Sholem Aleichem - Tevye the Dairyman and Motl the Cantor's Son

D.

But here our friend Pinni has antagonized my mother. It doesn’t bother her that he is spouting the names of Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Vanderbilt, but when he mentions George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in the same breath as my father — this she resents. She says she doesn’t know who Washington and Lincoln were. It could be they were very fine gentlemen and good Jews, but she doesn’t want her husband’s name dragged to America. Let him rest in paradise as a good intercessor for her and for us and for all of Israel.

“Amen!” I say, and receive a slap from my brother Elyahu for being sassy.

E.

In short, my brother Elyahu has a job and is making a living. He sells sausages and serves them at tables and receives five dollars a week and meals twice a day, which is worth something. He meets new people every day, among the finest in New York, who come to shop for meat. We hope that my brother will rise higher and higher, because he is well thought of by the owners and respected by the customers, who enjoy being served by a refined person, not someone who was born only to be a waiter. My brother has but one fault — he has a beard. If he didn’t have the beard, he would really be all right, but out of spite his beard in America has grown wider and longer, more in the width than in the length. Pinni says he should, as they say in America, “fix it,” as Pinni himself has done.

He dropped into a barbershop, sat himself down on a chair, threw back his head, and never said a word, because at the time he didn’t know any English. The barber came over and grabbed his nose, as Pinni tells it, lathered up his whole face, and drew a razor over it no more than twice. He told him to get up. When Pinni caught sight of himself in the mirror, he didn’t recognize himself. Not a trace of a beard or a mustache remained on his face. It was smooth as a noodle-board. His reflection was smiling back at him. Oh my, what he received from Teibl! Poor thing, she fainted twice and became sick from aggravation and shame. That was the first time. Now she’s gotten used to it. Her Pinni shaves his whole face every week and looks like a real American. He speaks English and chews gum, but he doesn’t swallow it anymore. If only he could see to it that his shirt collar was buttoned, his tie in place, and both trouser legs even, he would be a real gentleman, a sport .

F.

Pinni could make a living if his mind weren’t always preoccupied with the big plans that they call “business” here. He keeps changing jobs. To his credit, he isn’t ashamed to do any kind of work at all. He’ll do whatever you ask him, so long as he can make a dollar. Sweeping the street is fine with him. Shoveling coal is fine with him. Peddling newspapers is certainly fine with him. America, he says, is a free country, and only stealing is a shame. That’s why everyone works here and no one steals. Only the Italians steal. A native-born American, he says, will not steal even if gold is lying in front of him on the ground. An American will never trick you or tell you a lie. That’s what Pinni believes. He even made up a song about America. I don’t remember all of it. I can say a few lines of it by heart. Here’s how it begins:

Then it goes on and finishes up with this rhyme:

G.

Do you think our women aren’t making a living too? Bruche and Teibl are both working making neckties. And whom do they have to thank? Again they have my mother to thank, and again it is because she goes to shul every Shabbes. She met an allrightnichkeh, the wife of a kind of wealthy man in America that they call an allrightnik . This wife was once a servant girl, please don’t mention it, in Kasrilevka working for our Reb Yossi, the rich man. Her name is Kreindl. Kreindl has quite a story to tell, which I can relate in a few words.

H.

In our Kasrilevka we had a butcher named Meilach, who had a son named Nechemia. This Nechemia fell in love with Kreindl and wanted to marry her, but he had no money. One day Meilach the butcher gave him money to go to the market to buy a cow. Nechemia took the money and ran off with Kreindl to America. He was lucky and became an allrightnik and Kreindl became an allrightnichkeh . Now they have a necktie factory. One time Kreindl had a yahrtzeit for her mother. She went to shul and fell into a conversation with my mother and told her who she was. When my mother told her my father was Peysi the cantor, she drew closer to my mother and promised to help us in any way possible. My mother said we didn’t need any help. All she asked for was work for her children. One word led to another. The allrightnichkeh managed to get her husband to hire Bruche and Teibl in his factory. For a few weeks they had to go to Broadway to work in the factory, and then my mother worked it out to have them take work home and not have to sit all day in the shop.

I.

But the job didn’t last long. They were “busy” as long as the season lasted, but when “slack time” set in, our women had no work. But we didn’t take it to heart, because “God is a father — with one hand He punishes, with the other He heals,” says my mother. I can’t understand this logic. Why does God have to punish and then heal? I believe He shouldn’t punish, and then He wouldn’t have to heal. My mother replies, “God sends us a cure for the curse.”

J.

What’s she talking about? You’ll soon hear. But let’s rest awhile now so I can have the strength to go on with the story.

A.

I promised to tell you what my mother meant by saying, “God sends us a cure for the curse.” This is the story.

My brother Elyahu became tired of working at the Hebrew National Sausage Company. It wasn’t the job for him. Don’t forget, my brother Elyahu is Peysi the cantor’s son. He’s a refined young man and has a fine singing voice. He knows how to chant from the pulpit. How does it look for such a young man to be serving little sausages at tables? The serving itself would perhaps not have mattered, but there are all kinds of people to serve. A polite person comes in and asks for a portion of sausages, sits down, eats the sausages, pays, and goodbye.

B.

But others are not so polite. Sometimes a crude person comes along, a boor who stirs things up. The sausages aren’t hot enough. There’s no mustard. And if he speaks, he doesn’t ask courteously, “If you please, may I have another portion?” No, he whistles or snaps his fingers and bellows, “Say, waiter! Give me another portion!” My brother Elyahu isn’t used to being spoken to like this. He resents it and doesn’t respond to a boor. The boor gets furious and bellows even louder, “Say, professor! Come here!” Then my brother Elyahu replies, “Since when amI a professor to you?” The customer gets even more furious and begins shouting. The boss hears him and goes over to my brother. “What’s the matter with you?” he asks. My brother Elyahu doesn’t answer him. “Why don’t you answer when someone asks you something?” he asks.

My brother Elyahu says to him, “Ask me like a human being and then I’ll answer you.” The boss says, “What do you mean, like a human being?” My brother Elyahu replies, “A human being speaks politely.” The boss again asks, “And if I don’t speak politely, am I some kind of a monkey?” My brother Elyahu answers, “It’s possible.”