“Why are you keeping Benny here so long?” she shouted at the teacher as she flung open the door. “If you had my bitter heart, you would send him home long ago and not wait till I got to come for him.”
The teacher turned calmly and consulted her record-cards.
“Benny Safron? He wasn’t present this morning.”
“Not here?” shrieked Hanneh Breineh. “I pushed him out myself he should go. The children didn’t want to take him, and I had no time. Woe is me! Where is my child?” She began pulling her hair and beating her breast as she ran into the street.
Mrs. Pelz was busy at a pushcart, picking over some spotted apples, when she heard the clamor of an approaching crowd. A block off she recognized Hanneh Breineh, her hair disheveled, her clothes awry, running toward her with her yelling baby in her arms, the crowd following.
“Friend mine,” cried Hanneh Breineh, falling on Mrs. Pelz’s neck, “I lost my Benny, the best child of all my children.” Tears streamed down her red, swollen eyes as she sobbed. “Benny! mine heart, mine life! Oi-i-i!”
Mrs. Pelz took the frightened baby out of the mother’s arms.
“Still yourself a little! See how you’re frightening your child.”
“Woe to me! Where is my Benny? Maybe he’s killed already by a car. Maybe he fainted away from hunger. He didn’t eat nothing all day long. Gottuniu! Pity yourself on me!”
She lifted her hands full of tragic entreaty.