Bread Givers. Anzia Yezierska

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      Mashah stopped talking; turning from the mirror, for the first time gave a look at us.

      “What happened? It’s like a funeral in the house.”

      “The landlord’s collector lady was here—and——”

      “Well? What of it?”

      “She was hollering for the rent.”

      “Then why didn’t they pay her the rent?” asked the innocent doll face. “Don’t everybody pay rent?”

      Mother began to scream and knock her head with her fists. “A stone! An empty-headed, brainless stone I had for a child. My own daughter, living in the same house with us, asking, ‘Why did the landlady come? Why don’t they pay her the rent?’”

      Not listening to Mother’s cursing and screaming, Mashah looked about for something to eat. The stove was cold. No food was on the table.

      “Why ain’t there something to eat? I’m starved.”

      Then Mashah caught sight of two quarters on the table that Muhmenkeh had left when she came to comfort us.

      “What should I buy for supper?” Mashah asked, reaching for the money.

      Before she could get to the quarters, I leaped to the table and seized one of them.

      “Mammeh!” I begged. “Let me only go out to peddle with something. I got to bring in money if nobody is working.”

      “Woe is me!” Mother cried. “How can I stand it? An empty-head on one side and a craziness on the other side.”

      “Nobody is working and we got to eat,” I kept begging. “If I could only peddle with something I could bring in money.”

      “Let me alone. Crazy-head. No wonder your father named you ‘Blut-und-Eisen.’ When she begins to want a thing, there is no rest, no let-up till she gets it. It wills itself in you to play peddler and waste away the last few cents we got.”

      “As long as we’re not working,” said Bessie, “whatever Sara will earn will be something. Even only a few cents will buy a loaf of bread.”

      Without waiting for Mother to say yes, I ran out with the quarter in my hand. I saw Mashah go to a pushcart of frankfurters. But I, with my quarter, ran straight to Muhmenkeh.

      “I got to do something,” I yelled like a fire engine. “Nobody is working by us. Nobody! Nobody! What should I buy to sell quick to earn money?”

      Muhmenkeh thought for a minute, then said, “I got some old herring left in the bottom of this barrel. They’re a little bit squashed, but they ain’t spoiled yet, and you’ll be able to sell them cheap because I’ll give them to you for nothing.”

      “No—no! I’m no beggar!” I cried. “I want to go into business like a person. I must buy what I got to sell.” And I held up the same quarter that Muhmenkeh had given Mother.

      “Good luck on you, little heart!” Muhmenkeh’s old eyes smiled into mine. “Go, make yourself for a person. Pick yourself out twenty-five herring at a penny apiece. You can easy sell them at two cents, and maybe the ones that ain’t squeezed for three cents.”

      On the corner of the most crowded part of Hester Street I stood myself with my pail of herring.

      “Herring! Herring! A bargain in the world! Pick them out yourself. Two cents apiece.”

      My voice was like dynamite. Louder than all the pushcart peddlers, louder than all the hollering noises of bargaining and selling, I cried out my herring with all the burning fire of my ten old years.

      So loud was my yelling, for my little size, that people stopped to look at me. And more came to see what the others were looking at.

      “Give only a look on the saleslady,” laughed a big fat woman with a full basket.

      “Also a person,” laughed another, “also fighting already for the bite in the mouth.”

      “How old are you, little skinny bones? Ain’t your father working?”

      I didn’t hear. I couldn’t listen to their smartness. I was burning up inside me with my herring to sell. Nothing was before me but the hunger in our house, and no bread for the next meal if I didn’t sell the herring. No longer like a fire engine, but like a houseful of hungry mouths my heart cried, “Herring—herring! Two cents apiece!”

      First one woman bought. And then another and another. Some women didn’t even stop to pick out the herring, but let me wrap it up for them in the newspaper, without even a look if it was squashed or not. And before the day was over my last herring was sold.

      I counted my greasy fifty pennies. Twenty-five cents profit. Richer than Rockefeller, I felt.

      I was always saying to myself, if I ever had a quarter or a half dollar in my hand, I’d run away from home and never look on our dirty house again. But now I was so happy with my money, I didn’t think of running away, I only wanted to show them what I could do and give it away to them.

      It began singing in my heart, the music of the whole Hester Street. The pushcart peddlers yelling their goods, the noisy playing of children in the gutter, the women pushing and shoving each other with their market baskets—all that was only hollering noise before melted over me like a new beautiful song.

      It began dancing before my eyes, the twenty-five herring that earned me my twenty-five cents. It lifted me in the air, my happiness. I couldn’t help it. It began dancing under my feet. And I couldn’t stop myself. I danced into our kitchen. And throwing the fifty pennies, like a shower of gold, into my mother’s lap, I cried, “Now, will you yet call me crazy-head? Give only a look what ‘Blood-and-iron’ has done.”

      Chapter II. The Speaking Mouth of the Block

      “Even butchers and bakers and common money-makers have sometimes their use in the world,” said Father.

      He had just come home free from the court. And Mother was telling him how the butcher and baker and Zalmon the fish-peddler left their work to bail him out. And how they raised the money together for the best American-born lawyer to take his part.

      “Nu? Why shouldn’t they take my part?” said Father. “Am I not their light? The whole world would be in thick darkness if not for men like me who give their lives to spread the light of the Holy Torah.”

      It was like a holiday all over the block when they had Father’s trial. The men stopped their work. The women left their cooking and washing and marketing, and with babies on their arms, and babies hanging on to their skirts, they crowded themselves into the court to hear the trial.

      In high American language the lawyer made a speech to the judge and showed with his hands all those people who looked up to Father as the light of their lives. And then he told the Court to look on Father’s face, how it shined from him, like from a child, the goodness from the holy life of prayer.

      “He couldn’t hurt a fly,” the lawyer said. СКАЧАТЬ