“Why didn’t you marry yourself to a millionaire? You always want to make yourself like Mrs. Preston who got millions laying in the bank.” “But Mrs. Preston does make me feel that I’m alike with her,” returned Hanneh Hayyeh, proudly. “Don’t she talk herself out to me like I was her friend? Mrs. Preston says this war is to give everybody a chance to lift up his head like a person. It is to bring together the people on top who got everything and the people on the bottom who got nothing. She’s been telling me about a new word--democracy. It got me on fire. Democracy means that everybody in America is going to be with everybody alike.” “Och! Stop your dreaming out of your head. Close up your mouth from your foolishness. Women got long hair and small brains,” he finished, muttering as he went to bed. At the busy gossiping hour of the following morning when the butcher-shop was crowded with women in dressing-sacks and wrappers covered over with shawls, Hanneh Hayyeh elbowed her way into the clamorous babel of her neighbors. “What are you so burning? What are you so flaming?” “She’s always on fire with the wonders of her son.” “The whole world must stop still to listen to what news her son writes to her.” “She thinks her son is the only one soldier by the American army.” “My Benny is also one great wonder from smartness, but I ain’t such a crazy mother like she.” The voices of her neighbors rose from every corner, but Hanneh Hayyeh, deaf to all, projected herself forward. “What are you pushing yourself so wild? You ain’t going to get your meat first. Ain’t it, Mr. Sopkin, all got to wait their turn?” Mr. Sopkin glanced up in the midst of cutting apart a quarter of meat. He wiped his knife on his greasy apron and leaned across the counter. “Nu? Hanneh Hayyeh?” his ruddy face beamed. “Have you another letter from little Aby in France? What good news have you got to tell us?” “No--it’s not a letter,” she retorted, with a gesture of impatience. “The good news is that I got done with the painting of my kitchen--and you all got to come and give a look how it shines in my house like in a palace.” Mr. Sopkin resumed cutting the meat. “Oi weh!” clamored Hanneh Hayyeh, with feverish breathlessness. “Stop with your meat already and quick come. The store ain’t going to run away from you! It will take only a minute. With one step you are upstairs in my house.” She flung out her hands. “And everybody got to come along.” “Do you think I can make a living from looking on the wonders you turn over in your house?” remonstrated the butcher, with a twinkle in his eye. “Making money ain’t everything in life. My new-painted kitchen will light up your heart with joy.” Seeing that Mr. Sopkin still made no move, she began to coax and wheedle, woman-fashion. “Oi weh! Mr. Sopkin! Don’t be so mean. Come only. Your customers ain’t going to run away from you. If they do, they only got to come back, because you ain’t a skinner. You weigh the meat honest.”