you can't be merry, go to your rooms with your wife."
"No use being so cross with him," Goldberg's wife said after the young
people had retired.
"I don't want him to spoil my holiday, the young
smut-nose-know-everything. Goes two years to school and thinks that even
God owes him an accounting. He must remember that he is in Moishe
Goldberg's house."
Saturday passed quietly. Sofia's eyes were a little red, but her husband
seemed to want to make up for past misdeeds, and was very merry. At the
synagogue he comported himself beautifully. Moishe Goldberg was
especially proud of his son-in-law's reading from the scroll.
"Well, what do you say to my American? He reads from the Holy Scroll
like a charm." And everybody complimented him.
* * * * *
Sunday was a half holiday, but on Monday when the business started
agoing, Waldman could not stand it.
"Father," he said in the evening, "it can't go on that way. We must have
some books. No business is carried on that way."
"Books! bosh; don't bother about books. Attend to business."
"But how can you know anything, father?"
"Not being a bookkeeper, I know my business. The best proof that
bookkeepers are not business men is that they are working for somebody
else."
The next day, and the next, and the next, Sofia's eyes were red from
crying.
"What should be the matter with her?" Mrs. Goldberg asked her husband.
"The Talmud says, that a young couple are like a new wagon and a new
horse. They must adjust themselves," was his answer.
But the mother was not satisfied with the answer, and she got her
daughter's confidence.
"Ephraim wants to look for a position. He says he can't understand a
business which has no bookkeeping. No modern business is carried on that
way."
The long and short of the story was that Moishe Goldberg was browbeaten
by the two women. He gave his little notebook to his son-in-law who
undertook to make an inventory of all the assets of Goldberg & Waldman.
The old merchant had the fun of his life to watch the young man enter
everything in his books. But the laughter died on his lips when this
same young man told him that the assets were some sixty thousand dollars
less than the liabilities.
"It's a stupid lie! Only a silly fellow with a bookkeeping mania could
say such a foolish thing."
But the old man could not sleep that night. A few days later he was
short of a couple of thousand dollars to pay a bill. He lacked the
old-time courage to ring up one of his business friends. He could have
gotten the money from his bank, but there too his courage failed him.
* * * * *
Little by little, yet rapidly enough, it was whispered about that the
wealthy grocer was not as solid as had been thought. Six months after
the wedding of his second daughter the red flag of the auctioneer hung
in front of the store for the benefit of the creditors.
"But how did it all happen?" asked his first son-in-law, the furrier
when he arrived from Chicago, at the news of the calamity.
Broken down, old, worn, sick, Moishe Goldberg moaned:
"Because my daughter married a bookkeeper."
THE STRENGTH OF THE WEAK
_The Mastodon has disappeared but we are still pestered by flies._
The whole story could be told in one paragraph, nay, in one statement
contradicting bluntly a biological law, the survival of the fittest. But
these laws are so pliable one is as much afraid to contradict as the
promulgators were afraid to establish them. So I am to tell the story as
gently and as objectively as the matter on hand will permit.
Many, many years ago Hans Burgmiller, a plumber, came over here from
Germany and established himself in business on what is now St. Mark's
Place. You can still see the name "Burgmiller, Plumber," over the door
of the old place. The original black letters stick out from underneath a
dozen coats of paint, as though the old man would from his grave cry
out and fight against effacement.
I don't know what plumbing there was to be done at that time in the
district. But Hans Burgmiller prospered in his own way. A few years
after his establishment he surrendered himself to the joys of fatherhood
and little Anton Burgmiller became the idol of the Burgmiller household
in the back of the shop. When Anton was twelve he was his father's
helper. A little square-headed, square-shouldered, blue-eyed boy in his
father's old overalls went along wherever plumbing was to be done and
carried a heavy bag of tools, fittings and pipes on his back.
When little Anton was sixteen he was a full-fledger plumber. Though Hans
Burgmiller never acknowledged anybody to know the trade better than he
did he accepted the superiority of his son when modern plumbing methods
first appeared in the district.
Water was piped up to every apartment on every floor, and baths and
other modern conveniences were installed. That was a bit too
complicated for Hans Burgmiller but Anton took to it like a duck to
water. Soon after that the household was removed from back of the shop
to the first floor, to make place for the extension of business, and
over the letters of the firm were painted other letters in red that made
the whole thing read "Burgmiller & Burgmiller, Plumbers." In due time,
perhaps a little prematurely because of hard work, old man Hans died and
was buried. But Anton had meanwhile married and a little son was soon
born to him. He named him Hans in memory of his father and as he
expected him to continue in the business his grandfather had established
he left the lettering over the door.
What was the use taking it off when he will have to letter it again in a
few years? Perhaps this item of economy entered into the christening of
the little boy, because the mother wanted the boy christened after her
father. But she was overruled.
Hans went to school with a lot of Irish boys. They teased him about his
Dutch name and twisted it so until it became a horror to the little boy.
The result was that when the time came to have a little say of his own
in the business the last two syllables from the name were smeared over
with yellow paint and the firm's name became "Burg & Burg." When such an
expense as stationery became necessary Hans was proud that it read so
beautifully "Burg & Burg, Plumbers and Fitters."
The building trade was very active. The upper floor was transformed into
a sort of office in which Hans's young sister presided behind a desk on
which stood letter files reserved for bills and receipts. The clinkety
clink of the typewriter helped the song of the hammer a floor below. On
the shelves, nuts and bolts and shiny faucets. On the floor-space,
leaning on the walls, white enameled bath tubs and grey slab wash tubs.
And hanging from the ceiling, a multitude of chandeliers in brass and
oxidized tin.
The firm of Burg & Burg now owned a horse and wagon. Several workingmen
expected and obtained regularly a pay envelope every Saturday afternoon.
At twenty-five Hans figured that he was entitled to a family of his own.
Especially so because his sister had married a year before one of his
workingmen who set up for himself in another district and needed her
help. The firm needed a capable office woman. His mother helped him look
around for a capable wife. They were successful. Ana Hirtenmayer pledged
her troth to Hans Burg. The wedding took place in the spring and on the
first of January a little boy was born and they named him Anton. But
notwithstanding her household duties the billing and the books of the
firm was kept in order by Mrs. Burg even if she had to work until after
midnight.
It seemed for a while that the Burgmiller race was to rotate eternally
around the two Christian names, Hans and Anton, but on the third year
another son was born to them. They christened him Peter; because he
came to life on St. Peter's Day.
Years passed. The family received several additions one after another at
a year's interval, all girls, and then again a boy whom they christened
Louis. Women folks never counted at all in the Burgmiller family. They
were regarded as reproducing animals only, in spite of all other
services they rendered.
Anton and Peter grew rapidly and were in overalls before they had
reached their fourteenth year. The girls, strong and fleshy, helped keep
the house in order and prepare the meals for the whole family. Hans Burg
was proud of them.
But little Louis, the youngest of the brood, did not develop like his
brothers and sisters. His chest was narrow. His muscles flabby. His legs
thin. He could not lift any weight to speak of. A change of weather
threw him in bed. After he was doctored by the mother with roots and
herbs the medicus was called in. It happened at least twice a week. His
bills were even larger than a plumber's. There never was a week in which
Louis did not cause a large extra expense. As little and small as he
was, he was the dead weight that dragged them all down. They had to
economize for his sake. Leberwurst became a luxury instead of a staple
article on the table of the Burg family. And just because Louis was so
puny and weak the mother and the father loved him more than any of the
other children. It was as if the whole family lived for nothing else
than to expiate the sin of Louis's ailments.
When Louis was fourteen years old, he did not don overalls. He continued
school. He had the best of clothes and the best of foods. In summer time
he was sent to the mountains with his mother to take care of him. Louis
entered High School. Anton, his oldest brother, married but remained
with the firm, drawing a weekly salary--a smaller one than he could have
gotten elsewhere. Then Peter married and began to draw a weekly salary.
But neither Anton nor Peter were as husky and strong as they might have
been. They had worked a little harder and fed a little less well than it
was good for them. They had started work too soon and endured too many
privations because of Louis's continual expensive existence.
From High School Louis, still nurtured and doctored, entered college. He
was still too weak to work. His older sisters, rosy, carnate Gretchens,
withered away working hard and living loveless lives because of the
expense of Louis's upkeep.
Louis, as a college man, began to look down upon all of them. In natty
suit and clean linen, supplied with money, as much as he wanted because
they dared not contradict the "poor sick boy," he associated only with
the gentlemen of the college. His brothers were just ordinary
workingmen; ill mannered and ignorant. The time came when father Hans
was called to his Maker. The Burgmillers were not of a long-living
stock. And when the will was opened, everything belonged to the "poor
weak Louis, who was not able to work like his strong brothers."
"Poor weak Louis" became the owner of the Burg & Burg establishment
founded on the sweat of four generations. And because he was too weak to
work himself, his broad shouldered brothers had sunken cheeks, bent
backs, while Louis, the prosperous Louis Burg, exhibits his flashy
clothes and his learning.
SOCIALISTS! BEWARE OF MRS. ROSENBERG
A mistaken idea floats about that the whole east side is socialistic. I
made a special investigation to find out how it stood. I found some men
who were still Socialists, some who had been, some who still pretended
to be, some still clinging to it as a profession.
But nowhere did I find any one hating the doctrine so profoundly as on
Third Street and Second Avenue, where lives Mrs. Rachael Rosenberg. She
rents out furnished rooms. The first thing she asked me when I applied
for a room was:
"Are you a Socialist? If you are, I don't want you. If you are not, we
will talk business."
"I am not a Socialist," I told her. "Still, I never heard of people
refusing them as boarders!"
"I suppose you know all about Socialism from books," Mrs. Rosenberg put
in sneeringly. "But I tell you one never knows anybody or anything until
you come in close contact with 'em. I will only go and see that the stew
does not burn, and after I will tell you what I know."
And this is the story as she told it to me:
* * * * *
"My husband's name is Moritz Rosenberg. We came here in President
Cleveland's time--which is more than you and many others could say. At
home he was--what's the use to tell you what! Here he became a cloak
operator. After the Cleveland financial crisis, when men died of
starvation, I decided to help out my Moritz. We lived on Catharine
Street, near the river, in two rooms only. I put out a shingle 'Boarders
Wanted,' and got two the same day. I bought a double bed for them. Each
one paid four dollars a month, so my whole rent cost me two dollars. And
that was not all. I gave them breakfast and supper for two dollars a
week. Things were cheap then. I actually earned our food.
"Why shouldn't a woman help her husband especially if God has not given
her any children? Well, after a while we moved out to a bigger apartment
on Monroe Street, four rooms with bath and all other conveniences. So I
rented two more rooms to four more people. It gave me a lot of work, but
we saved all my Moritz earned and more.
"He had a steady job at Kuntzman's and worked there year in, year out.
He had started with Kuntzman's and worked there--yes, strike or no
strike, good season, slack season, fourteen dollars a week every week.
"I treat my boarders well, so that once moved in no one moves out,
unless his wife comes from Europe or he marries, if he is a single man.
I shall live many years for each dollar I made as a marriage broker--and
every couple as happy as could be.
"Well, one day I lost a boarder. He had his foot caught in a machine.
They took him to the hospital at noon, and in the evening he was dead.
"It was too bad. He was a nice fellow. But I, who was I to mourn him? I
paid sixteen dollars rent. So I put out a shingle the same day 'Boarders
wanted.' On the next day I got a new boarder. I was not particular then.
Especially when I saw a nice clean young man, with teeth as white as
grains of polished rice; and a voice he had like silk, like pure silk,
so soft and nice. He did not bargain, he did not talk. Five dollars a
month, five dollars. I asked him what time he had to get up in the
morning, because if he had to get up later than the other bedfellow, he
should sleep near the wall, not to be disturbed, or if he had to get up
earlier the other will sleep near the wall. He did not care. It was all
fixed up and in the evening he brought his trunk. It was as heavy as
stone--full of books.
"After supper my other boarders used to sit at a game of cards. Not that
they were gamblers, but what else should they have done? They drank tea,
soda water, a can of beer sometimes. Sometimes my Moritz sat with them
for a while--just to make them feel at home. Believe me, I did not lose
at them. They paid for tea and sugar. Why shouldn't they? Was I their
mother? In America one has to pay for everything.
"But that new boarder I got, he wouldn't play cards and wouldn't drink
beer. He sat in a corner and read books till late at night.
"Then after a few weeks the others, too, stopped playing cards. They all
sat up late in the night and talked. The new boarder was explaining all
the time how their bosses got richer every day. Every night the same
thing. He was a Socialist.
"My husband was very busy, worked overtime, Sundays, whole nights. It
was already fourteen years that he worked for Kuntzman, and we had put
aside a nice little sum of money.
"One evening my Moritz came home very angry. Kuntzman had engaged a new
foreman, an Italian fellow, and the two of them, my husband and he,
couldn't agree. After supper, I told him to go to sleep, but he did not
want to. He went in to talk with the boarders. I went to bed. Late at
night Moritz came in.
"'You sleep,' he said.
"'What is it?'
"'You know, that new boarder is perfectly right in what he says about
bosses!' Moritz said to me.
"'What do you mean?' I asked.
"'Them bosses are making piles of money,' he explained to me as clear as
day; 'they make on the men at least fifty per cent. Look at Kuntzman,'
he said. 'He started out with two machines, now he has four hundred.
That Socialist is right; the bosses are getting rich.'
"I told him to go to sleep and not bother about other people's fortune,
but my Moritz could not sleep the whole night.
"The next evening he went again in the boarders' room to hear the
Socialist talk. When he came in to sleep he told me:
"'That Socialist is absolutely right. He proved by his books. Peshe! do
you know what I will do?'
"'What?' I asked.
"'Since bosses are getting rich, I will become a boss. The Socialists
are right.'
"With the money we had both worked so hard to save, Moritz Rosenberg
opened a shop with a partner, also one of our boarders who put in his
money. And in one year we lost all we had.
"He had to go and beg Mr. Kuntzman to take him on again. I am again
taking boarders.
"But no Socialist liar will ever cross my threshold, and if I lay my
hands on that one--if ever I see him, with his flowing necktie and book
under his arm, going around to poor people to tell them such lies!
Fourteen years of our work gone on account of him--fourteen years."
* * * * *
A sharp chocky odor of burning meat, her stew on the stove, drove her to
the kitchen. I tiptoed out of the room, ran down the stairs and kept on
running for blocks and blocks, for fear of Mrs. Rosenberg.
A CONFLICT OF IDEALS
In matters musical Silvio Romano is the authority of Mulberry Street.
His two hundred and fifty pounds of flesh add weight to his opinion.
When there are no customers in his shop, when he is not busy honing or
stropping his razors, he is sitting on two chairs, guitar in hand,
playing and singing to his heart's content.
Mulberry Street, "Little Italy" of the down town east side, is a very
busy street--so busy, indeed, it makes one suspicious. Young men walk up
and down the sidewalk, calling to each other; the pastry shops, wine
shops and cafés are always full of people talking about everything, and
the "barbieri" are, as they have always been, the centers of art,
literature and politics.
After Angelo, Silvio Romano's son, was drafted into the army, the
father felt the loss threefold--the son, the helper, and the flutist.
Angelo was all these to him. As a son, there was none more dutiful than
the boy. As a barber, people came from uptown to have their hair cut by
Angelo Romano; he was a real artist in his line. But as a flutist he
surpassed himself in all other qualities. All musical disputes were
quickly settled by Romano's calling upon his son to illustrate the
particular passages in dispute, of "Lucia de Lammermoor" or "Il Barbiere
de Sevilla." And Angelo would leave the half-shaved customer in the
chair to do his filial duty--to uphold the older Romano's authority.
The duos father and son played together were the joy of the
neighborhood, ten blocks around. The select ones--Luigi the banker,
Marino the olive oil dealer, and other "notabiles"--sat inside the shop
smoking their cigars, while ordinary folk stood outside near the window.
Young couples sat on the door sill, holding hands and humming softly
the tunes played inside. The duo finished, Mulberry Street applauded
generously. And when Mulberry Street applauds, even the Manhattan Bridge
shakes from the concussion.
Angelo gone, Romano suffered tremendously. But he had to engage help.
There was none to be found, so he inserted the following advertisement
in an Italian daily newspaper:
"Artist barber wanted in a first-class tonsorial parlor. One with
musical talents preferred."
A week later, Salvatore Gonfarone, disliking to return to his former
shop because he was exempted from military service on account of an
infirmity of which he had not previously been aware, applied for the
job.
The place made no impression on him. It was not like the one he had
abandoned. He would not have accepted it; but while he was talking with
his prospective employer, Rosita, Silvio's daughter, entered the shop.
Salvatore's heart was struck. Thumb and forefinger of the left hand
rose to curl his little black mustache, while the right palm met the
open hand of Romano. "Sta bene, signore!" And there and then he donned
the newly laundered white jacket which Angelo used to wear.
Rosita only came to see whether any mail had arrived. She disappeared as
quickly as she came. Romano sat in the chair to give Salvatore a trial.
It was a dream! or, as Romano himself said to his wife about the new
helper's razor hand, "as light as a gentle breeze." Indeed, he was so
pleased with the young man's work that he forgot to inquire about his
musical abilities.
Silvio Romano was due for a surprise; that same evening Salvatore sang
in a most beautiful mellow baritone voice an aria from "Rigoletto."
Romano's fingers struck the tense strings of his guitar with vigor. The
old Italian was happy.
Banker and grocer and the other "notabili" came again, and the sidewalk
was so crowded with people the policeman on the beat thought Mulberry
Street feuds were aflame.
But the greatest triumph of Salvatore was yet to come. Rosita in her
best blue silk dress, and Madame Romano herself, entered the shop. The
young girl stood timidly in a corner, the Latin impulsiveness checked by
her American training. The introduction was not slow to come, and in a
few well-chosen words Salvatore paid his compliments to both mother and
daughter.
In a few days the news of Romano's great find spread all over town. The
two men got to be so busy there was no time to sing and play during the
day. Rosita, red flower in her thick raven hair, visited the shop quite
frequently. Her black eyes spoke quite distinctly, and once Salvatore
even thought she mimicked a kiss to him. But there was no chance to say
a word. Silvio Romano began to make plans for a third chair.
The evenings were gorgeous. Salvatore sang "like a god."
Springtime in Mulberry Street is like nowhere else. It finds there a
most receptive mood, and there is no sweeter perfume in any flower than
the odor wafted by human happiness--as though every inhabitant carried
in his bosom the gardens of Tuscany. It is primavera--the primavera of
the Italy of Parma violets and lush red roses.
Salvatore Gonfarone pined away in his desire to speak to Rosita. But
youth, love and luck are on very friendly terms.
Silvio Romano took sick one day--nothing very serious, a toothache.
Salvatore was not going to lose his chance. When Rosita came to the shop
he kissed her.
"Oh, Salvatore!"
"Oh, Rosita mio!"
It was just two weeks after they had first seen each other. Rosita made
it her business to come ten times that day. A few cuts on the faces of
customers bore witness to the young man's distraction.
The next day Romano, feeling much better, was in the shop again.
Toward noon there was an idle hour, and the two men sat down to talk
music. It soon developed into a quarrel. Romano was an admirer of the
old Italian school of Rossini and Donizetti; Salvatore Gonfarone bowed
at the shrine of Verdi and Puccini.
"Pah! Rossini was nothing but a----"
"Basta, Signor! Rossini was the greatest master. Your Puccinis are
nothing but noise makers."
"And you love Rossini only because you can play his things on the
guitar."
It was a very insolent remark! Silvio Romano checked himself with
difficulty. To dispute his musical authority so sneeringly was the
height of impudence. But Salvatore was such a good barber! Romano let go
a cutting answer:
"And you love Puccini because he gives you the opportunity to shout
stupid arias."
Some customers interrupted the dispute.
During the next few hours Salvatore thought how to evade a disaster with
the father of Rosita. He loved the girl; yesterday's kisses were still
on his lips. Yet he could not, on account of that, change his musical
opinions! The idea of the old wire plucker! Let him stick to his Rossini
and Donizetti as much as he wants to, but not impose such ideas on him,
on Salvatore Gonfarone, who knew more about music than a hundred
Romanos!
It was a hard battle between love and artistic ideals.
Silvio Romano was terribly incensed. Several times he made up his mind
to tell the youth they had reached the parting point. To dare sneer at
Rossini! Rossini, the greatest master of them all--the god of music! let
alone Donizetti--it was nothing less than sacrilege.