With a contemptuous glance at the young Jew, the Moravian girl said: “Right she is! There’s nothing the matter with America, and when I go back, I bet you I’ll get an American husband!”
“Oh, yes! Of course. They are lying on the shelf waiting for you!” sneered the object of her contempt.
The sport tried to be kind in his good-bye words; but he used so many oaths that he became repulsive. When I remonstrated, he said:
“In America, everybody swear—no make trouble to say: good-morning your—Highness. See a man—slap him on shoulder and say: Hello—John—you—how dy? So long, then, you—old man, good-bye.”
The butter and egg man gripped my hand mightily, and as a parting word gave me this injunction. “Don’t let your old woman boss you;” then, glancing at our prophet, he added: “He little not all right.”
The Roumanian shepherd looked out the window and made no effort to take my proffered hand. His sallow face was drawn by pain, caused by something I dimly divined.
We were at the station, a station famous for a certain kind of sausage, whose odorous steam soon filled our nostrils. Taking several portions from the tray which a waiter held towards me, I gave them to the Roumanian peasant. Like a wild beast he fell upon the food, while into his pain-drawn face came a ray of human joy.
The prophet had difficulty in making up his mind about me. Reluctantly he stretched out his hand as I was leaving the car. When I grasped it, he querulously asked: “Have you received the Blessing?” and with great assurance I answered: “You bet.”
VI
THE DOCTOR OF THE KOPANICZE
THE last people to feel the sweep of the tide which carried them to the United States and back again were the mountain folk in Eastern Europe.