people's mouths yet. A lot of people goes to them _Roshoyim_ and fools
'em into lending 'em money they should play _Stuss_ and _Tarrok_, while
their families is starving yet. If you want to leave your house to a
Free Loan Association, Rudnik, you might just so well blow it up _mit_
dynamite and be done with it."
"_Aber_ a _Talmud Torah_ School," Rudnik cried; "that's something which
you couldn't got no objection to."
"Don't talk like a fool, Rudnik!" Schindelberger interrupted. "When you
got a chance to leave your money to a Home for widders, what are you
fooling away your time making suggestions like _Talmud Torah_ schools
for? A young feller would get along in business if he never even seen
the outside of a _Talmud Torah_, _aber_ if the widders lose their Home,
understand me, they would starve to death."
"Yow, they would starve to death!" Rudnik said. "You could trust a
widder she wouldn't starve, Mr. Schindelberger. Them which didn't got
no relations they could easy find suckers to give 'em money, and them
which did got relations, their families should look after 'em."
Belz grew crimson with pent-up indignation.
"Loafer!" he roared. "What d'ye mean, their families should look after
'em?"
Belz walked furiously up and down the office and glowered at the
trembling and confused Rudnik.
"Seemingly you ain't got no feelings at all, Rudnik," he continued.
"Schindelberger tells you over and over again they are working them
poor widders to death up there, and yet you want to take away the roofs
from their backs even."
"No, I didn't, Mr. Belz," Rudnik said. "I didn't say nothing about a
roof at all. Why, I ain't even seen the Home, Mr. Belz. Could you
expect me I should leave my money to a Home without I should see it
even?"
"My worries if you seen it _oder_ not!" Belz retorted. "The thing is,
Rudnik, before we would extend for you the mortgage you must got to
make not a will but a deed which you deed the house to the Bella
Hirshkind Home, keeping for yourself all the income from the house for
your life, because otherwise if a man makes a will he could always make
another will, _aber_ once you give a deed it is fixed _und fertig_."
This ultimatum was the result of a conference between Belz and his
counsel the previous evening, and he had timed its announcement to the
moment when he deemed his victim to be sufficiently intimidated.
Nevertheless, the shock of its disclosure spurred the drooping Rudnik
to a fresh outburst.
"What!" he shouted. "I should drive myself out of my house for a lot of
widders!"
"_Koosh!_" Schindelberger bellowed. "They ain't all widders. Two of 'em
is old maids, Rudnik, and even if they would be all widders you must
got to do as Mr. Belz says, otherwise you would drive yourself out of
your house anyway. Because in these times not only you couldn't raise
no new second mortgage on the house, but if Lesengeld and Belz
forecloses on you the house would hardly bring in auction the amount of
the first mortgage even."
Rudnik sat back in his chair and plucked at his scant gray beard. He
recognized the force of Schindelberger's argument and deemed it the
part of discretion to temporize with his mortgagees.
"Why didn't you told me there is a couple old maids up there?" he said
to Schindelberger. "Old maids is horses of another colour; so come on,
Mr. Schindelberger, do me the favour and go up with me so I could
anyhow see the Home first."
He slid out of his chair and smiled at Schindelberger, who stared
frigidly in return.
"You got a big idee of yourself, Rudnik, I must say," he commented.
"What do you think, I ain't got nothing better to do as escort you up
to the Bella Hirshkind Home?"
"Rudnik is right, Schindelberger," Lesengeld said; "you should ought to
show him the Home before he leaves his house to it."
"I would show him nothing," Schindelberger cried. "Here is my card to
give to the superintendent, and all he is got to do is to go up on the
subway from the bridge. Get off at Bronix Park and take a Mount Vernon
car to Ammerman Avenue. Then you walk six blocks east and follow the
New Haven tracks toward the trestle. The Home is the first house you
come to. You couldn't miss it."
Rudnik took the card and started for the door, while Belz nodded sadly
at his partner.
"And you are kicking I am cranky yesterday morning," he said. "In the
daytime is all right going up there, but in the night, Lesengeld, a
bloodhound could get twisted. Every time I go up there I think wonder I
get back home at all."
"I bet yer," Lesengeld said. "The other evening I seen a fillum by the
name Lawst in the Jungle, and----"
"Excuse me, gentlemen," Schindelberger interrupted, "I got a little
business to attend to by my office, and if it's all the same to you I
would come here with Rudnik to-morrow morning ten o'clock."
"By the name Lawst in the Jungle," Lesengeld repeated with an
admonitory glare at Schindelberger, "which a young feller gets ate up
with a tiger already; and I says to Mrs. Lesengeld: 'Mommer,' I says,
'people could say all they want to how fine it is to live in the
country,' I says, 'give me New York City every time,' I says to my
wife."
* * * * *
Harris Rudnik had been encouraged to misogyny by cross eyes and a
pockmarked complexion. Nevertheless, he was neither so confirmed in his
hatred of the sex nor so discouraged by his physical deformities as to
neglect shaving himself and changing into a clean collar and his
Sabbath blacks before he began his journey to the Bella Hirshkind Home.
Thus when he alighted from the Mount Vernon car at Ammerman Avenue he
presented, at least from the rear, so spruce an appearance as to
attract the notice of no less a person than Miss Blooma Duckman
herself.
Miss Duckman was returning from an errand on which she had been
dispatched by the superintendent of the Home, for of all the inmates
she was not only the youngest but the spryest, and although she was at
least half a block behind Harris when she first caught sight of him,
she had no difficulty in overtaking him before he reached the railroad
track.
"Excuse me," she said as he hesitated at the side of the track, "are
you maybe looking for the Bella Hirshkind Home?"
Harris started and blushed, but at length his misogyny asserted itself
and he turned a beetling frown on Miss Duckman.
"What d'ye mean, am I looking for the Bella Hirshkind Home?" he said.
"Do you suppose I come up here all the way from Brooklyn Bridge to
watch the trains go by?"
"I thought maybe you didn't know the way," Miss Duckman suggested. "You
go along that there path and it's the first house you are coming to."
She pointed to the path skirting the railroad track, and Harris began
to perspire as he found himself surrendering to an impulse of
politeness toward this very young old lady. He conquered it
immediately, however, and cleared his throat raspingly.
"I couldn't swim exactly," he retorted as he surveyed the miry trail
indicated by Miss Duckman, "so I guess I'll walk along the railroad."
"You could do that, too," Miss Duckman said, "_aber_ I ain't allowed
to, on account the rules of the Home says we shouldn't walk along the
tracks."
Harris raised his eyebrows.
"You don't mean to told me you are one of them indignant females?" he
exclaimed.
"I belong in the Home," Miss Duckman replied, colouring slightly, and
Rudnik felt himself being overcome by a wave of remorse for his
bluntness. He therefore searched his mind for a sufficiently gruff
rejoinder, and finding none he shrugged his shoulders.
"Well," he said at last, "there's worser places, lady."
Miss Duckman nodded.
"Maybe," she murmured; "and anyhow I ain't so bad off as some of them
other ladies up there which they used to got husbands and homes of
their own."
"Ain't you a widder, too?" Rudnik asked, his curiosity again getting
the upper hand.
"I ain't never been married," Miss Duckman answered as she drew her
shawl primly about her.
"Well, you ain't missed much," Rudnik declared, "so far as I could
see."
"Why," Miss Duckman exclaimed, "ain't you never been married, neither?"
Rudnik blinked solemnly before replying.
"You're just like a whole lot of ladies," he said; "you must got to
find out everything." He turned away and stepped briskly on to the
railroad track.
"But ain't you married?" Miss Duckman insisted.
"No," he growled as he started off. "_Gott sei dank._"
For a brief interval Miss Duckman stood and watched his progress along
the ties, and then she gathered her parcels more firmly in her arms and
began to negotiate the quagmire that led to the Home. She had not
proceeded more than a hundred feet, however, when a locomotive whistle
sounded in the distance.
"Hey, mister!" she shouted; but even if Rudnik heard the warning it
served only to hasten his footsteps. Consequently the train was almost
upon him before he became aware of it, and even as he leaped wildly to
one side the edge of the cowcatcher struck him a glancing blow. Miss
Duckman dropped her bundles and plunged through the mud to where Rudnik
lay, while the train, which was composed of empty freight cars, slid to
a grinding stop a short distance up the track.
She was kneeling recklessly in the mud supporting Rudnik with both her
hands when the engineer and the fireman reached them.
"Is your husband hurted bad?" the engineer asked Miss Duckman.
The tears were rolling down Miss Duckman's worn cheeks, and her lips
trembled so that she could not reply. Nevertheless, at the word
"husband" her maidenly heart gave a tremendous bound, and when the
engineer and the fireman lifted Rudnik gently into the caboose her
confusion was such that without protest she permitted the conductor to
assist her carefully up the car steps.
"Sit ye down on that stool there, lady," he said. "As far as I can see
your man ain't got no bones broken."
"But----" Miss Duckman protested.
"Now, me dear lady," the conductor interrupted, "don't ye go worritin'
yerself. I've got me orders if anybody gets hit be the train to take
him to the nearest company's doctor in the direction I'm goin'. See?
And if you was Mister and Missus Vanderbilt, they couldn't treat you no
better up to the Emergency Hospital."
"But----" Miss Duckman began. Again she attempted to explain that
Rudnik was not her husband, and again the conductor forestalled her.
"And if he's able to go home to-night," he said finally, "ye'll be
given free transportation, in a parlour car d'ye mind, like ye'd be on
your honeymoon."
He patted her gently on the shoulder as he turned to a waiting
brakeman.
"Let her go, Bill," he cried, and with a jubilant toot from the engine
Miss Duckman's elopement was fairly under way.
* * * * *
When Harris Rudnik opened his eyes in the little white-curtained room
of the Emergency Hospital, Miss Duckman sat beside his bed. She smiled
encouragingly at him, but for more than five minutes he made no effort
to speak.
"Well," he said at length, "what are you kicking about? It's an elegant
place, this here Home."
Miss Duckman laid her fingers on her lips.
"You shouldn't speak nothing," she whispered, "on account you are sick,
_aber_ not serious sick."
"I know I am sick," Rudnik replied. "I was just figuring it all out. I
am getting knocked down by a train and----"
"No bones is broken," Miss Duckman hastened to assure him. "You would
be out in a few days."
"I am satisfied," he said faintly. "You got a fine place here, Missis."
Miss Duckman laid her hand on Rudnik's pillow.
"I ain't a Missis," she murmured. "My name is Miss Blooma Duckman."
"Blooma," Rudnik muttered. "I once used to got a sister by the name
Blooma, and it ain't a bad name, neither." He was not entirely softened
by his mishap, however. "But, anyhow, that ain't here or there," he
said. "Women is just the same--always kicking. What is the matter with
this Home, Miss Duckman? It's an elegant place already."
"This ain't the Home," Miss Duckman explained. "This is a hospital,
which when you was hit by the engine they put you on the train and took
you up here."
"_Aber_ what are you doing here?" he asked after a pause.
"I come along," Miss Duckman said; "and now you shouldn't talk no
more."
"What d'ye mean, you come along?" he cried. "Didn't you go back to the
Home?"
Miss Duckman shook her head, and Rudnik turned on his pillow and looked
inquiringly at her.
"How long am I up here, anyhow?" he demanded.
"Four days," Miss Duckman said, and Rudnik closed his eyes again. For
ten minutes longer he lay still and then his lips moved.
"What did you say?" Miss Duckman asked.
"I says Blooma is a pretty good name already," he murmured, smiling
faintly, and the next moment he sank into a light sleep.
When he awoke Miss Duckman still sat by the side of his bed, her
fingers busy over the hem of a sheet, and he glanced nervously at the
window through which the late afternoon sun came streaming.
"Ain't it pretty late you should be away from the Home?" he inquired.
"It must be pretty near six, ain't it?"
"I know it," Miss Duckman said; "and the doctor says at six you should
take this here powder."
"_Aber_ shouldn't you got to be getting ready to go back to the Home?"
he asked.
Miss Duckman shook her head.
"I ain't going back no more," she answered. "I got enough of them
people."
Rudnik looked helplessly at her.
"But what would you do?" he said. "You ain't got no other place to go
to, otherwise you wouldn't got to live in a Home."
"Sure, I know," she replied as she prepared to give him his powder;
"but _Gott sei dank_ I still got my health, and I am telling the lady
superintendent here how they work me at the Home, and she says I could
stop here till I am finding something to do. I could cook already and I
could sew already, and if the worser comes to the worst I could find a
job in an underwear factory. They don't pay much, but a woman like me
she don't eat much. All I want is I could get a place to sleep, and I
bet yer I could make out fine. So you should please take the powder."
Rudnik swallowed his powder.
"You says you could cook," he remarked after he had again settled
himself on his pillow. "_Tzimmus_, for instance, _und Fleisch Kugel_?"
"_Tzimmus und Fleisch Kugel_ is nothing," she declared. "I don't want
to say nothing about myself, understand me, because lots of women to
hear 'em talk you would think wonder what cooks they are, and they
couldn't even boil a potater even; _aber_ if you could eat my _gefuellte
Rinderbrust_, Mister ----"
"Rudnik," he said as he licked his moist lips, "Harris Rudnik."
"Mister Rudnik," she proceeded, "_oder_ my _Tebeches_, you would got to
admit I ain't so helpless as I look."
"You don't look so helpless," Rudnik commented; "I bet yer you could do
washing even."
"Could I?" Miss Duckman exclaimed. "Why, sometimes at the Home I am
washing from morning till night, _aber_ I ain't kicking none. It really
agrees with me, Mr. Rudnik."
Rudnik nodded. Again he closed his eyes, and had it not been that he
swallowed convulsively at intervals he would have appeared to be
sleeping. Suddenly he raised himself on his pillow.
"Do you make maybe a good cup coffee also?" he inquired.
"A good cup coffee I make in two ways," Miss Duckman answered. "The
first is----"
Rudnik waved his hand feebly.
"I'll take your word for it," he said, and again lapsed into quietude.
"D'ye know," he murmured at length, "I ain't drunk a good cup coffee in
years already?"
Miss Duckman made no answer. Indeed she dropped her sewing and passed
noiselessly out of the room, and when she returned ten minutes later
she bore on a linen-covered tray a cup of steaming, fragrant coffee.
"How was that?" Miss Duckman asked after he had emptied the cup.
Rudnik wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"All I could say is," he replied, "if your _Tzimmus_ ain't no worser as
your coffee, Miss Duckman, nobody could kick that you ain't a good
cook."
Miss Duckman's faded cheeks grew pink and she smiled happily.
"I guess you are trying to make me a compliment," she said.
"In my whole life I never made for a woman a compliment," Rudnik
declared. "I never even so much as met one I could make a compliment to
yet except you, and _mit_ you it ain't no compliment, after all. It's
the truth."
He lay back on his pillow and gazed at the ceiling for fully a quarter
of an hour, while Miss Duckman sewed away industriously.
"After all," he said at last, "why not? Older men as me done it."
"Did you say something?" Miss Duckman asked.
Rudnik cleared his throat noisily.
"I says," he replied, "you should please be so good and don't bother
yourself about that--now--underwear factory job till I am getting out
of here."
* * * * *
"A Home is a Home," B. Lesengeld said as he and Belz sat in the office
nearly a week later; "but if Schindelberger wouldn't show up here with
Rudnik to-day yet, Belz, we would foreclose sure."
"Would we?" Belz retorted. "Well, I got something to say about that,
too, Lesengeld, and I'm going to give the Bella Hirshkind people a
couple days longer. To-day is Blooma Duckman's day out again, and me
and Mrs. Belz we sit home last night and we couldn't do a thing on
account Mrs. Belz is dreading it so. Think what it would be if that
woman is thrown back on our hands."
"If she is so terrible as all that why do you let her come at all?"
Lesengeld asked, and Belz heaved a great sigh.
"I'll tell you, Lesengeld," he said, "she's really got a very good
heart, y'understand; _aber_ is it Mrs. Belz's fault she ain't such a A
Number One cook? Every time that Blooma Duckman comes round she rubs it
in yet, and she snoops under beds to see is it clean _oder_ not, and
she gets the girl so worked up, understand me, that we are hiring a new
one every week. At the same time the woman means well, Lesengeld, but
you know how that is: some people means so well you couldn't stand 'em
at all."
Lesengeld nodded.
"Sure, I know," he said. "I seen it last week a case where a feller all
the time means well and is trying to do good. He is taking pity on a
tramp, understand me, and the tramp _ganvers_ his silver spoons and
everything, and I says to Mrs. Lesengeld: 'Mommer,' I says, 'it only
goes to show,' I says, 'if you feel you are beginning to take pity on a
feller,' I says, 'you shouldn't got no mercy on him at all,' I says.
'Otherwise he will go to work and do you every time,' I says. So that's
why I am telling you, Belz, I guess the best thing we could do is
we should right away foreclose Rudnik's house on him. Then if
Schindelberger is such a charitable sucker as all that, let him buy in
the house for the Bella Hirshkind Home and be done with it. All we want
is our money back and we would be satisfied. What is the use we
consider Rudnik's feelings. Ain't it?"
"Do you think I am holding off on Rudnik's account?" Belz exclaimed
indignantly. "I never even got an idee to take pity on the feller at
all. An old snoozer like him which he's got only one house to his name,
understand me, he don't deserve no better. So go ahead and ring up
Schindelberger and tell him that's what we would do."
Lesengeld turned to the desk, but even as he took the telephone
receiver from the hook Schindelberger himself came in.
"_Endlich!_" Belz exclaimed. "We was expecting you a whole week yet.
Are you ready to fix up about Rudnik's mortgage?"
Schindelberger sat down and carefully placed his hat on Belz's desk.
"The mortgage I didn't come to see you about exactly," he said. "I got
something else to tell you."
"Something else I ain't interested in at all," Belz rejoined. "We was
just going to telephone and ask you why don't Rudnik fix it up about
the mortgage?"
"I am coming to that presently," Schindelberger said. "What I want to
say now is, Mr. Belz, that I am very sorry I got to come here and tell
you an information about your wife's cousin, Miss Blooma Duckman."
"Blooma Duckman!" Belz exclaimed. "What's the trouble; is she sick?"
Schindelberger shook his head.
"Worser as that," he explained. "She disappeared from the Bella
Hirshkind Home a week ago already and nobody sees nothing from her
since."
For a brief interval Belz stared at his visitor and then he turned to
Lesengeld.
"Ain't that a fine note?" he said.
"All we are discovering is a couple packages she got with her, which
the superintendent sends her over to West Farms she should buy some
groceries, and on her way back she drops the packages and disappears."
"Might she fell down a rock maybe?" Lesengeld suggested. "The other day
I am seeing a fillum where a feller falls down a rock already and they
search for him a hundred people yet. They get near him as I am to you,
Schindelberger, and still they couldn't find him anyhow on account the
feller is too weak to say something."
"How could she fall down a rock?" Schindelberger interrupted. "It's all
swamps up there. But, anyhow, Belz, we are wasting time here talking
about it. The best thing is you should ring up the police."
"What d'ye mean, wasting time?" Belz cried. "You're a fine one to talk
about wasting time. Here the woman disappears a week ago already and
you are only just telling me now."
Schindelberger blushed.
"Well, you see," he said, "we all the time got hopes she would come
back." In point of fact he had purposely delayed breaking the news to
Belz in order that the settlement of Rudnik's mortgage extension should
not be prejudiced. "But now," he added ingenuously, "it don't make no
difference, because Rudnik telephones me yesterday morning that the
whole thing is off on account he is married."
"Married!" Lesengeld cried. "Do you mean to told me that old
_Schlemiel_ gets married yet?"
"So sure as you are sitting there. And he says he would come round here
this morning and see you."
"He should save himself the trouble," Belz declared angrily. "Now
particularly that Blooma Duckman ain't up there at all, I wouldn't
extend that mortgage, not if he gives a deed to that Home to take
effect right to-day yet. I shouldn't begun with you in the first place,
Schindelberger."
Schindelberger seized his hat.
"I acted for the best," he said. "I am sorry you should get delayed on
your mortgage, gentlemen, _aber_ you shouldn't hold it up against
me. I done it for the sake of the Bella Hirshkind Home, which if people
gets sore at me on account I always act charitable, that's their
lookout, not mine."
He started for the door as he finished speaking, but as he placed his
hand on the knob some one turned it from the other side and the next
moment he stood face to face with Rudnik.
"So!" Schindelberger exclaimed. "You are really coming up here, are
you? It ain't a bluff, like you are taking my card to go up to the Home
and you never went near the place at all."
Rudnik shut the door behind him.
"What d'ye mean, I didn't go near the place at all?" he said angrily.
"Do you think I am such a liar like you are, Schindelberger? Not only
did I go near the place, but I got so near it that a hundred feet more
and the engine would knocked me into the front door of the Home
already."
It was then that Lesengeld and Belz observed the stout cane on which
Rudnik supported himself.
"I come pretty close to being killed already on account I am going up
to the Home," he continued; "and if nobody is asking me to sit down I
would sit down anyway, because if a feller gets run over by a train he
naturally don't feel so strong, even if he would escape with bruises
only."
"Did you got run over with a train?" Schindelberger asked.
"I certainly did," Rudnik said. "I got run over with a train and
married in six days, and if you go to work and foreclose my house on me
to-day yet, it will sure make a busy week for me." He looked
pathetically at Belz. "Unless," he added, "you are going to give me a
show and extend the mortgage."
Belz met this appeal with stolid indifference.
"Of course, Rudnik," he said, "I'm sorry you got run over with a train;
but if we would extend your mortgage on account you got run over with a
train and our other mortgagees hears of it, understand me, the way
money is so tight nowadays, every time a mortgage comes due them
suckers would ring in trollyer-car accidents on us and fall down
coal-holes so as we would give 'em an extension already."
"And wouldn't it make no difference that I just got married?" Rudnik
asked.
"If an old feller like you gets married, Rudnik," Belz replied, "he
must got to take the consequences."
"An idee!" Lesengeld exclaimed. "Do you think that we are making
wedding presents to our mortgagees yet, Rudnik?"