SARA Yes, go my child. I’ll keep a whole lot of cookies warm for you. MOEY [_Takes prayer boot_]. Thank you, Mrs. Rabinowitz. SARA You’re welcome. Give my love to your mama. MOEY [_Moves to door_]. Thank you. Goodbye. I won’t eat much at home. [_He goes._] CANTOR He’s a willing boy, Sara, and it’s a pleasure to hear him singing in the choir. And his papa, peace be with him, was a rabbi. Maybe from Moey I can make yet a Cantor.... Yes.... [_Sits._] From him I will make a great Cantor. SARA [_Casually, with a prosaic little sigh_]. It seems like yesterday our Jakie was standing the same way—a little boy—a darling—and you was learning him to sing. CANTOR Sara, I asked you a thousand times, don’t speak his name in my house. You know what it does to me. SARA I heard you from the kitchen—you spoke it yourself to Moey. CANTOR Well, Moey and me—we was singing and—well, I made a mistake. SARA A mistake? A papa should speak from his only son one time in five years—that’s a mistake? CANTOR It’s so long since I found a boy with a voice like Moey.... I forgot myself. SARA Our Jakie had a voice even more beautifuller—even before he ran away— CANTOR Sara, please—it ain’t good that we should think too much about that boy. He didn’t think of us.... God knows if he’s maybe now in jail or not. SARA How can you speak like this from your only child? I tell you he’s a good boy and he ain’t in jail. In the last letter he wrote, he said.... CANTOR I don’t want to know from his letters. SARA But he’s got a good steady job. In Chicago. CANTOR What’s the matter with you today? Maybe _you_ could forget what he done. I can’t.... [_Until now the mood has been conversational, although strong emotions have been strumming underneath. Now the_ Cantor _rises, and his voice betrays the intensity of his feeling._] The Day of Atonement.... A crowded synagogue.... So proud we was! Why not? Everybody waiting to hear the Cantor’s son sing. And where was he?... You said he would come back. It’s already five years now.... Where is he? SARA I can’t help it the way I talk, Yosele. I feel lonely every day for our Jakie. CANTOR And you think I don’t! Please, don’t speak no more. SARA All right, all right. I won’t speak no more.... But he’s got a steady job. He’s making money.