Children of the Ghetto Part 31

When she came back Solomon was letting Benjamin inspect his Plevna peep-show without charge and Moses Ansell was back, too. His eyes were red with weeping, but that was on account of the _Maggid_. His nose was blue with the chill of the cemetery.

"He was a great man." he was saying to the grandmother. "He could lecture for four hours together on any text and he would always manage to get back to the text before the end. Such exegetics, such homiletics!

He was greater than the Emperor of Russia. Woe! Woe!"

"Woe! Woe!" echoed the grandmother. "If women were allowed to go to funerals, I would gladly have, followed him. Why did he come to England?

In Poland he would still have been alive. And why did I come to England?

Woe! Woe'"

Her head dropped back on the pillow and her sighs pa.s.sed gently into snores. Moses turned again to his eldest born, feeling that he was secondary in importance only to the _Maggid_, and proud at heart of his genteel English appearance.

"Well, you'll soon be _Bar-mitzvah_, Benjamin." he said, with clumsy geniality blent with respect, as he patted his boy's cheeks with his discolored fingers.

Benjamin caught the last two words and nodded his head.

"And then you'll be coming back to us. I suppose they will apprentice you to something."

"What does he say, Esther?" asked Benjamin, impatiently.

Esther interpreted.

"Apprentice me to something!" he repeated, disgusted. "Father's ideas are so beastly humble. He would like everybody to dance on him. Why he'd be content to see me a cigar-maker or a presser. Tell him I'm not coming home, that I'm going to win a scholars.h.i.+p and to go to the University."

Moses's eyes dilated with pride. "Ah, you will become a Rav," he said, and lifted up his boy's chin and looked lovingly into the handsome face.

"What's that about a Rav, Esther?" said Benjamin. "Does he want me to become a Rabbi--Ugh! Tell him I'm going to write books."

"My blessed boy! A good commentary on the Song of Songs is much needed.

Perhaps you will begin by writing that."

"Oh, it's no use talking to him, Esther. Let him be. Why can't he speak English?"

"He can--but you'd understand even less," said Esther with a sad smile.

"Well, all I say is it's a beastly disgrace. Look at the years he's been in England--just as long as we have." Then the humor of the remark dawned upon him and he laughed. "I suppose he's out of work, as usual,"

he added.

Moses's ears p.r.i.c.ked up at the syllables "out-of-work," which to him was a single word of baneful meaning.

"Yes," he said in Yiddish. "But if I only had a few pounds to start with I could work up a splendid business."

"Wait! He shall have a business," said Benjamin when Esther interpreted.

"Don't listen to him," said Esther. "The Board of Guardians has started him again and again. But he likes to think he is a man of business."

Meantime Isaac had been busy explaining Benjamin to Sarah, and pointing out the remarkable confirmation of his own views as to birthdays. This will account for Esther's next remark being, "Now, dears, no fighting to-day. We must celebrate Benjy's return. We ought to kill a fatted calf--like the man in the Bible."

"What are you talking about, Esther?" said Benjamin suspiciously.

"I'm so sorry, nothing, only foolishness," said Esther. "We really must do something to make a holiday of the occasion. Oh, I know; we'll have tea before you go, instead of waiting till supper-time. Perhaps Rachel'll be back from the Park. You haven't seen her yet."

"No, I can't stay," said Benjy. "It'll take me three-quarters of an hour getting to the station. And you've got no fire to make tea with either."

"Nonsense, Benjy. You seem to have forgotten everything; we've got a loaf and a penn'uth of tea in the cupboard. Solomon, fetch a farthing's worth of boiling water from the Widow Finkelstein."

At the words "widow Finkelstein," the grandmother awoke and sat up.

"No, I'm too tired," said Solomon. "Isaac can go."

"No," said Isaac. "Let Estie go."

Esther took a jug and went to the door.

"Meshe," said the grandmother. "Go thou to the Widow Finkelstein."

"But Esther can go," said Moses.

"Yes, I'm going," said Esther.

"Meshe!" repeated the Bube inexorably. "Go thou to the Widow Finkelstein."

Moses went.

"Have you said the afternoon prayer, boys?" the old woman asked.

"Yes," said Solomon. "While you were asleep."

"Oh-h-h!" said Esther under her breath. And she looked reproachfully at Solomon.

"Well, didn't you say we must make a holiday to-day?" he whispered back.

CHAPTER XV.

THE HOLY LAND LEAGUE.

"Oh, these English Jews!" said Melchitsedek Pinchas, in German.

"What have they done to you now?" said Guedalyah, the greengrocer, in Yiddish.

The two languages are relatives and often speak as they pa.s.s by.

"I have presented my book to every one of them, but they have paid me scarce enough to purchase poison for them all," said the little poet scowling. The cheekbones stood out sharply beneath the tense bronzed skin. The black hair was tangled and unkempt and the beard untrimmed, the eyes darted venom. "One of them--Gideon, M.P., the stockbroker, engaged me to teach his son for his _Bar-mitzvah_, But the boy is so stupid! So stupid! Just like his father. I have no doubt he will grow up to be a Rabbi. I teach him his Portion--I sing the words to him with a most beautiful voice, but he has as much ear as soul. Then I write him a speech--a wonderful speech for him to make to his parents and the company at the breakfast, and in it, after he thanks them for their kindness, I make him say how, with the blessing of the Almighty, he will grow up to be a good Jew, and munificently support Hebrew literature and learned men like his revered teacher, Melchitsedek Pinchas. And he shows it to his father, and his father says it is not written in good English, and that another scholar has already written him a speech. Good Englis.h.!.+

Gideon has as much knowledge or style as the Rev. Elkan Benjamin of decency. Ah, I will shoot them both. I know I do not speak English like a native--but what language under the sun is there I cannot write?

French, German, Spanish, Arabic--they flow from my pen like honey from a rod. As for Hebrew, you know, Guedalyah, I and you are the only two men in England who can write Holy Language grammatically. And yet these miserable stockbrokers, Men-of-the-Earth, they dare to say I cannot write English, and they have given me the sack. I, who was teaching the boy true Judaism and the value of Hebrew literature."

"What! They didn't let you finish teaching the boy his Portion because you couldn't write English?"