The Dover Anthology of American Literature Volume II (96 page)

        
Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)—

        
Though some savants make earth include the sky;

        
And blue so far above us comes so high,

        
It only gives our wish for blue a whet.

S
OURCE:
Harper's Magazine
. July 1920.

Place
for a Third
(1920)

    
Nothing to say to all those marriages!

    
She had made three herself to three of his.

    
The score was even for them, three to three.

    
But come to die she found she cared so much:

    
She thought of children in a burial row;

    
Three children in a burial row were sad.

    
One man's three women in a burial row

    
Somehow made her impatient with the man.

    
And so she said to Laban, “You have done

    
A good deal right; don't do the last thing wrong.

    
Don't make me lie with those two other women.”

    
Laban said, No, he would not make her lie

    
With anyone but that she had a mind to,

    
If that was how she felt, of course, he said.

    
She went her way. But Laban having caught

    
This glimpse of lingering person in Eliza,

    
And anxious to make all he could of it

    
With something he remembered in himself,

    
Tried to think how he could exceed his promise,

    
And give good measure to the dead, though thankless.

    
If that was how she felt, he kept repeating.

    
His first thought under pressure was a grave

    
In a new boughten grave plot by herself,

    
Under
he didn't care how great a stone:

    
He'd sell a yoke of steers to pay for it.

    
And weren't there special cemetery flowers,

    
That, once grief sets to growing, grief may rest;

    
The flowers will go on with grief awhile,

    
And no one seem neglecting or neglected?

    
A prudent grief will not despise such aids.

    
He thought of evergreen and everlasting.

    
And then he had a thought worth many of these.

    
Somewhere must be the grave of the young boy

    
Who married her for playmate more than helpmate,

    
And sometimes laughed at what it was between them.

    
How would she like to sleep her last with him?

    
Where was his grave? Did Laban know his name?

    
He found the grave a town or two away,

    
The headstone cut with
John, Beloved Husband,

    
Beside it room reserved; the say a sister's;

    
A never-married sister's of that husband,

    
Whether Eliza would be welcome there.

    
The dead was bound to silence: ask the sister.

    
So Laban saw the sister, and, saying nothing

    
Of where Eliza wanted
not
to lie,

    
And who had thought to lay her with her first love,

    
Begged simply for the grave. The sister's face

    
Fell all in wrinkles of responsibility.

    
She wanted to do right. She'd have to think.

    
Laban was old and poor, yet seemed to care;

    
And she was old and poor—but she cared, too.

    
They sat. She cast one dull, old look at him,

    
Then turned him out to go on other errands

    
She said he might attend to in the village,

    
While she made up her mind how much she cared—

    
And how much Laban cared—and why he cared,

    
(She made shrewd eyes to see where he came in.)

    
She'd looked Eliza up her second time,

    
A widow at her second husband's grave,

    
And offered her a home to rest awhile

    
Before she went the poor man's widow's way,

    
Housekeeping for the next man out of wedlock.

    
She
and Eliza had been friends through all.

    
Who was she to judge marriage in a world

    
Whose Bible's so confused up in marriage counsel?

    
The sister had not come across this Laban;

    
A decent product of life's ironing-out;

    
She must not keep him waiting. Time would press

    
Between the death day and the funeral day.

    
So when she saw him coming in the street

    
She hurried her decision to be ready

    
To meet him with his answer at the door.

    
Laban had known about what it would be

    
From the way she had set her poor old mouth,

    
To do, as she had put it, what was right.

    
She gave it through the screen door closed between them:

    
“No, not with John. There wouldn't be no sense.

    
Eliza's had too many other men.”

    
Laban was forced to fall back on his plan

    
To buy Eliza a plot to lie alone in:

    
Which gives him for himself a choice of lots

    
When his time comes to die and settle down.

S
OURCE:
Harper's Magazine
. July 1920.

Fire
and Ice
(1920)

                    
Some say the world will end in fire

                    
Some say in ice.

                    
From what I've tasted of desire

                    
I hold with those who favor fire.

                    
But if it had to perish twice,

                    
I think I know enough of hate

                    
To know that for destruction ice

                    
Is also great

                    
And would suffice.

S
OURCE:
Harper's Magazine
. December 1920.

ROSE
COHEN

In these extraordinarily touching episodes from her memoir, Rose Cohen (1880–1925) narrates not her arrival in America but her family's preparations for leaving Russia and her imaginings of what she has in store. Cohen wrote her book when she was thirty-eight, at the encouragement of her night-school teacher in Manhattan.

From
Out of the Shadow: A Russian Jewish Girlhood on the Lower East Side
(1918)

F
ATHER HAD BEEN
in America but a short time when grandmother realised that his emigration had lessened Aunt Masha's prospects of marriage. When she came to this conclusion her peace was gone. She wept night and day. “Poor Masha,” she moaned, “what is to become of her? Her chances had been small enough without a dowry. And now, burdened with an aged father and a blind helpless mother, the best she can expect is a middle-aged widower with half a dozen children!”

Mother tried to comfort her by telling her that she would remain in Russia as long as grandmother lived, so that she would not have to live with Masha. But this only irritated her. “You talk like a child,” she wept. “You stay here and wait for my death, while my son, at the other end of the world, will be leading a life of loneliness. And as for me, would I have any peace, knowing that I was the cause?”

Mother, seeing that she could do nothing to comfort her, silently awaited results.

One night I woke hearing a muffled sound of crying. I felt for grandmother, with whom I slept. But she was not beside me. Frightened, I sat up and peered into the darkness. The crying came from the foot of the bed. And soon I discerned grandmother sitting
there.
With her hands clasped about her knees and her face buried in her lap she sat rocking gently and weeping.

I called to her in a whisper to come and lie down, but she did not answer. For a while I sat trembling with cold and fear. Then I slipped far back under the warm comforter and tried to sleep. But the picture of grandmother sitting alone in the dark and cold haunted me. And so again I arose.

Creeping over to her quickly I curled up close to her and put my arms around her cold, trembling form. At first she did not take any notice of me. But after a few minutes she lifted her head and unclasping her hands, she drew me under her shawl, saying as she laid her wet face against mine, “Oh, you little mouse, how you do creep up to one! But you had better go back to your place or you will catch cold.”

When I went back and as grandmother tucked me in, I asked her why she cried so. “Never mind, you little busybody,” she said, “go to sleep.” But I teased her to tell me. And finally she said with a sigh and speaking more to herself than to me, “It is about Masha. Go to sleep now, you will hear all about it to-morrow.”

She sat down on the edge of the bed gently patting my shoulder, as she had often done when I was a little child. Soon I fell asleep.

The next day the rings under her eyes were darker, and her eyelids were more red and swollen than usual. But otherwise she seemed more calm than she had been for a long time.

After dinner she said to mother, hesitating at every word as she spoke, “You know, I decided last night, that when you go to America Masha should go with you.” This startled mother so that she almost dropped the baby whom she was swinging on her foot.

“What are you saying? Masha go to America and you left here alone?”

“Yes, alone,” she sighed, “as if I never had any children. But so it must be. True, I have not had a happy life. But happy or not I have lived it. And now, it is almost at an end. But Masha has just begun to live, and in America she will have a better chance, for there are fewer women there, they say. As for me, I shall not be without comfort in my last days. When I am lonely, I shall think of her happily married and surrounded by dear little children like yours. And now listen to this plan. Of course I can not be left here alone, though my needs are few. And so before you start for America you will take me to my niece in the city. She is a very pious woman and so I am sure she will give me a little space in
some
corner of her house. Of course you will pay her for a year of my board. And after that perhaps you will send her money. But I hope it won't be necessary. Indeed, I feel that I won't trouble this world much longer.”

Mother tried to dissuade her from this plan but she turned a deaf ear and insisted that we write to father at once. And we did.

About a month passed before we received an answer. The letter was heavier than usual. And when we opened it, two yellow tickets fell out from among the two closely-written sheets.

“What is this?” we all asked at once. “Not money. And this writing must be English.”

We handed the tickets to grandmother who held out her hand for them. Suddenly her hand began to tremble and she said, “Perhaps these are steamer tickets. Quickly read the letter.”

After the usual greetings father wrote, “Since Masha is to come to America she might as well start as soon as she can get ready. And Rahel had better come with her. I am sure she can earn at least three dollars a week. With her help I'll be able to bring the rest of the family over much sooner, perhaps in a year or so. And besides, now she can still travel on half a ticket, which I am enclosing with the one for Masha.”

Quite bewildered, I looked at mother. Her lips were opening and closing without making a sound. Suddenly she caught me into her arms and burst into tears.

IX.

For many days mother could not look at the steamer tickets without tears in her eyes. And even then though she tried to speak cheerfully about my going to America, I noticed that the anxious look which came into her eyes while the letter was being read, never left them. Also I felt her eyes following me about on every step. But once only, she gave way to her feelings openly.

One morning while she was fastening the back of my dress I caught a few disconnected words, which she uttered low as though she were speaking to herself.

“Good Heavens! child twelve years old—care—herself.” Then came those inward tearless sobs and I felt her hands tremble on my back.