“No! Housework is not for a woman. Like the Masora says, ‘Be good to your wife and give your children to eat.’ That means a man should clean the house and cook for his children. What is a wife? A soldier. Her place is on the field. What is a husband? A general. His place is at home!” Zelde was chagrined. “So this is the future what you aimed for?” she chided. “To be a washerwoman and a porter! Pooh! You ought to be ashamed to look on my face! Think what people say! They don’t know which is what! If I am the husband or if you are the wife or how!” Mendel carefully rolled a new cigarette. There was a plaintive note in her anger. He could afford to be defiant. “Didn’t you make me to stay home and work? So! I’m working! What is work? Pleasure!--If you know how!” And he struck a match. Zelde sat down to avoid falling down. “Work is pleasure,” echoed through her mind like an explosion. Maybe solitary confinement at home every day had gone to his head. Or maybe--maybe--! She slowly repeated to herself his sally. “What is work? Pleasure!” and “What is pleasure?” she wondered. The shock of the answer almost made her scream. So that was it! She had suspected something, but _that_ would never have occurred to her in a million years. Those floor-brushes that she found the other day under the bed, and the mop and the tin pail. They did not belong to the house. To whom _did_ they belong? She had certainly seen them somewhere before. Now she knew! At the janitor’s! “No wonder he likes to stay home,” she muttered to herself. “I should have knew; it’s a bad sign if Mendel likes work all of a sudden!” Her suspicions were still hypothetical, but fragments of evidence were fast falling in to shape an ominous and accusing picture. One day, upon her return from work, Zelde found Mendel sitting near the window, restfully smoking a cigarette. His legs were crossed under his apron and his arms were folded over his lap. He gazed wistfully out upon the city. Zelde looked about her in astonishment. The house was tidy, the kitchen spick and span, the wash dried and ironed, the floor freshly scrubbed. A model housewife would have envied the immaculate perfection of the work. Zelde gasped. So early in the day and already through with all his work! And what work! “Sarah, I wonder who did it,” she finally said to her daughter when she had somewhat regained her composure. Her groping suspicions now became a startling conviction. Evidence fairly shrieked at her from every corner. “Only a woman could do this,” she thought, overcome by the shock of the revelation. “Who do you think?” Sarah asked innocently. “Did you see the way she looks at me?” Zelde exclaimed with mounting fury. “No wonder she laughs in my face. No wonder she tells all the neighbors, ‘Such a fool! She works and he plays!’ No wonder!” “What are you talking about?” Sarah inquired, bewildered.