Jewish fiction; Jews -- Fiction; Short stories, Yiddish -- Translations into English
The story is on this wise: Yitzchok-Yossel Broitgeber was a tailor who
could make anything, and who made nothing at all, that is, since he
displayed his imagination in cutting out and sewing on the occasion I am
referring to, nobody would trust him.
I can remember as if it were to-day what happened in Kabtzonivke, and
the commotion there was in the little town when Yitzchok-Yossel made Reb
Yecheskel the teacher a pair of trousers (begging your pardon!) of such
fantastic cut that the unfortunate teacher had to wear them as a vest,
though he was not then in need of one, having a brand new sheepskin not
more than three years old.
And now listen! Binyomin Droibnik the trader's mother died (blessed be
the righteous Judge!), and her whole fortune went, according to the Law,
to her only son Binyomin. She had to be buried at the expense of the
community. If she was to be buried at all, it was the only way. But the
whole town was furious with the old woman for having cheated them out of
their expectations and taken her whole fortune away with her to the real
world. None knew exactly _why_, but it was confidently believed that old
"Aunt" Leah had heaps of treasure somewhere in hiding.
It was a custom with us in Kabtzonivke to say, whenever anyone, man or
woman, lived long, ate sicknesses by the clock, and still did not die,
that it was a sign that he had in the course of his long life gathered
great store of riches, that somewhere in a cellar he kept potsful of
gold and silver.
The Funeral Society, the younger members, had long been whetting their
teeth for "Aunt" Leah's fortune, and now she had died (may she merit
Paradise!) and had fooled them.
"What about her money?"
"A cow has flown over the roof and laid an egg!"
In that same night Reb Binyomin's cow (a real cow) calved, and the
unfortunate consequence was that she died. The Funeral Society took the
calf, and buried "Aunt" Leah at its own expense.
Well, money or no money, inheritance or no inheritance, Reb Binyomin's
old mother left him a quilt, a large, long, wide, wadded quilt. As an
article of house furniture, a quilt is a very useful thing, especially
in a house where there is a wife (no evil eye!) and a goodly number of
children, little and big. Who doesn't see that? It looks simple enough!
Either one keeps it for oneself and the two little boys (with whom Reb
Binyomin used to sleep), or else one gives it to the wife and the two
little girls (who also sleep all together), or, if not, then to the two
bigger boys or the two bigger girls, who repose on the two bench-beds in
the parlor and kitchen respectively. But this particular quilt brought
such perplexity into Reb Binyomin's rather small head that he (not of
you be it spoken!) nearly went mad.
"Why I and not she? Why she and not I? Or they? Or the others? Why they
and not I? Why them and not us? Why the others and not them? Well, well,
what is all this fuss? What did we cover them with before?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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