"Greenery, greenery!" thought Sossye, "summer is coming!"
Greenery had got into her head, and there it remained, and from greenery she went on to remember that to-day was the first Passover-cake baking at Gedalyeh the baker's, and that Shloimeh Shieber would be at work there.
Having begged of her mother the one pair of boots that stood about in the room and fitted everyone, she put them on, and was off to the Matzes.
It was, as we have said, the first day's work at Gedalyeh the baker's, and the sack of Passover flour had just been opened. Gravely, the flour-boy, a two weeks' orphan, carried the pot of flour for the Mehereh, and poured it out together with remembrances of his mother, who had died in the hospital of injuries received at their hands, and the water-boy came up behind him, and added recollections of his own.
"The hooligans threw his father into the water off the bridge—may they pay for it, süsser Gott! May they live till he is a man, and can settle his account with them!"
Thus the grey-headed old Henoch, the kneader, and he kneaded it all into the dough, with thoughts of his own grandchildren: this one fled abroad, the other in the regiment, and a third in prison.
The dough stiffens, the horny old hands work it with difficulty. The dough gets stiffer every year, and the work harder, it is time for him to go to the asylum!
The dough is kneaded, cut up in pieces, rolled and riddled—is that a token for the whole Congregation of Israel? And now appear the round Matzes, which must wander on a shovel into the heated oven of Shloimeh Shieber, first into one corner, and then into another, till another shovel throws them out into a new world, separated from the old by a screen thoroughly scoured for Passover, which now rises and now falls. There they are arranged in columns, a reminder of Pithom and Rameses. Kuk-ruk, kuk-ruk, ruk-ruk, whisper the still warm Matzes one to another; they also are remembering, and they tell the tale of the Exodus after their fashion, the tale of the flight out of Egypt—only they have seen more flights than one.
Thus are the Matzes kneaded and baked by the Jews, with "thoughts." The Gentiles call them "blood," and assert that Jews need blood for their Matzes, and they take the trouble to supply us with fresh "thoughts" every year!
But at Gedalyeh the baker's all is still cheerfulness. Girls and boys, in their unspent vigor, surround the tables, there is rolling and riddling and cleaning of clean rolling-pins with pieces of broken glass (from where ever do Jews get so much broken glass?), and the whole town is provided with kosher Matzes. Jokes and silver trills escape the lively young workers, the company is as merry as though the Exodus were to-morrow.