BECAUSE COHEN COULD NEITHER READ NOR WRITE

Isaac Cohen came from Russia ten years ago. He left there his wife and two children and came here, where he had a rich uncle who was in the real estate business.

His uncle took him to his home, had him rest up, bought him a new suit of clothes and began to Americanize the nephew by telling him that he would have to make a living.

"Did you believe, uncle, that I have come here to watch my beard grow? I, who have a wife and children to support," Cohen answered.

The answer pleased his uncle very much, because he knew how easily some forget their duties when at a distance.

"Isaac, I shall try my best to get you something. Let's call in your aunt and ask her advice."

Aunt Sarah came into the room, and folding her bejewelled hands, she began to think.

"The best would be, my husband, if your nephew would tell us at what he would like to work," she finally said.

"Well, Isaac, what do you say?"

Isaac Cohen's face lit up. He had his dreams, like all mortals. His greatest desire was to be a beadle in a synagogue.

"Nothing easier," the uncle explained. "In the synagogue of our own congregation such a position is now vacant."

And the uncle phoned up to the President of the congregation, who was delighted to immediately receive the applicant at his home.

Was Isaac Cohen happy? Was there ever a happier man than he was as he walked with his uncle from Second Avenue to Rivington Street?

During the whole voyage he had dreamed of getting a position as a beadle—and now, suddenly, it was being realized. The silken blouses he saw spread out between bunches of radishes and beets on the pushcarts of Orchard Street were now almost within his grasp. He would buy one for his wife with the first money he earned. On another pushcart were toys, leftovers, seconds from last Christmas. He would buy a horse for his little son. All those luxurious things he saw in the windows of the stores were to be for him also. And a three-room flat, with water from faucets, a dumb-waiter, and other new world wonders.

A beadle! Was there ever a higher position in life?

"Isaac," his uncle suddenly cut in on his dreams, "if Mr. Rosen, the President, asks you how much you want, you should answer that you will be satisfied with the same amount as the former beadle received." And before Cohen had time to say a word the uncle continued—"and here we are—second floor front. Let's hope for the best."

"Amen," said Cohen.

Mr. Rosen, the President of the Odessa Synagogue, was a very fine old gentleman. He had come to New York twenty years before Cohen, and prospered in the insurance business. He was a member of at least twenty societies. Half of his income was paid in dues to the organizations to which he belonged. Half of the Jewish population were his "brothers." Of course they were all insured through him.

Brother Rosen received Cohen very nicely, and Isaac Cohen made a very good impression on him.

"A nephew of yours is certainly a very desirable asset to our community, I am sure, brother Cohen. The position of beadle in our synagogue is a very honorable one."

The President then turned his attention to the applicant who was nonplussed by the riches of the house. Velvet on every chair. Big brass chandeliers and a world of photographs depicting the host in all his glory as President of twenty lodges. Rosen watched the effect on the newcomer, then he spoke.

"You could enter upon your duties even to-day. I am sure you know all about them. The beadle about to leave us will instruct you and show you all the details of the work. He is a very good man, old Reb Baruch, Mr. Cohen, only we always had trouble with him on account of his handwriting. You know he has to enter in the book names and dates of births, marriages and deaths. Well, nobody can read his handwriting, not even himself; and on account of this we had a lot of trouble."

Isaac Cohen paled. He almost fainted there.

"What is the trouble?" the two men asked.

"I can't—write—never learned—to write," Isaac stammered.

And so the dream of being the beadle of the Odessa Synagogue or any other synagogue was shattered.

On returning to his uncle's home he was given a lecture by his aunt. He had to make a living. The long and short of it was that they gave him a twenty-dollar bill and told him to go and shift for himself.

A week later Isaac Cohen was peddling matches, garters and suspenders on Hester Street. A month later he was the owner of a pushcart on which he sold stockings, combs and toothbrushes. At night he learned knee-pants making. A year later he had a little shop and two machines were working for him.

His family was brought over here, and the wife helped what she could in the shop, living in the rear of the store. It was not as easy as it sounds when read, but two years later ten machines were grinding out knickerbockers in Isaac Cohen's factory. Ten years after his arrival in New York the firm of Cohen & Co. was known as the biggest of its kind. Two factories in Brownsville, one in New York, four hundred machines in all and twenty travelling salesmen selling his wares.

But he had never forgiven his uncle and aunt for having so abruptly turned him out of their house, for not having helped him realize his dream over here, and assisted him until he learned how to write.

One day old Mr. Rosen suddenly remembered to ask Brother Cohen about the nephew.

"Why, Mr. Rosen, don't you know? He is the firm Isaac Cohen & Co."

"He, the same fellow?" Rosen asked astounded.

Cohen did not care to say much about him, and old Rosen understood something was wrong between the two.

Early next morning Mr. Rosen went to see Isaac Cohen at his office. The rich manufacturer recognized him immediately. Before long he agreed to take a policy of $25,000 from Mr. Rosen's insurance company. But when the old man gave him the application to sign Isaac Cohen said:

"What is that?"

"An application, Mr. Cohen—just write down your name—you know—here at the bottom——"

"But, Mr. Rosen, if I had ever learned to write I would be a beadle in a synagogue to-day."