Yekl | Page 9

gravity, concealing his triumph. "But you makin' too much fush. I like to shpeak plain, shee? Dot'sh a kin' a man I am."
The next two waltzes Mamie danced with the ungainly novice, taking exaggerated pains with him. Then came a lancers, Joe calling out the successive movements huckster fashion. His command was followed by less than half of the class, however, for the greater part preferred to avail themselves of the same music for waltzing. Jake was bent upon giving Mamie what he called a "sholid good time"; and, as she shared his view that a square or fancy dance was as flimsy an affair as a stick of candy, they joined or, rather, led the seceding majority. They spun along with all-forgetful gusto; every little while he lifted her on his powerful arm and gave her a "mill," he yelping and she squeaking for sheer ecstasy, as he did so; and through out the performance his face and his whole figure seemed to be exclaiming, "Dot'sh a kin' a man I am!"
Several waifs stood in a cluster admiring or begrudging the antics of the star couple. Among these was lanky Miss Jacobs and Fanny the Preacher, who had shortly before made her appearance in the hall, and now stood pale and forlorn by the "apron-check" girl's side.
"Look at the way she is stickin' to him!" the little girl observed with envious venom, her gaze riveted to Mamie, whose shapely head was at this moment reclining on Jake's shoulders, with her eyes half shut, as if melting in a transport of bliss.
Fanny felt cut to the quick.
"You are jealous, ain't you?" she jerked out.
"Who, me? Vy should I be jealous?" Miss Jacobs protested, coloring. "On my part let them both go to. You must be jealous. Here, here! See how your eyes are creeping out looking! Here, here!" she teased her offender in Yiddish, poking her little finger at her as she spoke.
"Will you shut your scurvy mouth, little piece of ugliness, you? Such a piggish apron check!" poor Fanny burst out under breath, tears starting to her eyes.
"Such a nasty little runt!" another girl chimed in.
"Such a little cricket already knows what 'jealous' is!" a third of the bystanders put in. "You had better go home or your mamma will give you a spanking." Whereat the little cricket made a retort, which had better be left unrecorded.
"To think of a bit of a flea like that having so much cheek! Here is America for you!"
"America for a country and 'dod'll do' [that'll do] for a language!" observed one of the young men of the group, indulging one of the stereotype jokes of the Ghetto.
The passage at arms drew Jake's attention to the little knot of spectators, and his eye fell on Fanny. Whereupon he summarily relinquished his partner on the floor, and advanced toward his shopmate, who, seeing him approach, hastened to retreat to the girls' bench, where she remained seated with a dropping head.
"Hello, Fanny!" he shouted briskly, coming up in front of her.
"Hello!" she returned rigidly, her eyes fixed on the dirty floor.
"Come, give ush a tvisht, vill you?"
"But you ain't goin' by Joe tonight!" she answered, with a withering curl of her lip, her glance still on the ground. "Go to your lady, she'll be mad atch you."
"I didn't vonted to gu here, honesht, Fanny. I o'ly come to tell Jaw shometin', an' dot'sh ull," he said guiltily.
"Why should you apologize?" she addressed the tip of her shoe in her mother tongue. "As if he was obliged to apologize to me! For my part you can dance with her day and night. Vot do I care? As if I cared! I have only come to see what a bluffer you are. Do you think I am a fool? As smart as your Mamie, anyvay. As if I had not known he wanted to make me stay at home! What are you afraid of? Am I in your way then? As if I was in his way! What business have I to be in your way? Who is in your way?"
While she was thus speaking in her voluble, querulous, harassing manner, Jake stood with his hands in his trousers' pockets, in an attitude of mock attention. Then, suddenly losing patience, he said:
"Dot'sh alla right! You will finish your sermon afterward. And in the meantime lesh have a valtz from the land of valtzes!" With which he forcibly dragged her off her seat, catching her round the waist.
"But I don't need it, I don't wish it! Go to your Mamie!" she protested, struggling. "I tell you I don't need it, I don't --" The rest of the sentence was choked off by her violent breathing; for by this time she was spinning with Jake like a top. After