p the loneliness inside my heart.
All the grandest feathers can't hide the bitter shame in my face that my
children shame themselves from me."

Hanneh Breineh suddenly loomed over them like some ancient, heroic
figure of the Bible condemning unrighteousness.

"Why should my children shame themselves from me? From where did they
get the stuff to work themselves up in the world? Did they get it from
the air? How did they get all their smartness to rise over the people
around them? Why don't the children of born American mothers write my
Benny's plays? It is I, who never had a chance to be a person, who gave
him the fire in his head. If I would have had a chance to go to school
and learn the language, what couldn't I have been? It is I and my mother
and my mother's mother and my father and father's father who had such a
black life in Poland; it is our choked thoughts and feelings that are
flaming up in my children and making them great in America. And yet they
shame themselves from me!"

For a moment Mr. and Mrs. Pelz were hypnotized by the sweep of her
words. Then Hanneh Breineh sank into a chair in utter exhaustion. She
began to weep bitterly, her body shaking with sobs.

"Woe is me! For what did I suffer and hope on my children? A bitter old
age--my end. I'm so lonely!"

All the dramatic fire seemed to have left her. The spell was broken.
They saw the Hanneh Breineh of old, ever discontented, ever complaining
even in the midst of riches and plenty.

"Hanneh Breineh," said Mrs. Pelz, "the only trouble with you is that you
got it too good. People will tear the eyes out of your head because
you're complaining yet. If I only had your fur coat! If I only had your
diamonds! I have nothing. You have everything. You are living on the fat
of the land. You go right back home and thank God that you don't have my
bitter lot."

"You got to let me stay here with you," insisted Hanneh Breineh. "I'll
not go back to my children except when they bury me. When they will see
my dead face, they will understand how they killed me."

Mrs. Pelz glanced nervously at her husband. They barely had enough
covering for their one bed; how could they possibly lodge a visitor?

"I don't want to take up your bed," said Hanneh Breineh. "I don't care
if I have to sleep on the floor or on the chairs, but I'll stay here for
the night."

Seeing that she was bent on staying, Mr. Pelz prepared to sleep by
putting a few chairs next to the trunk, and