"I wash my hands of "em when they get inside," she said, laughing, and coming back to Helen. "If Old Yawcob and his wife and his salesladies can"t hold "em, it isn"t _my_ fault, you understand. I"m about the youngest puller-in there is along Madison Street--although that little hunchback in front of the millinery shop yonder _looks_ younger."
"But you don"t try to pull _me_ in," said Helen, laughing. "And I"ve got ten whole dollars to spend."
"That"s right. But then, you see, you"re my friend, Miss," said Sadie. "I want to be sure you get your money"s worth. So I"m going with you when you buy your dress--that is, if you"ll let me."
"Let you? Why, I"d dearly love to have you advise me," declared the Western girl. "And don"t--_don"t_--call me "Miss." I"m Helen Morrell, I tell you."
"All right. If you say so. But, you know, you _are_ from Madison Avenyer just the same."
"No. I"m from a great big ranch out West."
"That"s like a farm--yes? I gotter cousin that works on a farm over on Long Island. It"s a big farm--it"s eighty acres. Is that farm you come from as big as that?"
Helen nodded and did not smile at the girl"s ignorance. "Very much bigger than eighty acres," she said. "You see, it has to be, for we raise cattle instead of vegetables."
"Well, I guess I don"t know much about it," admitted Sadie, frankly. "All I know is this city and mostly this part of it down here on the East Side.
We all have to work so hard, you know. But we"re getting along better than we did at first, for more of us children can work.
"And now I want you should go home with me for dinner, Helen--yes! It is my dinner hour quick now; and then we will have time to pick you out a bargain for a dress. Sure! You"ll come?"
"If I won"t be imposing on you?" said Helen, slowly.
"Huh! That"s all right. We"ll have enough to eat _this_ noon. And it ain"t so Jewish, either, for father don"t come home till night. Father"s awful religious; but I tell mommer she must be up-to-date and have some "Merican style about her. I got her to leave off her wig yet. Catch _me_ wearin" a wig when I"m married just to make me look ugly. Not!"
All this rather puzzled Helen; but she was too polite to ask questions.
She knew vaguely that Jewish people followed peculiar rabbinical laws and customs; but what they were she had no idea. However, she liked Sadie, and it mattered nothing to Helen what the East Side girl"s faith or bringing up had been. Sadie was kind, and friendly, and was really the only person in all this big city in whom the ranch girl could place the smallest confidence.
Sadie ran into the store for a moment and soon a big woman with an unctuous smile, a ruffled white ap.r.o.n about as big as a postage stamp, and her gray hair dressed as remarkably as Sadie"s own, came out upon the sidewalk to take the young girl"s place.
"Can"t I sell you somedings, lady?" she said to the waiting Helen.
"Now, don"t you go and run _my_ customer in, Ma Finkelstein!" cried Sadie, running out and hugging the big woman. "Helen is my friend and she"s going home to eat mit me."
"_Ach!_ you are already a United Stater yet," declared the big woman, laughing. "Undt the friends you have it from Number Five Av"noo--yes?"
"You guessed it pretty near right," cried Sadie. "Helen lives on Madison Avenyer--and it ain"t Madison Avenyer _uptown_, neither!"
She slipped her hand in Helen"s and bore her off to the tenement house in which Helen had had her first adventure in the great city.
"Come on up," said Sadie, hospitably. "You look tired, and I bet you walked clear down here?"
"Yes, I did," admitted Helen.
"Some o" mommer"s soup mit lentils will rest you, I bet. It ain"t far yet--only two flights."
Helen followed her cheerfully. But she wondered if she was doing just right in letting this friendly girl believe that she was just as poor as the Starkweathers thought she was. Yet, on the other hand, wouldn"t Sadie Goronsky have felt embarra.s.sed and have been afraid to be her friend, if she knew that Helen Morrell was a very, very wealthy girl and had at her command what would seem to the Russian girl "untold wealth"?
"I"ll pay her for this," thought Helen, with the first feeling of real happiness she had experienced since leaving the ranch. "She shall never be sorry that she was kind to me."
So she followed Sadie into the humble home of the latter on the third floor of the tenement with a smiling face and real warmth at her heart. In Yiddish the downtown girl explained rapidly her acquaintance with "the Gentile." But, as she had told Helen, Sadie"s mother had begun to break away from some of the traditions of her people. She was fast becoming "a United Stater," too.
She was a handsome, beaming woman, and she was as generous-hearted as Sadie herself. The rooms were a little steamy, for Mrs. Goronsky had been doing the family wash that morning. But the table was set neatly and the food that came on was well prepared and--to Helen--much more acceptable than the dainties she had been having at Uncle Starkweather"s.
The younger children, who appeared for the meal, were right from the street where they had been playing, or from work in neighboring factories, and were more than a little grimy. But they were not clamorous and they ate with due regard to "manners."
"Ve haf nine, Mees," said Mrs. Goronsky, proudly. "Undt they all are healt"y--_ach! so_ healt"y. It takes mooch to feed them yet."
"Don"t tell about it, Mommer" cried Sadie. "It aint stylish to have big fam"lies no more. Don"t I tell you?"
"What about that Preesident we hadt--that Teddy Sullivan--what said big fam"lies was a good d"ing? Aindt that enough? Sure, Sarah, a _Preesident_ iss stylish."
"Oh, Mommer!" screamed Sadie. "You gotcher politics mixed. "Sullivan" is the district leader wot gifs popper a job; but "Teddy" was the President yet. You ain"t never goin" to be real American."
But her mother only laughed. Indeed, the light-heartedness of these poor people was a revelation to Helen. She had supposed vaguely that very poor people must be all the time serious, if not actually in tears.
"Now, Helen, we"ll rush right back to the shop and I"ll make Old Yawcob sell you a bargain. She"s goin" to get her new dress, Mommer. Ain"t that fine?"
"Sure it iss," declared the good woman. "Undt you get her a bargain, Sarah."
"_Don"t_ call me "Sarah," Mommer!" cried the daughter. "It ain"t stylish, I tell you. Call me "Sadie.""
Her mother kissed her on both plump cheeks. "What matters it, my little lamb?" she said, in their own tongue. "Mother love makes _any_ name sweet."
Helen did not, of course, understand these words; but the caress, the look on their faces, and the way Sadie returned her mother"s kiss made a great lump come into the orphan girl"s throat. She could hardly find her way in the dim hall to the stairway, she was so blinded by tears.
CHAPTER XV
"STEP--PUT; STEP--PUT"
An hour later Helen was dressed in a two-piece suit, cut in what a chorus of salesladies, including old Mrs. Finkelstein and Sadie herself, declared were most "stylish" lines--and it did not cost her ten dollars, either!
Indeed, Sadie insisted upon going with her to a neighboring millinery store and purchasing a smart little hat for $1.59, which set off the new suit very nicely.
"Sure, this old hat and suit of yours is wort" a lot more money, Helen,"
declared the Russian girl. "But they ain"t just the style, yuh see. And style is everything to a girl. Why, n.o.body"d take you for a greenie _now_!"
Helen was quite wise enough to know that she had never been dressed so cheaply before; but she recognized, too, the truth of her friend"s statement.
"Now, you take the dress home, and the hat. Maybe you can find a cheap tailor who will make over the dress. There"s enough material in it. That"s an awful wide skirt, you know."
"But I couldn"t walk in a skirt as narrow as the one you have on, Sadie."
"Chee! if it was stylish," confessed Sadie, "I"d find a way to walk in a piece of stove-pipe!" and she giggled.
So Helen left for uptown with her bundles, wearing her new suit and hat.