heard from people what a good cook and housekeeper Shenah Pessah is, so he sent me around to tell you he would take her as she stands without a cent.”

Mrs. Melker dramatically beat her breast. “I swear I shouldn’t live to go away from here alive, I shouldn’t live to see my own children married if I’m talking this match for the few dollars that Motkeh will pay me for it, but because I want to do something good for a poor orphan. I’m a mother, and it weeps in me my heart to see a girl in her years and not married.”

“And who’ll cook for me my eating, if I’ll let her go?” broke out her uncle angrily. “And who’ll do me my work? Didn’t I spend out fifty dollars to send for her the ticket to America? Oughtn’t I have a little use from her for so many dollars I laid out on her?”

“Think on God!” remonstrated Mrs. Melker.  “The girl is an orphan and time is pushing itself on her. Do you want her to sit till her braids grow gray, before you’ll let her get herself a man? It stands in the Talmud that a man should take the last bite away from his mouth to help an orphan get married. You’d beg yourself out a place in heaven in the next world—”

“In America a person can’t live on hopes for the next world. In America everybody got to look out for himself. I’d have to give up the janitor’s work to let her go, and then where would I be?”

“You lived already your life. Give her also a chance to lift up her head in the world. Couldn’t you get yourself in an old man’s home?”

“These times you got to have money even in an old man’s home. You know how they say, if you oil the wheels you can ride. With dry hands you can’t get nothing in America.”

“So you got no pity on an orphan and your own relation? All her young years she choked herself in darkness and now comes already a little light for her, a man that can make a good living wants her—”

“And who’ll have pity on me if I’ll let her out from my hands? Who is this Motkeh, anyway? Is he good off? Would I also have a place where to lay my old head? Where stands he out with his pushcart?”

“On Essex Street near Delancey.”

“Oi-i! You mean Motkeh Pelz? Why, I know him yet from years ago. They say his wife died him from hunger. She had to chew the earth before she could beg herself out a cent from him. By me Shenah Pessah has at least enough to eat and shoes on her 

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