“Shenah Pessah! A black year on you!” came the answer from the cellar below. It was the voice of her uncle, Moisheh Rifkin. “Oi weh!” she shrugged young shoulders, wearied by joyless toil. “He’s beginning with his hollering already.” And she hurried down. “You piece of earth! Worms should eat you! How long does it take you to wash up the stairs?” he stormed. “Yesterday, the eating was burned to coal; and to-day you forget the salt.” “What a fuss over a little less salt!” “In the Talmud it stands a man has a right to divorce his wife for only forgetting him the salt in his soup.” “Maybe that’s why Aunt Gittel went to the grave before her time--worrying how to please your taste in the mouth.” The old man’s yellow, shriveled face stared up at her out of the gloom. “What has he from life? Only his pleasure in eating and going to the synagogue. How long will he live yet?” And moved by a surge of pity, “Why can’t I be a little kind to him?” “Did you chop me some herring and onions?” he interrupted harshly. She flushed with conscious guilt. Again she wondered why ugly things and ugly smells so sickened her. “What don’t you forget?” His voice hammered upon her ears. “No care lays in your head. You’re only dreaming in the air.” Her compassion was swept away in a wave of revolt that left her trembling. “I can’t no more stand it from you! Get yourself somebody else!” She was surprised at her sudden spirit. “You big mouth, you! That’s your thanks for saving you from hunger.” “Two years already I’m working the nails off my fingers and you didn’t give me a cent.” “Beggerin! Money yet, you want? The minute you get enough to eat you turn up your head with freshness. Are you used to anything from home? What were you out there in Savel? The dirt under people’s feet. You’re already forgetting how you came off from the ship--a bundle of rags full of holes. If you lived in Russia a hundred years would you have lived to wear a pair of new shoes on your feet?” “Other girls come naked and with nothing to America and they work themselves up. Everybody gets wages in America--” “Americanerin! Didn’t I spend out enough money on your ship-ticket to have a little use from you? A thunder should strike you!” Shenah Pessah’s eyes flamed. Her broken finger-nails pierced the callous flesh of her hands. So this was the end--the awakening of her dreams of America! Her memory went back to the time her ship-ticket came. In her simple faith she had really believed that they wanted her--her father’s brother and his wife who had come to the new world before ever she was born. She thought they wanted to give her a chance for happiness, for life and love. And then she came--to find the paralytic aunt--housework--janitor’s drudgery. Even after her aunt’s death, she had gone on uncomplainingly, till her uncle’s nagging had worn down her last shred of self-control.