"Humoresque"

Then Mrs. Kantor resumed her plumbing, and through the little apartment, its middle and only bedroom of three beds and a crib lighted vicariously by the front room and kitchen, began to wind the warm, the golden-brown fragrance of cake in the rising.

By six o'clock, the shades were drawn against the dirty dusk of Allen Street, and the oilcloth-covered table dragged out center and spread by Esther Kantor, nine in years, in the sturdy little legs bulging over shoe-tops, in the pink cheeks that sagged slightly of plumpness, and in the utter roundness of face and gaze, but mysteriously older in the little-mother lore of crib and knee-dandling ditties and in the ropy length and thickness of the two brown plaits down her back.

There was an eloquence to that waiting, laid-out table, the print of the family already gathered about it; the dynastic high chair, throne of each succeeding Kantor; an armchair drawn up before the paternal moustache-cup; the ordinary kitchen chair of Mannie Kantor, who spilled things, an oilcloth sort of bib dangling from its back; the little chair of Leon Kantor, cushioned in an old family album that raised his chin above the table. Even in cutlery, the Kantor family was not lacking in variety. Surrounding a centerpiece of thick Russian lace were Russian spoons washed in washed-off gilt, forks of one, two, and three tines. Steel knives with black handles. A hart's-horn carving-knife. Thick-lipped china in stacks before the armchair. A round four-pound-loaf of black bread waiting to be torn, and to-night, on the festive mat of cotton lace, a cake of pinkly gleaming icing, encircled with five pink little twisted candles.

At slightly after six, Abrahm Kantor returned, leading by a resisting wrist Leon Kantor, his stemlike little legs, hit midship, as it were, by not sufficiently cut-down trousers and so narrow and birdlike of face that his eyes quite obliterated the remaining map of his features, like those of a still wet nestling. All except his ears. They poised at the sides of Leon's shaved head of black bristles, as if butterflies had just lighted there, whispering, with very spread wings, their message, and presently would fly off again. By some sort of muscular contraction, he could wiggle these ears at will, and would do so for a penny, a whistle, and upon one occasion for his brother Rudolph's dead rat, so devised as to dangle from string and window before the unhappy passer-by. They were quivering now, these ears, but because the entire little face was twitching back tears and gulp of sobs.

"Abrahm--Leon--what is it?" Her hands and her forearms instantly out from the business of kneading something meaty and floury, Mrs. Kantor rushed forward, her glance quick from one to the other of them. "Abrahm, what's wrong?"

"I'll feedle him! I'll feedle him!"

The little pulling wrist still in clutch, Mr. Kantor regarded his wife, the lower half of his face, well covered with reddish bristles, undershot, his free hand and even his eyes violently lifted. To those who see in a man a perpetual kinship to that animal kingdom of which he is supreme, there was something undeniably anthropoidal about Abrahm Kantor, a certain simian width between the eyes and long, rather agile hands with hairy backs.

"Hush it!" cried Mr. Kantor, his free hand raised in threat of descent and cowering his small son to still more undersized proportions. "Hush it, or, by golly, I'll--"

"Abrahm--Abrahm--what is it?"

Then Mr. Kantor gave vent in acridity of word and feature.

"Schlemmil!" he cried. "Momser! Ganef! Nebich!" By which Abrahm Kantor, in smiting mother tongue, branded his offspring with attributes of apostate and ne'er-do-well, of idiot and thief.

"Abrahm!"

"Schlemmil!" repeated Mr. Abrahm, swinging Leon so that he described a large semi-circle that landed him into the meaty and waiting embrace of his mother. "Take him! You should be proud of such a little Momser for a son! Take him--and here you got back his birthday dollar. A feedle! Honest--when I think on it--a feedle!"

Such a rush of outrage seemed fairly to strangle Mr. Kantor that he stood, hand still upraised, choking and inarticulate above the now frankly howling huddle of his son.

"Abrahm you should just once touch this child! How he trembles! Leon--mamma's baby--what is it--is this how you come back when papa takes out to buy your birthday present? Ain't you ashamed?"

Mouth distended to a large and blackly hollow O, Leon between terrifying spells of breath-holding, continued to howl.

"All the way to Naftel's toy store I drag him. A birthday present for a dollar his mother wants he should have--all right, a birthday present! I give you my word till I'm ashamed for Naftel, every toy on his shelves is pulled down. Such a cow--that shakes with his head--"

"No--no--no!" This from young Leon, beating at his mother's skirts.

Again the upraised but never quite descending hand of his father.

"By golly, I'll 'no--no' you!"

"Abrahm--go way! Baby, what did papa do?"

Then Mr. Kantor broke into an actual tarantella of rage, his hands palms up and dancing.

"'What did papa do?' she asks. She's got easy asking. 'What did papa do?' The whole shop, I tell you. A sheep with a baa inside when you squeeze on him--games--a horn so he can holler my head off--such a knife like Izzy's with a scissors in it! 'Leon,' I said, ashamed for Naftel, 'that's a fine knife like Izzy's so you can cut up with.' 'All right then'--when I see how he hollers--'such a box full of soldiers to have war with.' 'Dollar seventy-five,' says Naftel. 'All right then,' I says--when I seen how he keeps hollering--'give you a dollar fifteen for 'em.' I should make myself small for fifteen cents more. 'Dollar fifteen,' I says--anything so he should shut up with his hollering for what he seen in the window."

"He seen something in the window he wanted, Abrahm?"

"Didn't I tell you? A feedle! A four-dollar feedle! A moosiker, so we should have another feedler in the family for some thirty-cents lessons."

"Abrahm--you mean--he--our Leon--wanted a violin?"

"'Wanted,' she says. I could potch him again this minute for how he wanted it! Du--you little bum you--Chammer--Momser--I'll feedle you!"

Across Mrs. Kantor's face as she knelt there in the shapeless cotton-stuff uniform of poverty, through the very tenement of her body, a light had flashed up into her eyes. She drew her son closer, crushing his puny cheek up against hers, cupping his bristly little head in her by no means immaculate palms.

"He wanted a violin--it's come, Abrahm! The dream of all my life--it's come! I knew it must be one of my children if I waited long enough--and prayed enough. A musician! He wants a violin. He cried for a violin. My baby! Why, darlink, mamma'll sell her clothes off her back to get you a violin. He's a musician, Abrahm! I should have known it the way he's fooling always around the chimes and the bells in the store!"

Then Mrs. Kantor took to rocking his head between her palms.

"Oi--oi! The mother is crazier as her son. A moosican! A Fresser you mean. Such an eater, it's a wonder he ain't twice too big instead of twice too little for his age."

"That's a sign, Abrahm; they all eat big. For all we know he's a genius. I swear to you, Abrahm, all the months before he was born, I prayed for it. Each one before they came, I prayed it should be the one. I thought that time the way our Isadore ran after the organ-grinder he would be the one. How could I know it was the monkey he wanted? When Isadore wouldn't take it, I prayed my next one and then my next one should have the talent. I've prayed for it, Abrahm. If he wants a violin, please, he should have it."

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