Nobody paid any attention. His mother plodded back to her machine without looking at him. His father never had stopped working the treadles. Joe looked from one to another in a rage. Nice pair of broken-down mutts they were! Was this the best they could do for him? Did they think a fellow was going to stand for it? His mother was a strong, healthy woman, but dead from the neck up; dazed-like; dumb. She took everything that came. It was almost impossible to get her going. His father—Joe grinned; you could always get him by the short hairs. Joe gloated over the humbled back. His father was askeared of him, all right! Yah! the skinny Jew with his ashy face and sore eyes! His grey hair was coming out in spots like a mangy dog’s. The tufts that remained curled in ringlets with the bald spots showing through. His beard too. Spit-curls!
“How the hell do you expect me to sleep in this racket?” snarled Joe.
“This lot is promised in the morning,” said his mother in a dead voice.
“What’s that to me? I gotta have my sleep.”
“Take my place on the bed,” she said.
“What! sleep wit’ him,” said Joe indicating his father. “Not on your tin-type. I’m more particular, I am.”
The woman shrugged, and went on with her sewing.
“On the level,” said Joe, undressing, “is he my fat’er?”
“You shut your mouth,” she said, without looking around.
“Honest, I can’t believe that bag o’ bones ever made me,” drawled Joe. “I ain’t like him. It beats me, Mom, how you could a’ done it!”