"Channah, God bless her!" she would reply, "out of her hard-earned wages—and you know how much he makes her bring into the house—and then her new dress she's bought for Betsy's wedding, it's all purple like wine, a par-shane, that's what the dear girl looks, a beauty straight out of the picture book! Vesta Tilley me thou no Vesta Tilleys! Going on the stage like a boy, smoking cigarettes! But she always wears wigs! Perhaps she wants to make herself out a daughter of Israel, with her wearing wigs! Well, if she ever dresses up like an honest woman, I say Channah's new back comb, even if it hasn't got real diamonds, is just as lovely as Vesta Tilley's! Don't forget the sugar in thy tea, Feivele!"
"Yes, right, mother! But what about Channah, her hard-earned wages?"
"Oh yes! My head, my head! Thou dost not get thy brains from my old silly head, Feivele! Nu, where were we! Yah! I was saying, out of her hard-earned wages, cod-liver oil she buys me, and sometimes two fresh eggs she buys me! The extravagant girl, two fresh eggs! Make me a poetry out of two fresh eggs! It's all right making poetry out of trees and rivers! Thou hast ever seen trees and rivers, yes? No! Ah, those were takke trees by the Dneister, and that was a river in a thousand! Will I ever smell again the grass in the fields by the river, when they cut it and it lies in heaps, and the moon, it comes up like a feather! This is not for me, Feivele! But when I'm dead, Feivele...."
"No, no, no, mother! Look here, I don't think you ought to talk like that! It isn't sensible!"
"I mean over a hundred years—thou shalt see a lot of countries and hills and thou shalt smell the grass cut by the river, maybe thou shalt see even the Dneister! Perhaps my brother Benya's daughter—she is how many years old, eight, nine—perhaps she will be a studentka and thou wilt teach her English and she will teach thee Russ and you'll get married—and thy old mamma, she'll not be there to see!"
"Mother, it's not decent of you! You talk like that more and more, I don't know why, and if you'd only take more care of yourself, you could be the Fat Woman in a show!"
"I'm sorry, son, I'm sorry," covering up her traces wistfully, "I mean I'll be over the sea in Angel Street, and you'll not want to wait till you come to England, thou and Rivkah—yes, yes, Rivkah is her name, God bless her! before you get married!"
Some days later, after another sitting where conversation ranges over continents and stars, and there is no fatigue in their wings—"Say, mother! here's two more new-laid eggs! I think one's a duck's, does it matter?"
"Oh a katchky! A big blue katchky's egg! Oh, Feivele, where didst thou—
"Now don't ask! And anyhow, I've been sick of Longfellow for ages!"