“What use do you make of this?” I asked, pointing to the well-known object found in every dentist’s office in America.
“Since the men have come back,” he replied, “filled teeth have become as fashionable as red waistcoats used to be, and I have had to learn dentistry. And there is more money in filling teeth,” he added with a shrewd smile, “than in giving pills.
“What do I think of the effect of emigration on the Kopanicze? It has driven out the witch, it has awakened a community which had slept for many centuries, it has done for these people in the twentieth century what the Reformation did in the sixteenth. And as for us, it has saved us from starvation.”
As I was about to go, I heard a peasant girl in the hall say: “I kiss your hand, Most Highborn Mrs. Dr. M——. Is the Most Mighty and Honourable Mr. Dr. M—— at home?” And the “Most Highborn Mrs. Dr. M——” answered triumphantly, that the Most Mighty and Honourable Mr. Dr. M—— was at home, but busy. A gentleman from America had come to consult him about his health; and I am sure that at that moment the “Most Highborn Mrs. Dr. M——” felt that her dowry had been well invested and that it was coming back with interest, through emigration to America.
VII
“MOSCHELE AMERIKANSKY”
THE Hungarian town inhabited by Magyars, does not materially differ from the villages in which so many varieties and subjects of other races live. Such a town is merely a larger village, and, instead of one broad street flanked by straw thatched huts, there are at least four streets which terminate on the “square,” around which the dignitaries have built their more pretentious dwellings. Here also are the stores, usually kept by Jews, who are not indifferent to the economic movements of the people whose purveyors they are.
Twenty years ago, before emigration from the district of Nyitra had begun, the principal town in that district boasted but half a dozen stores so called, the largest and best of which could be discovered only by its tiny show-window, where, crowded in dire confusion, were a few articles of general merchandise. During all the years of my comings and goings I could never see any change in the articles displayed, nor even by a wild flight of imagination see any indication that a duster had lost its way among them.
It is not, however, of this store that I wish to tell, in spite of the fact that it now has a double show-window, and contains, among many other new things, a genuine American cash register.
The “Amerikansky Schtore” was once the meanest and smallest among all the stores of that village. No front door led into it, no show-window betrayed its existence, and certainly no sign-board gave a hint of what could be purchased within. It was then owned by “Uncle Isaac,” as every one called him. He made a living out of the store; but his life came out of the Talmud, and of course both were scanty.
Uncle Isaac’s father, Reb Ephraim, studied the Talmud, and his sainted grandfather, Reb Isaac, after whom he was named, left such a holy savour behind him that to this day his name is reverently uttered in prayer, as one who is surely near to God and can intercede for the children of this generation who study less Talmud and do more business.