"I can't—write—never learned—to write," Isaac stammered.
And so the dream of being the beadle of the Odessa Synagogue or any other synagogue was shattered.
On returning to his uncle's home he was given a lecture by his aunt. He had to make a living. The long and short of it was that they gave him a twenty-dollar bill and told him to go and shift for himself.
A week later Isaac Cohen was peddling matches, garters and suspenders on Hester Street. A month later he was the owner of a pushcart on which he sold stockings, combs and toothbrushes. At night he learned knee-pants making. A year later he had a little shop and two machines were working for him.
His family was brought over here, and the wife helped what she could in the shop, living in the rear of the store. It was not as easy as it sounds when read, but two years later ten machines were grinding out knickerbockers in Isaac Cohen's factory. Ten years after his arrival in New York the firm of Cohen & Co. was known as the biggest of its kind. Two factories in Brownsville, one in New York, four hundred machines in all and twenty travelling salesmen selling his wares.
But he had never forgiven his uncle and aunt for having so abruptly turned him out of their house, for not having helped him realize his dream over here, and assisted him until he learned how to write.
One day old Mr. Rosen suddenly remembered to ask Brother Cohen about the nephew.
"Why, Mr. Rosen, don't you know? He is the firm Isaac Cohen & Co."
"He, the same fellow?" Rosen asked astounded.
Cohen did not care to say much about him, and old Rosen understood something was wrong between the two.