THE DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE
PAGE TWO
KID MOISHELE DEMOBILIZED
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(Continued From Paps 3 Section 1.)
street-corners, types of hundreds of
ceeds of the fund,
Then followed days of feverish im- others who stalk in pairs and groups on
patience and hazy memories. Site was the main thoroughfare of the East Side
standing near a big boat, empty-handed. in slouch caps pulled low and hair cut
All the neighbors fought with each too closely at the sides and not at all
other for the privilege of carrying her at the top, who hold endless cheap cig-
poor belongings. The whole village arettes between nicotine-stained fingers
was there in the early dawn, kissing and accost passing girls with familiar
Louis Danto
Says:
her, crying, uttering broken bits of jocularity.
as not thinking of these
Channele was
warning and advice.
"Don't forget you come from Jews," things. Here was the lover of her
were her uncles parting words, "Re- dreams, young, strong, with the warm
member you're a daughter in Israel." light in his eyes, beautiful as the sun.
"God should help, we should be to- She caught her breath.
"Farfel soup, lokshen soup, ge-
gether soon again," her aunt sobbed.
A fog seemed to envelope the girl. clempfh• beast, will chops—"
Someone laughed loudly.
She saw the tears, the waving hands,
"Will chops, will, say, guys, who
as if through a mist. Only two things
were clear—the gold-studded shore of wants will chops?"
The offender
flushed.
Cliannele
America, and the figure of her waiting
lover who looked at her with adora- plucked her sleeve. "Say, kid, you
tion in his eyes, whose nearness thrilled. ain't much of a looker, but tell your
to America. Six popper tsi you like Swill chops, t‘yry,
So Channele came
months later found her waiting table at :very much?"
Some-
'Fears filled the girl's eyes.
"Sam's Place," the East Side's Only
one's arm shot out and dealt the funny
Strictly Kosher Restaurant. Under the
one a tc,ounding smack on the jaw.
Alishgaich of Rabbi Israel Cohn"—
"Aw, shut your face," she heard the
found her repeating the American-
Jewish menu with a Russian accent golden voice of the mats of her dreams.
and a timidity she could not over- "Close your trap, the skirt ain't got
come—found her sharing a narrow, nothin' on you when it comes to spillin'
tliiiii1101111011011131103111111111111111111118131011011133111112 1121Fil3L1113 1131111;11 111)13(.1113111.1111111;113 1.0 113111111111
In commemorating the Tenth
Anniversary of my connection
with the New England Mu-
tual Life Insurance Company,
of Boston, Mass., it is only
fitting at this time for me
to express to my numerous
friends and policyholders my
keen appreciation and thanks
for the courtesies and confi-
dences reposed in me in the
past. I also, at this time, de-
sire to express to them the
season's greetings and many
happy returns for the New
Year, with a continuance of
health, happiness and pros-
perity.
dingy bedroom with Sadie Peretz, the lingo."
She didn't quite understand the de-
who sneered and scoffed at her room-
fense, but she appreciated it. She
mates degrading occupation.
'Bsit honest I can't, Sadie,' she would looked gratefully at her benefactor,
say in her halting English, in answer to lint her Adonis didn't retaliate. The
the nightly tirade. "I can't push a female of the species to the Kid,
machine like you and cat dry lunches spelled hysterical, sensitive creatures, to
from a paper box. I can't, I tell you, be left severely alone. They had no
I'm not so healthy like you," this de- place its his little world. He would
listen to his pals' easy familiarity with
fiantly.
"All right, all right," impatiently, the fair sex slightly bored and not
"Like I'm your worst enemy you holler. without contempt.
"Me and skirts ain't got nothin' in
You shouldn't have a worse idea
than Sadie Peretz. Only I can't think common, savvy ? Let me be:
And they did, being a little afraid of
over in my head why for a little no-
thing you should work, when you can his too-ready fist.
He came again the next day. This
be a lady like me."
Channele was silent. How could she time alone. She hurried over to his
face Sadie and tell her the truth. How table in a little flurry of excitement.
dumpling soup,
"Leger, matzos
could she say, "Because I'm looking
for my lover I work in a restaurant. filled kraut, will chops—" She stopped
Because some day a man will walk in and laughed a little tremulously.
"?lister—" He gaped at the unfa-
and look on me and love use. Because
one week I work in a factory already. miliar term. He had been named
All day I see girls, twenty on one side, Moishele. In America they called him
twenty on the other, pushing machines. The Kid. To be addressed its the same
All day girls, girls. All night, girls, way as his boss—
"Mister, with my whole heart I thank
girls. How can my lover find me in
a factory? In the restaurant men come, you." lie looked at her wonderingly,
all the time men—girls eat by landladies amazed at her agitation. "Yesterday,
—men come who ain't married, who remember, they make fun from my
are hungry and lonely like I am. They English."
"Oh," enlightened, "so you're the
will look on me and say, 'Ah, here's a
girl to warm my heart, a nice, quiet dame." The Kid laughed long and
girl.' And Channele would smile her heartily. She marveled at the milky
prettiest. When she smiled she didn't whiteness of his teeth.
"Aw, forgit it." Say, bring me a
look so terrible. Her face would get
fuller. A dimple would show itself piece of lungen and dumplings—soup
near the eye, another one near the and steak and struddle and tea."
She hovered anxiously near, tending
mouth. Yes, she would smile, and busy
herself and give him a hot plate of to his wants, a slender shadow.
gede-
It became a habit with the Kid to
lokshoi soup and a nice piece of
She would bring the bot- drap in regularly to Sam's Place. An
rnpfte brust.
tle of catsup only given to heavy cus- unwonted habit since he gloried in
LOUIS DANTO,
Representative
New England Mutual Life
Insurance Company
of Boston
Chartered in 1835
The best man to see regarding your protection
is Louis Danto.
The sooner you see him the more advantageous
it will be to you.
Utter & Thomson, State Agents
tomers and pick up the paper napkin variety.
Channele lived now in an enchanted
that escaped the confines of the collar.
And the man would think over in world. She • dressed carefully and
his head. 'A fine girl, such a year on painstakingly each morning. She learned
me. Not too pretty, maybe, but nice, to puff out her hair as the other girls
He would look at her did. She reveled in her first pair of
balabelischr!
over the steaming glass of tea and she high heels that pinched her instep but
would look back and smile. Then she soothed her soul. She purchased a
would run back to the kitchen and he soft black waist with a white ruffle
would follow her with his eyes—and, that was always fresh and sweet. She
carried a big powder-puff in the corner
maybe, wait for her outside—"
"Nu, nu, my swell lady. Maybe you'll of her apron and made ineffective slabs
stop smiling like somebody left you a at her nose when her hands were not
and answer when I ask you busied with heavy trays.
yerushe
For America had suddenly yielded
something?"
Channele started. "But I can't Sadie. the fruit of her desire. She had found
her
mate. Love overfilled her heart. times a day. I'm a driver, a truck
I can't work in a factory. In Sam's
Place it's not like a prison, shut up. She felt like kissing everybody she saw, driver.
1111111
the newsboy on the street, the grimy-
"Long time ago," he wasn't looking •
You can talk. You can eat."
Whose bothering faced little urchin who came in for at the girl, "when I was a greenhorn, I
"Sam's Place.
the swarthy, tot I go to school nights. may be, to get
about Sam's Place. Turn over your three cents worth of Kaffe,
own head. You can make $20 a week. greasy proprietor of the restaurant; wise to lots of zings, like to make ma-
chinery on paper. I like dat stuff. But,
You want to work for ten? All right. Sadie.
ask you,
Every night she offered a halting aw, a guy's got to eat, ain't he—so, to-
work. Am I stopping you? I
prayer to the Keeper of Light. "Cuter day, I am 'choffer; savvy?" He steered
look, does this suit me?"
This was an ultra-modern dress, Golf, only he should say tomorrow a mythical wheel.
Channele wished suddenly she had
tight as to bodice, narrow as to skirt, what maybe is in his heart for Chan-
flimsy as to material, the exact dup- nele."
. She had all her race's tra-
not as ke d
To be fair, Kid Moishele was uncon- ditional worship for learning and cul-
licate of a garment worn by her sisters
scious
of
the
tremulous
happiness
he
ture ingrained into her soul. A truck
in a different world in the North end.
Channele's cluck of admiration was had aroused in the heart of the quiet driver! She had seen them—sweaty,
"Like a doll you look, little girl who never brought his soup dirt-begrimed, in greasy overalls, seated
purely American.
Sadie, honest. I should only look like too hot or too cold. The curt advice he at the wheel of their heavily-laden
offered his friends, "Aw, let 'em be," he trucks, swearing loud, unintelligible
that."
Sadie smiled sympathetically. "Do adhered to strictly in his own life. A oaths that grated on her sensitive ears.
you want to go to the Settlement dance guy worked, played pool in Ben's Bil- And yet he seemed different, clean and
liard Academy and went to amateur young. And he had wanted to go to •
with me?"
"No," regretfully, "tonight I got to prize fights on Fridays. Thus, life for school when he was a greenhorn.
I
the Kid. He was quite content with his
She sighed deeply.
work late."
"What's the matter ? What's eatin'
Channele was not impatient. Tomor- America.
Nor did he ever question the sudden you now ?" She listened with envy. If ,
row he would come, this lover of hers,
tomorrow or the next day. And he partiality to Sam's Place—why with the she could only learn to talk that way, a •
would smile at her over the steaming passing days he looked with increasing fitting phrase for every thought, a true
glass of tea and she would smile back eagerness to six o'clock when he would American phrase. "You talk so good,
walk with furtive haste to his own like a regular Atnerikanc.."
to show the unsuspected dimple.
"Aw. gee, that ain't nothin'." But he
Then, one clay, the world was trans- marble-thpped table, distinguished by a
formed. It became a thing of beauty battered chair tilted forward, and a flushed with pleasure.
always
placard,
"Risirved,"
its
uneven
letters—
The weeks passed. Gloriously ham
and promise, the restaurant,
reeking of burnt food, an enchanted why his eyes, roving restlessly over the weeks for the girl, weeks of dreaming
palace, and Channele a princess courted littered tables, would find solace in the and hoping and praying that he would
by a handsome prince with coal-black sight of the slight figure in black. Or speak.
But the Kid didn't speak. lie didn't,
eyes and teeth like milk. why he had slipped a hideously gilt box
It began every inauspiciously. He of candy near his plate for the "little because he didn't know that his fond-
came in with his gang, his cap pulled mut" this pet name for her), who had ness for the plain, quiet girl would ever
low over his ruddy hair, a missing flushed with pleasure. It was the first grow to be an insistent, poignant need. •
button in the soft collar of his blue box of candy she had ever received.
He brought her useless, ornamental •
"For me," she questioned tremulously.
shirt showing the whiteness of his skin,
t bin
ngs—a c rhea
le p manicuring set.
• a
"Nope," was the facetious retort, for jeweled hair-comb, a walrus pocket-
his erect figure encased in a fitted suit
a size too small. He radiated youth de 'Queen of Sheba.'" Then, angry at book. lie always won them in a game,
the rush of blood to his face, "I copped he said. She aroused in him a queer de-
and health and buoyancy. They calle d
sire to help. Often he would rise half- 111
him "Kid Moishele." The name seemed it rollin' de bones."
•
Another time she had questioned
V1 ay from his chair to carry the heavy
to fit.
timidly, "By what do you work, Kid tray for her, with a dull resentment for
She had no eye for his three com-
Moishele?"
the gourmands us ho ordered such feasts.
panions—fellow pool-players who dog-
"Who, me?" surprised at her inter- But always he would sink back, ashamed •
ged his footsteps with ill-concealed
admiration for his strength and his est, "I sit in a big chair and push a of his emotion.
Channele waited hopefully.
courage. Four irresponsible. careless pencil like dis." He drew an imaginary
Then to her meager world came ru"
youths whose Americanism constituted line across the soup-stained menu. Then
seeing
the
look
of
pain
in
her
eyes.
nor of a war across the ocean—she
a picturesque vocabulary of slang,
"I'm
just
kiddin',
mut,
I
sit
in
a
high
gleaned
this from her patrons—a war
whose America lay smugly within the
twelve-square area that held their poo l- seat on a truck and go from store to
(Continued On Page Three.)
room, their eating house, their favorite track. from track to store, maybe ten
Office 623 Penobscot Building
Market 1747
Telephones: I Cherry 5840
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Crowley - Milner Co.
extend the
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Greetings of
the Season
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To the Jewish
Community
of Detroit
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Crowley, Milner & Co.
Gratiot, Farmer, Monroe and Library Avenues.
Store Hours: 8:30 to 5:30.
Saturday Nights the Men's Departments remain open until 9,
the rest of the store closing at 6 p. m.
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