after the organ-grinder he would be
the one. How could I know it was the monkey he wanted? When Isadore
wouldn't take it, I prayed my next one and then my next one should have
the talent. I've prayed for it, Abrahm. If he wants a violin, please, he
should have it."

"Not with my money."

"With mine! I've got enough saved, Abrahm. Them three extra dollars
right here inside my own waist, that I saved toward that cape down on
Grand Street. I wouldn't have it now the way they say the wind blows up
them--"

"I tell you the woman's crazy!"

"I feel it! I know he's got talent! I know my children so well. A--a
father don't understand. I'm so next to them. It's like I can tell
always everything that will happen to them--it's like a pain--somewheres
here--in back of my heart."

"A pain in the heart she gets!"

"For my own children I'm always a prophet, I tell you. You think I
didn't know that--that terrible night after the pogrom after we got out
of Kief to cross the border! You remember, Abrahm, how I predicted it to
you then--how our Mannie would be born too soon and--and not right from
my suffering? Did it happen on the ship to America just the way I said
it would? Did it happen just exactly how I predicted our Izzy would
break his leg that time playing on the fire-escape? I tell you, Abrahm,
I get a real pain here under my heart that tells me what comes to my
children. Didn't I tell you how Esther would be the first in her
confirmation-class and our baby Boris would be red-headed? At only five
years, our Leon all by himself cries for a fiddle--get it for him,
Abrahm--get it for him!"

"I tell you, Sarah, I got a crazy woman for a wife! It ain't enough we
celebrate eight birthdays a year with one-dollar presents each time and
copper goods every day higher. It ain't enough that right to-morrow I
got a fifty-dollar note over me from Sol Ginsberg--a four-dollar present
she wants for a child that don't even know the name of a feedle!"

"Leon baby, stop hollering--papa will go back and get the fiddle for you
now before supper. See--mamma's got money here in her waist--"

"Papa will go back for the feedle not--three dollars she's saved for
herself he can holler out of her for a feedle!"

"Abrahm, he's screaming so he--he'll have a fit."

"He should have two fits."

"Darlink--"

"I tell you the way you spoil your children it will some day come back
on us."

"It's his birthday night, Abrahm--five years since his lit