Then Mariasha began to speak of her two other sons, who were in America. It was already twenty years since they had gone thither from the city, where they worked for a tinsmith. To-day, thank God! they were wealthy men, and often sent her money from America. They asked her to come to them, but she was afraid to drag her weary old bones to the devil knew where. She would really like to see them. They had such beautiful little children there. She was simply dying to see her grandchildren, but perhaps it was so fated that she should n't. Orre had wished to journey thither, too, even before he had been drafted for service, but she had wept and wailed until she succeeded in preventing his departure. "A fine trick, to drag your bones under the earth," declared Marke. "We'll have plenty of time for that in a hundred and twenty years." "My God!" came from Gedaliah's corner, "I'd just like to see what sort of place this America is. One of my niece's children from Minsk journeyed to that country; he was a pauper there, a tailor, so they tell me, and in America he became a rich man altogether, a manufacturer with a factory all his own." "Yes, they really say," interjected Mirke, "that the very poorest people there eat meat and rolls every day." "Akh! akh!" commented MaysheItyse, as he shrugged his shoulders, "women speak only nonsense! You mere woman, you, where are your brains? How could you ever believe such folly? Now listen," he declared, with the singsong of the pious readings, "if he eats meat and rolls every day, what does that show? That he is not a poor man. And if he is a poor man, he can't eat meat and rolls every day. Fool!" "He's really right," agreed Mirke. "A man understands more than a woman, after all." Now Gedaliah chimed in. "Who can tell what things are like yonder? Perhaps food grows on the trees over there. The instructor who teaches my children writing once told me that when we have day, it's night in America, and when we have night, they have daylight. Everything is just the opposite to what we have. Why, a Jew may become even a policeman over there." By this time Leah and Orre returned from their walk. Orre's face wore a smile of satisfaction; Leah had shed her embarrassment, and felt now unrestrained, her pleasure visible upon her glowing countenance. He was highly pleasing to her, and she felt that she was no less agreeable to him; on their stroll to the outskirts of the village they had met girls of her acquaintance, who had stolen envious glances at them. These she had detected. Her soul was jubilant. The next evening the wedding contract was drawn up, and Mayshe-Ityse gave, as dowry, a note for one hundred and fifty rubles, which, he devoutly hoped, the good Lord in heaven would help him meet on the day of the wedding. On the day following the engagement, when the groom was supposed to leave for home, Leah felt that he was taking her heart away with him, and when he met her alone in the entry, she wept. He understood, and placed his arms about her waist in such a manner that she all but shrieked. His kiss, the first kiss that she had ever received from a young man, robbed her of her voice, took her breath away, and almost deprived her of her reason. The match with Orre was altogether a fortunate one. At the wedding, which was celebrated in Mirke's home soon after the first days of Succoth, the Feast of the Tabernacles, for such was the groom's desire,-Mayshe-Itsye was unable, as may have been forseen, to pay the one hundred and fifty rubles dowry for which he had given a note; but the marriage was not interfered with by that contingency. From America came a gift of no fewer than a hundred rubles for the bride and bridegroom. After the wedding Leah left with her husband for his town, whence she sent her parents letters filled with her happiness. Thus winter passed. Once, three weeks after Passover, Leah and her husband came on an unexpected visit to her parents. They arrived to say farewell. They were going off to America. |