Bread Givers

I have a compliment for you. Mrs. Stein says that Rosy is a changed girl since she had been in your class.”

I was so tired, I saw nothing, heard nothing, and yet what was left of me was waiting for the worst to happen—condemned to lose my job—my life—condemned by him.

And in about an hour I had selected a sunny, airy room, the kind of a room I had always wanted.

No pictures on the wall. Nothing but a clean, airy emptiness. But when I thought of the crowded dirt from where I came, this simplicity was rich and fragrant with unutterable beauty.

Those two experiences made me clear to myself. Knowledge was what I wanted more than anything else in the world. I had made my choice. And now I had to pay the price. So this is what it cost, daring to follow the urge in me. No father. No lover. No family. No friend. I must go on and on. And I must go on—alone.

I no longer saw my father before me, but a tyrant from the Old World where only men were people. To him I was nothing but his last unmarried daughter to be bought and sold. Even in my revolt I could not keep back a smile.

“It’s no use talking to you. I see

“It’s because I’m young that my minutes are like diamonds to me. I have so much to learn before I can enter college. But won’t you be proud of me when I work myself up for a school teacher, in America?”

“I’d be happier to see you get married. What’s a school teacher? Old maids—all of them. It’s good enough for Goyim, but not for you.”

I didn’t give you consumption. I didn’t send you to work at the age of six like some poor fathers do. You didn’t start work till you were over ten. Now, when I begin to have a little use from you, you want to run away and live for yourself?”

“I’ve got to live my own life. It’s enough that Mother and the others lived for you.”

“Chzufeh! You brazen one! The crime of crimes against God—daring y

More and more I began to see that Father, in his innocent craziness to hold up the Light of the Law to his children, was as a tyrant more terrible than the Tsar from Russia. As he drove away Bessie’s man, so he drove away Mashah’s lover. And each time he killed the heart from one of his children, he grew louder with his preaching on us all.

What will you have by living with you father? All your life you’ll have to give away your wages, and he’ll suck out from you your last drop of blood like a leech