She turned about then and yelled at the top of her voice:
“Sarah! Sarah! Where is that lazy Sarah? Come! Directly!”
A young, thin girl with a clear skin and enormous black eyes came slowly up the stairs and into the room.
“See, Sarah,” cried Mrs. Cohen, “there is two girls that is more smart than you. That one, she is just the same age as you, and she makes good money, yes. She makes twelve dollar a week. _You_ cannot do that. Oh, no!”
Sarah looked at us sullenly, and to our greeting: “How do you do?” she returned: “How’s yourself?” Then turning savagely on her father and stepmother, she snarled:
“And if I can’t make money, whose fault is it? I have to work more hard than a servant even, with all those children of yours!”
“Sarah, Sarah! be more careful of your speech!” cried her mother. “Did not the God above give to you those six little brothers? You should thank Him for His kindness.”
She started down the stairs, followed by her husband. Sarah, however, stayed in the room, and now she smiled at us in a friendly way.
“Well, say, my stepmother is the limit. Gosh! I wish we were not Jews. Nobody likes us.”
“You ought not to say that,” said Ellen, severely, “the Jews were God’s chosen people, remember.”
“Gosh!” said Sarah, “I wish He didn’t choose me.”
That evening, Sarah thrust her face in at our door, and called in a loud whisper:
“Say, girls, do youse want to see two old fools? Come on then.”
She led us, all tiptoeing, into a room next to one occupied by a little English old maid named Miss Dick, who gave music lessons for twenty-five cents a lesson, and who always spoke in a sort of hissing whisper, so that a little spit came from her lips. Mrs. Cohen called it the “watering can.”
“Kneel down there,” said Sarah, pointing to a crack in the wall. I peeped through, and this is what I saw: Seated in the armchair was a funny little old man--I think he was German--with a dried, wrinkled face. Perched on the arm of the chair was Miss Dick. They were billing and cooing like turtle doves, and she was saying:
“Am I your little Dicky-birdie?” and he was looking proud and pleased.
Ellen and I burst into fits of laughter, but Sarah pulled us away, and we covered our mouths and stifled back the laughter. When we got to our room, Sarah told us that the old man, Schneider, had come to her father and mother and asked them to find him a wife. Her mother agreed to do so for the payment of ten dollars. She had spoken to Miss Dick, and the latter had also agreed to pay ten dollars.