Bread Givers. Anzia Yezierska

      The prayers of his daughters didn’t count because God didn’t listen to women. Heaven and the next world were only for men. Women could get into Heaven because they were wives and daughters of men. Women had no brains for the study of God’s Torah, but they could be the servants of men who studied the Torah. Only if they cooked for the men, and washed for the men, and didn’t nag or curse the men out of their homes; only if they let the men study the Torah in peace, then, maybe, they could push themselves into Heaven with the men, to wait on them there.

      And so, since men were the only people who counted with God, Father not only had the best room for himself, for his study and prayers, but also the best eating of the house. The fat from the soup and the top from the milk went always to him.

      Mother had just put the soup pot and plates for dinner on the table, when Father came in.

      At the first look on Mother’s face he saw how she was boiling, ready to burst, so instead of waiting for her to begin her hollering, he started:

      “Woman! when will you stop darkening the house with your worries?”

      “When I’ll have a man who does the worrying. Does it ever enter your head that the rent was not paid the second month? That today we’re eating the last loaf of bread that the grocer trusted me?” Mother tried to squeeze the hard, stale loaf that nobody would buy for cash. “You’re so busy working for Heaven that I have to suffer here such bitter hell.”

      We sat down to the table. With watering mouths and glistening eyes we watched Mother skimming off every bit of fat from the top soup into Father’s big plate, leaving for us only the thin, watery part. We watched Father bite into the sour pickle which was special for him only; and waited, trembling with hunger, for our portion.

      Father made his prayer, thanking God for the food. Then he said to Mother:

      “What is there to worry about, as long as we have enough to keep the breath in our bodies? But the real food is God’s Holy Torah.” He shook her gently by the shoulder, and smiled down at her.

      At Father’s touch Mother’s sad face turned into smiles. His kind look was like the sun shining on her.

      “Shenah!” he called her by her first name, to show her he was feeling good. “I’ll tell you a story that will cure you of all your worldly cares.”

      All faces turned to Father. Eyes widened, necks stretched, ears strained not to miss a word. The meal was forgotten as he began:

      “Rabbi Chanina Ben Dosa was a starving, poor man who had to live on next to nothing. Once, his wife complained: ‘We’re so good, so pious, you give up nights and days in the study of the Holy Torah. Then why don’t God provide for you at least enough to eat?’ . . . ‘Riches you want?’ said Rabbi Chanina Ben Dosa. ‘All right, woman. You shall have your wish.’ . . . That very evening he went out into the fields to pray. Soon the heavens opened, and a Hand reached down to him and gave him a big chunk of gold. He brought it to his wife, and said: ‘Go buy with this all the luxuries of the earth.’ . . . She was so happy, as she began planning all she would buy next day. Then she fell asleep. And in her dream, she saw herself and her husband sitting with all the saints in Heaven. Each couple had a golden table between themselves. When the Good Angel put down for them their wine, their table shook so that half of it was spilled. Then she noticed that their table had a leg missing, and that is why it was so shaky. And the Good Angel explained to her that the chunk of gold that her husband had given her the night before was the missing leg of their table. As soon as she woke up, she begged her husband to pray to God to take back the gold he had given them. . . . ‘I’ll be happy and thankful to live in poverty, as long as I know that our reward will be complete in Heaven.’”

      Mother licked up Father’s every little word, like honey. Her eyes followed his shining eyes as he talked.

      “Nu, Shenah?” He wagged his head. “Do you want gold on earth, or wine of Heaven?”

      “I’m only a sinful woman,” Mother breathed, gazing up at him. Her fingers stole a touch of his hand, as if he were the king of the world. “God be praised for the little we have. I’m willing to give up all my earthly needs for the wine of Heaven with you. But, Moisheh”—she nudged him by the sleeve—“God gave us children. They have a life to live yet, here, on earth. Girls have to get married. People point their fingers on me—a daughter, twenty-five years already, and not married yet. And no dowry to help her get married.”

      “Woman! Stay in your place! “His strong hand pushed her away from him. “You’re smart enough to bargain with the fish-peddler. But I’m the head of this family. I give my daughters brains enough to marry when their time comes, without the worries of a ’dowry.”

      “Nu, you’re the head of the family.” Mother’s voice rose in anger. “But what will you do if your books are thrown in the street?”

      At the mention of his books, Father looked up quickly.

      “What do you want me to do?”

      “Take your things out from the front room to the kitchen, so I could rent your room to boarders. If we don’t pay up the rent very soon, we’ll all be in the street.”

      “I have to have a room for my books. Where will I put them?”

      “I’ll push my things out from under the bed. And you can pile up your books in the window to the top, because nothing but darkness comes through that window, anyway. I’ll do anything, work the nails off my fingers, only to be free from the worry for rent.”

      “But where will I have quiet for my studies in this crowded kitchen? I have to be alone in a room to think with God.”

      “Only millionaires can be alone in America. By Zalmon the fish-peddler, they’re squeezed together, twelve people, in one kitchen. The bedroom and the front room his wife rents out to boarders. If I could cook their suppers for them, I could even earn yet a few cents from their eating.”

      “Woman! Have your way. Take in your boarders, only to have peace in the house.”

      The next day, Mother and I moved Father’s table and his chair with a back, and a cushion to sit on, into the kitchen.

      We scrubbed the front room as for a holiday. Even the windows were washed. We pasted down the floppy wall paper, and on the worst part of the wall, where the plaster was cracked and full of holes, we hung up calendars and pictures from the Sunday newspapers.

      Mother sent me to Muhmenkeh, the herring woman on the corner, for the loan of a feather bed. She came along to help me carry it.

      “Long years on you!” cried Mother, as she took the feather bed from Muhmenkeh’s arm.

      “Long years and good luck on us all!” Muhmenkeh answered.

      Muhmenkeh worked as hard for the pennies as anybody on the block. But her heart was big with giving all the time from the little she had. She didn’t have the scared, worried look that pinched and squeezed the blood out of the faces of the poor. It breathed from her the feeling of plenty, as if she had Rockefeller’s millions to give away.

      “You could charge your boarders twice as much for the sleeping, if you give them a bed with springs, instead of putting the feather bed on the floor,” said Muhmenkeh.

      “Don’t I know that a bed with a spring is a good thing? But you have to have money for it.”

      “I got an old spring in the basement. I’ll give it to you.”

      “But the spring needs a bed with feet.”

      “Do as I done. Put the spring over four empty herring pails and you’ll have a bed fit for the president. Now put a board over the potato barrel, and a clean newspaper over that, and you’ll have a table. All you need yet is a soapbox for a chair, and you’ll have a furnished room complete.”

      Muhmenkeh’s bent old body tottered around on her lame foot, as she helped us. Even Mother