Children of the Ghetto Part 18

"But to eat it every day for ever and ever!" said Moses. "There's no rest for the wicked."

"What! Not even on the Sabbath?" said Esther.

"Oh, yes: of course, then. Like the river Sambatyon, even the flames of h.e.l.l rest on _Shabbos_."

"Haven't they got no fire-_goyas_?"; inquired Ikey, and everybody laughed.

"_Shabbos_ is a holiday in h.e.l.l," Moses explained to the little one.

"So thou seest the result of thy making out Sabbath too early on Sat.u.r.day night, thou sendest the poor souls back to their tortures before the proper time."

Moses never lost an opportunity of enforcing the claims of the ceremonial law. Esther had a vivid picture flashed upon her of poor, yellow hook-shaped souls floating sullenly back towards the flames.

Solomon's chief respect for his father sprang from the halo of military service encircling Moses ever since it leaked out through the lips of the _Bube_, that he had been a conscript in Russia and been brutally treated by the sergeant. But Moses could not be got to speak of his exploits. Solomon pressed him to do so, especially when his father gave symptoms of inviting him to the study of Rashi's Commentary. To-night Moses brought out a Hebrew tome, and said, "Come, Solomon. Enough of stories. We must learn a little."

"To-day is a holiday," grumbled Solomon.

"It is never a holiday for the study of the Law."

"Only this once, father; let's play draughts."

Moses weakly yielded. Draughts was his sole relaxation and when Solomon acquired a draught board by barter his father taught him the game. Moses played the Polish variety, in which the men are like English kings that leap backwards and forwards and the kings shoot diagonally across like bishops at chess. Solomon could not withstand these gigantic gra.s.shoppers, whose stopping places he could never antic.i.p.ate. Moses won every game to-night and was full of glee and told the _Kinder_ another story. It was about the Emperor Nicholas and is not to be found in the official histories of Russia.

"Nicholas, was a wicked king, who oppressed the Jews and made their lives sore and bitter. And one day he made it known to the Jews that if a million roubles were not raised for him in a month's time they should be driven from their homes. Then the Jews prayed unto G.o.d and besought him to help them for the merits of the forefathers, but no help came.

Then they tried to bribe the officials, but the officials pocketed their gold and the Emperor still demanded his tax. Then they went to the great Masters of Cabalah, who, by pondering day and night on the name and its trans.m.u.tations, had won the control of all things, and they said, 'Can ye do naught for us?' Then the Masters of Cabalah took counsel together and at midnight they called up the spirits of Abraham our father, and Isaac and Jacob, and Elijah the prophet, who wept to hear of their children's sorrows. And Abraham our father, and Isaac and Jacob, and Elijah the prophet took the bed whereon Nicholas the Emperor slept and transported it to a wild place. And they took Nicholas the Emperor out of his warm bed and whipped him soundly so that he yelled for mercy. Then they asked: 'Wilt thou rescind the edict against the Jews?' And he said 'I will.' But in the morning Nicholas the Emperor woke up and called for the chief of the bed-chamber and said, 'How darest thou allow my bed to be carried out in the middle of the night into the forest?' And the chief of the bed-chamber grew pale and said that the Emperor's guards had watched all night outside the door, neither was there s.p.a.ce for the bed to pa.s.s out. And Nicholas the Emperor, thinking he had dreamed, let the man go unhung. But the next night lo! the bed was transported again to the wild place and Abraham our father, and Isaac and Jacob, and Elijah the prophet drubbed him doubly and again he promised to remit the tax. So in the morning the chief of the bed-chamber was hanged and at night the guards were doubled. But the bed sailed away to the wild place and Nicholas the Emperor was trebly whipped. Then Nicholas the Emperor annulled the edict and the Jews rejoiced and fell at the knees of the Masters of Cabalah."

"But why can't they save the Jews altogether?" queried Esther.

"Oh," said Moses mysteriously. "Cabalah is a great force and must not be abused. The Holy Name must not be made common. Moreover one might lose one's life."

"Could the Masters make men?" inquired Esther, who had recently come across Frankenstein.

"Certainly," said Moses. "And what is more, it stands written that Reb Chanina and Reb Osheya fashioned a fine fat calf on Friday and enjoyed it on the Sabbath."

"Oh, father!" said Solomon, piteously, "don't you know Cabalah?"

CHAPTER IX.

DUTCH DEBBY.

A year before we got to know Esther Ansell she got to know Dutch Debby and it changed her life. Dutch Debby was a tall sallow ungainly girl who lived in the wee back room on the second floor behind Mrs. Simons and supported herself and her dog by needle-work. n.o.body ever came to see her, for it was whispered that her parents had cast her out when she presented them with an illegitimate grandchild. The baby was fortunate enough to die, but she still continued to incur suspicion by keeping a dog, which is an un-Jewish trait. Bobby often squatted on the stairs guarding her door and, as it was very dark on the staircase, Esther suffered great agonies lest she should tread on his tail and provoke reprisals. Her anxiety led her to do so one afternoon and Bobby's teeth just penetrated through her stocking. The clamor brought out Dutch Debby, who took the girl into her room and soothed her. Esther had often wondered what uncanny mysteries lay behind that dark dog-guarded door and she was rather more afraid of Debby than of Bobby.

But that afternoon saw the beginning of a friendship which added one to the many factors which were moulding the future woman. For Debby turned out a very mild bogie, indeed, with a good English vocabulary and a stock of old _London Journals_, more precious to Esther than mines of Ind. Debby kept them under the bed, which, as the size of the bed all but coincided with the area of the room, was a wise arrangement. And on the long summer evenings and the Sunday afternoons when her little ones needed no looking after and were traipsing about playing "whoop!" and p.u.s.s.y-cat in the street downstairs, Esther slipped into the wee back room, where the treasures lay, and there, by the open window, overlooking the dingy back yard and the slanting perspectives of sun-decked red tiles where cats prowled and dingy sparrows hopped, in an atmosphere laden with whiffs from a neighboring dairyman's stables, Esther lost herself in wild tales of pa.s.sion and romance. She frequently read them aloud for the benefit of the sallow-faced needle-woman, who had found romance square so sadly with the realities of her own existence. And so all a summer afternoon, Dutch Debby and Esther would be rapt away to a world of brave men and fair women, a world of fine linen and purple, of champagne and wickedness and cigarettes, a world where n.o.body worked or washed shirts or was hungry or had holes in boots, a world utterly ignorant of Judaism and the heinousness of eating meat with b.u.t.ter. Not that Esther for her part correlated her conception of this world with facts. She never realized that it was an actually possible world--never indeed asked herself whether it existed outside print or not. She never thought of it in that way at all, any more than it ever occurred to her that people once spoke the Hebrew she learned to read and translate. "Bobby" was often present at these readings, but he kept his thoughts to himself, sitting on his hind legs with his delightfully ugly nose tilted up inquiringly at Esther. For the best of all this new friendship was that Bobby was not jealous. He was only a sorry dun-colored mongrel to outsiders, but Esther learned to see him almost through Dutch Debby's eyes. And she could run up the stairs freely, knowing that if she trod on his tail now, he would take it as a mark of _camaraderie_.

"I used to pay a penny a week for the _London Journal_," said Debby early in their acquaintanceship, "till one day I discovered I had a dreadful bad memory."

"And what was the good of that?" said Esther.

"Why, it was worth shillings and shillings to me. You see I used to save up all the back numbers of the _London Journal_ because of the answers to correspondents, telling you how to do your hair and trim your nails and give yourself a nice complexion. I used to bother my head about that sort of thing in those days, dear; and one day I happened to get reading a story in a back number only about a year old and I found I was just as interested as if I had never read it before and I hadn't the slightest remembrance of it. After that I left off buying the _Journal_ and took to reading my big heap of back numbers. I get through them once every two years." Debby interrupted herself with a fit of coughing, for lengthy monologue is inadvisable for persons who bend over needle-work in dark back rooms. Recovering herself, she added, "And then I start afresh. You couldn't do that, could you?"

"No," admitted Esther, with a painful feeling of inferiority. "I remember all I've ever read."

"Ah, you will grow up a clever woman!" said Debby, patting her hair.

"Oh, do you think so?" said Esther, her dark eyes lighting up with pleasure.

"Oh yes, you're always first in your cla.s.s, ain't you?"

"Is that what you judge by, Debby?" said Esther, disappointed. "The other girls are so stupid and take no thought for anything but their hats and their frocks. They would rather play gobs or shuttlec.o.c.k or hopscotch than read about the 'Forty Thieves.' They don't mind being kept a whole year in one cla.s.s but I--oh, I feel so mad at getting on so slow. I could easily learn the standard work in three months. I want to know everything--so that I can grow up to be a teacher at our school."

"And does your teacher know everything?"

"Oh yes! She knows the meaning of every word and all about foreign countries."

"And would you like to be a teacher?"

"If I could only be clever enough!" sighed Esther. "But then you see the teachers at our school are real ladies and they dress, oh, so beautifully! With fur tippets and six-b.u.t.ton gloves. I could never afford it, for even when I was earning five shillings a week I should have to give most of it to father and the children."

"But if you're very good--I dare say some of the great ladies like the Rothschilds will buy you nice clothes. I have heard they are very good to clever children."

"No, then the other teachers would know I was getting charity! And they would mock at me. I heard Miss Hyams make fun of a teacher because she wore the same dress as last winter. I don't think I should like to be a teacher after all, though it is nice to be able to stand with your back to the fire in the winter. The girls would know--'" Esther stopped and blushed.

"Would know what, dear?"

"Well, they would know father," said Esther in low tones. "They would see him selling things in the Lane and they wouldn't do what I told them."

"Nonsense, Esther. I believe most of the teachers' fathers are just as bad--I mean as poor. Look at Miss Hyams's own father."

"Oh Debby! I do hope that's true. Besides when I was earning five shillings a week, I could buy father a new coat, couldn't I? And then there would be no need for him to stand in the Lane with lemons or 'four-corner fringes,' would there?"

"No, dear. You shall be a teacher, I prophesy, and who knows? Some day you may be Head Mistress!"

Esther laughed a startled little laugh of delight, with a suspicion of a sob in it. "What! Me! Me go round and make all the teachers do their work. Oh, wouldn't I catch them gossiping! I know their tricks!"

"You seem to look after your teacher well. Do you ever call her over the coals for gossiping?" inquired Dutch Debby, amused.

"No, no," protested Esther quite seriously. "I like to hear them gossiping. When my teacher and Miss Davis, who's in the next room, and a few other teachers get together, I learn--Oh such a lot!--from their conversation."

"Then they do teach you after all," laughed Debby.

"Yes, but it's not on the Time Table," said Esther, shaking her little head sapiently. "It's mostly about young men. Did you ever have a young man, Debby?"

"Don't--don't ask such questions, child!" Debby bent over her needle-work.

"Why not?" persisted Esther. "If I only had a young man when I grew up, I should be proud of him. Yes, you're trying to turn your head away. I'm sure you had. Was he nice like Lord Eversmonde or Captain Andrew Sinclair? Why you're crying, Debby!"