Sholem Aleichem - The Letters of Menakhem-Mendl and Sheyne-Sheyndl and Motl, the Cantor's Son

“It couldn’t have happened to a nicer woman,” says Elye.

I agree. The Doct’ress got what she deserved. They don’t come any meaner. She wouldn’t have given a rotten apple to a beggar! She thinks I’ve forgotten catching it from her in the attic. Not till the day I die.

All the time we were roaming around Europe, the pogromchiks were robbing and torching our Kasrilevke Jews. The half house we sold to Zilye the tailor was burned too. Now Zilye is in New York. He’s still a tailor, but in Russia he was his own bawss while in America he works for someone else. Sometimes he’s an assistant presseh and sometime he’s an ahpereydeh. He takes home, so he says, seven or eight dollars a week. That’s not enough for a living but you can triple it because his three daughters work making shoits.

I asked Elye why it’s called a shoit. Elye said that’s one English word he can’t explain. “Why just one?” said Pinye. “I suppose you can explain all the others.” “As a matter of fact, I can,” Elye said. “Then suppose you explain butsheh,” said Pinye. “It comes from butsherink a cow,” Elye said. Next Pinye asked why a tailor was called an ahpereydeh. “He’s called an ahpereydeh,” Elye said, “because …because …because get off my back! Since when do I have to explain every word in America to you?”

“Shhh, stop shouting! What good are you to anyone? Come here, little man,” Pinye said to me. “If there’s anything you want to know, don’t ask your brother. He’s no wiser than you are.”

Brokheh stuck up for Elye. “A corpse,” she said, “knows more than both of you together.”

But I’ve gotten off the subject. That was who we know in America. All of Kasrilevke is here, except for Pinye’s family. They say it’s on its way too.

Pinye’s father Hirsh-Leyb the engineer and his uncle Shneyur the watchmaker have written that they would have left for America long ago if only they had money for the tickets. They’ve asked Pinye to lend it to them. We’re saving our pehnehz. As soon as they add up to a dahleh, we’ll make a down payment on the tickets. God willing, they’ll pay us back. They should do well here. Hirsh-Leyb writes that he’s invented a new stove. It hardly needs any wood. In fact, it needs none at all. How is that? It’s Hirsh-Leyb’s secret. And Shneyur has thought up a new clock that America will go wild for. What sort of clock is it? I’ll tell you what he wrote Pinye.

At first glance you might think it was just an ordinary clock. So what’s so special about it? Well, look at the dial and you’ll see a moon with twelve stars. That’s by night. By day you’ll see the sun — and that’s not the half of it. When the clock strikes twelve a door opens and out steps an officer with a sword and a marching band. The officer lifts his sword and the band plays a march and marches back through the door, which shuts behind it.

What’s your guess? Will Shneyur’s clock make a million in America? He’s been working on it for quite a few years. It was almost finished when the pogromchiks smashed it to pieces. But so what? He’ll make another. Let him get to America and he’ll be awreit.

I still haven’t told you how we’re now making a living. But I’d better leave something for the next chapter.

The first to start making a living again was Elye. He can thank my mother for that. Every Saturday she prays in the Kasrilevke shul. It’s a good place to meet people. It was there that she met Missiz Prehzident. (In America the head of a synagogue is a prehzident too.) She’s a fine lady who thinks well of my mother. Brokheh says that’s because my mother can follow the prayers and knows what the cantor is saying, which is more than can be said for most women.

Brokheh says the only reason women go to synagogue in America is to show off their deimindz. She’s sorry to say they’re a bunch of fat cows who can’t even read the letters in the prayer book. Eating and gossiping is all they’re good for.

My mother doesn’t let her get away with that. “My dear daughter-inlaw,” she says, “that’s gossip too.” Brokheh says it’s not gossip as long as it stays in the family.

But let’s get back to Missiz Prehzident and her husband, the prehzident of the Kasrilevke shul.

Maybe you’ve heard of Hibru Neshnel Delikatesn. It’s a company that sells kosher salami, frankfurters, pickled tongues, and corned beef. It has stores all over town. If you’re hungry, you step into one and order a haht dawg with mustard or horseradish. My friend Mendl and I once ate three haht dawgz apiece and could have polished off a few more if we had the cash …but that’s not what I wanted to tell you.

What I wanted to tell you was that the prehzident of our shul is an owner of Hibru Neshnel Delikatesn. My mother used her connections with his wife to get Elye a job.

Elye is a selzmin. He’s also a vaydeh. That means anyone wanting a haht dawg tells him to bring it. At first he objected to that. “What’s the big idea?” he asked. “Since when is a Jew with a beard, a cantor’s son and a bagel maker’s son-in-law, supposed to be someone’s servant?”

Pinye gave him what for.

“Listen to you! Do you think you’re still in that dump of a Kasrilevke? You’re in America, that’s where you are! Lots of fine young men like you have sold noospeypehz here, peddled metshehz, polished shoes in the strit. Take Kahnegi! Take Rahknfelleh! Take Vendehbilt! Read about Dzhordzh Vashinktn and Eybrim Linkn and all the other great Americans! You’ll see that even Peysi the cantor’s son can sell haht dawgz.”

That’s when Pinye caught it from my mother. As long as he stuck to Kahnegi and Rahknfelleh, she let him have his way. But hearing Dzhordzh Vashinktn and Eybrim Linkn mentioned in one breath with my father was too much for her. For all she knew, she told Pinye, Vashinktn and Linkn were honorable men and good Jews. Still, she would thank Pinye to leave my father out of it. He belonged where he was, in Paradise, putting in a good word for us all.

“Amen!” I said and got a whack from Elye.

To make a long story short, Elye has a dzhahb and makes a living. He sells haht dawgz and waits on tables for five dahlehz a week plus two meals a day, which are also worth something. Not to mention working in a store where the whole world buys delikatesn! Every day he makes new friends with some of New York’s finest. We’re hoping he’ll go far. He’s liked by his boss and respected by the kahstemehz. They like being served by a young man who’s not your ordinary flunky.

There’s just one problem with my brother. You wouldn’t want a beard like his. Without it he’d be awreit. And not only does he have a beard, it gets bigger and longer each day in America. Mostly it gets bigger. Pinye says he should give it a trimm. That’s what Pinye did. He went to a bahbeh shahp and sat in a tsheh and leaned back and said nothing because he didn’t know any English. Along came the bahbeh, grabbed Pinye by the nose, soaped Pinye’s face, ran a razor over it, and told him to stand up. Pinye stood and looked in the mirror and didn’t know who he was looking at. His cheeks were as smooth as a noodle board! There wasn’t a hair or whisker on them. The face in the mirror grinned back at him.

Was he in a pickle! What was he going to tell Taybl? And in fact she fainted twice and felt so sick she took to bed. But that was only the first time. By now she’s gotten used to it. Her Pinye goes to the bahbeh for a shave every week and looks like a real American. He speaks English too and no longer swallows his tshooinkahm. If only his collar were straight, his tie stayed in place, and one pant leg wasn’t higher than the other, he’d be a real dzhentlmin. That’s also called a spawt.