The kerchief had a rejuvenating effect. But Jake thought that it made her look like an Italian woman of Mulberry Street on Sunday.
“Alla right, leave it be for the present,” he said in despair, reflecting that the wig would have been the lesser evil of the two.
When they reached the city Gitl was shocked to see him lead the way to a horse car.
“Oi woe is me! Why, it is Sabbath!” she gasped.
He irately essayed to explain that a car, being an uncommon sort of vehicle, riding in it implied no violation of the holy day. But this she sturdily met by reference to railroads. Besides, she had seen horse cars while stopping in Hamburg, and knew that no orthodox Jew would use them on the seventh day. At length Jake, losing all self-control, fiercely commanded her not to make him the laughing-stock of the people on the street and to get in without further ado. As to the sin of the matter he was willing to take it all upon himself. Completely dismayed by his stern manner, amid the strange, uproarious, forbidding surroundings, Gitl yielded.
As the horses started she uttered a groan of consternation and remained looking aghast and with a violently throbbing heart. If she had been a culprit on the way to the gallows she could not have been more terrified than she was now at this her first ride on the day of rest.
The conductor came up for their fares. Jake handed him a ten-cent piece, and raising two fingers, he roared out: “Two! He ain’ no maur as tree years, de liddle feller!” And so great was the impression which his dashing manner and his English produced on Gitl, that for some time it relieved her mind and she even forgot to be shocked by the sight of her husband handling coin on the Sabbath.
Having thus paraded himself before his wife, Jake all at once grew kindly disposed toward her.
“You must be hungry?” he asked.