“Ach, Moisheh! Already back from the shop? My good luck—I’m choking to tell you!”
The two drab figures huddled in the dim kitchen between the washtub and the stove gazed speechless at the boy. Even Hanneh Breineh was galvanized for the moment by the ecstatic, guileless face, the erect, live figure poised bird-like with desire.
“Oi, golden heart!” The boy grasped Moisheh’s arm impetuously. “A typewriter! It’s worth fifty dollars—maybe more yet—and I can get it for ten, if I grab it quick for cash!”
Moisheh glanced from the glowering landlady to his ardent brother. His gentle heart sank as he looked into Berel’s face, with its undoubting confidence that so reasonable a want would not be denied him.
“Don’t you think—maybe—ain’t there something you could do to earn the money?”
“What more can I do than I’m already doing? You think only pressing pants is work?”
“Berel,” said Moisheh, with frank downrightness, “you got your education. Why don’t you take up a night school? They’re looking for teachers.”
“Me a teacher? Me in that treadmill of deadness? Why, the dullest hand in a shop got more chance to use his brains than a teacher in their schools!”
“Well, then, go to work in a shop—only half-days—the rest of the time give yourself over to your dreams in the air.”
“Brother, are you gone crazy?” Berel gesticulated wildly. “I should go into that terrible sweat and grind of the machines? All the fire that creates in me would die in a day!”