— Gee lucky for me I thought. Can fool her any time. She don’t know. So I won’t get that black thing in the box. So who cares!
The gas-stove popped softly under the match. Lifting a frying pan from its hook on the wall, she set it on the grate — but a moment later pushed it to one side as though she had changed her mind, and walked to the street-window.
— Hope he ain’t! Hope he ain’t yet. (His startled thought overtook hers)
“Good!” she exclaimed triumphantly and pulled her head in. “I struck it just right. Sometimes I do believe in premonitions.”
— Aaa! Wish his horse fell or something!
“Now I can feed all both my men,” she laughed. “This is a rare pleasure!” And she hurried back to the ice-box.
He stiffened, ears straining above the rapid beating of eggs. Presently, he heard it, deliberate, hollow, near at hand. The knob turned — The harsh, weather-darkened face.
“I’m prepared for you!” she said cheerfully. “To the second.”
Cheeks distended in a short customary puff, he dropped his cap on the wash-tub, leaned his new whip against it. David glanced toward the stove. His mother had dropped the old broken one between the stove and the wall. His father went to the sink and began washing his hands.
“Tired?” She asked as she poured the golden foam into the hissing skillet.
“No.”
“Jelly omelette and dried peas, will that please you?”
He nodded.
“Is he still out?”
“That’s why I’m late again.” He wiped his hands. “Till tomorrow.”
“Ach! I’ll be so glad when he returns.”
He met her gaze with dark impassive eyes, slumped down into a chair. “How is it the heir is home?” His thin lips twitched, warping the flat cheek.
— Don’t! Don’t tell him! Ow! (But he dared not even look at her imploringly)
“Oh!” she said lightly. “There’s someone after him. One of the bigger boys in the street.”
— Aaa! She went and told him. Hate her!
His father’s incurious gaze turned from her face to David’s like a slow spoke. “Why?”
“Something about money in a cellar. They were all trying to get it up — how I don’t know. But the other — what did you call him?”
“Kushy,” sullenly.
“Yes. This Kushy claimed he pushed him just when he lifted it — the money. Isn’t that the way it goes? Wouldn’t you know the usual childish quarrel?” She bent over the stove. “Only if it’s over money, it’s not so childish, I guess.”
“A cellar?” The hardening of his voice was barely perceptible. “When?”
— Ow! He thinks I told!
“Yesterday, you said, didn’t you, David?” Her back was turned. “You don’t mind if we have the coffee I brewed this morning?”
“Yes,” David’s scared eyes rose to the gloomy pressure of his father’s. “I–I just said yesterday.”
His lean jaw had tightened. Drooping eye-lashes banked his smouldering anger. “What else?”
And though David knew the question was directed at himself—
“Why that’s all!” His mother laughed, as though surprised at her husband’s interest. “Except that I offered to go down into the street with him, since the other had threatened to strike him.” She brought the omelette and coffee pot to the table. “But he refused — said they’d call him — what? — frait-katz.” And surveying the spread. “Have I got everything here I want? Water, yes. Dear God!” She exclaimed as she went to the sink. “Isn’t it time I learned to speak English?”
— Knows it wasn’t! (David steeled himself) Knows it wasn’t yesterday! Knows I lied!
But, “Hmph!” his father grunted, relaxing. “He’s big enough to take care of himself.” There was a strange, veiled look of satisfaction on his face.
“What if they’re bigger than he is, Albert?” Protesting mildly, she set the dewy, glass pitcher on the table. “You know, they—”
“Still,” his father interrupted her, “if they’re too much for you, tell them I’ll take the horsewhip to them if they touch you.” And glancing up at her, began slicing the bread. “Just to scare them.” He added.
“Yes.” She sat down uncertainly. “But there’s no use kindling a feud out of a threat — especially an urchin’s threat.”
He made no reply. And during the interval while food was being passed—
— Took my part. Gee! (Mechanically, David lifted his fork) She told him and he knows I lied and he took my part. What did I — fooled him maybe? Naaa! How he looked at me—
“You know,” his mother tilted her smile meditatively, “it’s almost seven years since I came off that ship, and I’ve never quarreled with anyone yet. I wouldn’t like to start now.”
“It would be miraculous if you did.” His voice was level. “Your life has been as sealed as a nun’s.”
“Not quite so sheltered, Albert.” She looked faintly piqued. “Compared to yours, yes. But pushcart peddlers when I do my marketing — ach! — they deal out words as sharp as mustard-plasters — more than they do onions or carrots.… There’s nothing like a pushcart peddler.”
— Sure he knows. Bet a million. In the wagon he was then. Just when Kushy got up. And she told him it was yesterday. And he wouldn’t say—
“But what I mean is how shall I answer one of these native shrews if she shakes the clapper of her tongue at me in English? Cheh! Cheh! Cheh! They chatter and hiss like a sieve full of ashes.”
Thin as a shadow or a breath on water, a rare smile slackened his father’s face. “Merely cheh, cheh back at her in Yiddish.”
“But I’d feel so humiliated,” she laughed.
“Then don’t answer her at all. Grow red and march off with your head in the air.”
“Ach!” She looked at him curiously. “That’s too easy. But if I had worked in a shop the way Bertha had, I could have known by now — What a smoke comes out of her mouth.”
“Smoke indeed! It blinds you.” His lips barely curled.
“Does it? To me, especially since she has the candy store, she sounds like running water—”
“A muddy spatter.”
“Or sand. I was going to—”
“In one’s teeth.”
“You’re witty to-day.” Her curiosity seemed permanently fixed in her face.
His jaw tightened again and he reached for his coffee.
— Is he my friend? No. Can’t be. ’Course he ain’t. But why if— Oh! He knows I lied. That’s— Dope! Eat! They’ll see!
“And you speak so well, because you learned among goyim?”
“In part. But when I ate in beer-saloons to save money for your passage, I used to listen to the others — In beer saloons they speak loudly. And one day I grew bold enough to answer one who was drunk. And he thought I was too. Then I knew I had made a beginning.”
“Good kosher food they gave you.” Her look had changed to quiet sympathy.
“When you spend fifteen cents a day to keep the breath in your body, you get over asking if the rabbi’s blessed your meat.”
“I’m glad you had a stronger stomach than him who ate the duck-dinner so cheaply. And wrote home about it — and died of it.”
“Humph!”
“Will you have time for a nap to-day?” Reaching over she patted his hand — as rare a gesture as his smile.
His face darkened. He cleared his throat. “I still have an hour.”
David slid from his chair. “Can I go down now, mama?”
“Wait, I still have a pear to give you.”
“Can’t I eat it when I go down?”