Yekl | Page 9

the remark between both jargons.
"Look at her, look! she is a regely getzke [note]: one must take off
one's cap to speak to her. Don't you always say you like to dansh with
me becush I am a good dansher?"
[note] getzke: A crucifix.
"You must tink you are a peach of a dancer, am' it? Bennie can dance a
sight better dan you," she recurred to her English.
"Alla right!" he said tartly. "So you don' vonted?"
"O sugar! He is gettin' mad again. Vell, who is de getzke, me or you?
All right, I'll dance vid de slob. But it's only becuss you ask me, mind
you!" she added fawningly.
"Dot'sh alla right!" he rejoined, with an affectation of 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