The two machines whirred on, with only the necessary pauses to turn the goods.
Joe raised his voice a little to make sure of being heard above the sound. “But its a cinch some Jew made me. I got Jew blood all right, and I’m glad of it. The Jews are a smart people. . . . All except him. He’s a botched Jew; a scarecrow; he’s a Jew that didn’t come off. He must a been made of the stale bits like that twice-baked cake yeh git such a big hunk of for a penny, but at that it would make you puke to eat it. . . .”
Joe’s father suddenly rose, and turning round, supported himself against the back of his chair with a wasted, shaking arm. Joe, with a grin, watched how the sparse curls of his beard seemed to stiffen and quiver. “You bad boy . . . you bad boy!” he said in a husky broken voice. The old geezer’s lungs were rotten. “You are my son, God help me! When you were placed in my hands I gave thanks to God for my first-born. Little did I think it was a curse He was laying upon me!”
The old man straightened up, and shook his scraggy arms above his head. Good as a t’eayter, thought Joe. “Oh God! what have I done to deserve such a son!” he croaked. “I have worked hard all my days, and have wronged no man!” He waved his sticks of arms about. “Look! Look! How we live; how we work! We are sick and starving. And he comes in from the streets, the loafer! greasy with good food, and twits me to my beard! . . . God has abandoned me! God has abandoned me! . . .” Straining back his head like a man struggling for air, the old man staggered into the back room. They heard him fall, a dead weight on the bed.
Joe laughed loudly. “Well, if I’m a hell of a son, you’re a hell of a father,” he called after him. “What did you ever do for me?” He pulled an old coverlet from under the sofa, and wrapped himself up in it, laughing. “Gee! it’s rich when the old man begins to call on God!” he said. “That’s the Jew of it! And him kicked out of the synagogue, like you was kicked out of the church! This is a swell religious family, this is!”
His mother did not answer him. She kept her broad back turned to him. Joe saw her glance over at the other machine to measure how much work the man had left undone. Then her head went a little lower, as she made the treadles of her machine move faster. Joe, feeling better now, flung an arm over his eyes to shield them from the gaslight; and settled himself to sleep.
III
Towards evening Joe Kaplan and two boys smaller than himself were making their way down Fifth Avenue. They had started out in the morning five strong, but two of the kids had been lost somewhere. They had spent the day in Central Park where they had seen the m’nag’rie, and the swan boats and the rich kids riding in goat carriages on the Mall. Of the latter Pat Crear had said: “Gawd! all dressed up in velvet and lace like doll babies, and strapped down in them little wagons so’s they can’t fall out; it’s a wonder they don’t get heart disease from the excitement.” In order to find out if he was human, Pat had given the long curls of one little boy a sharp tweak, and cut whooping across the grass to the shrubbery.
They had had the luck to come across a boy selling lozenges in an out of the way spot. They had swiped his box offen him, and after sampling some of each flavor, had sold the rest in another part of the park, thus providing the means for a more substantial feed. Afterwards they had wandered away up to Harlem mere, and had lost themselves in the woods up there. They built a fire, and made out they were hoboes, and Tony Lipper had killed a squirrel with a stone. No kid he knew had ever done that before, and he was bringing it home in his pocket to prove it.
On Fifth Avenue the elegant carriages rolled up and down, each drawn by a pair of glossy horses stepping high, and each driven by one or two men sitting up in front without moving, like the tin men on pavement toys. On the sidewalk the tony guys were walking up and down, many of the Johnnies wearing silk ties and swinging sticks, the dames with sleeves as big as hams and little tails to their jackets sticking up like a chippie’s. Joe and the other boys were pleased by the sense of their incongruity in that company, and they accentuated it by slapping the pavement with their broken shoes, spitting to the right and left, and talking rough. They felt great when they succeeded in attracting the scowls and the disgusted looks of the passers-by; or when a lady daintily drew her skirts aside to avoid contact.