The Denver Jewish news., 1922-04-12
A Jewish Mother
A New YORK vignette.

cries of children were only faint
echoes, beating against some looming
wall OF silence stumbled Meaurice
Gold, hot, disheveled and angry, car
rying two sleeping children. A step
behind him his wife. struggled between
attending to two other children. dart
ing at her skirts, and maintaining an
argument which she had been stub
bornly pressing upon him.
Maurice, Abe must finish school.
Sammy, stop throwing grass at Han
nah! He must go to high school, you
hear, Maurice? Wait till get that
girl-Hannah! One boy il the family
got enough ambition to do something
and you don't let him." -
LET him! Believe me, Tillie. a
knee-pants shop is better education
than a high school. Four years he'll
be doning nothing. II shop he'll
be making money" .,.s
I'm just as practical AS you, Mo.
but are we such parents that for your
sons education n few dollars should
make such difference? Abe is the
only one, remember. Look at Sammy
and Hannah; they hate school they
play hockey all the time. But Abe,
Abe's different. Abe's-"
"Abe. Abe! Abe! That's all hear.
Is he god Or"
"a god he calls him. He's my so1.
He wants to be man, not no.
body"
Hell do something in the knee
pan"
A STOPPING figure crossed their
path.
"say, can't you shut up just fer
minute?"
Maurice drew back, astonished. al
the more irritated because the slcap
ing children hampered any Gignifieo
move. Tillie turned and looked about
her. They rarely walked as far as
Union Square. But she wanted to
remove herself as far as possible from
the raucous cries of the neighborho vi
The children needed air, and she, rest.
Resides. there was something In the
summer air that prompted change
and al argument for Abc's sake. SO
she had taken her grumbling husband
firmly by the air, with furtive twin
kle in her eyes ut his discontinue.
and they had walked out with their
four youngest children.
Look where she brings me. Union
Square 1 need yet"
"Sh. It's quiet here and cool. Not
so many children, but mel. God
what men! Maurice. look at them"
They sat there. bleary and apa'
thetic, staring before them-a hud-
died group of ragged men with eyes
pitifully tragic agninst the mild back.
ground of the evening. 1t was inn
possible that so much could be crowd
cd into so little space, that men. ugly
miserable, Scared by crime and pov-
| crty, could have in their eyes light
! of such trembling appeal 1t WAS
| nothing less than that. They were
| all of them, brutes, but tonight they
looked up with mute hope. Each
star was an ecstatic pin-prick. each
cloud a separate threshold to enter
| And they were dreaming rs only stnrv-
ed, disappointed mon can dream.
The backs were turned on each
other. The moment was only for
| themselves Regrets such as theirs
common tremor> ran through them
They shivered. sighed and frowned
| almost at the same time. Sometime
one would catch another's glance, and
shamefacedly, each would turn nwny
For thcy We're old, old men, most oi
whose lives had not even been strug
giles. but a continuance of some form
of drudgcry. It was too late to be
| dreaming at fifty, when the strands
of that drudgery were tightly en-
tangled and could never be unraveled.
Slowly, the full meaning of that
scene vowed its way into Tillie Colds
mind She clutched her children's
| hands almost savagely, as 1t stirred
| her heart. beat against her sad eyes,
the prematurely wrinkled forehead.
the querulously tender lips, and reused
her, fearful, happy. triumphant.
By comparison, things are either
very much worse or very much better
She touched her husbands arm.
Maurice, what does fighting about
it matter? Look at them. Only to
night, it's summer, something's gotten
into them. But have they got what
you got? Can they look forward like
us; can they?"
Not quite as sensitive or as appre-
ciative, perhaps, as his wife. he had,