264 STEINBERG
"My sorrows be on their head!" sighs a neighbor of Sossye's. "They'd soon be tired of their life, if they were me. I've left two children at home fit to scream their hearts out. The other is at the breast, I have brought it along. It is quiet just now, by good luck."
"What is the use of a poor woman's having children ?" exclaims another, evidently "expecting" herself. Indeed, she has a child a year and a seven-days' mourning a year afterwards.
"Do you suppose I ask for them? Do you think I cry my eyes out for them before God?"
"If she hasn't any, who's to inherit her place at the Matzes-baking a hundred years hence?"
"All very well for you to talk, you're a grass-widow (to no Jewish daughter may it apply!) !"
"May such a blow be to my enemies as he'll surely come back again!"
"It's about time ! After three years !"
"Will you shut up, or do you want another beating ?"
Sossye went off into a fresh peal of laughter, and the shovel fell out of Shloimeh's hand.
Again he caught a glance, but this time she wrinkled her nose at him, as much as to say, "Fie, you shameless boy ! Can't you behave yourself even before other peo- ple?"
Hereupon the infant gave account of itself in a small, shrill voice, and the general commotion went on increas- ing. The overseer scolded, the Matzes-printing-wheel creaked and squeaked, the bits of glass were ground against the rolling-pins, there was a humming of songs and a proclaiming of secrets, followed by bursts of laughter, Sossye's voice ringing high above the rest.
