Part 30

"Why do you ask me?" she cried, throwing her napkin into her plate. "Do I count for a person in this house? If I'll say something, will you even listen to me? What is to me the grandest man that my daughter could pick out? Another enemy in my house! Another person to shame himself from me!" She swept in her children in one glance of despairing anguish as she rose from the table. "What worth is an old mother to American children? The President is coming to-night to the theater, and none of you asked me to go." Unable to check the rising tears, she fled toward the kitchen and banged the door.

They all looked at one another guiltily.

"Say, Sis," Benny called out sharply, "what sort of frame-up is this? Haven't you told mother that she was to go with us to-night?"

"Yes--I----" Fanny bit her lips as she fumbled evasively for words. "I asked her if she wouldn't mind my taking her some other time."

"Now you have made a mess of it!" fumed Benny. "Mother'll be too hurt to go now."

"Well, I don't care," snapped Fanny. "I can't appear with mother in a box at the theater. Can I introduce her to Mrs. Van Suyden? And suppose your leading man should ask to meet me?"

"Take your time, Sis. He hasn't asked yet," scoffed Benny.

"The more reason I shouldn't spoil my chances. You know mother. She'll spill the beans that we come from Delancey Street the minute we introduce her anywhere. Must I always have the black shadow of my past trailing after me?"

"But have you no feelings for mother?" admonished Abe.

"I've tried harder than all of you to do my duty. I've _lived_ with her." She turned angrily upon them. "I've borne the shame of mother while you bought her off with a present and a treat here and there. God knows how hard I tried to civilize her so as not to have to blush with shame when I take her anywhere. I dressed her in the most stylish Paris models, but Delancey Street sticks out from every inch of her. Whenever she opens her mouth, I'm done for. You fellows had your chance to rise in the world because a man is free to go up as high as he can reach up to; but I, with all my style and pep, can't get a man my equal because a girl is always judged by her mother."

They were silenced by her vehemence, and unconsciously turned to Benny.

"I guess we all tried to do our best for mother," said Benny, thoughtfully. "But wherever there is growth, there is pain and heartbreak. The trouble with us is that the Ghetto of the Middle Ages and the children of the twentieth century have to live under one roof, and----"

A sound of crashing dishes came from the kitchen, and the voice of Hanneh Breineh resounded through the dining-room as she wreaked her pent-up fury on the helpless servant.

"Oh, my nerves! I can't stand it any more! There will be no girl again for another week," cried Fanny.

"Oh, let up on the old lady," protested Abe. "Since she can't take it out on us any more, what harm is it if she cusses the servants?"

"If you fellows had to chase around employment agencies, you wouldn't see anything funny about it. Why can't we move into a hotel that will do away with the need of servants altogether?"

"I got it better," said Jake, consulting a note-book from his pocket. "I have on my list an apartment on Riverside Drive where there's only a small kitchenette; but we can do away with the cooking, for there is a dining service in the building."

The new Riverside apartment to which Hanneh Breineh was removed by her socially ambitious children was for the habitually active mother an empty desert of enforced idleness. Deprived of her kitchen, Hanneh Breineh felt robbed of the last reason for her existence. Cooking and marketing and puttering busily with pots and pans gave her an excuse for living and struggling and bearing up with her children. The lonely idleness of Riverside Drive stunned all her senses and arrested all her thoughts. It gave her that choked sense of being cut off from air, from life, from everything warm and human. The cold indifference, the each-for-himself look in the eyes of the people about her were like stinging slaps in the face. Even the children had nothing real or human in them. They were starched and stiff miniatures of their elders.

But the most unendurable part of the stifling life on Riverside Drive was being forced to eat in the public dining-room. No matter how hard she tried to learn polite table manners, she always found people staring at her, and her daughter rebuking her for eating with the wrong fork or guzzling the soup or staining the cloth.

In a fit of rebellion Hanneh Breineh resolved never to go down to the public dining-room again, but to make use of the gas-stove in the kitchenette to cook her own meals. That very day she rode down to Delancey Street and purchased a new market-basket. For some time she walked among the haggling push-cart venders, relaxing and swimming in the warm waves of her old familiar past.

A fish-peddler held up a large carp in his black, hairy hand and waved it dramatically:

"Women! Women! Fourteen cents a pound!"

He ceased his raucous shouting as he saw Hanneh Breineh in her rich attire approach his cart.

"How much?" she asked pointing to the fattest carp.

"Fifteen cents, lady," said the peddler, smirking as he raised his price.

"Swindler! Didn't I hear you call fourteen cents?" shrieked Hanneh Breineh, exultingly, the spirit of the penny chase surging in her blood. Diplomatically, Hanneh Breineh turned as if to go, and the fishman seized her basket in frantic fear.

"I should live; I'm losing money on the fish, lady," whined the peddler. "I'll let it down to thirteen cents for you only."

"Two pounds for a quarter, and not a penny more," said Hanneh Breineh, thrilling again with the rare sport of bargaining, which had been her chief joy in the good old days of poverty.

"_Nu_, I want to make the first sale for good luck." The peddler threw the fish on the scale.

As he wrapped up the fish, Hanneh Breineh saw the driven look of worry in his haggard eyes, and when he counted out for her the change from her dollar, she waved it aside.

"Keep it for your luck," she said, and hurried off to strike a new bargain at a push-cart of onions.

Hanneh Breineh returned triumphantly with her purchases. The basket under her arm gave forth the old, homelike odors of herring and garlic, while the scaly tail of a four-pound carp protruded from its newspaper wrapping. A gilded placard on the door of the apartment-house proclaimed that all merchandise must be delivered through the trade entrance in the rear; but Hanneh Breineh with her basket strode proudly through the marble-paneled hall and rang nonchalantly for the elevator.

The uniformed hall-man, erect, expressionless, frigid with dignity, stepped forward:

"Just a minute, Madam, I'll call a boy to take up your basket for you."

Hanneh Breineh, glaring at him, jerked the basket savagely from his hands.

"Mind your own business," she retorted. "I'll take it up myself. Do you think you're a Russian policeman to boss me in my own house?"

Angry lines appeared on the countenance of the representative of social decorum.

"It is against the rules, Madam," he said stiffly.

"You should sink into the earth with all your rules and brass buttons. Ain't this America? Ain't this a free country? Can't I take up in my own house what I buy with my own money?" cried Hanneh Breineh, reveling in the opportunity to shower forth the volley of invectives that had been suppressed in her for the weeks of deadly dignity of Riverside Drive.

In the midst of this uproar Fanny came in with Mrs. Van Suyden. Hanneh Breineh rushed over to her, crying:

"This bossy policeman won't let me take up my basket in the elevator."

The daughter, unnerved with shame and confusion, took the basket in her white-gloved hand and ordered the hall-boy to take it around to the regular delivery entrance.

Hanneh Breineh was so hurt by her daughter's apparent defense of the hallman's rules that she utterly ignored Mrs. Van Suyden's greeting and walked up the seven flights of stairs out of sheer spite.

"You see the tragedy of my life?" broke out Fanny, turning to Mrs. Van Suyden.

"You poor child! You go right up to your dear, old lady mother, and I'll come some other time."

Instantly Fanny regretted her words. Mrs. Van Suyden's pity only roused her wrath the more against her mother.

Breathless from climbing the stairs, Hanneh Breineh entered the apartment just as Fanny tore the faultless millinery creation from her head and threw it on the floor in a rage.

"Mother, you are the ruination of my life! You have driven away Mrs. Van Suyden, as you have driven away all my best friends. What do you think we got this apartment for but to get rid of your fish smells and your brawls with the servants? And here you come with a basket on your arm as if you just landed from steerage! And this afternoon, of all times, when Benny is bringing his leading man to tea. When will you ever stop disgracing us?"

"When I'm dead," said Hanneh Breineh, grimly. "When the earth will cover me up, then you'll be free to go your American way. I'm not going to make myself over for a lady on Riverside Drive. I hate you and all your swell friends. I'll not let myself be choked up here by you or by that hall-boss-policeman that is higher in your eyes than your own mother."

"So that's your thanks for all we've done for you?" cried the daughter.

"All you've done for me?" shouted Hanneh Breineh. "What have you done for me? You hold me like a dog on a chain. It stands in the Talmud; some children give their mothers dry bread and water and go to heaven for it, and some give their mother roast duck and go to Gehenna because it's not given with love."

"You want me to love you yet?" raged the daughter. "You knocked every bit of love out of me when I was yet a kid. All the memories of childhood I have is your everlasting cursing and yelling that we were gluttons."

The bell rang sharply, and Hanneh Breineh flung open the door.

"Your groceries, ma'am," said the boy.

Hanneh Breineh seized the basket from him, and with a vicious fling sent it rolling across the room, strewing its contents over the Persian rugs and inlaid floor. Then seizing her hat and coat, she stormed out of the apartment and down the stairs.

Mr. and Mrs. Pelz sat crouched and shivering over their meager supper when the door opened, and Hanneh Breineh in fur coat and plumed hat charged into the room.

"I come to cry out to you my bitter heart," she sobbed. "Woe is me! It is so black for my eyes!"

"What is the matter with you, Hanneh Breineh?" cried Mrs. Pelz in bewildered alarm.

"I am turned out of my own house by the brass-buttoned policeman that bosses the elevator. _Oi-i-i-i! Weh-h-h-h!_ what have I from my life? The whole world rings with my son's play. Even the President came to see it, and I, his mother, have not seen it yet. My heart is dying in me like in a prison," she went on wailing. "I am starved out for a piece of real eating. In that swell restaurant is nothing but napkins and forks and lettuce-leaves. There are a dozen plates to every bite of food. And it looks so fancy on the plate, but it's nothing but straw in the mouth. I'm starving, but I can't swallow down their American eating."

"Hanneh Breineh," said Mrs. Pelz, "you are sinning before God. Look on your fur coat; it alone would feed a whole family for a year. I never had yet a piece of fur trimming on a coat, and you are in fur from the neck to the feet. I never had yet a piece of feather on a hat, and your hat is all feathers."

"What are you envying me?" protested Hanneh Breineh. "What have I from all my fine furs and feathers when my children are strangers to me? All the fur coats in the world can't warm up the loneliness inside my heart. All the grandest feathers can't hide the bitter shame in my face that my children shame themselves from me."

Hanneh Breineh suddenly loomed over them like some ancient, heroic figure of the Bible condemning unrighteousness.

"Why should my children shame themselves from me? From where did they get the stuff to work themselves up in the world? Did they get it from the air? How did they get all their smartness to rise over the people around them? Why don't the children of born American mothers write my Benny's plays? It is I, who never had a chance to be a person, who gave him the fire in his head. If I would have had a chance to go to school and learn the language, what couldn't I have been? It is I and my mother and my mother's mother and my father and father's father who had such a black life in Poland; it is our choked thoughts and feelings that are flaming up in my children and making them great in America. And yet they shame themselves from me!"

For a moment Mr. and Mrs. Pelz were hypnotized by the sweep of her words. Then Hanneh Breineh sank into a chair in utter exhaustion. She began to weep bitterly, her body shaking with sobs.

"Woe is me! For what did I suffer and hope on my children? A bitter old age--my end. I'm so lonely!"

All the dramatic fire seemed to have left her. The spell was broken. They saw the Hanneh Breineh of old, ever discontented, ever complaining even in the midst of riches and plenty.

"Hanneh Breineh," said Mrs. Pelz, "the only trouble with you is that you got it too good. People will tear the eyes out of your head because you're complaining yet. If I only had your fur coat! If I only had your diamonds! I have nothing. You have everything. You are living on the fat of the land. You go right back home and thank God that you don't have my bitter lot."

"You got to let me stay here with you," insisted Hanneh Breineh. "I'll not go back to my children except when they bury me. When they will see my dead face, they will understand how they killed me."

Mrs. Pelz glanced nervously at her husband. They barely had enough covering for their one bed; how could they possibly lodge a visitor?

"I don't want to take up your bed," said Hanneh Breineh. "I don't care if I have to sleep on the floor or on the chairs, but I'll stay here for the night."

Seeing that she was bent on staying, Mr. Pelz prepared to sleep by putting a few chairs next to the trunk, and Hanneh Breineh was invited to share the rickety bed with Mrs. Pelz.

The mattress was full of lumps and hollows. Hanneh Breineh lay cramped and miserable, unable to stretch out her limbs. For years she had been accustomed to hair mattresses and ample woolen blankets, so that though she covered herself with her fur coat, she was too cold to sleep. But worse than the cold were the creeping things on the wall. And as the lights were turned low, the mice came through the broken plaster and raced across the floor. The foul odors of the kitchen-sink added to the night of horrors.

"Are you going back home?" asked Mrs. Pelz as Hanneh Breineh put on her hat and coat the next morning.

"I don't know where I'm going," she replied as she put a bill into Mrs. Pelz's hand.

For hours Hanneh Breineh walked through the crowded Ghetto streets. She realized that she no longer could endure the sordid ugliness of her past, and yet she could not go home to her children. She only felt that she must go on and on.

In the afternoon a cold, drizzling rain set in. She was worn out from the sleepless night and hours of tramping. With a piercing pain in her heart she at last turned back and boarded the subway for Riverside Drive. She had fled from the marble sepulcher of the Riverside apartment to her old home in the Ghetto; but now she knew that she could not live there again. She had outgrown her past by the habits of years of physical comforts, and these material comforts that she could no longer do without choked and crushed the life within her.

A cold shudder went through Hanneh Breineh as she approached the apartment-house. Peering through the plate glass of the door she saw the face of the uniformed hall-man. For a hesitating moment she remained standing in the drizzling rain, unable to enter and yet knowing full well that she would have to enter.

Then suddenly Hanneh Breineh began to laugh. She realized that it was the first time she had laughed since her children had become rich. But it was the hard laugh of bitter sorrow. Tears streamed down her furrowed cheeks as she walked slowly up the granite steps.

"The fat of the land!" muttered Hanneh Breineh, with a choking sob as the hall-man with immobile face deferentially swung open the door--"the fat of the land!"

THE YEARBOOK OF THE AMERICAN SHORT STORY

NOVEMBER, 1918, TO SEPTEMBER, 1919

ADDRESSES OF AMERICAN MAGAZINES PUBLISHING SHORT STORIES

NOTE. _This address list does not aim to be complete, but is based simply on the magazines which I have considered for this volume._

Adventure, Spring and Macdougal Streets, New York City.

Ainslee's Magazine, 79 Seventh Avenue, New York City.

All-Story Weekly, 280 Broadway, New York City.

American Boy, 142 Lafayette Boulevard, Detroit, Michigan.

American Magazine, 381 Fourth Avenue, New York City.

Argosy, 280 Broadway, New York City.

Atlantic Monthly, 41 Mt. Vernon Street, Boston, Mass.

Black Cat, Salem, Mass.

Catholic World, 120 West 60th Street, New York City.

Century, 353 Fourth Avenue, New York City.

Christian Herald, Bible House, New York City.

Collier's Weekly, 416 West 13th Street, New York City.

Cosmopolitan Magazine, 119 West 40th Street, New York City.

Delineator, Spring and Macdougal Streets, New York City.

Everybody's Magazine, Spring and Macdougal Streets, New York City.

Good Housekeeping, 119 West 40th Street, New York City.

Harper's Bazaar, 119 West 40th Street, New York City.

Harper's Magazine, Franklin Square, New York City.

Hearst's Magazine, 119 West 40th Street, New York City.

Ladies' Home Journal, Independence Square, Philadelphia, Pa.

Liberator, 34 Union Square, East, New York City.

Little Review, 24 West 16th Street, New York City.

Live Stories, 35 West 39th Street, New York City.

McCall's Magazine, 236 West 37th Street, New York City.

McClure's Magazine, 76 Fifth Avenue, New York City.

Magnificat, Manchester, N. H.

Metropolitan, 432 Fourth Avenue, New York City.

Midland, Moorhead, Minn.

Munsey's Magazine, 280 Broadway, New York City.

Outlook, 381 Fourth Avenue, New York City.

Pagan, 7 East 15th Street, New York City.

Parisienne, 25 West 45th Street, New York City.

Pictorial Review, 216 West 39th Street, New York City.

Queen's Work, 3200 Russell Avenue, St. Louis, Mo.

Red Book Magazine, North American Building, Chicago, Ill.

Reedy's Mirror, Syndicate Trust Building, St. Louis, Mo.

Saturday Evening Post, Independence Square, Philadelphia, Pa.

Scribner's Magazine, 597 Fifth Avenue, New York City.

Short Stories, Garden City, Long Island, N. Y.

Smart Set, 25 West 45th Street, New York City.

Snappy Stories, 35 West 39th Street, New York City.

Stratford Journal, 32 Oliver Street, Boston, Mass.

Sunset, 460 Fourth Street, San Francisco, Cal.

Today's Housewife, Cooperstown, N. Y.

Touchstone, 1 West 47th Street, New York City.

Woman's Home Companion, 381 Fourth Avenue, New York City.

Woman's World, 107 South Clinton Street, Chicago, Ill.

THE BIOGRAPHICAL ROLL OF HONOR OF AMERICAN SHORT STORIES

NOVEMBER, 1918, TO SEPTEMBER, 1919

NOTE. _Only stories by American authors are listed. The best sixty stories are indicated by an asterisk before the title of the story. The index figures_ 1, 2, 3, 4, _and_ 5 _prefixed to the name of the author indicate that his work has been included in the Rolls of Honor for_ 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, _and_ 1918 _respectively. The list excludes reprints._

(5) ABDULLAH, ACHMED (_for biography, see_ 1918). Dance on the Hill. *Honorable Gentleman.

ALSOP, GULIELMA FELL. Born in Allegheny, Pa., graduated from Barnard College and from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, spent a year in special work at Vienna, and became attached to St. Elizabeth's Mission Hospital for Chinese women and children at Shanghai, China, where she eventually became physician-in-charge. She has travelled widely in Europe and Africa and her first volume will be published shortly. *Kitchen Gods.

(345) ANDERSON, SHERWOOD (_for biography, see_ 1917). *Awakening.

(345) ANDREWS, MARY RAYMOND SHIPMAN (_for biography, see_ 1917). Queen.

(345) BABCOCK, EDWINA STANTON (_for biography, see_ 1917). *Facing It. *Willum's Vanilla.

BARNES, DJUNA. Born at Cornwall-on-Hudson, N. Y., in 1892. Educated at home. Chief interests: drawing and writing. Author of "Book of Repulsive Women," 1915, and "Passion Play," 1918. Lives in New York City. *Night among the Horses. Valet.

BARTLETT, FREDERICK ORIN. Born at Haverhill, Mass., in 1876, educated at Proctor Academy, Hanover, N. H., and Harvard University. Spent six years in newspaper work on Boston papers. Author of "Mistress Dorothy," 1901; "Joan of the Alley," 1905; "Web of the Golden Spider," 1909; "Seventh Noon," 1910; "Prodigal Pro Tem," 1911; "Forest Castaways," 1911; "Lady of the Lane," 1912; "Guardian," 1912; "Whippen," 1913; "Wall Street Girl," 1916; "Triflers," 1917, and many short stories. Lives in Cambridge, Mass. *Long, Long Ago.

(234) BROWN, ALICE (_for biography, see_ 1917). Praying Sally.

(5) BROWNELL, AGNES MARY (_for biography, see_ 1918). *Dishes. *Love's Labor.

(3) BURNET, DANA. Born at Cincinnati, Ohio, 1888, and educated at Woodward High School, Cincinnati, and Cornell University. Connected with the New York _Evening Sun_ since 1911. Author of "Poems," 1915; "Shining Adventure," 1916, and many short stories. Lives in New York City. Butterfly. Orchid.

(145) BURT, MAXWELL STRUTHERS (_for biography, see_ 1917).

* Blood-Red One.

Shining Armor.

(5) CABELL, JAMES BRANCH (_for biography, see_ 1918). * Wedding Jest.

CAYLOR, N. G. * Area of a Cylinder.

COHEN, OCTAVUS ROY. Born at Charleston, S. C., in 1891. Educated at Porter Military Academy and Clemson College. Married Inez Lopez, 1914. Civil engineer 1909 and 1910; newspaper man 1910-12; practised law 1913 to 1915, since which he has devoted himself exclusively to writing. Author of "The Other Woman," 1917 (with J. V. Glesy); "Six Seconds of Darkness," 1918; "Polished Ebony," 1919. Lives in Birmingham, Ala. Queer House.

COLLIER, TARLETON. Gracious Veil.

(2) COMFORT, WILL LEVINGTON. Born at Kalamazoo, Mich., 1878. Educated in the Detroit public schools, served in Fifth U.S. Cavalry during the Spanish-American War, and as war correspondent in the Philippines, China, Russia and Japan, 1899 to 1904. Author of "Routledge Rides Alone," 1910; "Fate Knocks at the Door," 1912; "Down Among Men," 1913; "Midstream," 1914; "Red Fleece," 1915; "Lot and Company," 1915; "Child and Country," 1916; "The Hive," 1918. Lives in Santa Monica, Cal. Skag.

(24) COWDERY, ALICE (_for biography, see 1917_). Spiral.

CRAM, MILDRED. Born in Washington, D. C, 1889. After four years of study in New York private schools, went abroad for six years of travel. Chief interests: music, the theater, house-keeping, and short stories. First short story: "A Stab at Happiness," published in All-Story Weekly, 1915. Author of "Old Seaport Towns of the South," 1917, and "Lotus Salad," 1920. Lives in New York City. McCarthy.

CRANSTON, CLAUDIA. *Invisible Garden.

(45) DOBIE, CHARLES CALDWELL (_for biography, see 1917_). Called to Service.