Hanneh Breineh pulled a dish-towel from the rack and threw one end of it to Mrs. Pelz. "So long there's no servant around, we can use it together for a napkin. It's dirty, anyhow. How it freshens up my heart to see you!" she rejoiced as she poured out her tea into a saucer. "If you would only know how I used to beg my daughter to write for me a letter to you; but these American children, what is to them a mother's feelings?" "What are you talking!" cried Mrs. Pelz. "The whole world rings with you and your children. Everybody is envying you. Tell me how began your luck?" "You heard how my husband died with consumption," replied Hanneh Breineh. "The five-hundred-dollars lodge money gave me the first lift in life, and I opened a little grocery store. Then my son Abe married himself to a girl with a thousand dollars. That started him in business, and now he has the biggest shirt-waist factory on West Twenty-ninth Street." "Yes, I heard your son had a factory." Mrs. Pelz hesitated and stammered; "I'll tell you the truth. What I came to ask you--I thought maybe you would beg your son Abe if he would give my husband a job." "Why not?" said Hanneh Breineh. "He keeps more than five hundred hands. I'll ask him he should take in Mr. Pelz." "Long years on you, Hanneh Breineh! You'll save my life if you could only help my husband get work." "Of course my son will help him. All my children like to do good. My daughter Fanny is a milliner on Fifth Avenue, and she takes in the poorest girls in her shop and even pays them sometimes while they learn the trade." Hanneh Breineh's face lit up, and her chest filled with pride as she enumerated the successes of her children. "And my son Benny he wrote a play on Broadway and he gave away more than a hundred free tickets for the first night." "Benny? The one who used to get lost from home all the time? You always did love that child more than all the rest. And what is Sammy your baby doing?" "He ain't a baby no longer. He goes to college and quarterbacks the football team. They can't get along without him. "And my son Jake, I nearly forgot him. He began collecting rent in Delancey Street, and now he is boss of renting the swellest apartment-houses on Riverside Drive." "What did I tell you? In America children are like money in the bank," purred Mrs. Pelz as she pinched and patted Hanneh Breineh's silk sleeve. "_Oi weh!_ how it shines from you! You ought to kiss the air and dance for joy and happiness. It is such a bitter frost outside; a pail of coal is so dear, and you got it so warm with steam-heat. I had to pawn my feather-bed to have enough for the rent, and you are rolling in money." "Yes, I got it good in some ways, but money ain't everything," sighed Hanneh Breineh. "You ain't yet satisfied?" "But here I got no friends," complained Hanneh Breineh. "Friends?" queried Mrs. Pelz. "What greater friend is there on earth than the dollar?"