Stories and Pictures Part 8

And with all that, those were good days. We never knew want, and after a week of little worries came a cheerful, or at all events a peaceful, Sabbath. Father often came home for it, and mother was busy all about the house and smiled to herself in secret.

Friday evening, just before blessing the candles, she would often kiss me on the head. I knew what that meant. Because if it so happened that father did _not_ come home, then I was an idle hussy. Even when mother pulled out half my hair while combing it, and gave me a few slaps on the shoulders besides, I didn't cry. My childish heart felt that it was not _me_ she meant, but her unhappy fate. When the wood was all cut down, my father stayed at home, and then food began to grow scarce. It was my father, my mother, and myself, really, who hadn't enough; the other children knew very little about it. Beril wanted next to nothing--took a cup of porridge when it was given him, and stared all the time at the ceiling. The other poor children had to go to Cheder, "they _must_ have something hot," but I often went hungry.

Father and mother were always recalling by-gone days with tears in their eyes. I, on the contrary, was happier in the bad times than I had been in the good. Now that bread was often lacking in the house, I received a double portion of my mother's love; she never pulled a hair out of my head when combing it, or hit my thin bones; my father would stroke my head at supper and play with me, so that I should not observe the smallness of my share of food; and I was quite proud whenever there came a fast, because I fasted with my parents, like a grown-up girl.

It was about that time that Beril died. It happened this way: Mother woke up one morning and said to father across the bed: "Do you know, Beril must be better; he has slept the whole night through."

I heard it--I have always been a light sleeper--sprang joyfully from my bed on the chest, and ran to look at my "pet of a brother" (that is how I called him--I was so fond of him). I hoped to see a smile on the wan little face, such as came over it once a year--but it was a dead face I saw.

There was a week's mourning.

After that my father's health failed, and the Rofeh began to come to the house.

So long as there was money to pay his fee, the old Rofeh came in person; later on, when all the bed-clothes and the hanging-lamp, with father's book-case, which for a while my mother wouldn't touch, had gone in medicines, the Rofeh began to send his "boy," the a.s.sistant.

The "boy" displeased my mother dreadfully; he had merely a suspicion of pointed whiskers, was dressed like a Gentile, and was continually introducing Polish words into his speech.

_I_ was afraid of him, to this day I don't know why. But when I knew he was to come, I ran and hid in the yard, and waited there till he had gone.

One day a neighbor fell ill, also a poor man, and one whose furniture had apparently gone, too, and the "boy" (to this day I don't know what his name was) went to him straight from our house. Crossing the yard, he found me sitting on a log.

I looked down. Aware of his approach, I felt a chill run through me, and my heart began to beat faster.

He came up to me, took me by the chin, lifted my face and said:

"A pretty girl like you ought not to have untidy hair! And she ought not to be ashamed before any lad in the world."

He let me go, and I ran into the house. I felt that all the blood had rushed into my face at once. I squeezed into the darkest corner behind the stove, under pretense of counting the soiled linen. That was on a Wednesday.

On Friday, for the first time, I reminded my mother of my own accord that my head needed washing, that it was frowzy.

"More shame to me!" exclaimed my mother, wringing her hands. "I haven't combed her hair these three weeks."

Suddenly she grew angry: "Lazy thing!" she cried; "a great girl like you and not able to comb her own hair! Another at your age would have washed the other children."

"Sarah'le, don't scream," begged father; but her anger only grew more violent.

"Lazy girl, you _shall_ comb your own hair, and this minute. Do you hear?"

But I was afraid to go to the fire-place, where the hot water stood, because I had to pa.s.s mother, who would have given me a slap. Father saved me, as usual.

"Sarah'le," he moaned, "don't scream, my head does ache so."

That was enough. My mother's anger vanished. I ran freely across the room to the hot water.

As I awkwardly combed my hair, I saw my mother go up to my father and point at me with a heavy sigh:

"Lord of the world, the poor child grows taller every day," she whispered to my father, but my ears caught every word. "Fine as gold--and what's to be done with her?"

Father answered with a still heavier sigh.

The Rofeh a.s.sured us several times that father had nothing serious the matter with him. Worry of mind had gone to his liver, and this had swollen and pressed against the heart; nothing worse. He was to drink milk and not trouble any more, walk out into the street, talk with his friends, and find something to do; but father said his feet refused to carry him. Why, I only knew later.

Early one summer morning I was awakened by the following conversation between my parents:

"Did you knock yourself up in the woods?" asked my mother.

"Looks like it," answered my father. "They were cutting down in twenty places at once. You see, the wood is the n.o.bleman's, but the peasants have certain privileges;[12] they get the twigs that fall and lie about on the ground, and the wood of any tree that is struck by lightning.

Well, when the trees are cut down they lose their privileges, and have to buy wood for building and for heating purposes. So, of course, they wanted to stop it and bring down a commissioner. But they set about it too late. Reb Zeinwill no sooner saw them scratching their heads than he gave orders to put on forty axes. It was a Gehenna! They were felling in perhaps twenty different places, and one had to be everywhere. Well, what could you expect? My feet swelled like toadstools."

"Sinner that I am," sighed my mother. "And there was I fancying you had nothing to do."

"Nothing at all," my father smiled sadly; "I was only on my feet from dawn to dark."

"And three rubles a week wages," added my mother, angrily.

"He consented to raise them; meanwhile, you know, the timber raft was sunk, and he told me he was a poor man."

"And you believe it?"

"It may be."

"He is always saying that" (angrily), "and yet the fortune goes on increasing."

"With G.o.d's help," sighed father.

There was silence for a while.

"Do you know what he is doing now?" asked father, who had scarcely left the house for a year.

"What should he? He trades in flax and eggs; he has a public-house."

"And she?"

"Sick, poor thing."

"A pity; she was a good woman."

"A jewel. The only lady who was not allowed to put up a groschen's worth of preserves! _She_ would have paid me regularly, but she hadn't much to say in the matter."

"I fancy she is his third wife," said my father.

"She is," my mother agreed.

"Well, Sarah, here we have a rich Jew, one who might live comfortably, and, lo and behold, he has no luck with his wives--we all have our troubles."

"Such a young woman, too," said my mother; "not more than two or three and twenty."

"There's no accounting for these things; he must be seventy, and he's solid as iron."