“Cake!” The children cried, catching at the kind hands and snuggling about the shabby coat.
“Yes. Cake and nuts and raisins and even a bottle of wine.”
The children leaped and danced around him in their wild burst of joy.
“Cake and wine—a box—to you? Have the charities gone crazy?” Hanneh Breineh’s eyes sparkled with light and laughter.
“No—no,” Shmendrik explained hastily. “Not from the charities—from a friend—for the holidays.”
Shmendrik nodded invitingly to Sophie, who was standing in the door of her room. “The roomerkeh will also give a taste with us our party?”
“Sure will she!” Hanneh Breineh took Sophie by the arm. “Who’ll say no in this black life to cake and wine?”
Young throats burst into shrill cries: “Cake and wine—wine and cake—raisins and nuts—nuts and raisins!” The words rose in a triumphant chorus. The children leaped and danced in time to their chant, almost carrying the old man bodily into his room in the wildness of their joy.
The contagion of this sudden hilarity erased from Sophie’s mind the last thought of work and she found herself seated with the others on the cobbler’s bench.
From under his cot the old man drew forth a wooden box. Lifting the cover he held up before wondering eyes a large frosted cake embedded in raisins and nuts.