Hungry Hearts
what held our tickets, and I was feeling the conductor looking on me as
if to say, "Oh, you are only from the charities."
By the time we came to the vacation house I already forgot all about
my knock-down. I was again filled with the beauty of the country. I
never in all my life yet seen such a swell house like that vacation
house. Like the grandest palace it looked. All round the front, flowers
from all colors was smelling out the sweetest perfume. Here and there
was shady trees with comfortable chairs under them to sit down on.
When I only came inside, my mouth opened wide and my breathing
stopped still from wonder. I never yet seen such an order and such a
cleanliness. From all the corners from the room, the cleanliness was
shining like a looking-glass. The floor was so white scrubbed you could
eat on it. You couldn't find a speck of dust on nothing, if you was
looking for it with eye-glasses on.
I was beginning to feel happy and glad that I come, when, Gott im
Himmel! again a lady begins to ask us out the same questions what the
nurse already asked me in my home and what was asked over again in the
charity office. How much wages my husband makes out for a week? How
much money I spend out for rent? Do I keep boarders?
We were hungry enough to faint. So worn out was I from excitement, and
from the long ride, that my knees were bending under me ready to break
from tiredness. The children were pulling me to pieces, nagging me for
a drink, for something to eat and such like. But still we had to stand
out the whole list of questionings. When she already got through asking
us out everything, she gave to each of us a tag with our name written
on it. She told us to tie the tag on our hand. Then like tagged horses
at a horse sale in the street, they marched us into the dining-room.
There was rows of long tables, covered with pure-white oil-cloth. A
vase with bought flowers was standing on the middle from each
table. Each person got a clean napkin for himself. Laid out by the side
from each person's plate was a silver knife and fork and spoon and
teaspoon. When we only sat ourselves down, girls with white starched
aprons was passing around the eatings.
I soon forgot again all my troubles. For the first time in ten years I
sat down to a meal what I did not have to cook or worry about. For the
first time in ten years I sat down to the table like a somebody. Ah,
how grand it feels, to have handed you over the eatings and everything
you need. Just as I was beginning to like it and let myself feel good,
in comes a fat lady all in white, with a teacher's look on her
face. I could tell already, right away by the way she looked on us,
that she was the boss from this place.
"I want to read you the rules from this house, before you leave this
room," says she to us.
Then she began like this: We dassen't stand on the front grass where
the flowers are. We dassen't stay on the front porch. We dassen't
sit on the chairs under the shady trees. We must stay always in the
back and sit on those long wooden benches there. We dassen't come in
the front sitting-room or walk on the front steps what have carpet on
it--we must walk on the back iron steps. Everything on the front from
the house must be kept perfect for the show for visitors. We dassen't
lay down on the beds in the daytime, the beds must always be made up
perfect for the show for visitors.
"Gott im Himmel!" thinks I to myself; "ain't there going to be
no end to the things we dassen't do in this place?"
But still she went on. The children over two years dassen't stay
around by the mothers. They must stay by the nurse in the play-room. By
the meal-times, they can see their mothers. The children dassen't
run around the house or tear up flowers or do anything. They dassen't
holler or play rough in the play-room. They must always behave and obey
the nurse.
We must always listen to the bells. Bell one was for getting
up. Bell two, for getting babies' bottles. Bell three, for coming
to breakfast. Bell four, for bathing the babies. If we come later,
after the ring from the bell, then we'll not get what we need. If
the bottle bell rings and we don't come right away for the bottle,
then the baby don't get no bottle. If the breakfast bell rings, and
we don't come right away down to the breakfast, then there won't be
no breakfast for us.
When she got through with reading the rules, I was wondering which
side of the house I was to walk on. At every step was some rule what
said don't move here, and don't go there, don't stand there, and
don't sit there. If I tried to remember the endless rules, it would
only make me dizzy in the head. I was thinking for why, with so many
rules, didn't they also have already another rule, about how much air
in our lungs to breathe.
On every few days there came to the house swell ladies in
automobiles. It was for them that the front from the house had to be
always perfect. For them was all the beautiful smelling flowers. For
them the front porch, the front sitting-room, and the easy stairs with
the carpet on it.
Always when the rich ladies came the fat lady, what was the boss from
the vacation house, showed off to them the front. Then she took them
over to the back to look on us, where we was sitting together, on long
wooden benches, like prisoners. I was always feeling cheap like dirt,
and mad that I had to be there, when they smiled down on us.
"How nice for these poor creatures to have a restful place like
this," I heard one lady say.
The next day I already felt like going back. The children what had to
stay by the nurse in the play-room didn't like it neither.
"Mamma," says Mendel to me, "I wisht I was home and out in
the street. They don't let us do nothing here. It's worser than
school."
"Ain't it a play-room?" asks I. "Don't they let you play?"
"Gee wiss! play-room, they call it! The nurse hollers on us all the
time. She don't let us do nothing."
The reason why I stayed out the whole two weeks is this: I think to
myself, so much shame in the face I suffered to come here, let me at
least make the best from it already. Let me at least save up for two
weeks what I got to spend out for grocery and butcher for my back bills
to pay out. And then also think I to myself, if I go back on Monday,
I got to do the big washing; on Tuesday waits for me the ironing; on
Wednesday, the scrubbing and cleaning, and so goes it on. How bad it is
already in this place, it's a change from the very same sameness of
what I'm having day in and day out at home. And so I stayed out this
vacation to the bitter end.
But at last the day for going out from this prison came. On the way
riding back, I kept thinking to myself: "This is such a beautiful
vacation house. For why do they make it so hard for us? When a mother
needs a vacation, why must they tear the insides out from her first,
by making her come down to the charity office? Why drag us from the
charity office through the streets? And when we live through the shame
of the charities and when we come already to the vacation house, for
why do they boss the life out of us with so many rules and bells? For
why don't they let us lay down our heads on the bed when we are
tired? For why must we always stick in the back, like dogs what have
got to be chained in one spot? If they would let us walk around free,
would we bite off something from the front part of the house?
"If the best part of the house what is comfortable is made up for a
show for visitors, why ain't they keeping the whole business for a
show for visitors? For why do they have to fool in worn-out mothers, to
make them think they'll give them a rest? Do they need the worn-out
mothers as part of the show? I guess that is it, already."
When I got back in my home, so happy and thankful I was I could cry
from thankfulness. How good it was feeling for me to be able to move
around my own house, like I pleased. I was always kicking that my
rooms was small and narrow, but now my small rooms seemed to grow so
big like the park. I looked out from my window on the fire-escapes,
full with bedding and garbage-cans, and on the wash-lines full with
the clothes. All these ugly things was grand in my eyes. Even the high
brick walls all around made me feel like a bird what just jumped out
from a cage. And I cried out, "Gott sei dank! Gott sei dank!"
THE MIRACLE
Like all people who have nothing, I lived on dreams. With nothing but
my longing for love, I burned my way through stone walls till I got to
America. And what happened to me when I became an American is more than
I can picture before my eyes, even in a dream.
I was a poor Melamid's daughter in Savel, Poland. In my village,
a girl without a dowry was a dead one. The only kind of a man that
would give a look on a girl without money was a widower with a dozen
children, or some one with a hump or on crutches.
There was the village water-carrier with red, teary eyes, and warts
on his cracked lip. There was the janitor of the bath-house, with a
squash nose, and long, black nails with all the dirt of the world under
them. Maybe one of these uglinesses might yet take pity on me and do me
the favor to marry me. I shivered and grew cold through all my bones at
the thought of them.
Like the hunger for bread was my hunger for love. My life was nothing
to me. My heart was empty. Nothing I did was real without love. I used
to spend nights crying on my pillow, praying to God: "I want love! I
want love! I can't live--I can't breathe without love!"
And all day long I'd ask myself: "Why was I born? What is the
use of dragging on day after day, wasting myself eating, sleeping,
dressing? What is the meaning of anything without love?" And my heart
was so hungry I couldn't help feeling and dreaming that somehow,
somewhere, there must be a lover waiting for me. But how and where
could I find my lover was the one longing that burned in my heart by
day and by night.
Then came the letter from Hanneh Hayyeh, Zlata's daughter, that fired
me up to go to America for my lover.
"America is a lover's land," said Hanneh Hayyeh's letter. "In
America millionaires fall in love with poorest girls. Matchmakers are
out of style, and a girl can get herself married to a man without the
worries for a dowry."
"God from the world!" began knocking my heart. "How grand to live
where the kind of a man you get don't depend on how much money your
father can put down! If I could only go to America! There--there waits
my lover for me."
That letter made a holiday all over Savel. The butcher, the grocer, the
shoemaker, everybody stopped his work and rushed to our house to hear
my father read the news from the Golden Country.
"Stand out your ears to hear my great happiness," began Hanneh
Hayyeh's letter. "I, Hanneh Hayyeh, will marry myself to Solomon
Cohen, the boss from the shirtwaist factory, where all day I was
working sewing on buttons. If you could only see how the man is melting
away his heart for me! He kisses me after each step I walk. The
only wish from his heart is to make me for a lady. Think only, he
is buying me a piano! I should learn piano lessons as if I were from
millionaires."
Fire and lightning burst through the crowd. "Hanneh Hayyeh a lady!"
They nudged and winked one to the other as they looked on the loose
fatness of Zlata, her mother, and saw before their eyes Hanneh Hayyeh,
with her thick, red lips, and her shape so fat like a puffed-out barrel
of yeast.
"In America is a law called 'ladies first,'" the letter went
on. "In the cars the men must get up to give their seats to the
women. The men hold the babies on their hands and carry the bundles for
the women, and even help with the dishes. There are not enough women to