It was a cold, bleak Sunday afternoon, and the Ansells were spending it as usual. Little Sarah was with Mrs. Simons, Rachel had gone to Victoria Park with a party of school-mates, the grandmother was asleep on the bed, covered with one of her son's old coats (for there was no fire in the grate), with her pious vade mecum in her hand; Esther had prepared her lessons and was reading a little brown book at Dutch Debby's, not being able to forget the _London Journal_ sufficiently; Solomon had not prepared his and was playing "rounder" in the street, Isaac being permitted to "feed" the strikers, in return for a prospective occupation of his new bed; Moses Ansell was at _Shool_, listening to a _Hesped_ or funeral oration at the German Synagogue, preached by Reb Shemuel over one of the lights of the Ghetto, prematurely gone out--no other than the consumptive _Maggid_, who had departed suddenly for a less fashionable place than Bournemouth. "He has fallen," said the Reb, "not laden with age, nor sighing for release because the grasshopper was a burden. But He who holds the keys said: 'Thou hast done thy share of the work; it is not thine to complete it. It was in thy heart to serve Me, from Me thou shalt receive thy reward.'"
And all the perspiring crowd in the black-draped hall shook with grief, and thousands of working men followed the body, weeping, to the grave, walking all the way to the great cemetery in Bow.
A slim, black-haired, handsome lad of about twelve, dressed in a neat black suit, with a shining white Eton collar, stumbled up the dark stairs of No. 1 Royal Street, with an air of unfamiliarity and disgust. At Dutch Debby's door he was delayed by a brief altercation with Bobby. He burst open the door of the Ansell apartment without knocking, though he took off his hat involuntarily as he entered Then he stood still with an air of disappointment. The room seemed empty.
"What dost thou want, Esther?" murmured the grandmother rousing herself sleepily.
The boy looked towards the bed with a start He could not make out what the grandmother was saying. It was four years since he had heard Yiddish spoken, and he had almost forgotten the existence of the dialect The room, too, seemed chill and alien.--so unspeakably poverty-stricken.
"Oh, how are you, grandmother?" he said, going up to her and kissing her perfunctorily. "Where's everybody?"
"Art thou Benjamin?" said the grandmother, her stern, wrinkled face shadowed with surprise and doubt.
Benjamin guessed what she was asking and nodded.
"But how richly they have dressed thee! Alas, I suppose they have taken away thy Judaism instead. For four whole years--is it not--thou hast been with English folk. Woe! Woe! If thy father had married a pious woman, she would have been living still and thou wouldst have been able to live happily in our midst instead of being exiled among strangers, who feed thy body and starve thy soul. If thy father had left me in Poland, I should have died happy and my old eyes would never have seen the sorrow. Unbutton thy waistcoat, let me see if thou wearest the 'four-corners' at least." Of this harangue, poured forth at the rate natural to thoughts running ever in the same groove, Benjamin understood but a word here and there. For four years he had read and read and read English books, absorbed himself in English composition, heard nothing but English spoken about him. Nay, he had even deliberately put the jargon out of his mind at the commencement as something degrading and humiliating. Now it struck vague notes of old outgrown associations but called up no definite images.
"Where's Esther?" he said.
"Esther," grumbled the grandmother, catching the name. "Esther is with Dutch Debby. She's always with her. Dutch Debby pretends to love her like a mother--and why? Because she wants to _be_ her mother. She aims at marrying my Moses. But not for us. This time we shall marry the woman I select. No person like that who knows as much about Judaism as the cow of Sunday, nor like Mrs. Simons, who coddles our little Sarah because she thinks my Moses will have her. It's plain as the eye in her head what she wants. But the Widow Finkelstein is the woman we're going to marry. She is a true Jewess, shuts up her shop the moment _Shabbos_ comes in, not works right into the Sabbath like so many, and goes to _Shool_ even on Friday nights. Look how she brought up her Avromkely, who intoned the whole Portion of the Law and the Prophets in _Shool_ before he was six years old. Besides she has money and has cast eyes upon him."
The boy, seeing conversation was hopeless, murmured something inarticulate and ran down the stairs to find some traces of the intelligible members of his family. Happily Bobby, remembering their former altercation, and determining to have the last word, barred Benjamin's path with such pertinacity that Esther came out to quiet him and leapt into her brother's arms with a great cry of joy, dropping the book she held full on Bobby's nose.
"O Benjy--Is it really you? Oh, I am so glad. I am so glad. I knew you would come some day. O Benjy! Bobby, you bad dog, this is Benjy, my brother. Debby, I'm going upstairs. Benjamin's come back. Benjamin's come back."
"All right, dear," Debby called out. "Let me have a look at him soon. Send me in Bobby if you're going away." The words ended in a cough.
Esther hurriedly drove in Bobby, and then half led, half dragged Benjamin upstairs. The grandmother had fallen asleep again and was snoring peacefully.
"Speak low, Benjy," said Esther. "Grandmother's asleep."
"All right, Esther. I don't want to wake her, I'm sure. I was up here just now, and couldn't make out a word she was jabbering."
"I know. She's losing all her teeth, poor thing."
"No, it, isn't that. She speaks that beastly Yiddish--I made sure she'd have learned English by this time. I hope _you_ don't speak it, Esther."
"I must, Benjy. You see father and grandmother never speak anything else at home, and only know a few words of English. But I don't let the children speak it except to them. You should hear little Sarah speak English. It's beautiful. Only when she cries she says 'Woe is me' in Yiddish. I have had to slap her for it--but that makes her cry 'Woe is me' all the more. Oh, how nice you look, Benjy, with your white collar, just like the pictures of little Lord Launceston in the Fourth Standard Reader. I wish I could show you to the girls! Oh, my, what'll Solomon say when he sees you! He's always wearing his corduroys away at the knees."
"But where is everybody? And why is there no fire?" said Benjamin impatiently. "It's beastly cold."
"Father hopes to get a bread, coal and meat ticket to-morrow, dear."
"Well, this is a pretty welcome for a fellow!" grumbled Benjamin.
"I'm so sorry, Benjy! If I'd only known you were coming I might have borrowed some coals from Mrs. Belcovitch. But just stamp your feet a little if they freeze. No, do it outside the door; grandmother's asleep. Why didn't you write to me you were coming?"
"I didn't know. Old Four-Eyes--that's one of our teachers--was going up to London this afternoon, and he wanted a boy to carry some parcels, and as I'm the best boy in my class he let me come. He let me run up and see you all, and I'm to meet him at London Bridge Station at seven o'clock. You're not much altered, Esther."
"Ain't I?" she said, with a little pathetic smile. "Ain't I bigger?"
"Not four years bigger. For a moment I could fancy I'd never been away. How the years slip by! I shall be _Barmitzvah_ soon."
"Yes, and now I've got you again I've so much to say I don't know where to begin. That time father went to see you I couldn't get much out of him about you, and your own letters have been so few."
"A letter costs a penny, Esther. Where am I to get pennies from?"
"I know, dear. I know you would have liked to write. But now you shall tell me everything. Have you missed us very much?"
"No, I don't think so," said Benjamin.
"Oh, not at all?" asked Esther in disappointed tones.
"Yes, I missed _you_, Esther, at first," he said, soothingly. "But there's such a lot to do and to think about. It's a new life."
"And have you been happy, Benjy?"
"Oh yes. Quite. Just think! Regular meals, with oranges and sweets and entertainments every now and then, a bed all to yourself, good fires, a mansion with a noble staircase and hall, a field to play in, with balls and toys--"
"A field!" echoed Esther. "Why it must be like going to Greenwich every day."
"Oh, better than Greenwich where they take you girls for a measly day's holiday once a year."
"Better than the Crystal Palace, where they take the boys?"
"Why, the Crystal Palace is quite near. We can see the fire-works every Thursday night in the season."
Esther's eyes opened wider. "And have you been inside?"
"Lots of times."
"Do you remember the time you didn't go?" Esther said softly.
"A fellow doesn't forget that sort of thing," he grumbled. "I so wanted to go--I had heard such a lot about it from the boys who had been. When the day of the excursion came my _Shabbos_ coat was in pawn, wasn't it?"
"Yes," said Esther, her eyes growing humid. "I was so sorry for you, dear. You didn't want to go in your corduroy coat and let the boys know you didn't have a best coat. It was quite right, Benjy."
"I remember mother gave me a treat instead," said Benjamin with a comic grimace. "She took me round to Zachariah Square and let me play there while she was scrubbing Malka's floor. I think Milly gave me a penny, and I remember Leah let me take a couple of licks from a glass of ice cream she was eating on the Ruins. It was a hot day--I shall never forget that ice cream. But fancy parents pawning a chap's only decent coat." He smoothed his well-brushed jacket complacently.
"Yes, but don't you remember mother took it out the very next morning before school with the money she earnt at Malka's."
"But what was the use of that? I put it on of course when I went to school and told the teacher I was ill the day before, just to show the boys I was telling the truth. But it was too late to take me to the Palace."
"Ah, but it came in handy--don't you remember, Benjy, how one of the Great Ladies died suddenly the next week!"
"Oh yes! Yoicks! Tallyho!" cried Benjamin, with sudden excitement. "We went down on hired omnibuses to the cemetery ever so far into the country, six of the best boys in each class, and I was on the box seat next to the driver, and I thought of the old mail-coach days and looked out for highwaymen. We stood along the path in the cemetery and the sun was shining and the grass was so green and there were such lovely flowers on the coffin when it came past with the gentlemen crying behind it and then we had lemonade and cakes on the way back. Oh, it was just beautiful! I went to two other funerals after that, but that was the one I enjoyed most. Yes, that coat did come in useful after all for a day in the country."
Benjamin evidently did not think of his own mother's interment as a funeral. Esther did and she changed the subject quickly.
"Well, tell me more about your place."
"Well, it's like going to funerals every day. It's all country all round about, with trees and flowers and birds. Why, I've helped to make hay in the autumn."
Esther drew a sigh of ecstasy. "It's like a book," she said.
"Books!" he said. "We've got hundreds and hundreds, a whole library--Dickens, Mayne Reid, George Eliot, Captain Marryat, Thackeray--I've read them all."
"Oh, Benjy!" said Esther, clasping her hands in admiration, both of the library and her brother. "I wish I were you."
"Well, you could be me easily enough."
"How?" said Esther, eagerly.
"Why, we have a girls' department, too. You're an orphan as much as me. You get father to enter you as a candidate."
"Oh, how could I, Benjy?" said Esther, her face falling. "What would become of Solomon and Ikey and little Sarah?"
"They've got a father, haven't they? and a grandmother?"
"Father can't do washing and cooking, you silly boy! And grandmother's too old."
"Well, I call it a beastly shame. Why can't father earn a living and give out the washing? He never has a penny to bless himself with."
"It isn't his fault, Benjy. He tries hard. I'm sure he often grieves that he's so poor that he can't afford the railway fare to visit you on visiting days. That time he did go he only got the money by selling a work-box I had for a prize. But he often speaks about you."
"Well, I don't grumble at his not coming," said Benjamin. "I forgive him that because you know he's not very presentable, is he, Esther?"
Esther was silent. "Oh, well, everybody knows he's poor. They don't expect father to be a gentleman."
"Yes, but he might look decent. Does he still wear those two beastly little curls at the side of his head? Oh, I did hate it when I was at school here, and he used to come to see the master about something. Some of the boys had such respectable fathers, it was quite a pleasure to see them come in and overawe the teacher. Mother used to be as bad, coming in with a shawl over her head."
"Yes, Benjy, but she used to bring us in bread and butter when there had been none in the house at breakfast-time. Don't you remember, Benjy?"
"Oh, yes, I remember. We've been through some beastly bad times, haven't we, Esther? All I say is you wo............
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