She shook her head ruefully. "She was quite frank about it. She called it being practical. She thought my ideas weren't American, that I was a dreamer.
She talked that way ever since she was eighteen, in fact. 'I don't care if I marry a man with white hair, provided he can make a nice living for me,' she used to say. I thought it would drive me mad. And the girls she went with had the same ideas. When they got together it would be, 'This girl married a fellow who's worth a hundred thousand,' and, 'That girl goes with a fellow who's worth half a million.' If that's what they learn at college, what's the use going to college?"
"It's prosperity ideas," I suggested. "It's a temporary craze."
"I don't care what it is. A girl should be a girl. She ought to think of love, of real happiness." (Her glance seemed to be the least bit unsteady.) "But I ain't 'practical,' don't you know. Exactly what my mother—peace upon her [this in Hebrew]—used to say. She, too, did not think it was necessary to be in love with the man you marry. But then she did not go to college, not even to school. Of what good is education, then?"
It was evident that she spoke from an overflowing heart, and that she could speak for hours on the subject. But she cut herself short and took another tack
"You must not think her husband is a kike, though," she said. "He is no fool and he writes a pretty good English letter. And he is a very nice man."
She started to go
"Tell me some more about Dannie," I said, on our way to the elevator
"He's going to college. Always first or second in his class. And one of the best men on the football team, too." She smiled, the first radiant smile I had seen on her that morning
"He's all right," she continued. And in Yiddish, "He is my only consolation." And again in English, "If it wasn't for him life wouldn't be worth living. Good-by," she said, as we paused in front of the elevator door. "Don't forget what I told you." She was ill at ease again