Children of the Ghetto Part 50

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE DEAD MONKEY.

An old _Maaseh_ the grandmother had told her came back to her fevered brain. In a town in Russia lived an old Jew who earned scarce enough to eat, and half of what he did earn was stolen from him in bribes to the officials to let him be. Persecuted and spat upon, he yet trusted in his G.o.d and praised His name. And it came on towards Pa.s.sover and the winter was severe and the Jew was nigh starving and his wife had made no preparations for the Festival. And in the bitterness of her soul she derided her husband's faith and made mock of him, but he said, "Have patience, my wife! Our _Seder_ board shall be spread as in the days of yore and as in former years." But the Festival drew nearer and nearer and there was nothing in the house. And the wife taunted her husband yet further, saying, "Dost thou think that Elijah the prophet will call upon thee or that the Messiah will come?" But he answered: "Elijah the prophet walketh the earth, never having died; who knows but that he will cast an eye my way?" Whereat his wife laughed outright. And the days wore on to within a few hours of Pa.s.sover and the larder was still empty of provender and the old Jew still full of faith. Now it befell that the Governor of the City, a hard and cruel man, sat counting out piles of gold into packets for the payment of the salaries of the officials and at his side sat his pet monkey, and as he heaped up the pieces, so his monkey imitated him, making little packets of its own to the amus.e.m.e.nt of the Governor. And when the Governor could not pick up a piece easily, he moistened his forefinger, putting it to his mouth, whereupon the monkey followed suit each time; only deeming its master was devouring the gold, it swallowed a coin every time he put his finger to his lips.

So that of a sudden it was taken ill and died. And one of his men said, "Lo, the creature is dead. What shall we do with it?" And the Governor was sorely vexed in spirit, because he could not make his accounts straight and he answered gruffly, "Trouble me not! Throw it into the house of the old Jew down the street." So the man took the carca.s.s and threw it with thunderous violence into the pa.s.sage of the Jew's house and ran off as hard as he could. And the good wife came bustling out in alarm and saw a carca.s.s hanging over an iron bucket that stood in the pa.s.sage. And she knew that it was the act of a Christian and she took up the carrion to bury it when Lo! a rain of gold-pieces came from the stomach ripped up by the sharp rim of the vessel. And she called to her husband. "Hasten! See what Elijah the prophet hath sent us." And she scurried into the market-place and bought wine and unleavened bread, and bitter herbs and all things necessary for the _Seder_ table, and a little fish therewith which might be hastily cooked before the Festival came in, and the old couple were happy and gave the monkey honorable burial and sang blithely of the deliverance at the Red Sea and filled Elijah's goblet to the brim till the wine ran over upon the white cloth.

Esther gave a scornful little sniff as the thought of this happy denouement flashed upon her. No miracle like that would happen to her or hers, n.o.body was likely to leave a dead monkey on the stairs of the garret--hardly even the "stuffed monkey" of contemporary confectionery.

And then her queer little brain forgot its grief in sudden speculations as to what she would think if her four and sevenpence halfpenny came back. She had never yet doubted the existence of the Unseen Power; only its workings seemed so incomprehensibly indifferent to human joys and sorrows. Would she believe that her father was right in holding that a special Providence watched over him? The spirit of her brother Solomon came upon her and she felt that she would. Speculation had checked her sobs; she dried her tears in stony scepticism and, looking up, saw Malka's gipsy-like face bending over her, breathing peppermint.

"What weepest thou, Esther?" she said not unkindly. "I did not know thou wast a gusher with the eyes."

"I've lost my purse," sobbed Esther, softened afresh by the sight of a friendly face.

"Ah, thou _Schlemihl_! Thou art like thy father. How much was in it?"

"Four and sevenpence halfpenny!" sobbed Esther.

"Tu, tu, tu, tu, tu!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Malka in horror. "Thou art the ruin of thy father." Then turning to the fishmonger with whom she had just completed a purchase, she counted out thirty-five shillings into his hand. "Here, Esther," she said, "thou shalt carry my fish and I will give thee a shilling."

A small slimy boy who stood expectant by scowled at Esther as she painfully lifted the heavy basket and followed in the wake of her relative whose heart was swelling with self-approbation.

Fortunately Zachariah Square was near and Esther soon received her shilling with a proportionate sense of Providence. The fish was deposited at Milly's house, which was brightly illuminated and seemed to poor Esther a magnificent palace of light and luxury. Malka's own house, diagonally across the Square, was dark and gloomy. The two families being at peace, Milly's house was the headquarters of the clan and the clothes-brush. Everybody was home for _Yomtov_. Malka's husband, Michael, and Milly's husband, Ephraim, were sitting at the table smoking big cigars and playing Loo with Sam Levine and David Brandon, who had been seduced into making a fourth. The two young husbands had but that day returned from the country, for you cannot get unleavened bread at commercial hotels, and David in spite of a stormy crossing had arrived from Germany an hour earlier than he had expected, and not knowing what to do with himself had been surveying the humors of the Festival Fair till Sam met him and dragged him round to Zachariah Square. It was too late to call that night on Hannah to be introduced to her parents, especially as he had wired he would come the next day. There was no chance of Hannah being at the club, it was too busy a night for all angels of the hearth; even to-morrow, the even of the Festival, would be an awkward time for a young man to thrust his love-affairs upon a household given over to the more important matters of dietary preparation. Still David could not consent to live another whole day without seeing the light of his eyes.

Leah, inwardly projecting an orgie of comic operas and dances, was a.s.sisting Milly in the kitchen. Both young women were covered with flour and oil and grease, and their coa.r.s.e handsome faces were flushed, for they had been busy all day drawing fowls, stewing prunes and pippins, gutting fish, melting fat, changing the crockery and doing the thousand and one things necessitated by grat.i.tude for the discomfiture of Pharaoh at the Red Sea; Ezekiel slumbered upstairs in his crib.

"Mother," said Michael, pulling pensively at his whisker as he looked at his card. "This is Mr. Brandon, a friend of Sam's. Don't get up, Brandon, we don't make ceremonies here. Turn up yours--ah, the nine of trumps."

"Lucky men!" said Malka with festival flippancy. "While I must hurry off my supper so as to buy the fish, and Milly and Leah must sweat in the kitchen, you can squat yourselves down and play cards."

"Yes," laughed Sam, looking up and adding in Hebrew, "Blessed art thou, O Lord, who hath not made me a woman."

"Now, now," said David, putting his hand jocosely across the young man's mouth. "No more Hebrew. Remember what happened last time. Perhaps there's some mysterious significance even in that, and you'll find yourself let in for something before you know where you are."

"You're not going to prevent me talking the language of my Fathers,"

gurgled Sam, bursting into a merry operatic whistle when the pressure was removed.

"Milly! Leah!" cried Malka. "Come and look at my fish! Such a _Metsiah_!

See, they're alive yet."

"They _are_ beauties, mother," said Leah, entering with her sleeves half tucked up, showing the finely-moulded white arms in curious juxtaposition with the coa.r.s.e red hands.

"O, mother, they're alive!" said Milly, peering over her younger sister's shoulder.

Both knew by bitter experience that their mother considered herself a connoisseur in the purchase of fish.

"And how much do you think I gave for them?" went on Malka triumphantly.

"Two pounds ten," said Milly.

Malka's eyes twinkled and she shook her head.

"Two pounds fifteen," said Leah, with the air of hitting it now.

Still Malka shook her head.

"Here, Michael, what do you think I gave for all this lot?"

"Diamonds!" said Michael.

"Be not a fool, Michael," said Malka sternly. "Look here a minute."

"Eh? Oh!" said Michael looking up from his cards. "Don't bother, mother.

My game!"

"Michael!" thundered Malka. "Will you look at this fish? How much do you think I gave for this splendid lot? here, look at 'em, alive yet."

"H'm--Ha!" said Michael, taking his complex corkscrew combination out of his pocket and putting it back again. "Three guineas?"

"Three guineas!" laughed Malka, in good-humored scorn. "Lucky I don't let _you_ do my marketing."

"Yes, he'd be a nice fishy customer!" said Sam Levine with a guffaw.

"Ephraim, what think you I got this fish for? Cheap now, you know?"

"I don't know, mother," replied the twinkling-eyed Pole obediently.

"Three pounds, perhaps, if you got it cheap."

Samuel and David duly appealed to, reduced the amount to two pounds five and two pounds respectively. Then, having got everybody's attention fixed upon her, she exclaimed:

"Thirty shillings!"

She could not resist nibbling off the five shillings. Everybody drew a long breath.

"Tu! Tu!" they e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in chorus. "What a _Metsiah_!"

"Sam," said Ephraim immediately afterwards, "_You_ turned up the ace."

Milly and Leah went back into the kitchen.

It was rather too quick a relapse into the common things of life and made Malka suspect the admiration was but superficial.

She turned, with a spice of ill-humor, and saw Esther still standing timidly behind her. Her face flushed for she knew the child had overheard her in a lie.

"What art thou waiting about for?" she said roughly in Yiddish. "Na!

there's a peppermint."