A CYCLE OF MANHATTAN

I

The Rosenheimers arrived in New York on a day in April. New York, flushed with the first touch of Spring, moved on inscrutably, almost suavely unawares. It was the greatest thing that had ever happened to the Rosenheimers, and even in the light of the profound experiences that were to follow it kept its vast grandeur and separateness, its mysterious and benumbing superiority. Viewed later, in half-tearful retrospect, it took on the character of something unearthly, unmatchable and never quite clear—a violent gallimaufry of strange tongues, humiliating questionings, freezing uncertainties, sudden and paralyzing activities.

The Rosenheimers came by way of the Atlantic Ocean, and if anything remained unclouded in their minds it was a sense of that dour and implacable highway’s unfriendliness. They thought of it ever after as an intolerable motion, a penetrating and suffocating smell. They saw it through drenched skylights—now and then as a glimpse of blinding blue on brisk, heaving mornings. They remembered the harsh, unintelligible exactions of officials in curious little blue coats. They dreamed for years of endless nights in damp, smothering bunks. They carried off the taste of strange foods, barbarously served. The Rosenheimers came in the steerage.

There were, at that time, seven of them, if you count Mrs. Feinberg. As Mrs. Feinberg had, for a period of eight years—the age of the oldest Rosenheimer child—been called nothing but Grandma by the family and occasionally Grandma Rosenheimer by outsiders, she was practically a Rosenheimer, too. Grandma was Mrs. Rosenheimer’s mother, a decent, simple, round-shouldered “sheiteled,” little old woman, to whom life was a ceaseless washing of dishes, making of beds, caring for children and cooking of meals. She ruled them all, unknowing.

The head of the house of Rosenheimer was, fittingly, named Abraham. This had abbreviated itself, even in Lithuania, to a more intimate Abe. Abe Rosenheimer was thirty-three, sallow, thin-cheeked and bearded, with a slightly aquiline nose. He was already growing bald. He was not tall and he stooped. He was a clothing cutter by trade. Since his marriage, nine years before, he had been saving to bring his family over. Only the rapid increase of its numbers had prevented him coming sooner.

Abraham Rosenheimer was rather a silent man and he looked stern. Although he recognized his inferiority in a superior world, he was not without his ambitions. These looked toward a comfortable home, his own chair with a lamp by it, no scrimping about meat at meals and a little money put by. He had heard stories about fortunes that could be made in America and in his youth they had stirred him. Now he was not much swayed by them. He was fond of his family and he wanted them “well taken care of,” but in the world that he knew the rich and the poor were separated by an unscalable barrier. Unless incited temporarily to revolution by fiery acquaintances he was content to hope for a simple living, work not too hard or too long, a little leisure, tranquillity.

He had a comfortable faith which included the belief that, if a man does his best, he’ll usually be able to make a living for his family. “Health is the big thing,” he would say, and “The Lord will provide.” Outside of his prayer-book, he did little reading. It never occurred to him that he might be interested in the outside world. He knew of the existence of none of the arts. His home and his work were all he had ever thought about.

Mrs. Rosenheimer, whose first name was Minnie, was thirty-one. She was a younger and prettier reproduction of her mother, plump and placid, with a mouth inclined to petulancy.

There were four Rosenheimer children. Yetta was eight, Isaac six, Carrie three and little Emanuel had just had his first birthday. Yetta and Carrie were called by their own first names, but Isaac, in America, almost immediately gave way to Ike and little Emanuel became Mannie. They were much alike, dark-haired, dark-eyed, restless, shy, wondering.

The Rosenheimers had several acquaintances in New York, people from the little village near Grodno who had preceded them to America. Most of these now lived in the Ghetto that was arising on the East Side of New York, and Rosenheimer had thought that his family would go there, too, so as to be near familiar faces. He had written several months before, to one Abramson, a sort of a distant cousin, who had been in America for twelve years. As Abramson had promised to meet them, he decided to rely on Abramson’s judgment in finding a home in the city.

Abramson was at Ellis Island and greeted the family with vehement embraces. He seemed amazingly well-dressed and at home. He wore a large watchchain and no less than four rings. He introduced his wife, whom he had married since coming to America, though she, too, had come from the old country. She wore silk and carried a parasol.

“I’ve got a house all picked out for you,” he explained in familiar Yiddish. “It isn’t in the Ghetto, where some of our friends live, but it’s cheap, with lots of comforts and near where you can get work, too.”

Any house would have suited the Rosenheimers. They were pitifully anxious to get settled, to rid themselves of the foundationless feeling which had taken possession of them. With eager docility, Yetta carrying Mannie and each of the others carrying a portion of the bundles of wearing apparel and feather comforts which formed their luggage, they followed Abramson to a surface car and to their new home. In their foreign clothes and with their bundles they felt almost as uncomfortable as they had been on shipboard.

The Rosenheimers’ new home was in MacDougal Street. They looked with awe on the exterior and pronounced it wonderful. Such a fine building! Of red brick it was! There were three stories. The first story was a stable, the big door open. Little Isaac had to be pulled past the restless horses in front of it. The whole family stood for a moment, drinking in the wonders, then followed Abramson up the stairs. On the second floor several families lived in what the Rosenheimers thought was palatial grandeur. Even their own home was elegant. It consisted of two rooms—the third floor front. They could hardly be convinced that they were to have all that space. There was a stove in the second room and gas fixtures in both of them—and there was a bathroom, with running water, in the general hall! The Rosenheimers didn’t see that the paper was falling from the walls and that, where it had been gone for some years, the plaster was falling, too. Nor that the floor was roughly uneven.

“Won’t it be too expensive?” asked Rosenheimer. Abramson chuckled. Though he himself was but a trimmer by trade, he was pleased with the rôle of fairy godfather. He liked twirling wonders in the faces of these simple folk. In comparison, he felt himself quite a success, a cosmopolite. Just about Rosenheimer’s age, he had small deposits in two savings banks, a three-room apartment, a wife and two American sons, Sam and Morrie. Both were in public school, and both could speak “good English.” He patted Rosenheimer on the back jovially.

“You don’t need to worry,” he said. “A good cutter here in New York don’t have to worry. Even a ‘greenhorn’ makes a living. There’s half a dozen places you can choose from. I’ll tell you about it, and where to go, to-morrow. Now, we’ll go over to my house and have something to eat. Then you’ll see how you’ll be living in a few years. You can borrow some things from us until you get your own. My wife will be glad to go with Mrs. Rosenheimer and show her where to buy.”

The Rosenheimers gave signs of satisfaction as they dropped their bundles and sat down on the empty boxes that stood around, or on the floor. This was something like it! Here they had a fine home in a big brick house, a sure chance of Rosenheimer getting a good job, friends to tell them about things—they had already found their place in New York! Grandma, trembling with excitement, took Mannie in her arms and held him up dramatically.

“See, Mannie, see Mannischen—this is fine—this is the way to live!”

II

Things turned out even more miraculously than the Rosenheimers had dared to hope. After only three days Rosenheimer found a job as a pants cutter at the fabulous wages he had heard of. He could not only pay the high rent, twelve dollars a month, he would also have enough left over for food and clothes, and to furnish the home, if they were careful. Maybe, after the house was in order, there would even be a little to put by. Of course it was no use being too happy about it, he told Mrs. Rosenheimer.

“It looks fine now, but you know you can’t always tell. It takes a whole lot to feed a big family.”

Although secretly delighted, he was solemn and rather silent over his good fortune. Abraham Rosenheimer was a cautious man.

Mrs. Abramson initiated Grandma and Mrs. Rosenheimer into New York buying. It was fascinating, even more so than buying had been at home. There were neighbourhood shops where Yiddish was spoken, and already the family was beginning to learn a little English. Mrs. Rosenheimer listened closely to what people said and the children picked up words, playing in the street.

The next weeks were orgies of buying. Not that much was bought, for there wasn’t much money and it had to be spent very carefully, but each article meant exploring, looking and haggling. Grandma took the lead in buying—didn’t Grandma always do such things? Grandma was only fifty-seven and spry for her age. Didn’t she take care of the children and do more than her share of the housework?

Grandma was supremely happy. She liked to buy and she felt that merchants couldn’t fool her, even in this strange country. A table was the first thing she purchased. It was almost new and quite large. It was pine and bare of finish, but after Grandma had scrubbed it and scoured it it looked clean and wholesome. It was quite a nice table and only wobbled a little when you leaned on it heavily, for the legs weren’t quite even. One was a little loose and Grandma didn’t seem able to fasten it. Assisted by Mrs. Rosenheimer and Yetta, she scrubbed the whole flat, so that it equalled the new table in immaculateness. There were families who liked dirt—Grandma had seen them, even in America—but she was glad she didn’t belong to one of them.

Then came chairs, each one picked out with infinite care and much sibilant whispering between Grandma, Mrs. Rosenheimer and Mrs. Abramson. There was a rocker, slat-backed, from which most of the slats were missing, though it still rocked “as good as new.” The next chair was leather-covered, though the leather was cut through in places, allowing the horse-hair stuffing to protrude. But, as Mrs. Abramson pointed out, this was an advantage, it showed that the filling wasn’t an inferior cotton. There were two straight chairs, one with a leatherette seat, nailed on with bright-coloured nails, the other with a wicker seat, quite neatly mended. There was a cot for Grandma and a bed for Mr. and Mrs. Rosenheimer and Emanuel. The other children were well and strong and could sleep on the floor, of course. Hadn’t they brought fine soft feathers with them?

All of the furniture was second- or third-hand and the previous owners had not treated it with much care. So Grandma got some boxes to help out, and she and the Rosenheimers worked over them, pulling and driving nails. Finally they had a cupboard which held all of the new dishes—almost new, if you don’t mind a few hardly noticeable nicked edges—and decorated with fine pink roses. Some of the boxes were still used as chairs, “to help out.” One fine, high one did very nicely as an extra table, with a grand piece of brand-new oilcloth, in a marbled pattern, tacked over it. They had a home now.

Grandma and Mrs. Rosenheimer marketed every day at the stores and markets in the neighbourhood. Rosenheimer sometimes complained that they used too much money, but then, he “liked to eat well.” The little Rosenheimers grew round and merry.

Grandma and Mr. and Mrs. Rosenheimer, looking at the children and at their two big rooms—all their own and so nicely furnished—could hardly imagine anything finer. Grandma and Rosenheimer were absolutely at peace. But Mrs. Rosenheimer knew that, with more money, there were a lot of things you could buy. She had walked through Washington Square and up Fifth Avenue. She had seen people in fine clothes, people of her own race, too. She didn’t have much, after all. Still, most of the time she was content.

Gradually, too, Rosenheimer saw shadows of wealth. He heard rumours of how fortunes were made overnight—his boss now, a few years before, had been a poor boy.... Nevertheless, smoking his cigarettes and reading his Yiddish paper after his evening meal, or talking with Abramson or one of the men he had met, he was well satisfied with New York as he had found it.

III

As the months passed, the Rosenheimers drank in, unbelievably fast, the details of the city. Already the children were beginning to speak English, not just odd words, here and there, but whole sentences. Already, too, they were beginning to be ashamed of being “greenhorns” and were planning the time when they could say they had been over for years or had been born here. Little Mannie was beginning to talk and every one said he spoke English without an accent.

Yetta and Ike started to school. Each day they brought home some startling bit of information that the family received and assimilated without an eye-wink. Although most of the men at the shop spoke Yiddish, Rosenheimer was learning English, too. He even spoke, vaguely, about learning to read it and write it, and he began to look over English papers, now and then, interestedly. Mrs. Rosenheimer also showed faint literary leanings and sometimes asked questions about things.

Ike was always eager to tell everything he had learned. In a sharp little voice he would instruct, didactically, any one within hearing distance. He rather annoyed Rosenheimer, who was not blinded by the virtues of his eldest son. But he was Mrs. Rosenheimer’s favourite. She would sit, hands folded across her ample lap, smiling proudly as he unrolled his fathomless knowledge.

“Listen at that boy! Ain’t he wonderful, the way he knows so much?” she would exclaim.

Yetta’s learning took the form, principally, of wanting things. Each day, it seemed, she could find out something else she didn’t have, that belonged to all American children. And, no matter how penniless Rosenheimer had just declared himself to be, unsmilingly and a bit shamefacedly, he would draw pennies out of the depths of the pocket of his shiny trousers.

Only Grandma showed no desire to learn the ways of the new country. She didn’t mind picking up a little English, of course, though she’d got along very nicely all of her life without it. Still, in a new country, it didn’t hurt to know something about the language. But as for reading—well, Yiddish was good enough for her, though she didn’t mind admitting she didn’t read Yiddish easily. Grandma had little use for the printed word.

Each week the Rosenheimers’ clothes changed nearer to the prevailing styles of MacDougal Street. Only a few weeks after they arrived Mrs. Rosenheimer, overcome by her new surroundings, bought, daringly, a lace sailor collar, which she fastened around the neck of her old-world costume. As the months passed, even this failed to satisfy. The dress itself finally disappeared, reappearing as a school frock for Yetta, and Mrs. Rosenheimer wore a modest creation of red plaid worsted which Grandma and she had made, huge sleeves, bell skirt and all, after one they had seen in Washington Square on a “society lady.”

Just a year after they arrived in America, Mrs. Rosenheimer discarded her sheitel. She even tried to persuade Grandma to leave hers off, but Grandma demurred. There were things you couldn’t do decently, even in a new country. Mrs. Rosenheimer made the innovation in a spirit of fear, but when no doom overtook her and she found in a few weeks how “stylish” she looked, she never regretted the change. She was wearing curled bangs, good as the next one, before long.

Little Ike had a new suit, bought ready-made, his first bought suit, not long afterwards. The trousers were a bit too long, but surely that was an advantage, for he was growing fast, going on eight. They couldn’t call him a “greenhorn” now. He came home, too, with reports of how smart his teacher said he was and of the older boys, unbelievers, whom he had “got ahead of” in school. His shrill voice would grow louder and higher as he would explain to the admiring Mrs. Rosenheimer and Grandma what a fine lad he was getting to be.

Other signs of change now appeared. Scarcely a year had gone by before lace curtains appeared at the two front windows. They were of different patterns, but what of that? They had been cheaper that way, as “samples.” By tautly drawn strings, white and stiff they hung, adding a touch of elegance to the abode. Only three months later a couch was added, the former grandeur of its tufted surface not at all dimmed by a few years of wear. Yetta and Carrie slept on it, luxuriously, one at each end. It was a long couch and they were so little.

Then a cupboard for dishes appeared. Grandma bought it from a family that was “selling out.” It had glass doors. At least there had been glass doors. One was broken now, but who noticed that? In the corner of the front room, opposite the couch, it looked very “stylish.” And not long afterward there was a carpet in the front room, three strips of it, with a red and green pattern. Then, indeed, the Rosenheimers felt that they could, very proudly, “be at home to their friends.” They had company, now, families of old friends and new, from the Ghetto and from their own neighbourhood. And they visited, en masse, in return.

There wasn’t much money, of course. Rosenheimer was getting good wages, but children eat a lot and beg for pennies between meals. And shoes! But like many men of his race and disposition, Rosenheimer never contributed quite all of his funds to his household. Nor did he take his women into his confidence. He felt that they could not counsel him wisely, which was probably right, for neither Grandma nor Mrs. Rosenheimer was interested in anything outside of their home and their friends. Besides this, he had a natural secrecy, a dislike of talking things over with his family. So, each week, he made an infinitesimal addition to the savings account he had started. He even considered various investments—he knew of men who were buying the tenements in which they lived on wages no bigger than his, living in the basement and taking care of the house outside of working hours. But he felt that he was still too much the “greenhorn” for such enterprises, so he kept on with his small and secret savings.

IV

In 1897 another member was added to the family. This meant a big expense, a midwife and later a doctor, but Rosenheimer had had a raise by this time—he was, in fact, now a foreman—so the expense was met without difficulty. There was real joy at the arrival of this baby—more than at the coming of any of the previous children. For this was an American baby, and seemed, in some way, to make the whole family more American. The baby was a girl and even the sex seemed satisfactory, though, of course, at every previous addition the Rosenheimers had hoped for a boy.

There was a great discussion, then, about names. Before this, a baby had always been named after some dead ancestor or relative without much ado. It was best to name a child after a relative, but, according to custom, if the name didn’t quite suit, you took the initial instead. By some process of reasoning, this was supposed to be naming the child “after” the honoured relative. Now the Rosenheimers wanted something grandly American for the new baby. Grandma wanted Dora, after her mother. But Dora didn’t sound American enough. Ike suggested Della, but that didn’t suit, either. Finally Yetta brought home Dorothy. It was a very stylish name, it seemed, and was finally accepted.

Little Emanuel, aged four, was told that “his nose was out of joint.” He cried and felt of it. It seemed quite straight to him. It was. He was a handsome little fellow, and, when Mrs. Rosenheimer took him out with her, folks would stop and ask about him. She was glad when she could answer them in English. And as for Mannie—at four he talked as if no other country than America had ever existed.

Very gradually, Mrs. Rosenheimer grew tired of MacDougal Street. She tried to introduce this dissatisfaction into the rest of the family. Grandma was very happy here. With little shrugs and gestures she decried any further change. Weren’t they all getting along finely? Wasn’t Rosenheimer near his work? Weren’t the children fat and healthy? What could they have better than this—two rooms, running water, gas and everything? Didn’t they know people all around them? Rosenheimer was indifferent. Some of his friends, including the Abramsons, had already moved “farther out.” Still, he didn’t see the use of spending so much money; they were all right where they were. Times were hard; you couldn’t tell what might happen. Still, if Minnie had her heart set on it— The children were ready for any change.

Mrs. Rosenheimer, revolving the matter endlessly in her mind, found many reasons for moving. All of her friends, it seemed, had fled from the noise and dirt of MacDougal Street. On first coming to New York she had been disappointed at not living in the Ghetto over on the East side. Now, when she visited there, she wondered how she had ever liked it. When she moved she wanted something really fine—and where her friends were, too. She had a good many friends outside of the Ghetto now. On arriving in America she hadn’t known MacDougal Street was dirty. She knew it now. And the little Italian children in the neighbourhood—oh, they were all right, of course, but—not just whom you’d want your children to play with, exactly. Why, every day Ike would come home with terrible things they had said to him. And their home, which had looked so grand, was old and ugly, too, when compared with those of other people. Of course Grandma liked it, but, after all, Grandma was old-fashioned. Mrs. Rosenheimer discovered, almost in one breath, that her mother belonged to a passing generation, and didn’t keep up with the times—that she, herself, really had charge of the household.

Out in East Seventy-seventh Street there were some tenements, not at all like those of MacDougal Street nor the Ghetto, but brand-new, just the same as rich people had. Each flat had a regular kitchen with a sink and running water and a fine new gas stove. The front room had a mirror in it that belonged to the house—and—unbelievably but actually true—there was a bathroom for each family. It had a tub in it, painted white, and a washstand—both with running water—and already there was oilcloth, in blue and white, on the bathroom floor. The outer halls had gas in them that burned all night—some sort of a law. Those tenements were elegant—that was the way to live.

Rosenheimer got another raise. There was some sort of an organization of cutters, a threatened strike, and then sudden success. Mrs. Rosenheimer never understood much about it but it meant more money. Now Rosenheimer had no legitimate reason for keeping his family in MacDougal Street.

So he and Mrs. Rosenheimer and Grandma went out to the new tenements and looked around. Mrs. Rosenheimer acted as spokesman, talking with the woman at the renting office, asking questions, pointing things out. At the end of the afternoon Rosenheimer rented one of the four-room flats in a new tenement building.

On the way home, Mrs. Rosenheimer leaned close to her husband:

“Ain’t it grand, the way we are going to live now?” she asked.

“If we can pay for it.”

“With you doing so well, how you talk!”

“Good enough, but money, these days—”

“Abe, do you want to do something for me?”

“Go on, something more to spend money on.”

“Not a cent, Abe. Only, won’t you—shave your beard? Moving to a new neighbourhood and all. Not for me, but the neighbours should see what an American father the children have got.”

Rosenheimer frowned a bit uneasily. Mrs. Rosenheimer didn’t refer to it again, but three days later he came home strangely thin and white-looking—his beard gone. Only a little moustache, soft and mixed with red, remained.

Before the Rosenheimers moved they sold the worst of their furniture to the very man from whom they bought it, five years before, taking only the big bed, the table and the couch. It was Mrs. Rosenheimer who insisted on this.

“Trash we’ve got, when you compare it to the way others live. We need new things in a fine new flat.”

On the day they were moving, Yetta said something. The family were amazed into silence. Yetta was thirteen now, a tall girl, rather plump, with black hair and flashing eyes.

“When we move, let’s get rid of some of our name,” she said. “I hate it. It’s awfully long—Rosenheimer. Nobody ever says it all, anyhow. Let’s call ourselves Rosenheim.”

“Why, why,” muttered her father, finally, “how you talk! Change my name, as if I was a criminal or something.”

“Aw,” Yetta pouted, she was her father’s favourite and she knew it, “this family of greenhorns make me tired. Rosenheimer—if it was longer you’d like it better. Ike Rosenheimer and Carrie Rosenheimer and Yetta Rosenheimer! It’s awful. Leaving off two letters would only help a little—and that’s too much for you. Since the Abramsons moved they are Abrams, and you know it. And Sam—do you know what? At school they called him MacDougal because he lived here on this street and he liked it better than Sam, so he’s calling himself MacDougal Abrams now. And here, you old-timers—”

“She’s right, Mamma,” said Ike, “our names are awful.”

Mannie didn’t say anything. He sucked a great red lollypop. At six one doesn’t care much about names. Nor did Carrie, who was eight.

There was a letter-box for each family in the entrance hall of the new tenement building and a space for the name of the family just above it. Maybe Rosenheimer had taken the advice of his children. Perhaps he wrote in large letters and couldn’t get all of his name in the space made for it. Anyhow, Rosenheim was announced to the world as the occupant of Flat 52.

V

Flat 52 was quite as handsome as Mrs. Rosenheim had dreamed it would be. There were four rooms in it. In the parlour was the famous built-in mirror, with a ledge below it to hold ornaments. And, before long, ornaments there were, three big vases. They were got with coupons from the coffee and tea store at the corner—it was a lucky thing all the Rosenheims liked coffee. There was the couch, too, but best of all was the new table. It was brand-new—no one else had ever used it before. Mrs. Rosenheim bought it in Avenue A and was paying for it weekly out of the household allowance. It was red and shiny and round and each little Rosenheim was warned not to press sticky fingers on it, though it was always full of finger marks.

On the table was a mat of blue plush and on the plush mat was—yes—a book—“Wonders of Natural History.” It had been Yetta’s birthday present from her father and was quite handsome enough, coloured pictures, red binding and all, to grace even this gem of a table. There was a new rug in this room, too, though it was new only to the Rosenheims. There were roses woven right into it and Grandma thought it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. She liked to sit and look at it as she rocked.

Yetta, Carrie and Grandma slept in the front room—just the three of them alone in the biggest room. There was a cot, covered with a Turkish spread, for the girls and Grandma slept on the couch—no sleeping on the floor any more for this family. So wonderful was the new home that there was a bedroom devoted exclusively to the rites of sleeping. Mr. and Mrs. Rosenheim and Dorothy occupied it. The third room was the dining-room, where Ike and Mannie slept all alone on a cot and weren’t afraid. No one slept in the kitchen or bathroom at all. In the dining-room there was a whole “set” of furniture, bought from the family that was moving out, a square table and six chairs. It was lucky Mannie and Dorothy were so little they could sit on others’ laps.

The dining-room with its fine “set,” brought the habit of regular meals with it. In MacDougal Street there was a supper-time, of course, but the children weren’t always there and the other meals had been rather haphazard, half of the family standing up, likely as not. Now there was a regular breakfast in the morning, every one sitting down, and early enough for Rosenheim to get to work on time and Yetta and Ike and Carrie to get to school. Lunch was still informal, eaten standing around the kitchen. Supper was a grand meal, every one sitting down at the same time, the table all set with tablecloth and dishes, as if it were a party.

It was easy to settle down into the pleasant rhythm of East Seventy-seventh Street. There were big new tenements on each side of the street and before long each member of the family made lots of friends.

Rosenheim didn’t have as many friends as the others. He didn’t care for them. His hours were long and he was getting into the habit of working, sometimes, at night. It takes a lot of money to pay rent—six dollars every week—and buy clothes and food for a family and save a little, too. Rosenheim didn’t complain unless his usual solemn face and prediction of hard times can be called complaining. It never occurred to him that he had anything to complain about. Didn’t he have a fine home and a lot to eat, a home grander than he ought to spend the money for, even? When he wasn’t busy, he and Abrams and a friend of theirs, sometimes a man named Moses, would play cards long hours at a time, talking in loud, seemingly angry voices and smoking long cigarettes. Or, with coat, collar and shoes off, as he always sat in the house, he would read the paper—he could read English quite easily, but he preferred Yiddish. He didn’t talk much and the children were taught “not to worry Papa,” when he was at home.

Grandma grew to like the new home in time, though it never seemed quite as pleasant as that in MacDougal Street. She did all of the cooking, of course, and could order the children around as much as she wanted to, though they were good children as a rule, when you let them see who was boss. She would exclaim with clasped hands over the grandeur of things and beg her God that the people from her home-town might see “how we live like this.” She was always busy. She never learned to speak English well, and though at sixty-two she could drive a bargain as good as ever, she didn’t feel quite comfortable in the near-by shops as she had in MacDougal Street. Gradually her daughter took over the marketing from her.

The spirit of change had reached Mrs. Rosenheim and she did what she could to grasp it. She tried again to persuade Grandma to take off her sheitel.

“See, Grandma, these other people. Ain’t you as good as them? It ain’t nothing to be ashamed of, a sheitel, but here in America we do what others do.”

But Grandma kept her sheitel. She couldn’t yield everything to the customs of the unbelievers. She even muttered things about “forgetting your own people.”

Mrs. Rosenheim tried to acquire “elegant English.” She was very proud of her children because their language was unsullied by accent. But perhaps because she never liked to read and it never occurred to her that she might study, or because her tongue had lost its flexibility, she was never able to conceal her foreignness. She was becoming a little self-satisfied, too, a bit complacent with her own ways, and this may have hindered her progress. The new language issued forth in a strange, twisted form, the “w’s” and “v’s” transposed, the intonations of the Yiddish always noticeable. She managed to make nearly all of the ordinary grammatical errors of the native and a few pet ones of her own. Her sentences were full of inversions. Her voice, never very low, became louder and louder and the singing intonations more marked as she grew excited. Rosenheim spoke with an accent, too, which he always retained, but his voice was quite low and he soon overcame this strange sing-song of his native tongue. Then, too, Rosenheim never talked very much.

Mrs. Rosenheim bloomed in East Seventy-seventh Street. Her mother did the cooking and Yetta helped with the housework. Even then, with so many children in the house, there was enough to do, but she spent much time in visiting her neighbours, gossiping about her children, the prices of food, other neighbours. Although her family came first, she began to pay more attention to herself, buying clothes that were not absolutely necessary, cheap things that looked fine to her. She became ambitious, too. She found that there was another life not bounded by the tenements and that “other people,” the rich part of the world, were not much different outside of their possession of money. Her humility was wearing away. “We’re as good as anybody” came to her mind, and was beginning to fertilize. She didn’t want to associate with any one outside of her own group, but she liked to feel that others were not superior. The children, continuing their acquisitiveness, encouraged their mother.

Yetta had her fourteenth birthday soon after the family moved to East Seventy-seventh Street. She began to mature rather rapidly, arranging her hair in an exaggerated following of the fashion and even purchased and wore a pair of corsets. She had a high colour and her flashing eyes made her quite attractive. Her mouth was rather wide. Yetta did not speak with a foreign accent, but her voice was a trifle hoarse and was not well modulated. She had a lot to say about nearly everything and delighted in saying it. The niceties of conversation had not been introduced into the Rosenheim family life and most of the things Yetta thought of occurred when some one else was talking. Her favourite method of attracting attention was to interrupt or talk down, in a louder voice, any one who had the floor. Ike had this pleasant little habit, too, so between them conversation rose in roaring waves of sound.

Yetta felt that many things about her could be improved. She began to criticize things at home—her clothes; her mother’s language, which was too full of errors, too singing to suit her daughter; the actions of the younger children. She never liked to read, but she “loved a good time” and was always with a group of girls and boys, laughing and talking.

Ike was much like Yetta, though a bit more serious, more inclined to argument. He could argue over anything even at twelve. He, too, had definite notions about the upbringing of the younger children and the modernity of the household. He didn’t want any one making fun of the family he belonged to. His own name came in for his disapproval about this time.

He had a fight with a boy named Jim and Jim hit him and called him names. But the cruelest part of Jim’s name-calling had been merely to repeat, over and over again, “Ikey Rosenheim, Ikey Rosenheim.” For this cruelty Ike had fought Jim and had emerged not entirely victorious, bringing back a black eye and the memory of the derision in the mouth of the enemy.

“I’m going to change my name,” Ike announced at supper that night. “I don’t care what this family says. You make me sick, naming me Ike. You might have known. This family has terrible names. No wonder people make fun of us. After this I’m—I’m going to be—Harold.”

“Oh, no, not Harold,” Grandma wailed, with uplifted hands.

“No,” Mrs. Rosenheim groaned, “you’ve got to keep the letter, the ‘I.’ You were named after your Papa’s father.”

“There’s a lot of good names beginning with ‘I,’” Yetta encouraged. So, between them, they found Irving, which seemed satisfactory to every one. Little Irving, at school, told his teacher that Ike had been a nickname and that the family wanted him called by his own name, now. Jim, not satisfied with Irving Rosenheim as a reproach, had to find something else to fight about.

Carrie and Mannie and Dorothy were still too little to bother about names. They begged for pennies for lollypops on sticks, candy apples, licorice and other delicacies that the neighbourhood afforded, satisfied to tag after Mrs. Rosenheim as she did the marketing. They were nice children, though of course Dorothy was a little spoiled—the youngest child and always having her own way about everything.

VI

During the next year something came up in a business way that caused Rosenheim and Abrams to hold long consultations during many evenings. They nodded together over bits of paper on which there were many figures. Mrs. Rosenheim felt that they had “something in their heads” they weren’t telling her about, but, being a dutiful wife—and knowing her husband, and how useless it would have been—she didn’t press matters. A few weeks later she found out. E. G. Plotski had died suddenly, leaving no near relatives except a wife. Abrams had heard about the case. Mrs. Plotski couldn’t keep up the business alone. If she couldn’t “sell out,” complete, she was going to give it up and sell the machinery. She had some cousins in a far-Western place called, Abrams believed, Iowa, and was desirous of living with them. If Mrs. Plotski “gave up the business” there was a tremendous loss, it seemed to Abrams and Rosenheim—for Plotski already had operators, customers, “good will.” And with their knowledge of the pants business....

It seemed, indeed, a visitation, as if a whole pants business had descended to them as a direct reward for their long and faithful work. But Mrs. Plotski had friends, not just in a position to buy the business, it seemed, but quite capable of giving advice about selling it. And herein lay the need of much nodding and figuring. Finally it was settled. Abrams and Rosenheim went to their several banks—it’s never safe to put all of your savings in one bank, even if it does look like a fine big one—drew out their saving accounts, for of course they had no checking accounts, and, after the usual legalities had been concluded, were the joint partners of The Acme Pants Company, Men’s and Boys’ Pants.

After they had signed their names, Marcus L. Abrams and Abraham G. Rosenheim, Rosenheim allowed his stern face to relax into a rather sad smile.

“Good, eh, Marcus? Here, I’m only ‘over’ seven years and I’m partner in a business already. Of course, we can expect hard times, but, a business ain’t anything to be ashamed of.”

The family saw Rosenheim’s new signature and liked it. Irving wrote it above the letter-box. The G stood for nothing in particular, but Rosenheim had no middle name and of course he ought to have one. It was indeed American. The neighbourhood did not notice, it was used to changes.

Abrams and Rosenheim worked all day and most of the night. They “went over the books” with great deliberation. They looked into every minute detail of the business, and wrote numerous letters by hand on the old Acme Pants Company letterheads that they found in Plotski’s desk. When this paper was used up they ordered more, retaining the cut of the building at the top but substituting their names for the name of the deceased former owner.

They were very happy over their new business, though you would never have known it by their actions. They always wore long faces.

The factory did well. People liked ready-made pants, it seemed. The two men hurried around seeking new trade, satisfied with as small a profit as possible. They bought job lots of woollens from the factories and did numberless other things to reduce expenses. Rosenheim cut the pants and Abrams was not too proud to do his share of the menial labour. Before another year had passed the whole of the third floor loft belonged to the Acme Pants Company.

Mrs. Rosenheim was proud of her husband. It was mighty fine, these days, to speak of “my husband’s factory” to those women whose more unfortunate spouses were forced to exist on mere wages handed them by their overlords. But even this, in time, stopped satisfying. What good does it do for your husband to own a factory if you still live in a tenement in East Seventy-seventh Street? Mrs. Rosenheim knew that her husband was working hard and was nearly always worried over money matters, bills to meet, wages to be paid. But, as long as he actually was a manufacturer, and owner of a business, a payer of wages, it was unbelievable that they should live in a tenement. Weren’t they as good as anybody? Several months ago the Abrams had moved. Of course, with only two boys the expenses were less, but what of that? And the Moskowskis—now the Mosses—had moved, too. The Rosenheims had been in the tenement three years and now the neighbourhood was filling up with terrible people, straight from the Ghetto—or the old country—and bringing foreign habits with them. It was no place to bring up growing American children.

It was Yetta who precipitated the moving. Although he petted and humoured Dorothy, it was his oldest child who was Rosenheim’s favourite. Now Yetta tried all of her most endearing tricks.

“Papa,” she said, “I’m sixteen. I ought to get out of this neighbourhood. Ask Mamma. I’m almost a young lady. I want good things—a fine man like you with a factory shouldn’t keep his children in the tenements. All of my crowd are gone. I miss them something awful. You don’t want me to go with the—the ‘greenhorns’ who are moving in around here, do you?”

Similar arguments managed to convince Rosenheim. Anyhow, one night he nodded solemnly and consented to move.

“You women will ruin me yet, with all your spending,” he said, but Yetta, tall though she was, jumped on his lap and kissed his thin cheek.

“None of that,” he said, in assumed brusqueness, as he pushed her away. “You make a fool of your old Papa, eh? Well, go along and get your fine flat.”

Mrs. Rosenheim and Yetta, accompanied by Mrs. and Miss Graham, a recent and becoming transformation of their old friends, the Grabinskis, went apartment hunting. They decided on the Bronx, new and good enough for any manufacturer’s family. They had friends there and there were lots of stores. It was a nice neighbourhood, Yetta thought, with lots of young people who wore good clothes. She could have a fine time.

No longer were the Rosenheims satisfied with the first apartment shown them. Yetta and her mother had grown critical. Yetta’s ambitions had limitations, of course. She didn’t aspire to an elevator apartment or anything like that—but she didn’t want a tenement. She wanted a big living-room, for she was approaching the beau age and already was going to the theatre with MacDougal Abrams and Milton Cohn. They visited dozens of apartments, examining the kitchens and halls, exclaiming over the plumbing. Grandma wanted a big kitchen and she ought to have it, as long as she did most of the cooking. And they had been crowded for years—Yetta didn’t want any one sleeping in the front room, nor even in the dining-room. Young girls do get such notions! Mrs. Rosenheim wanted grand decorations in the lower hall.

After much step-climbing they found their apartment. It was on the fourth floor, rear, of a walk-up apartment, but the rent was forty dollars a month and they dared not pay more. Rosenheim looked dour when the news was broken to him, but, with sad headshaking and remarks about business being bad, he said they might take it.

The entrance hall of the apartment-house was of marble. The letter-boxes were of brass and shining. The stairs leading to the apartment were carpeted. The apartment itself had seven rooms. A few years before the Rosenheims wouldn’t have believed an apartment could be so large. Now they all accepted it rather indifferently. Wasn’t Rosenheim a factory owner? Didn’t some of their friends live just as grandly? The woodwork was shining oak. The floors glittered blondly. Mr. and Mrs. Rosenheim had a bedroom all alone, Grandma shared a tiny cubicle with Dorothy. Yetta and Carrie had their room and there was a room for the boys. All the rooms had new beds of white enamelled iron, fantastically twisted and with big brass knobs.

The Rosenheims got rid of most of their old things at a sale before they left East Seventy-seventh Street. Then Mrs. Rosenheim and Yetta bought things suitable for the grandeur of their new home at an instalment house in Sixth Avenue. There was a three-piece parlour set stained to a red imitation of mahogany. The round table had come with them, as had the vases. The dining-room boasted a new “set,” a round table that pulled apart and had four extra leaves and sat on a huge pedestal, and eight chairs—two with arms, making one for each of them. There were brand-new rugs, one for each room, most of them in patterns of birds and beasts and flowers in bright colourings, though the front room displayed a gay and exciting “Oriental pattern.”

One of the startling changes of the new régime was the name above the letter-box. A simple and chaste A. G. Rosen was announced in Irving’s most careful writing. Rosenheim explained that, at the factory, every one called him Rosen for short and it might make it confusing to keep the old name. The family hailed Rosen joyfully. Surely they were real Americans, now.

VII

They were settled only a few months when Yetta begged and got—a piano. Shiningly red, it matched the rest of the living-room furniture. It was an upright, of course, and Yetta draped a pale silk scarf embroidered in gold threads over it, with a vase at either end to hold it in place. Soon she and Carrie were taking lessons from a Mme. Roset of the neighbourhood, making half-hours horrible with scales and five-finger exercises.

There were now other forms of art in the household, too. For his birthday the children gave their father enlargements of the photographs of him and their mother. These were “hand-made crayons” in grey, with touches of colour on lips and cheeks and framed in wide carved oak, trimmed with gold. They were placed side by side above the piano, which stood slightly diagonally in one corner.

The children were growing up. Yetta felt herself quite a young lady and didn’t go to school. There was no use going any more—she wasn’t going to be a teacher, was she? She had a lovely handwriting, with fine loops at the ends of the “y’s” and “g’s.” It seemed a shame to spend her days in school when there were so many things to do outside. No one tried to persuade her to keep on going. Her father was slightly of the opinion that too much learning wasn’t good for a girl anyhow. Men didn’t like “smart” girls and Yetta was growing up. If she had wanted to go to school he might have consented, but she didn’t. She preferred putting on her best clothes, her hat an exaggerated copy of something she had seen in Broadway and had had made after her description at a neighbourhood shop, a cheap fur around her neck, high-heeled shoes. Thus attired, she went walking.

In the morning she had to help a little with the bedmaking, dusting and ironing. But in the afternoons she was free. She’d meet some of “the girls” or “the boys” and drink soda, laughing and giggling over things. She used the latest slang and talked rather loudly. At night there were dances or the crowd would go, in pairs or groups, to the theatre, sitting in the gallery, usually, and laughing heartily over the jokes. They were fondest of vaudeville. Yetta was awfully happy when she had enough spending money and a new dress—a bit more exaggerated in style than any of her friends. She couldn’t imagine anything finer than the new neighbourhood and the new apartment.

Grandma was just a trifle bewildered in the Bronx. She didn’t seem to fit in. The children, growing up, were developing unexpected opinions of their own that didn’t agree with her ideas. They called her old-fashioned and giggled at her advice. There was plenty to do and Grandma liked housework. But sixty-five isn’t young and Grandma had worked hard in her day. Four flights of stairs aren’t easy, either, so Grandma didn’t go out often. Occasionally, she walked around the neighbourhood, not knowing just what to do. Mrs. Rosen did all her own marketing or telephoned for things—there was a telephone in the new apartment. There were a few old friends to go to see, foreign-born women, like herself, and with these she would talk in comfortable Yiddish. But each one lived several blocks away. You didn’t talk to strangers in this neighbourhood, it seemed, and you could go for weeks and not see any one you knew. A funny place, America.

Still, there were pleasant things for Grandma—good food and the fun of preparing it, a comfortable home. Mrs. Rosen didn’t like to work as well as she used to, so finally she hired a woman who came in, one day a week, to do the washing in the morning and the scrubbing of kitchen and bath in the afternoon. Grandma was quite excited over this innovation. For the first time in her life she could fold her gnarled old hands and watch some one do the work for her.

“They should hear about this back home,” she would say. “Abe with a factory and us with seven rooms and a washwoman and all. We’ve got it lucky, ain’t it, Minnie?”

Mrs. Rosen, though annoyed at her mother’s simplicity, agreed. Already Mrs. Rosen was planning bigger things. It didn’t seem at all impossible to her that some day they might even have a regular servant girl.

Mrs. Rosen was well satisfied, generally. Occasionally she, too, regretted some of the pleasant things that Seventy-seventh Street had meant for her. She had liked the friendly chatter of the neighbourhood. Here in the Bronx you had to be “dressed” all the time. In Seventy-seventh Street you could go out in the morning in your housedress, with a basket, and spend a pleasant hour or so bargaining with the shop-keepers and talking with friends, always meeting little groups you knew. On the steps, in the evening you could call back and forth. Money was good; she was glad she had it. A servant girl would be fine; it was a lot of work for her and Grandma, cleaning up after five children. But this neighbourhood was stylish enough. You knew some of your neighbours here, even if they weren’t so friendly. Maybe, after you got better acquainted....

It was nice, having a lot of rooms and new clothes and all that. Mrs. Rosen finally met new acquaintances and liked them. She played cards in the afternoons now and a few months later joined a euchre club which met every Tuesday afternoon at the homes of its members in turn. There were “refreshments” after the game, cold meat and potato salad, usually, and the prizes were hand-painted china and “honiton lace” centrepieces. Mrs. Rosen won quite an assortment as the months passed.

Irving was getting to be a big boy. He looked a little like his father, thin, a trifle sallow, with a slightly aquiline nose—but much handsomer, his mother thought. His eyes were not strong and quite early he had to wear glasses. He adopted nose-glasses and before he quite got used to them he had formed the habit of tilting his head up, to keep them from falling off. He had rather a sharp chin and wore his black hair straight back and sleek.

When the family moved to the Bronx he was fourteen, had on a first pair of long trousers, and was in the first year of the high school. He was quick in his studies and would argue with his teachers about anything under discussion. He still liked long dissertations at home and had about decided to be a lawyer. In the years that followed he read quite a little, not so much for the love of reading—he had little of that—but from a desire “to keep up with things,” so he could discuss and dissect and argue. He liked the theatre as he grew older, but preferred serious dramas.

Carrie was quieter than either Yetta or Irving, but she observed a great deal. She liked to spend money, begging it from her parents. “We’re rich, why can’t I have more things?” she would say, buying unnecessarily expensive ribbons and purses. She liked to correct the family, too, and, when her mother grew vocal and her voice took on the sing-song of her native tongue, Carrie would say, “Don’t talk so loud, Mother. We aren’t deaf, you know,” or “This is America. We try to speak English here.” Mrs. Rosen would check herself rather shamefacedly, instead of “calling the child down,” as she felt she should have done. Carrie liked expensive clothes and she liked putting them on and taking long walks with just one girl friend, talking quietly. She thought Yetta’s crowd awfully loud. Mannie and Dorothy were good-looking little children, still coaxers of pennies and both rather spoiled.

The Acme Pants Company grew, but in spite of its growth none of the family dared suggest any extravagant changes. Rosen spoke too much about hard times for that. And he did worry, too, for with the enlarging of the business came the borrowing of money and notes to meet. He worked at night for weeks at a time and grew thinner. Outside of his usual solemnity he never complained. He enjoyed the business as much for its own sake as for the things he was able to give his family. It was far more interesting and absorbing to him than they were. Even at home his mind was filled with business detail and in the midst of a meal or a friendly discussion his eyes would grow vacant, he would fumble for a pencil and write something down on an envelope. Spare evenings, he played cards with Abrams or Moss or Hammer or fell asleep over his newspaper—an English one, nearly always, now. He still took off his coat in the house and sometimes his collar and tie. It was Carrie who said to him, “Papa, why do you start undressing as soon as you get home?” He always kept on his shoes and sometimes his collar and tie after that.

He never took much part in the family life. Irving bored him. He was not interested in “women’s doings,” and could ignore whole evenings of conversation about people and clothes. His business was the one thing he cared to talk about—his family knew nothing about business. What was there left? None of them knew or cared anything about world affairs. It isn’t likely Rosen would have been interested if they had. So, unconsciously, he drew apart more and more. He paid bills, with a little grumbling. He handed out money when necessary. He greeted all luxuries with something about “hard times.” He accepted all innovations with apparent disregard. He was never cross or disagreeable. Every one was a little quieter when he was at home. Otherwise it was as if he were not there at all.

VIII

A year later, when she was eighteen, Yetta became, suddenly, Yvette. The crowd she was going with thought Yetta an awful name, old-fashioned and foreign. And certainly there was nothing foreign about her. She had seen Yvette in a book—and, with the right initial and all—Yvette Rosen sounded fine. After that she frowned at any one, even old Grandma, if the old name crept in.

The family became more extravagant as the days passed, though not extraordinarily so. But why not? Even Rosen had to admit, grudgingly, that the factory was growing. Little things—Mrs. Rosen had a fine black silk dress, with revers of green satin, lace covered. She bought Grandma a black silk, too, for days when company came in. And Yvette—how that girl did wear out clothes, to parties nearly every night! And Irving wanted “his own money” and was put on an allowance, though he always begged his mother for more before the month was half over. Books cost a lot, it seemed, and you can’t be a tightwad with a bunch of fellows. And Carrie had a notion that the family was very rich—when she got new things she wanted the best. Even Mannie and Dorothy needed new things frequently.

In 1906 Irving was graduated, at 18, from the high school. It was a big event for the family. All of them, even Grandma, who didn’t go out much, attended the graduation exercises. At the hall they chatted about how fine and smart Irving was until Carrie, who could be very petulant at fifteen, “shushed” them all into silence.

On the way home Mrs. Rosen couldn’t help calling her husband’s attention to his family—weren’t they something to be proud of? To think that only a few years before....

It was Irving who first spoke dissatisfaction with the Bronx apartment. Irving was to enter Columbia University in the fall and he wanted to be a little nearer his school.

“You don’t know how it is,” he said, one night at dinner. “Every one laughs at the Bronx. I went to a vaudeville show with Yvette last week, though Heavens knows why she goes to it, and at the mention of the Bronx every one laughed. It isn’t only that. Here we are in a walk-up apartment, when we could have something better. I’m starting—to—to make friends. I’ve got to make a place for myself. I’m eighteen. When we were younger it didn’t make much difference, now we ought to get out of here.”

Carrie agreed with him.

“It certainly is terrible here,” she said. “I don’t like this high school, either. I want to go to a private school. There are several good ones in Harlem and a real fine one on Riverside Drive that I’ve heard about. Irving is right. You’d think we were poor, the way we live here—no servants or anything. When I meet new girls I’m ashamed to bring them home. Ada is going to private school, and Beatrice has moved to Long Island. I don’t know any one around here—but trash and poor people.”

Even Mannie, at thirteen, was tired of the Bronx and Dorothy, at nine, was ready for any change.

The Bronx suited Yvette. She had her crowd here. Still, there was something in what the others were saying. Harlem sounded more stylish certainly. She had friends there, too, and could get acquainted easily enough.

Mrs. Rosen didn’t know. She felt, with Yvette, that things were very nice as they were. The old friendliness of East Seventy-seventh Street would never come back, and she, too, had acquaintances in Harlem. It would cost more to live—but didn’t they have the money? There could be a servant and new furniture—the children had been hard on the things that had been so shining four years ago. After all, they were rich people, and the children had to have advantages.

Gradually Rosen, grumblingly, was won over. Couldn’t he see how terrible it was—all their money, and still living in the Bronx? How could people know he was a success? Their apartment was old-fashioned—that funny tub and only one bathroom for the whole family. And Grandma ought to have a room for herself—with five children there ought to be a servant girl—what was the use of having money if you couldn’t get things with it?

Again there was a series of house-huntings. This time Irving accompanied his mother and Yvette. Irving was very critical. Things others pronounced “grand” he didn’t like at all. At eighteen he considered himself quite a man. As a coming lawyer he felt that his surroundings should reflect his own glory. What did his folks know about things? Didn’t he go to homes they never entered, the Wissels’ and the Durham-Levi’s? Irving wanted a home with style to it. He hadn’t definite ideas about decoration, but it must look fine and big as you came in. He thought they ought to inquire a little about the neighbours—find out if they were just the sort one would want to live near. Their present neighbours certainly were awful.

The new apartment was in West 116th street. The building was large and red, with white stone ornaments. The lower halls were grandly ornamental and a great velvet curtain hung toward the rear. There was an elevator, rather uncertain, with iron grille work in front. That would make it nice for Grandma—she could get out more. The living room had a gas grate and the woodwork was stylishly mission finished.

Followed the usual buying orgy and this, too, Irving consented to attend. The piano came with them, but there was a new parlour set, great heavy pieces of mission, square and dark, with leather cushions. A huge mission davenport was the pièce de résistance. The dining-room had a brand-new “set”—there might be company to dinner—a big table, twelve chairs and a sideboard with a mirrored back. In the bedrooms there were great brass beds, the posts three inches across, and large mahogany dressers with “swell fronts,” curved generously outward.

In the living room, too, there were fine rugs, “real Orientals” this time, about six small ones, oases of red and blue on the light inlaid floor. The family admired the lighting fixtures—a cluster of fourteen lights in the living-room, to which they added a fancy lamp with a shade composed of bits of coloured glass in a floral pattern; in the dining-room a great dome of multi-coloured glass hung directly over the table.

Then Mrs. Rosen hired their first maid, though the family referred to her as “the girl.” Her name was Marie and she didn’t have a very easy life of it. At first Mrs. Rosen and Grandma helped her, but Mrs. Rosen disliked housework increasingly and she didn’t want Grandma to work if she didn’t. Grandma had always done all the cooking, but as “the girl” learned to prepare the dishes liked by the Rosen family she gradually took over the cooking, too. Then, when “the girl” complained about working too hard a woman was hired for two days each week to do the washing and heavy cleaning.

Grandma wasn’t quite as content as she had been, most likely because she wasn’t so busy. Grandma couldn’t read English at all and Yiddish very little, even if the children would have allowed a Yiddish paper in the house, now, which is doubtful. Grandma had never had the reading habit, nor, for that matter, any habits of leisure. She had thought that life meant service and now there was nothing to do. It was harder for her to go out because she walked very slowly. There were fewer places to go, fewer friends, fewer Yiddish shops. People would stare, embarrassingly, at Grandma’s sheitel and Grandma hadn’t learned to speak English very well. Mrs. Rosen spoke with an accent, but that was different; people could hardly understand Grandma.

There was always lots of company in the house and Grandma liked young people, but there was so little to say to them. Unless she knew them awfully well they couldn’t understand her, or Yvette or Irving would frown at her attempts at conversation. Every one smiled at Grandma and shook hands, but that was all—it was more comfortable to stay in her room, usually. There seemed to be fewer old people than there had been. Fewer seemed to live in Harlem, anyhow. In MacDougal Street and even in East 77th Street and the Bronx, Grandma had met old ladies, occasionally, people from her own village, and had had long talks with them, interrupted with nods and shakes of the head and tongue cluckings. Here it was different. She loved her family, of course, but she didn’t seem to fit in. Darning stockings wasn’t enough. Of course, Grandma was glad the family was doing so nicely—a fine big apartment with an elevator and a servant girl—and she had two new bonnets and her old one not nearly worn out yet—where did she go to wear it?—and her own room and everything she wanted. And Irving bringing her home candy she liked and Yvette singing for her—Grandma knew she ought to be awfully happy. Yet there seemed to be something—missing—

Mrs. Rosen grew to like the new apartment, though at first it had overawed her a little. But before long she belonged to two card clubs—she had known members of both of them when she lived in the Bronx. She even tried to persuade Rosen to learn euchre or bridge so that he could join a club that played in the evening. But Rosen didn’t like “ladies’ games.”

There were some things about the new neighbourhood Mrs. Rosen didn’t like at all. The neighbours seemed so cold and distant. As if she wanted to know them! Wasn’t her husband the owner of a factory—with more money than any of them, more than likely? Yet they minced by her, as if they thought so much of themselves. Well, she could put on airs, too!

That winter Mrs. Rosen went to a beauty parlour for the first time. The women of her set were going, it seemed. It made your hair thicker to have it shampooed and waved, especially when it was starting to get grey. Though it did hurt a little, she grew used to manicures, too, after a while. Mrs. Rosen even considered dieting. But, after a few attempts she gave it up. Just the things she shouldn’t eat were the ones she liked best. After all, she was forty-four, though she knew no one would ever guess it, and if at that age you are a little plump who is there to say anything against it? She bought a fur coat that winter, seal, of course, with a great sweep to it and a hat to match, with a curved feather. Now, let one of her neighbours say something! She knew she looked mighty fine—as good as any one in her crowd. Why shouldn’t she? Wasn’t her husband a well-known manufacturer?

Rosen wasn’t quite as busy as he had been, though the Acme Pants Company was getting along splendidly. But with things in good condition there was time to spare. He could have spent more time with his family had he cared to but it seemed tiresome when he did. Irving annoyed him more than ever with his debates and arguments. In the evening he fell asleep over his paper—he didn’t care for other literature except an occasional trade magazine. He still played cards with a few old friends he had made when he first came to America, and who, like himself, had prospered. He kept his coat on in the evenings now, or wore the smoking jacket Carrie had given him. What if their friends came in—he had to look nice for their sakes, didn’t he? There was a little room, off the living room, which the family spoke of as “Papa’s den.” There was a couch here, brought over from the Bronx, and a desk. Under pretence of being busy, Rosen would read in there, until he fell asleep.

IX

The next year there was a great change in the Acme Pants Company. An opportunity came almost over night and he and Abrams, after long discussions—at the factory this time—joined the Rex Pants Company, McKensey and Hamberg, partners, and the four formed the Rex Suit Company, Gentlemen’s Ready-Tailored Suits. Ready-tailored suits, it seemed, were more in demand every day. The four had capital enough to swing something good and to introduce a new name. Until then, most ready-made suits were mere trade goods. But a few firms had learned the value of a trade name and advertising, and Rosen and Abrams agreed with McKensey and Hamberg that there was room for one more and great possibilities in the idea. They rented an immense loft building and were soon making and selling a line of ready-made suits under the name of the King Brand. They hired an advertising man, giving him an absurdly high salary, an office of his own, with a stenographer and all of that, and agreed to pay exorbitant rates to magazines just for the privilege of a half or a quarter of a page of blank space on which to advertise their wares. A few months later, tall, exquisite young men, in graceful poses, accompanied by impossibly thin young women or sporty dogs looked at you from the magazines under such captivating captions as “King’s Suits for the Kings of America” or “Every Inch a King in a King Brand Suit.”

Rosen was interested again. Here, expenses were mounting, though profits might mount, too. Now he could figure again, and plan and talk things over with Abrams. Abrams, however, was Abrams no longer. He was Adams, now. He had signed himself Adams when the new firm was organized. Even Rosen’s name had changed—he dropped one more letter. The indefinite Abraham G. had been altered and he blossomed forth as Abraham Lincoln Rose, to the delight of his children.

Irving was going to Columbia. He had joined a debating club and even his mother had to admit that, at this time, he was pretty much of a bore. He even called his father “Governor” on occasions and twirled a cane on holidays. He was “getting in with fine people” and dined at the homes of new friends, bringing back stories of families who didn’t interrupt when you were talking and who had servants who knew how to serve meals. He felt he was going to be quite important and he wanted his family to live up to him.

Carrie was going to a private school—the only kind of school suitable for rich girls. It was in Riverside Drive, and she met some mighty fine girls there. Like Irving, she brought home stories showing the heights of other and the degradation of her own family. “—We are such rich people and still we never have anything.”

Carrie objected to her name, too, it seemed. “Carrie” was such a cheap name. Nobody would know you were rich with a name like that. She was going to be Carolyn after this. Carolyn Rose was a pretty name, wasn’t it?

Carolyn loved to spend money. She had decided that the family was really wealthy, that it was all bluff about hard times and saving. She wanted a gold mesh bag and got it before Yvette even knew there were gold bags in the world. Carolyn had a fur coat as expensive as her mother’s, but with a smarter, more girlish cut. She disregarded the stupid idea, made up by some one who didn’t have the money, probably, that diamonds were for older people, and persuaded her parents to give her a big diamond ring, set in platinum, for her seventeenth birthday.

Yvette’s clothes were always a bit loud, too extreme, even cheap looking. Although she paid big prices for them they were still tawdry. Carolyn’s tastes were not quiet, but she managed to look “expensive.” Her hair was black and sleek and she knew she had “style.” She liked collars a bit higher than any one else wore, when they wore high, a bit lower when low collars came in. She was no slavish follower of fashion, like Yvette. She added a bit of “elegance” to whatever fashion had dared to ask for. She liked smooth broadcloth suits, much tailored, for day wear, and elaborate chiffon evening gowns. She talked with an “accent” but not the kind her mother had. She said “cahn’t” when she could remember it, and thought one ought to have “tone.” She had languid airs.

Mannie was growing into a nice child. He was quiet and he started to read when he was just a little fellow. Now you could find him, any time, curled up with a book he’d brought home from school. He didn’t care much for out-of-door games. He was the first of the family to have literary leanings, though Dorothy read, too, when she couldn’t find anything that pleased her better.

Dorothy was petted and spoiled by the whole family. She got things even before she could think to ask for them. Because there was never anything for her to be cross about the family said she had “a wonderful disposition” though she had a pouting mouth and did not smile very much.

Dorothy was “a little beauty.” Although the family kept always with their own race and declared, on all possible occasions, their great pride in it and their aversion to associating with those of other faiths, the thing that delighted them most about Dorothy was, for some unexplainable reason, that every one said “she looked like a Gentile.” Mrs. Rose would repeat to her friends that people had said, “you’d never guess it—just like a Gentile that child looks.” Her friends agreed and there was nothing in their minds but cordial congratulation over the fact. Dorothy had lighter hair than the others and grey eyes. She was a slender little thing, quiet, determined, impatient.

“We ought to have an automobile,” she said, one day. That was in 1909, before cars had become as much of a necessity as they are now, and Dorothy was only twelve. Two weeks later, after many hugs, her father bought a car, a red one that would hold any five of them. Irving soon learned to drive it and later Carolyn and Dorothy learned, too. Grandma could never be persuaded to enter the car—it didn’t look safe to her. Mrs. Rose rode, but it was always sitting stiffly erect with unrelaxed muscles. Rose asked Irving to drive him places, occasionally, when he was in a hurry. He never liked the automobile except as a convenience.

That year Grandma died. She was sick only a few days and didn’t complain even then. The doctor came and fussed over her and finally a nurse came, but Grandma persuaded her daughter to send the nurse away. Grandma seemed quite content to die, and though the family was fond of her, her going did not cause any undue emotion. Mrs. Rose wept loudly at the funeral and Rose looked unusually solemn in the weeks that followed. He had been very fond of Grandma and had appreciated the little things she always loved doing for him. But, after all, as Mrs. Rose would say to her husband, “it ain’t as if she was a baby at 72. It ain’t as though Mamma ain’t had everything money could buy these last years. A grand life she’s had, nothing to do and her own room and all. Many times she spoke of it. It’s good we was able to give it to her. She was a good woman but now she’s gone and I can say I ain’t got nothing to reproach myself for.”

X

In 1910, when Yvette was twenty-four, she became engaged to marry MacDougal Adams. Already MacDougal was sales manager for the Rex Suit Company, and he was doing well. He had grown into a handsome fellow who would be quite fat, one day, if he didn’t diet carefully. He was crisply black-haired, ruddy-faced. He made friends easily and was jovial most of the time. He had no subtleties, but Yvette was not the one to notice. She considered him very modern, and liked the way he “caught on to things.” Her friends—and the announcement Yvette mailed to the newspapers—spoke of the affair as “a childhood romance,” as indeed it was. It pleased the Roses and the Adams, too. They gave a reception at a hall on 125th Street to celebrate the occasion, each of the families inviting special friends, with Dorothy and little Helen Nacker to pass flowers to the guests. There was a band behind artificial palms, and waiters in white aprons passed refreshments. Yvette wore a dress of pink and Carolyn wore yellow. Carolyn didn’t think the party fine enough, and Mannie and Dorothy didn’t like it much, either. The rest of the family thought it a successful affair.

Mrs. Rose, Yvette and Carolyn spent the following weeks shopping. Yvette had to have a complete trousseau, starting with table linens and ending with silk stockings. Three months later Yvette and MacDougal were married at the Waldorf with Carolyn and Maurice Adams as attendants. Only the most intimate friends were invited to the elaborate banquet which followed, though later there was an “informal reception” with much wine. MacDougal had just bought an automobile—black, though Yvette would have preferred a gayer colour—and, after a short Atlantic City honeymoon the young couple took a new and elaborate apartment in Central Park West and settled down, with two maids, to domesticity.

“Ain’t it grand, Papa?” Mrs. Rose had said to her husband after their first call on the young couple. And even Rose had to agree that Yvette was getting all that could be expected.

Carolyn was “the young lady of the family,” now. She was not as easily satisfied as Yvette had been. She called Yvette’s crowd “loudly vulgar,” though she was a trifle loud, herself, at times. She raised eyebrows and drew away when fate included her in her sister’s parties. She was glad when her sister married—now she could entertain her loud friends in her own home. Maybe Yvette would even tone down a little; she laughed too loudly, and her terrible taste in clothes! Her mother talked loudly, too, except when she tried very hard to remember—and it was terrible the way she shrieked and sing-songed when she grew excited—but at least you could remonstrate with her.

The Harlem apartment didn’t suit Carolyn at all. Here she was, out of school, nearly twenty—and living in—Harlem. She had gone to a series of morning lectures at one of the hotels and one of the lectures had been on furniture—it seemed all of the things in the Harlem apartment were entirely wrong. Carolyn knew this was true, too. Hadn’t she been to other homes, where people knew things? They were rich and had one maid—and she didn’t know how to wait on the table—and the family treated her as if she were one of them. And Irving talked back to his father, rather impudently, even when company was there, and the car was a sight—she was ashamed to use it. The least they could have was a new car and a chauffeur.

Irving agreed with all of Carolyn’s criticisms, excepting those which concerned himself. He was twenty-three, why shouldn’t he have things nicer? Dorothy, going on fourteen, also found the Harlem house distasteful.

“A terrible neighbourhood,” said Dorothy, who became Dorothea, that year. “It’s too far from school and we do need a new car. I’m ashamed to tell any one where I live. I want a big room and my own bath, so I can ask girls to stay all night, if I want to.”

Rose sighed, said the family would break him and times were hard. Mrs. Rose sighed, too. Still, Harlem wasn’t such a friendly neighbourhood—the other couldn’t be worse. And with only one girl there was too much for her to do. If they had a man to drive the car and a cook, maybe—

Carolyn went house-hunting alone. She said she’d take the others with her “when she found something.” Two weeks later she took her mother and Dorothea to see the new apartment. It was a foregone conclusion with Carolyn that they would take it—just the formality of mailing the lease for her father’s signature.

The apartment was on Riverside Drive, in a huge building of cream-coloured brick. At the door was a negro uniformed in dark green, and another similarly clad attended the mirrored elevator. The halls had Oriental rugs and were lit and draped with an expensiveness that suited even Carolyn. Of course it was pretty far out on the Drive—but it looked rich—and living on the Drive was rather grand, at that. Mrs. Rose was speechless at first, but later the apartment seemed quite satisfying. She liked the ornateness, the grandeur—it was even finer than Yvette’s, than any of her friends. Why shouldn’t it be, with Abe a partner in a big factory and all—?

The woodwork of the apartment was white enamel. There were little panels in the living room, waiting to be papered, and the dining-room had a white enamelled plate rail. The lighting fixtures were of the new “inverted” style, on heavy brass chains ending with carved brass holders of white frosted globes. There were French doors of mahogany leading into the living-room and dining-room, a huge butler’s pantry with numerous shelves, a kitchen with a big hooded range and immense white sink, large bedrooms, four baths.

“If—if your Papa will pay for it,” Mrs. Rose admitted weakly.

“Oh, he’ll pay,” said Carolyn, “why shouldn’t he—a rich man like him?”

When the men of the family came to see the apartment Irving pronounced it “immense.” Mr. Rose looked at the apartment, saw the library that he could have for his own, the big bedroom and bath—and gave in with unexpectedly little persuasion. After all—his friends were living well—why shouldn’t he? He was making money—the family might as well spend it. Didn’t the way you live show how well you were doing? Not that he was making so much, of course, but, with Yvette married—if Carolyn wanted the apartment.

Mannie and Dorothea were rather indifferent. Still, Mannie was in prep school and cared most about books—even writing a poem occasionally. He was eighteen. At fourteen, Dorothea didn’t care about details as long as they were moving. Her new room was nice and big. Still, they ought to have a new car—Dorothea was quite pouty over the old one.

Carolyn took charge of the furnishings of the new apartment. Mrs. Rose, with uplifted hands, declared her ignorance of periods “and such nonsense,” but begged her daughter not to spend too much money. “You know your Papa. There is a limit even with him.”

Irving gave a long-winded dissertation about what to get and told about a fine apartment he had visited, farther down on the drive—two girls he knew, their father was a criminal lawyer. Carolyn didn’t listen very closely. She knew what she wanted.

Accompanied by her most intimate friend, Eloise Morton, daughter of S. G. Morton, the box people (both of Eloise’s parents had been born in America), Carolyn visited a number of shops. She called the stores where Yvette traded “middle class,” but she was afraid of the decorating shops and called the things in the window “junk.”

“You might like that old stuff,” she said to Eloise, “but I can’t see anything to it. Old chairs, stiff and funny—a hundred dollars apiece and then a fake, probably. A whole room full of that doesn’t look like anything. I like things that show their full value, that you can tell cost a lot of money.”

Eloise agreed that her friend had the right idea.

Carolyn didn’t allow any mere furniture clerk to suggest or dictate to her. Hadn’t she seen a lot of fine homes? Didn’t she go to every new show in town and look especially at the stage settings? Hadn’t she heard a furniture lecture? Who could advise her?

She didn’t want her mother with her, she’d “simply spoil things if she started to talk.” Carolyn and Eloise, alone, could give an impression of taste, elegance and riches.

Carolyn decided on Adam furniture for the living room. If the ghosts of the brothers Adam groaned a bit Carolyn was too busy to hear. She liked “sets” for the living rooms—didn’t every one have them?—so she chose a great davenport of mahogany with cane sides and back, motifs slightly after some of the Adam designs scattered over the woodwork. The upholstery was rose velour. There were two huge chairs of similar design, one a rocking chair. Other chairs were of cane and mahogany, one a Venetian, one a fireside. There was a great oblong table, too, that Carolyn knew showed good judgment, for it was of “dull antique mahogany.” It, too, bore motifs of the house of Adam. There was a floor lamp with a rose shade and two table lamps to match and several pieces of “stylish” painted furniture, factory made. Carolyn looked with scorn on the little rugs that had seemed so fine a few years ago. She chose now an immense Oriental in rose and tan for the living room and a Chinese rug in dark blue to combine with the intricately carved Queen Anne furniture of the dining-room.

There were elaborately patterned filet lace curtains throughout the house. Before this Mrs. Rose had always hemmed and hung the curtains. Now Carolyn gave orders for them. The over-drapes and portières were of rose velour, heavily lined, and above the windows were elaborate valances, edged with fringe and wide gold braid. There were blue velour curtains in the dining-room.

In the bedrooms Carolyn’s imagination had full play. Her parents’ room was in mahogany with twin poster beds. Her own room was in ivory, cane inset. Dorothea’s was white enamelled, painted with blue scenes.

For the walls of the living-room, between the panelling, Carolyn chose a scenic paper in grey. On this were to be hung elaborate oil paintings in scalloped gold frames: “A Scene at Twilight,” “The Fisherman’s Return.” In the dining-room the paper was in tapestry effect, red and blue fruit and flowers.

The family moved into the new apartment in October, 1911. The moving was simple for the old furniture was to be sold and professional movers attended to the packing of ornaments and dishes.

Mrs. Rose and Irving were impressed with the effects wrought by Carolyn’s taste and her father’s money, but it did not take the family long to settle down to the pleasures of life that Riverside Drive opened to them.

XI

Moving to the Drive, the Roses made the final change in their name. Mannie, usually quiet, was the one to propose it.

“Rose is so—so peculiar,” said Mannie. “Any one could tell it had been something else, Rosen or worse. I’m eighteen and go to College this fall. I’m not going to have a name so—so ordinary. Let’s change it to Ross. That’s not distinctive but it isn’t queer or foreign. I’m changing my first name just a little, too. I’ve never been called Emanuel, anyhow. Mannie isn’t a name at all. I’m going to register at College as Manning Ross.”

There was no letter-box to announce the change, but the elevator man knew the new occupants of Apartment 31—he wrote the names down with a blurring stub of a pencil to be sure to remember them—were Mr. and Mrs. A. Lincoln Ross, the two Misses Ross and two young men, Irving and Manning.

The family had liked Rose—but there might be something in what Manning said. But no more changes. Mr. Ross put his foot down, this time. He was meeting important men in business, Gentiles, and he didn’t want any more monkey-business about names. Ross was all right and Ross it would have to stay. And it did.

Mrs. Ross took great delight in getting her new servants. It made her feel superior and important, driving up to an employment agent and interviewing prospective retainers. She took Carolyn along for advice and counsel—Carolyn went out a lot and knew about such things.

Carolyn would have liked a retinue, but Ross rebelled—expenses were awful and each servant was another mouth to feed. The old “girl” had got married so they finally chose a cook who was not above helping with other things, a waitress who could combine housework with waiting, and a chauffeur. Besides, the washerwoman would still come for two days each week.

Soon after the family was settled, Mr. Ross bought a big limousine, American made, but one that Carolyn thought looked really expensive. The chauffeur was in uniform, of course. He happened to be a young Irish boy and it seemed to Carolyn, sometimes, that he smiled a bit sarcastically and annoyingly as he held the door open for them, especially after her mother had spoken with an accent or her old sing-song.

Mr. Ross didn’t object to the new luxuries. It was much more comfortable driving to the office in the limousine than waiting for Irving or one of the girls to take him or depending on less comfortable modes of transportation. He had more room to himself, too. He liked the way the new cook prepared things—he was getting indigestion and had to be careful about what he ate—though he still remembered with real emotion the pot-roasts and fish and stuffed goose that Grandma had delighted to prepare. These new dishes—salads and things like that—everything served separately—you could get used to it—it didn’t make much difference—here he was, used to a maid in cap and apron, waiting on table—and Minnie used to it, too, excepting when she forgot and talked to her or reached across the table for things. Still, Minnie meant well, a good woman, rather fat these last years, but a good woman who loved her family—none of this new foolishness some of the women had, he’d noticed—

Mr. Ross didn’t pay much attention to women. He never had. He saw what fine girls his daughters were, that was about all. He couldn’t have recognized half a dozen of their best friends, whom he saw constantly at his home, if he had passed them on the street.

His business—that was something. Still, even that didn’t keep him busy, the way it used to. This new arrangement, the offices and the factory separated—of course it was for the best. He could always go over to the factory when he wanted to, though there wasn’t much need—machinery he didn’t understand, everything in such order—with a head for every little department, not to mention the big ones. And, with three partners you couldn’t say things as if it were your own business. Mr. Ross was fifty-three, but it hadn’t been an easy fifty-three years and things had gone along rather rapidly for a while. Not that he was an old man—far from it. Still, things that had passed seemed pleasanter than they had seemed in the passing—and things to come lacked lustre.

This wasn’t age,—certainly not—he felt as well as he had twenty years ago, practically. Give him some real work to do, you’d find out. But there was so little to do, now. You’d go down to the office about ten and dictate a few letters and potter around with things. You’d examine “swatches” and find that an expert had already given them a chemical analysis. You’d go to luncheon and be careful about what you ate. After luncheon, a little sleepily, you’d dictate more letters, if there were any more and see a few men on business, young upstarts, most likely, or Gentiles who wanted something for nothing—or consult with your partners. Then, you’d drive home after a while and read the paper or listen to Carolyn play on the new player piano or talk with Dorothea, though there wasn’t much to talk about. Dinner then, and a game with Adams, though he had rheumatism these last years and wasn’t the man he had been. Or Moss would drive over. There was a club, even, if you cared to go to it—a lot of strange men who didn’t care anything about you—a club—at least they were of your own race—Dorothea was always asking questions about why the family didn’t mix with other people—such notions a child gets—

The Rex Suit Company was still progressing. The great factories were outside New York, but the business offices occupied a whole floor of an office building, each partner with his own mahogany furnished office, with its rows of bells and its private stenographers. There was an expert to decide each thing. MacDougal was in the sales department and Maurice, the younger Adams boy, was advertising manager—a big advertising agent had charge of all of the advertising, of course. And what advertising the firm did, too! Double pages in the popular weeklies at thousands of dollars a page. Every one was familiar with the “Kingly Men.” Girls cut them out and mounted them for their rooms. “America’s Kings in Kingly Suits” had been familiar enough to get applause at a musical comedy when it was used to introduce two juveniles. “Every Inch a King for the Kings of Creation” and other well-known slogans ran in letters four feet high above the artist’s conception of the “Kingly Man” on the billboards.

Each year there was an ornate catalogue of the styles, “for the Prep Youth,” “for the College Man,” “for the Younger Set,” “for the Older Fellow.” Hundreds of merchants all over the country displayed King Brand signs and carried King Brand suits. The Rex Company had invented half sizes, adjustable models and the giving with each suit of an extra bit of the goods and two extra buttons for mending. There wasn’t much you could plan about for the Rex Company. Likely as not, some one else would have thought of it first, anyway.

Mr. Ross was accustomed to meeting men, now. He liked to meet them, in business. He would listen, weigh what they said, learn from them. He never talked much. He always retained his look of severity. He was known as “a crackerjack of a business man,” “a man you couldn’t put anything over on,” but the other partners were good business men, too. There was nothing for Mr. Ross to work for.