Hungry Hearts
so as to blacken the white-painted ceiling. The night through she raged
with the frenzy of destruction.
Utterly spent she flung herself on the lounge, but she could not close
her eyes. Her nerves quivered. Her body ached, and she felt her soul
ache there--inside her--like a thing killed that could not die.
The first grayness of dawn filtered through the air-shaft window of
the kitchen. The room was faintly lighted, and as the rays of dawn got
stronger and reached farther, one by one the things she had mutilated
in the night started, as it were, into consciousness. She looked at
her dish-closet, once precious, that she had scratched and defaced;
the uprooted geranium-box on the window-sill; the marred walls. It was
unbearable all this waste and desolation that stared at her. "Can it
be I who done all this?" she asked herself. "What devil got boiling
in me?"
What had she gained by her rage for vengeance? She had thought to
spite the landlord, but it was her own soul she had killed. These
walls that stared at her in their ruin were not just walls. They were
animate--they throbbed with the pulse of her own flesh. For every inch
of the broken plaster there was a scar on her heart. She had destroyed
that which had taken her so many years of prayer and longing to build
up. But this demolished beauty like her own soul, though killed, still
quivered and ached with the unstilled pain of life. "Oi weh!" she
moaned, swaying to and fro. "So much lost beautifulness--"
* * * * *
Private Abraham Safransky, with the look in his eyes and the swing of
his shoulders of all the boys who come back from overseas, edged his
way through the wet Delancey Street crowds with the skill of one born
to these streets and the assurance of the United States Army. Fresh
from the ship, with a twenty-four-hour leave stowed safely in his
pocket, he hastened to see his people after nearly two years'
separation.
On Private Safransky's left shoulder was the insignia of the Statue
of Liberty. The three gold service stripes on his left arm and the two
wound stripes of his right were supplemented by the Distinguished
Service Medal on his left breast bestowed by the United States
Government.
As he pictured his mother's joy when he would surprise her in her
spotless kitchen, the soldier broke into the double-quick.
All at once he stopped; on the sidewalk before their house was a heap
of household things that seemed familiar and there on the curbstone
a woman huddled, cowering, broken.--Good God--his mother! His own
mother--and all their worldly belongings dumped there in the rain.
THE FREE VACATION HOUSE
How came it that I went to the free vacation house was like this:
One day the visiting teacher from the school comes to find out for why
don't I get the children ready for school in time; for why are they
so often late.
I let out on her my whole bitter heart. I told her my head was on
wheels from worrying. When I get up in the morning, I don't know on
what to turn first: should I nurse the baby, or make Sam's breakfast,
or attend on the older children. I only got two hands.
"My dear woman," she says, "you are about to have a nervous
breakdown. You need to get away to the country for a rest and
vacation."
"Gott im Himmel!" says I. "Don't I know I need a rest? But
how? On what money can I go to the country?"
"I know of a nice country place for mothers and children that will
not cost you anything. It is free."
"Free! I never heard from it."
"Some kind people have made arrangements so no one need pay," she
explains.
Later, in a few days, I just finished up with Masha and Mendel and
Frieda and Sonya to send them to school, and I was getting Aby ready
for kindergarten, when I hear a knock on the door, and a lady comes
in. She had a white starched dress like a nurse and carried a black
satchel in her hand.
"I am from the Social Betterment Society," she tells me. "You
want to go to the country?"
Before I could say something, she goes over to the baby and pulls out
the rubber nipple from her mouth, and to me, she says, "You must not
get the child used to sucking this; it is very unsanitary."
"Gott im Himmel!" I beg the lady. "Please don't begin with that
child, or she'll holler my head off. She must have the nipple. I'm
too nervous to hear her scream like that."
When I put the nipple back again in the baby's mouth, the lady
takes herself a seat, and then takes out a big black book from her
satchel. Then she begins to question me. What is my first name? How old
I am? From where come I? How long I'm already in this country? Do
I keep any boarders? What is my husband's first name? How old he
is? How long he is in this country? By what trade he works? How much
wages he gets for a week? How much money do I spend out for rent? How
old are the children, and everything about them.
"My goodness!" I cry out. "For why is it necessary all this to
know? For why must I tell you all my business? What difference does it
make already if I keep boarders, or I don't keep boarders? If Masha
had the whooping-cough or Sonya had the measles? Or whether I spend out
for my rent ten dollars or twenty? Or whether I come from Schnipishock
or Kovner Gubernie?"
"We must make a record of all the applicants, and investigate each
case," she tells me. "There are so many who apply to the charities,
we can help only those who are most worthy."
"Charities!" I scream out. "Ain't the charities those who
help the beggars out? I ain't no beggar. I'm not asking for no
charity. My husband, he works."
"Miss Holcomb, the visiting teacher, said that you wanted to go to
the country, and I had to make out this report before investigating
your case."
"Oh! Oh!" I choke and bit my lips. "Is the free country from
which Miss Holcomb told me, is it from the charities? She was telling
me some kind people made arrangements for any mother what needs to go
there."
"If your application is approved, you will be notified," she says
to me, and out she goes.
When she is gone I think to myself, I'd better knock out from my
head this idea about the country. For so long I lived, I didn't
know nothing about the charities. For why should I come down among the
beggars now?
Then I looked around me in the kitchen. On one side was the big
wash-tub with clothes, waiting for me to wash. On the table was a pile
of breakfast dishes yet. In the sink was the potatoes, waiting to be
peeled. The baby was beginning to cry for the bottle. Aby was hollering
and pulling me to take him to kindergarten. I felt if I didn't get
away from here for a little while, I would land in a crazy house, or
from the window jump down. Which was worser, to land in a crazy house,
jump from the window down, or go to the country from the charities?
In about two weeks later around comes the same lady with the satchel
again in my house.
"You can go to the country to-morrow," she tells me. "And
you must come to the charity building to-morrow at nine o'clock
sharp. Here is a card with the address. Don't lose it, because you
must hand it to the lady in the office."
I look on the card, and there I see my name wrote; and by it, in big
printed letters, that word "CHARITY."
"Must I go to the charity office?" I ask, feeling my heart to
sink. "For why must I come there?"
"It is the rule that everybody comes to the office first, and from
there they are taken to the country."
I shivered to think how I would feel, suppose somebody from my friends
should see me walking into the charity office with my children. They
wouldn't know that it is only for the country I go there. They
might think I go to beg. Have I come down so low as to be seen by the
charities? But what's the use? Should I knock my head on the walls? I
had to go.
When I come to the office, I already found a crowd of women and
children sitting on long benches and waiting. I took myself a
seat with them, and we were sitting and sitting and looking on one
another, sideways and crosswise, and with lowered eyes, like guilty
criminals. Each one felt like hiding herself from all the rest. Each
one felt black with shame in the face.
We may have been sitting and waiting for an hour or more. But
every second was seeming years to me. The children began to get
restless. Mendel wanted water. The baby on my arms was falling
asleep. Aby was crying for something to eat.
"For why are we sittin' here like fat cats?" says the woman next
to me. "Ain't we going to the country to-day yet?"
At last a lady comes to the desk and begins calling us our names, one
by one. I nearly dropped to the floor when over she begins to ask: Do
you keep boarders? How much do you spend out for rent? How much wages
does your man get for a week?
Didn't the nurse tell them all about us already? It was bitter enough
to have to tell the nurse everything, but in my own house nobody was
hearing my troubles, only the nurse. But in the office there was so
many strangers all around me. For why should everybody have to know my
business? At every question I wanted to holler out: "Stop! Stop! I
don't want no vacations! I'll better run home with my children."
At every question I felt like she was stabbing a knife into my
heart. And she kept on stabbing me more and more, but I could not help
it, and they were all looking at me. I couldn't move from her. I had
to answer everything.
When she got through with me, my face was red like fire. I was burning
with hurts and wounds. I felt like everything was bleeding in me.
When all the names was already called, a man doctor with a nurse comes
in, and tells us to form a line, to be examined. I wish I could ease
out my heart a little, and tell in words how that doctor looked on
us, just because we were poor and had no money to pay. He only used
the ends from his finger-tips to examine us with. From the way he was
afraid to touch us or come near us, he made us feel like we had some
catching sickness that he was trying not to get on him.
The doctor got finished with us in about five minutes, so quick he
worked. Then we was told to walk after the nurse, who was leading the
way for us through the street to the car. Everybody what passed us in
the street turned around to look on us. I kept down my eyes and held
down my head and I felt like sinking into the sidewalk. All the time
I was trembling for fear somebody what knows me might yet pass and see
me. For why did they make us walk through the street, after the nurse,
like stupid cows? Weren't all of us smart enough to find our way
without the nurse? Why should the whole world have to see that we are
from the charities?
When we got into the train, I opened my eyes, and lifted up my head,
and straightened out my chest, and again began to breathe. It was
a beautiful, sunshiny day. I knocked open the window from the train,
and the fresh-smelling country air rushed upon my face and made me feel
so fine! I looked out from the window and instead of seeing the iron
fire-escapes with garbage-cans and bedclothes, that I always seen when
from my flat I looked--instead of seeing only walls and wash-lines
between walls, I saw the blue sky, and green grass and trees and
flowers.
Ah, how grand I felt, just on the sky to look! Ah, how grand I felt
just to see the green grass--and the free space--and no houses!
"Get away from me, my troubles!" I said. "Leave me rest a
minute. Leave me breathe and straighten out my bones. Forget the
unpaid butcher's bill. Forget the rent. Forget the wash-tub and the
cook-stove and the pots and pans. Forget the charities!"
"Tickets, please," calls the train conductor.
I felt knocked out from heaven all at once. I had to point to the nurse