Belles-Lettres
TO ZION
Zion, fair Zion, my home across the sea! Will I ever realize the dream I dreamed of thee? Will I see thy holy hills, kissed by the noonday sun? Will I hear the sweet birds sing, when my labor's done?
Many years I hoped and sighed.In hopes and sighs my sires died.Yet I hope, and strive and wait,And pray my hopes are not too late.
EDWARD FISHER BROWN.
The Anniversary
BECAUSE Leah, her eight-year old lame daughter, needed a less ragged dress to go to school in, Sarah Lopp, wife to Shmayah or Sam Lopp, presser in Levinsky's sweatshop, found her long-mislaid marriage certificate, and recovered the forgotten date of her marriage. She imparted the news to Shmayah, her husband, at half-past six in the morning, just as he was setting out for the shop:
"Do you know, jewel mine, what day it is to-day?"
"What do you want now? Paydë' it is not. The butcher doesn't want to give any more meat?"
"Fool! idiot! Always bills, always money! I eat the meat myself?"
"Shah! Shah! What sort of holiday is it then?"
"See how he doesn't remember! I wish wish I had never known that day! Ah, ah, how much I have suffered for you! And he doesn't remember!"
"What's the matter, what is it? Why don't you speak out? I'll be late for my work."
"Don't you realize, Shmaikele, that it is our wedding day? Ten black years have I suffered through for your sake! What do I get out of it!"
"So-so—to-day is ten years after our wedding. To-day—ten years—ah! And you remember it?"
"I have even our certificate yet. See!" She showed him the certificate recovered from the folds of the old prayer-shawl