a few strides forward when his foot suddenly landed on something that was not pavement. The sound of hollow iron warned him too late — A coal-chute cover. He slipped. With a gasp, he teetered in air, striving, clawing for a moment at a void, and then pitched forward, sprawling in the icy slush. Money and newspaper flew from his hands and now lay scattered in the dark. Frightened, knees and stockings soaked, he pushed himself to his feet, and began wildly looking about for what he had dropped.
He found the newspaper — sopping. Then a penny. More, there was more. He peered frantically in the dark. Another penny. Two cents now. But he had eight before. He plunged his hand here, there into the numbing snow, felt along the rough pavement, retraced, groped. Further ahead! Back! Nothing. Beside the curb maybe! Nothing. He would never find it. Never! He burst into tears, ran toward the house, careless now whether he fell or not. It would be better for him if he fell now, if he were hurt. Sobbing, he entered the hallway. He heard a door open upstairs, and his mother’s voice at the top of the stairs.
“Child, I’m here.”
He climbed up.
“What is it? What is it? Why, you’re soaked through!” She led him in.
“I lost the money.” He wailed. “I only have two — two cents.”
His father was staring at him angrily, “You’ve lost it, have you? I had a feeling you would. Paid yourself for your errand, have you?”
“I fell in the snow,” he sobbed.
“It’s all right,” said his mother gently, taking the newspaper and the money away from him. “It’s all right.”
“All right? Will everything he does be all right always? How long will you tell him that?” His father snatched the paper from her. “Why, it’s wringing wet. A handy young man, my son!”
His mother took his coat off. “Come sit near the stove.”
“Indulge him! Indulge him!” her husband muttered wrathfully and flung himself into a chair. “Look at that paper!” He slapped it open on the table. “My way would be a few sound cuffs.”
“He couldn’t help it,” she interposed placatingly. “It’s very slippery and he fell.”
“Bah! He couldn’t help it! That’s all I ever hear from you! He has a downright gift for stumbling into every black moment of the year. At night he breaks one’s sleep with a squalling about dreams. A little while ago he flings his spoon into his soup. Now — six cents thrown away.” He slapped his hand on the paper. “Two cents ruined. Who can read it! Beware!” he shook a menacing finger at David who cowered against his mother’s side. “There’s a good beating in store for you! I warn you! It’s been gathering for years.”
“Albert,” said his wife reddening, “you are a man without a heart.”
“I?” His father drew back, his nostrils curving out in anger. “A plague on you both — I have no heart? And have you any understanding, any knowledge of how to bring up a child?” He thrust his jaw forward.
A moment of silence followed and then “I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean it. I meant only — these things happen sometimes — I’m sorry!”
“Oh, you’re sorry,” he said bitterly. “I have no heart! Woe me, to labor as I labor, for food for the two of you and for a roof over your heads. To labor and to work overtime! In vain! I have no heart! As if I gorged myself upon my earnings, as if I drank them, wallowed in the streets. Have you ever gone without anything? Tell me!”
“No! No!”
“Well?”
“I meant only that you didn’t see the child all day as I did — naturally you don’t know when anything is wrong with him.”
“I see enough of him when I see him. And I know better than you what medicine he needs most.”
His mother was silent.
“You’ll be saying he needs a doctor next.”
“Perhaps he—”
But someone was knocking at the door. She stopped speaking, went over and opened it — Yussie came in; he held a wooden clothes-hanger in his hand.
“My mother wants you to go upstairs,” he said in Yiddish.
David’s mother shook her head impatiently.
“Have you taken to gadding about?” asked her husband disgustedly. “Only a few days ago, you had no neighbors at all.”
“I’ve only been there once,” she said apologetically. And to Yussie, “Tell your mother I can’t come up just now.”
“She’s waiting for you,” he answered without stirring. “She’s got a new dress to show you.”
“Not now.”
“I ain’ goin’ op,” Yussie switched into English as if to avoid any further discussion. “I’m gonna stay hea.” And apparently satisfied that his mission had been performed, he approached the uneasy David who was still seated beside the stove. “See wot I got — a bow ’n’ arrer.” He brandished the clothes hanger.
“I’ll have to go for just a minute,” she said hesitantly. “This child — she’ll be wondering—”
“Go! Go!” said her husband sullenly. “Am I stopping you?” He picked up the newspaper, plucked a match from the match-box and then stalked up into the frontroom and slammed the door behind him. David heard him fling himself down upon the couch.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” said his mother wearily, and casting a hopeless glance after her husband, went out.
“Aintcha gonna play?” asked Yussie after a pause.
“I don’ wanna,” he answered morosely.
“W’yncha wanna?”
“Cause I don’ wanna.” He eyed the clothes hanger with disgust. It had been upstairs in a closet; it was tainted.
“Aaa, c’mon!” And when David refused to be persuaded, “Den I’m gonna shootchuh!” he threatened. “Yuh wanna see me?” He lifted the clothes hanger, pulled back an imaginary string. “Bing! I’m an Innian. If you don’ have a bow ’n’ arrer, I c’n kill yuh. Bang!” Another shaft flew. “Right innee eye. W’yntcha wanna play?”
“I don’ wanna.”
“W’yntcha get a bow ’n’ arrer?”
“Lemme alone!”
“I’m gonna shootchuh again den,” he dropped to the floor. “Bing! Dot one went right inside. Yuh dead!”