“Your whole week’s wages—where went it?” insisted Hanneh.
She turned from the tub and brandished her hands in his face.
“The shoes—Berel’s shoes,” Moisheh stumblingly explained. “I—I had to buy him shoes for his feet—not new shoes—only second-hand.”
“Shoes yet for such a loafer? I’d drive him out naked—barefoot. Let him get the chills—the fever—only to get rid from him quick!”
None of the roomers of Hanneh Breineh’s lodging-house could escape her tyrannous inquisition. Had she not been a second mother to Moisheh, the pants presser, and to Berel, his younger brother? Did she not cook their supper for them every night, without any extra charge? In return for this motherly service she demanded a precise account of their expenditures of money or time, and of every little personal detail of their lives.
Red glints shot from Hanneh Breineh’s sunken eyes.
“And for what more did you waste out my rent money?”
“Books—he got to have ’em—more’n eating—more’n life!”
“Got to have books?” she shrieked. “Beggars—schnorrers—their rent not paid—their clothes falling from them in rags—and yet they buy themselves books!” Viciously slapping the board with the shirt she had been rubbing, she straightened and faced Moisheh menacingly. “I been too good to you. I cooked and washed for you, and killed myself away to help you for nothing. So that’s my thanks!”
The door opened. A lean youth with shining eyes and a dishevelled mass of black hair rushed in.