Humoresque | Page 4

do?' The whole shop, I tell you. A sheep with a baa inside when you
squeeze on him--games--a horn so he can holler my head off--such a
knife like Izzie's with a scissors in it. 'Leon,' I said, ashamed for Naftel,
'that's a fine knife like Izzie's so you can cut up with. All right,
then'--when I see how he hollers--'such a box full of soldiers to have
war with.' 'Dollar seventy-five,' says Naftel. 'All right, then,' I says,
when I seen how he keeps hollering. 'Give you a dollar fifteen for 'em.'
I should make myself small for fifteen cents more. 'Dollar fifteen,' I
says--anything so he should shut up with his hollering for what he seen
in the window."

"He seen something in the window he wanted, Abrahm?"
"Didn't I tell you? A feedle! A four-dollar feedle! A moosicer, so we
should have another feedler in the family for some thirty-cents
lessons."
"Abrahm--you mean--he--our Leon--wanted a violin?"
"'Wanted,' she says. I could potch him again this minute for how he
wanted it! _Du_--you little bum you--_chammer_--_momser_--I'll
feedle you!"
Across Mrs. Kantor's face, as she knelt there in the shapeless
cotton-stuff uniform of poverty, through the very tenement of her body,
a light had flashed up into her eyes. She drew her son closer, crushing
his puny cheek up against hers, cupping his bristly little head in her by
no means immaculate palms.
"He wanted a violin! It's come, Abrahm! The dream of all my life--my
prayers--it's come! I knew it must be one of my children if I waited
long enough--and prayed enough. A musician! He wants a violin! He
cried for a violin! My baby! Why, darlink, mamma'll sell her clothes
off her back to get you a violin. He's a musician, Abrahm! I should
have known it the way he's fooling always around the chimes and the
bells in the store!"
Then Mr. Kantor took to rocking his head between his palms.
"Oi--oi! The mother is crazier as her son. A moosician! A fresser, you
mean. Such an eater, it's a wonder he ain't twice too big instead of twice
too little for his age."
"That's a sign, Abrahm; geniuses, they all eat big. For all we know, he's
a genius. I swear to you, Abrahm, all the months before he was born I
prayed for it. Each one before they came, I prayed it should be the one.
I thought that time the way our Isadore ran after the organ-grinder he
would be the one. How could I know it was the monkey he wanted?
When Isadore wouldn't take to it I prayed my next one, and then my

next one, should have the talent. I've prayed for it, Abrahm. If he wants
a violin, please, he should have it."
"Not with my money."
"With mine! I've got enough saved, Abrahm. Them three extra dollars
right here inside my own waist. Just that much for that cape down on
Grand Street. I wouldn't have it now, the way they say the wind blows
up them--"
"I tell you the woman's crazy--"
"I feel it! I know he's got talent! I know my children so well. A--a
father don't understand. I'm so next to them. It's like I can tell always
everything that will happen to them--it's like a pain--somewheres
here--like in back of my heart."
"A pain in the heart she gets."
"For my own children I'm always a prophet, I tell you! You think I
didn't know that--that terrible night after the pogrom after we got out of
Kief to across the border! You remember, Abrahm, how I predicted it
to you then--how our Mannie would be born too soon and--and not
right from my suffering! Did it happen on the ship to America just the
way I said it would? Did it happen just exactly how I predicted our
Izzie would break his leg that time playing on the fire-escape? I tell you,
Abrahm, I get a real pain here under my heart that tells me what comes
to my children. Didn't I tell you how Esther would be the first in her
confirmation-class and our baby Boris would be redheaded? At only
five years, our Leon all by himself cries for a fiddle--get it for him,
Abrahm--get it for him!"
"I tell you, Sarah, I got a crazy woman for a wife! It ain't enough we
celebrate eight birthdays a year with one-dollar presents each time and
copper goods every day higher. It ain't enough that right to-morrow I
got a fifty-dollar note over me from Sol Ginsberg; a four-dollar present
she wants for a child that don't even know the name of a feedle."

"Leon, baby, stop hollering. Papa will go back and get the fiddle for
you now before supper. See, mamma's got