Children of the Ghetto Part 45

Pinchas was carried, shrieking hysterically, and striving to bite the arms of his bearers, through the tumultuous crowd, amid a little ineffective opposition, and deposited outside the door.

Wolf made another speech, sealing the impression he had made. Then the poor narrow-chested pious men went home through the cold air to recite the Song of Solomon in their stuffy back-rooms and garrets. "Behold thou art fair, my love," they intoned in a strange chant. "Behold thou art fair, thou hast doves' eyes. Behold thou art fair, my beloved, yea pleasant; also our couch is green. The beams of our house are cedar and our rafters are fir. For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear upon the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits, calamus, cinnamon with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloe with all the chief spices; a fountain of gardens; a well of living waters and streams from Lebanon. Awake, O north wind and come, thou south, blow upon my garden that the spices thereof may flow out."

CHAPTER XX.

THE HOPE EXTINCT.

The strike came to an end soon after. To the delight of Melchitsedek Pinchas, Gideon, M.P., intervened at the eleventh hour, unceremoniously elbowing Simon Wolf out of his central position. A compromise was arranged and jubilance and tranquillity reigned for some months, till the corruptions of compet.i.tive human nature brought back the old state of things--for employers have quite a diplomatic reverence for treaties and the brotherly love of employees breaks down under the strain of supporting families. Rather to his own surprise Moses Ansell found himself in work at least three days a week, the other three being spent in hanging round the workshop waiting for it. It is an uncertain trade, is the manufacture of slops, which was all Moses was fitted for, but if you are not at hand you may miss the "work" when it does come.

It never rains but it pours, and so more luck came to the garret of No.

1 Royal Street. Esther won five pounds at school. It was the Henry Goldsmith prize, a new annual prize for general knowledge, inst.i.tuted by a lady named Mrs. Henry Goldsmith who had just joined the committee, and the semi-divine person herself--a surpa.s.singly beautiful radiant being, like a princess in a fairy tale--personally congratulated her upon her success. The money was not available for a year, but the neighbors hastened to congratulate the family on its rise to wealth. Even Levi Jacob's visits became more frequent, though this could scarcely be ascribed to mercenary motives.

The Belcovitches recognized their improved status so far as to send to borrow some salt: for the colony of No. 1 Royal Street carried on an extensive system of mutual accommodation, coals, potatoes, chunks of bread, saucepans, needles, wood-choppers, all pa.s.sing daily to and fro.

Even garments and jewelry were lent on great occasions, and when that dear old soul Mrs. Simons went to a wedding she was decked out in contributions from a dozen wardrobes. The Ansells themselves were too proud to borrow though they were not above lending.

It was early morning and Moses in his big phylacteries was droning his orisons. His mother had had an attack of spasms and so he was praying at home to be at hand in case of need. Everybody was up, and Moses was superintending the household even while he was gabbling psalms. He never minded breaking off his intercourse with Heaven to discuss domestic affairs, for he was on free and easy terms with the powers that be, and there was scarce a prayer in the liturgy which he would not interrupt to reprimand Solomon for lack of absorption in the same. The exception was the _Amidah_ or eighteen Blessings, so-called because there are twenty-two. This section must be said standing and inaudibly and when Moses was engaged upon it, a message from an earthly monarch would have extorted no reply from him. There were other sacred silences which Moses would not break save of dire necessity and then only by talking Hebrew; but the _Amidah_ was the silence of silences. This was why the utterly unprecedented arrival of a telegraph boy did not move him. Not even Esther's cry of alarm when she opened the telegram had any visible effect upon him, though in reality he whispered off his prayer at a record-beating rate and duly danced three times on his toes with spasmodic celerity at the finale.

"Father," said Esther, the never before received species of letter trembling in her hand, "we must go at once to see Benjy. He is very ill."

"Has he written to say so?"

"No, this is a telegram. I have read of such. Oh! perhaps he is dead.

It is always so in books. They break the news by saying the dead are still alive." Her tones died away in a sob. The children cl.u.s.tered round her--Rachel and Solomon fought for the telegram in their anxiety to read it. Ikey and Sarah stood grave and interested. The sick grandmother sat up in bed excited.

"He never showed me his 'four corners,'" she moaned. "Perhaps he did not wear the fringes at all."

"Father, dost thou hear?" said Esther, for Moses Ansell was fingering the russet envelope with a dazed air. "We must go to the Orphanage at once."

"Read it! What stands in the letter?" said Moses Ansell.

She took the telegram from the hands of Solomon. "It stands, 'Come up at once. Your son Benjamin very ill.'"

"Tu! Tu! Tu!" clucked Moses. "The poor child. But how can we go up? Thou canst not walk there. It will take _me_ more than three hours."

His praying-shawl slid from his shoulders in his agitation.

"Thou must not walk, either!" cried Esther excitedly. "We must get to him at once! Who knows if he will be alive when we come? We must go by train from London Bridge the way Benjy came that Sunday. Oh, my poor Benjy!"

"Give me back the paper, Esther," interrupted Solomon, taking it from her limp hand. "The boys have never seen a telegram."

"But we cannot spare the money," urged Moses helplessly. "We have just enough money to get along with to-day. Solomon, go on with thy prayers; thou seizest every excuse to interrupt them. Rachel, go away from him.

Thou art also a disturbing Satan to him. I do not wonder his teacher flogged him black and blue yesterday--he is a stubborn and rebellious son who should be stoned, according to Deuteronomy."

"We must do without dinner," said Esther impulsively.

Sarah sat down on the floor and howled "Woe is me! Woe is me!"

"I didden touch 'er," cried Ikey in indignant bewilderment.

"'Tain't Ikey!" sobbed Sarah. "Little Tharah wants 'er dinner."

"Thou hearest?" said Moses pitifully. "How can we spare the money?"

"How much is it?" asked Esther.

"It will be a shilling each there and back," replied Moses, who from his long periods of peregrination was a connoisseur in fares. "How can we afford it when I lose a morning's work into the bargain?"

"No, what talkest thou?" said Esther. "Thou art looking a few months ahead--thou deemest perhaps, I am already twelve. It will be only sixpence for me."

Moses did not disclaim the implied compliment to his rigid honesty but answered:

"Where is my head? Of course thou goest half-price. But even so where is the eighteenpence to come from?"

"But it is not eighteenpence!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Esther with a new inspiration.

Necessity was sharpening her wits to extraordinary acuteness. "We need not take return tickets. We can walk back."

"But we cannot be so long away from the mother--both of us," said Moses.

"She, too, is ill. And how will the children do without thee? I will go by myself."

"No, I must see Benjy!" Esther cried.

"Be not so stiff-necked, Esther! Besides, it stands in the letter that I am to come--they do not ask thee. Who knows that the great people will not be angry if I bring thee with me? I dare say Benjamin will soon be better. He cannot have been ill long."

"But, quick, then, father, quick!" cried Esther, yielding to the complex difficulties of the position. "Go at once."

"Immediately, Esther. Wait only till I have finished my prayers. I am nearly done."

"No! No!" cried Esther agonized. "Thou prayest so much--G.o.d will let thee off a little bit just for once. Thou must go at once and ride both ways, else how shall we know what has happened? I will p.a.w.n my new prize and that will give thee money enough."

"Good!" said Moses. "While thou art pledging the book I shall have time to finish _davening_." He hitched up his _Talith_ and commenced to gabble off, "Happy are they who dwell in Thy house; ever shall they praise Thee, Selah," and was already saying, "And a Redeemer shall come unto Zion," by the time Esther rushed out through the door with the pledge. It was a gaudily bound volume called "Treasures of Science," and Esther knew it almost by heart, having read it twice from gilt cover to gilt cover. All the same, she would miss it sorely. The p.a.w.nbroker lived only round the corner, for like the publican he springs up wherever the conditions are favorable. He was a Christian; by a curious anomaly the Ghetto does not supply its own p.a.w.nbrokers, but sends them out to the provinces or the West End. Perhaps the business instinct dreads the solicitation of the racial.

Esther's p.a.w.nbroker was a rubicund portly man. He knew the fortunes of a hundred families by the things left with him or taken back. It was on his stuffy shelves that poor Benjamin's coat had lain compressed and packed away when it might have had a beautiful airing in the grounds of the Crystal Palace. It was from his stuffy shelves that Esther's mother had redeemed it--a day after the fair--soon to be herself compressed and packed away in a pauper's coffin, awaiting in silence whatsoever Redemption might be. The best coat itself had long since been sold to a ragman, for Solomon, upon whose back it devolved, when Benjamin was so happily translated, could never be got to keep a best coat longer than a year, and when a best coat is degraded to every-day wear its attrition is much more than six times as rapid.

"Good mornen, my little dear," said the rubicund man. "You're early this mornen." The apprentice had, indeed, only just taken down the shutters.

"What can I do for you to-day? You look pale, my dear; what's the matter?"

"I have a bran-new seven and sixpenny book," she answered hurriedly, pa.s.sing it to him.

He turned instinctively to the fly-leaf.

"Bran-new book!" he said contemptuously. "'Esther Ansell--For improvement!' When a book's spiled like that, what can you expect for it?"

"Why, it's the inscription that makes it valuable," said Esther tearfully.

"Maybe," said the rubicund man gruffly. "But d'yer suppose I should just find a buyer named Esther Ansell?" Do you suppose everybody in the world's named Esther Ansell or is capable of improvement?"