CHAPTER VII.

MRS. KAVARSKY's COUP D'eTAT.

It was not until after supper time that Gitl could see Mrs. Kavarsky; for the neighbour's husband was in the installment business, and she generally spent all day in helping him with his collections as well as canva.s.sing for new customers. When Gitl came in to unburden herself of f.a.n.n.y's revelations, she found her confidante out of sorts. Something had gone wrong in Mrs. Kavarsky's affairs, and, while she was perfectly aware that she had only herself to blame, she had laid it all to her husband and had nagged him out of the house before he had quite finished his supper.

She listened to her neighbour's story with a bored and impatient air, and when Gitl had concluded and paused for her opinion, she remarked languidly: "It serves you right! It is all _becuss_ you will not throw away that ugly kerchief of yours. What is the use of your asking my advice?"

"_Oi!_ I think even that wouldn't help it now," Gitl rejoined, forlornly. "The Uppermost knows what drug she has charmed him with. A cholera into her, Lord of the world!" she added, fiercely.

Mrs. Kavarsky lost her temper.

"_Say_, will you stop talking nonsense?" she shouted savagely. "No wonder your husband does not _care_ for you, seeing these stupid greenhornlike notions of yours."

"How then could she have bewitched him, the witch that she is? Tell me, little heart, little crown, do tell me! Take pity and be a mother to me. I am so lonely and----" Heartrending sobs choked her voice.

"What shall I tell you? that you are a blockhead? _Oi! Oi! Oi!_" she mocked her. "Will the crying help you? _Ull right_, cry away!"

"But what shall I do?" Gitl pleaded, wiping her tears. "It may drive me mad. I won't wear the kerchief any more. I swear this is the last day,"

she added, propitiatingly.

"_Dot's right!_ When you talk like a man I like you. And now sit still and listen to what an older person and a business woman has to tell you. In the first place, who knows what that girl--Jennie, Fannie, Shmennie, Yomtzedemennie--whatever you may call her--is after?" The last two names Mrs. Kavarsky invented by poetical license to complete the rhyme and for the greater emphasis of her contempt. "In the second place, _asposel_ [supposing] he did talk to that Polish piece of disturbance. _Vell_, what of it? It is all over with the world, isn't it? The mourner's prayer is to be said after it, I declare! A married man stood talking to a girl! Just think of it! May no greater evil befall any Yiddish daughter. This is not Europe where one dares not say a word to a strange woman! _Nu, sir!_"

"What, then, is the matter with him? At home he would hardly ever leave my side, and never ceased looking into my eyes. Woe is me, what America has brought me to!" And again her grief broke out into a flood of tears.

This time Mrs. Kavarsky was moved.

"Don't be crying, my child; he may come in for you," she said, affectionately. "Believe me you are making a mountain out of a fly--you are imagining too much."

"_Oi_, as my ill luck would have it, it is all but too true. Have I no eyes, then? He mocks at everything I say or do; he can not bear the touch of my hand. America _has_ made a mountain of ashes out of me.

Really, a curse upon Columbus!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed mournfully, quoting in all earnestness a current joke of the Ghetto.

Mrs. Kavarsky was too deeply touched to laugh. She proceeded to examine her pupil, in whispers, upon certain details, and thereupon her interest in Gitl's answers gradually superseded her commiseration for the unhappy woman.

"And how does he behave toward the boy?" she absently inquired, after a melancholy pause.

"Would he were as kind to me!"

"Then it is _ull right_! Such things will happen between man and wife.

It is all _humbuk_. It will all come right, and you will some day be the happiest woman in the world. You shall see. Remember that Mrs.

Kavarsky has told you so. And in the meantime stop crying. A husband hates a sniveller for a wife. You know the story of Jacob and Leah, as it stands written in the Holy Five Books, don't you? Her eyes became red with weeping, and Jacob, our father, did not _care_ for her on that account. Do you understand?"

All at once Mrs. Kavarsky bit her lip, her countenance brightening up with a sudden inspiration. At the next instant she made a lunge at Gitl's head, and off went the kerchief. Gitl started with a cry, at the same moment covering her head with both hands.

"Take off your hands! Take them off at once, I say!" the other shrieked, her eyes flashing fire and her feet performing an Irish jig.

Gitl obeyed for sheer terror. Then, pushing her toward the sink, Mrs.

Kavarsky said peremptorily: "You shall wash off your silly tears and I'll arrange your hair, and from this day on there shall be no kerchief, do you hear?"

Gitl offered but feeble resistance, just enough to set herself right before her own conscience. She washed herself quietly, and when her friend set about combing her hair, she submitted to the operation without a murmur, save for uttering a painful hiss each time there came a particularly violent tug at the comb; for, indeed, Mrs. Kavarsky plied her weapon rather energetically and with a bloodthirsty air, as if inflicting punishment. And while she was thus attacking Gitl's luxurious raven locks she kept growling, as glibly as the progress of the comb would allow, and modulating her voice to its movements: "Believe me you are a lump of hunchback, _sure_; you may--may depend up-upon it! Tell me, now, do you ever comb yourself? You have raised quite a plica, the black year take it! Another woman would thank G.o.d for such beau-beautiful hair, and here she keeps it hidden and makes a bu-bugbear of herself--a _regele monkey_!" she concluded, gnashing her teeth at the stout resistance with which her implement was at that moment grappling.

Gitl's heart swelled with delight, but she modestly kept silent.

Suddenly Mrs. Kavarsky paused thoughtfully, as if conceiving a new idea. In another moment a pair of scissors and curling irons appeared on the scene. At the sight of this Gitl's blood ran chill, and when the scissors gave their first click in her hair she felt as though her heart snapped. Nevertheless, she endured it all without a protest, blindly trusting that these instruments of torture would help reinstall her in Jake's good graces.

At last, when all was ready and she found herself adorned with a pair of rich side bangs, she was taken in front of the mirror, and ordered to hail the transformation with joy. She viewed herself with an unsteady glance, as if her own face struck her as unfamiliar and forbidding. However, the change pleased her as much as it startled her.

"Do you really think he will like it?" she inquired with piteous eagerness, in a fever of conflicting emotions.

"If he does not, I shall refund your money!" her guardian snarled, in high glee.

For a moment or so Mrs. Kavarsky paused to admire the effect of her art. Then, in a sudden transport of enthusiasm, she sprang upon her ward, and with an "_Oi_, a health to you!" she smacked a hearty kiss on her burning cheek.

"And now come, piece of wretch!" So saying, Mrs. Kavarsky grasped Gitl by the wrist, and forcibly convoyed her into her husband's presence.

The two boarders were out, Jake being alone with Joey. He was seated at the table, facing the door, with the boy on his knees.

"_Goot-evenik_, Mr. Podkovnik! Look what I have brought you: a brand new wife!" Mrs. Kavarsky said, pointing at her charge, who stood faintly struggling to disengage her hand from her escort's tight grip, her eyes looking to the ground and her cheeks a vivid crimson.

Gitl's unwonted appearance impressed Jake as something unseemly and meretricious. The sight of her revolted him.

"It becomes her like a--a--a wet cat," he faltered out with a venomous smile, choking down a much stronger simile which would have conveyed his impression with much more precision, but which he dared not apply to his own wife.

The boy's first impulse upon the entrance of his mother had been to run up to her side and to greet her merrily; but he, too, was shocked by the change in her aspect, and he remained where he was, looking from her to Jake in blank surprise.

"Go away, you don't mean it!" Mrs. Kavarsky remonstrated distressedly, at the same moment releasing her prisoner, who forthwith dived into the bedroom to bury her face in a pillow, and to give way to a stream of tears. Then she made a few steps toward Jake, and speaking in an undertone she proceeded to take him to task. "Another man would consider himself happy to have such a wife," she said. "Such a quiet, honest woman! And such a housewife! Why, look at the way she keeps everything--like a fiddle. It is simply a treat to come into your house. I do declare you sin!"

"What do I do to her?" he protested morosely, cursing the intruder in his heart.

"Who says you do? Mercy and peace! Only--you understand--how shall I say it?--she is only a young woman; _vell_, so she imagines that you do not _care_ for her as much as you used to. Come, Mr. Podkovnik, you know you are a sensible man! I have always thought you one--you may ask my husband. Really you ought to be ashamed of yourself. A prohibition upon me if I could ever have believed it of you. Do you think a stylish girl would make you a better wife? If you do, you are grievously mistaken. What are they good for, the hussies? To darken the life of a husband? That, I admit, they are really great hands at. They only know how to squander his money for a new hat or rag every Monday and Thursday, and to tramp around with other men, fie upon the abominations! May no good Jew know them!"

Her innuendo struck Mrs. Kavarsky as extremely ingenious, and, egged on by the dogged silence of her auditor, she ventured a step further.

"Do you mean to tell me," she went on, emphasizing each word, and shaking her whole body with melodramatic defiance, "that you would be better off with a _dantzin'-school_ girl?"

"_A danshin'-shchool_ girl?" Jake repeated, turning ashen pale, and fixing his inquisitress with a distant gaze. "Who says I care for a danshin'-shchool girl?" he bellowed, as he let down the boy and started to his feet red as a c.o.c.ks...o...b.. "It was she who told you that, was it?"

Joey had tripped up to the lounge where he now stood watching his father with a stare in which there was more curiosity than fright.

The little woman lowered her crest. "Not at all! G.o.d be with you!" she said quickly, in a tone of abject cowardice, and involuntarily shrinking before the ferocious att.i.tude of Jake's strapping figure.

"Who? What? When? I did not mean anything at all, _sure_. Gitl _never_ said a word to me. A prohibition if she did. Come, Mr. Podkovnik, why should you get _ektzited_?" she pursued, beginning to recover her presence of mind. "By-the-bye--I came near forgetting--how about the boarder you promised to get me; do you remember, Mr. Podkovnik?"

"Talk away a toothache for your grandma, not for me. Who told her about _danshin'_ girls?" he thundered again, re-enforcing the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n with an English oath, and bringing down a violent fist on the table as he did so.

At this Gitl's sobs made themselves heard from the bedroom. They lashed Jake into a still greater fury.