Hanneh Breineh went over to the pantry-shelf.
“We are going to have a bite right here on the kitchen-table like on Delancey Street. So long there’s no servant to watch us we can eat what we please.”
“Oi! How it waters my mouth with appetite, the smell of the herring and onion!” chuckled Mrs. Pelz, sniffing the welcome odors with greedy pleasure.
Hanneh Breineh pulled a dish-towel from the rack and threw one end of it to Mrs. Pelz.
“So long there’s no servant around, we can use it together for a napkin. It’s dirty, anyhow. How it freshens up my heart to see you!” she rejoiced as she poured out her tea into a saucer. “If you would only know how I used to beg my daughter to write for me a letter to you; but these American children, what is to them a mother’s feelings?”
“What are you talking!” cried Mrs. Pelz. “The whole world rings with you and your children. Everybody is envying you. Tell me how began your luck?”
“You heard how my husband died with consumption,” replied Hanneh Breineh. “The five hundred dollars lodge money gave me the first lift in life, and I opened a little grocery store. Then my son Abe married himself to a girl with a thousand dollars. That started him in business, and now he has the biggest shirt-waist factory on West Twenty-Ninth Street.”
“Yes, I heard your son had a factory.” Mrs. Pelz hesitated and stammered; “I’ll tell you the truth. What I came to ask you—I thought maybe you would beg your son Abe if he would give my husband a job.”
“Why not?” said Hanneh Breineh. “He keeps more than five hundred hands. I’ll ask him if he should take in Mr. Pelz.”
“Long years on you, Hanneh Breineh! You’ll save my life if you could only help my husband get work.”