Tevye the Dairyman & Motl the Cantor's Son

by Sholem Aleichem

Later, toward the end of summer, when the watermelons are ripe, our business does even better. We cut the melons into many slices and sell them for a penny a slice. If God helps out with a delicious melon, we really make out well. If a few slices remain on the stand, we have a good supper, because you can’t keep cut melon for another day or it will turn. I and Mendl and Pinni pray to God to have more watermelon slices left over.

  F.

  These items have a limited season. After the summer, it’s no more champagne, no more watermelon! But cigarettes have no particular season and are sold all year round. We do a very good business with them. There are all kinds of cigarettes. Some cost a penny apiece, some cost two for a cent. Cigarettes are also something you can sneak and smoke in secret. Then something awful happened. I once sneaked a cigarette, and we were smoking it, Mendl and I—he a puff, I a puff. It would have gone smoothly, but Bruche sniffed out that we were smoking. She told my brother Elyahu, who taught me a lesson about cigarettes I’ll never forget! It wasn’t so much the cigarette that bothered him as the fact that it was Shabbes. That Peysi the cantor’s son would smoke on Shabbes—reason enough to kill him! Even my mother went along with him for something like that. The dog deserves the stick. From that time on we don’t smoke cigarettes anymore. I can’t even stand the smell.

  G .

  In addition to cigarettes, we also sell Yiddish newspapers and magazines. We don’t do a great business with them, but our friend Pinni has something to read. He doesn’t leave a single newspaper unread. Once he sticks his nose in, it’s hard to tear him away. He’s drawn to the papers, he says, like a magnet. He’s even tempted to write something for the papers himself. He’s already been to East Broadway several times where the papers are printed. What he does there, he doesn’t say. I’m afraid he takes some of his songs along, because when they deliver the stacks of papers, our friend Pinni leaps up and grabs one before anyone else. He leafs through and searches through every page. His hands actually tremble. Then he jumps up and runs off to East Broadway. My brother Elyahu asks him what he has to do on East Broadway. Pinni tells him he’s looking for a business. Elyahu asks him, “Aren’t we doing business?” Pinni answers, “You call this a business? A family of seven people living from one little stand? Some business!” My brother Elyahu is puzzled. “How do you get seven people out of five?” Pinni counts on his fingers. He and his Teibl are two. My brother Elyahu and his Bruche are four. My mother is five. And the two kids make seven. By kids, he means Mendl and me.

  H .

  My mother is resentful. She sticks up for me and my friend Mendl. She says we earn our keep honestly. Early in the morning, before the stand opens, we deliver the morning papers to our customers. Then we go to school. (Yes, we’re going to school.) And after school we help “attend to the business.” My mother uses those very words. She is now speaking more than half in English. She knows chicken and kitchen, but gets them mixed up. She says, “I’m going into the chicken to salt the kitchen.” We laugh at her, and she laughs too.

  XVI

  HELLO, OLD PAL!

  A .

  One early morning Mendl and I are running around delivering the morning newspapers to our customers when suddenly someone claps me on the back and calls out, “Hello, old pal!”

  I turn around and see—Motl, Big Motl! It’s the same Motl who dragged around with us in Cracow, Lemberg, Vienna, and Antwerp. If you remember, he taught me how to do a governor in my side and was a ventriloquist. He left with the emigrant gang much earlier than we. While we were still trying to find our way in London Whitechapel, he was doing all right in America. He already had a job in a cleaning store, which he still has. I ask him, “What kind of job is it?” He explains as we walk that it’s a kind of cleaning factory where they clean and press clothing. “How do they do it?” I ask.

  “They put a pair of washed, creased pants into a sort of machine between two ironing boards. In a separate little oven the boards are heated up. A person pulls down the boards—you have a pair of pressed pants!”

  B .

  “And what are your jobs?” Big Motl asks of me and Mendl.

  “We deliver newspapers,” I say. “We bring papers to customers before we go to school. And when we come home from school, we help with the business. We have a stand on a street corner, and we’re making a living.”

  “Oho!” says Big Motl. “Your English is pretty good. How much do you make a week, two businessmen like yourselves?”

  “On average,” I say, “we can take in about a dollar a week and sometimes a dollar and a quarter.”

  “Is that all?” says Big Motl scornfully. “I make three dollars a week. What’s the name of this gentleman?” He points to my friend. I tell him his name is Mendl. Motl laughs and says Mendl is a stupid name. What kind of a name is Mendl? “What else should his name be?” I ask. He thinks awhile and says he’d do better to be called Mike, not Mendl. Mike is a much nicer name.

  “What’s your name?” I ask.

  “Max,” he says.

  “If that’s so, I should be called Max too. My name is also Motl.”

  He says, “Sure, you’re called Max,” and he leaves. “Goodbye, Max! Goodbye, Mike!”

  We decide to meet at the movies the following Sunday. We exchange addresses and go our own ways.

  C.

  Sunday after dinner I and my friend Mike, who was not so long ago called Mendl, go to the movies to see the great movie star Charlie Chaplin. My brother Elyahu and our friend Pinni also come along. All the way to the movies they talk about Charlie Chaplin, what a great man he is, how much he gets paid, and the fact that he is a Jew. But these two can never agree on anything—what one says, the other one says the opposite. So my brother Elyahu says, “In what way is Charlie Chaplin so great?” Pinni answers that they don’t pay just anyone a thousand dollars a week. My brother Elyahu asks him how he knows that—did he count his money? Pinni says he read it in the papers. And how does he know Charlie Chaplin is a Jew? Pinni says that’s what they say in the papers. My brother Elyahu asks him further, “How do the papers know? Were they at his bris?”

  Pinni says, “The papers know everything. That’s how we know Charlie Chaplin is a mute from birth, and that he can’t write or read. And that his father was a drunkard. And that he himself was once a clown in a circus.”

  My brother Elyahu hears him out and says coldly, “And maybe the whole story is a lie?” Pinni becomes enraged and says my brother is a nudnik. I agree with Pinni. Even though my brother Elyahu is my own flesh and blood, he’s an awful nudnik. What’s true is true.

  D .

  We have just approached the ticket office when we hear a voice: “How do you do, Max? How are you, Mike?”

  It’s Big Motl, whose name is no longer Motl but Max.

  “Don’t buy any tickets,” says Max. “I’m treating with tickets today,” which means he’s buying our tickets. He pulls a half dollar from his pocket and tosses it to the girl sitting at the little window and asks for three tickets in the gallery.

  “Who is this shlimazel?” my brother Elyahu asks us. We tell him who it is. My brother Elyahu looks him up and down and asks him why he doesn’t give us a sholem aleichem. “Have you become so important in America that it’s beneath you to speak a word of Yiddish?”

  Motl, or Max, doesn’t answer him. But suddenly we hear a shout from near the theater door: “Idiot!”

  We all turn our faces toward the door but don’t see anyone. We look at each other, surprised. My brother Elyahu moves toward the door, followed by Pinni—no one is there. They look up at the ceiling and search all the corners—not a soul. Who can it be?

  Motl, now Max, takes me and Mike by the hands, and we all climb upstairs. There he tells us the secret that it was he, Max, who through ventriloquism yelled out “Idiot!” And he repeats it as we take our seats. We burst out laughing so hard, we can hardly sit still as we enjoy Charlie Chaplin’s pranks.

  E.

  Never in your life have yo
u met such a character as Big Motl, or Max. You’d think there was no greater magician than Charlie Chaplin, but Max imitates him in every detail. Leaving the theater, Max pastes on a black mustache just like Charlie Chaplin’s. He pushes his hat back like Charlie Chaplin. He turns his feet out like Charlie Chaplin and imitates his walk exactly, wagging his behind and twirling his cane. My friend Mendl, or Mike, grabs him and hugs him. Everyone standing outside the theater points at him. “There goes the second Charlie Chaplin!” Even a serious person like my brother Elyahu is laughing.

  But he doesn’t laugh long. In a moment his laughter is spoiled. Why? He suddenly hears a voice as if from under the ground, from the cellar: “I-di-ot!”

  F.

  Everybody bends down, looking into the cellar we’ve just passed. We all listen intently, as does Max, as if he has no idea what’s happening. Then we suddenly hear a voice, now above us, as if from the roof: “I-di-ot!!”

  First my brother Elyahu and then all of us crane our necks toward the roof, as does Max, which is very funny. Mike and I know where the voices are coming from. We can’t restrain ourselves and burst out laughing.

  G.

  That really upsets my brother Elyahu. Had we not been in New York on the street, we’d certainly have received a few good slaps on both cheeks. My ears would have known about it. But since we’re on the street in the middle of New York, my brother Elyahu has to be satisfied with soundly cursing us out.

  Then he tries to teach us a lesson. He points to Max. “Learn from him,” he says, rubbing it in. “Learn from your friend, a boy like you. Why isn’t he laughing like you are?”

  “I-di-ot!” we hear again from behind my brother Elyahu’s back. My brother Elyahu spins around, and so does our friend Pinni. We all spin around, including Max. Mike and I almost fall down laughing.

  H .

  “In America the stones speak,” says Pinni. He’d love to know who’s calling out “Idiot.”

  My brother Elyahu says to him, “Whoever asks is an—”

  Isn’t he surprised when suddenly a muffled voice is heard from under the ground: “You are mistaken, Reb Elyahu, because you yourself are the i-di-ot!”

  I .

  My brother Elyahu no longer goes to the movies and doesn’t even want to hear about Charlie Chaplin.

  XVII

  WE EXPAND THE BUSINESS

  A.

  In America people hate to stay in one place. In America they must go forward, grow bigger every day. The business we do at our stand is not enough to support a family of seven people, kayn eyn horeh. We began looking for a bigger business, not a stand but a real store. In America you don’t have to look long.

  As I told you, all you have to do is look in the newspapers, where you’ll find whatever your heart desires. The problem is that a proper business is expensive. Even the name costs money. Sometimes you have to pay more for the name than for the merchandise. Our own stand barely brings in ten dollars a week, but we’re able to sell it for good money—only because of the name. A greenhorn buys it from us. He doesn’t even asks how much we’re making. It’s enough for him to see seven people working the stand and making a living. That’s probably proof enough for him to think it’s a good business.

  B .

  We sell the stand, together with the wares, the baskets, the equipment, and even the showcase. But the secret of how we manufacture soda water, all kinds of syrup, and especially the drink they call cider—that my brother Elyahu will not give out for any amount of money. (He says that everyone manufactures these things.) How does he manufacture wine for Passover? My brother Elyahu’s Passover wine already has a reputation in America. Never mind that it’s his first year manufacturing it. All our friends who pray with us on Shabbes in our Kasrilevka shul won’t buy wine anywhere else but from us. Our friend Pinni spreads the good word all over New York that my brother Elyahu manufactures wine that the president himself could drink. When it comes to promoting things, our Pinni is a demon. Here they call it advertising. Pinni says America stands on advertising. Salesmen praise their own wares. Workers advertise their own skills. My drink may taste as sour as vinegar, but I can still advertise that it’s sweeter than sugar. My work may not be worth a penny, but I can value it as worth a million. This is America, a free country.

  C .

  Having spread the good word about my brother Elyahu’s Passover wine all over downtown, our friend Pinni calls him aside and says to him, “Listen here, Elyahu. I advertise your Passover wine better than anyone else could. Make sure you don’t shame me. You’re fully capable of manufacturing a wine that tastes as delicious as your kvass in the Old Country. Remember, this is America, and here they drink wine, not kvass.”

  My brother Elyahu cannot respond because he feels so insulted. It is Bruche who responds for him. My sister-in-law launches into a tirade at our friend Pinni: “If a stranger would hear those words, he would surely think that in America there are only rich people and aristocrats who drink nothing but wine and bathe in honey and shmaltz. I have seen with my own eyes how an allrightnichkeh from Grand Street ordered a barrel of apple cider and a hundred sour apples. May I be blessed if those apples aren’t better and tastier than the local oranges and grapefruits, which are impossible to cut and figure out how to eat.”

  I’m not telling you everything Bruche said. Once Bruche starts talking, she won’t stop quickly. Pinni knows this as well as I. He pushes his cap back on his head and takes off. That’s the best thing to do. I do the same.

  D .

  CANDY—CIGAR—STATIONERY STORE WITH FIVE ROOMS. BIG BARGAIN. GOOD BUSINESS. BEST NEIGHBORHOOD. REASON FOR SELLING: I AM SINGLE. FAST SALE NECESSARY.

  We find this ad in the newspaper, and we all feel it’s a business made to order for us. We men set out first to look it over, and we like it. Then the women go, and they don’t like it. Each of them finds a different fault. My mother says it’s too far from the shul. There is shul down the street, but it’s not our Kasrilevka shul. My brother Elyahu asks her if it’s the same God in the new shul as in her old shul. My mother says it’s the same God but different Jews, not Kasrilevka Jews with whom it’s easier to pray. Furthermore she can’t imagine praying with someone other than her cantor, Hersh-Ber.

  E.

  My sister-in-law finds a different fault. What will we do with so many rooms? Why do we need five rooms? Our neighbor Fat Pessi suggests that we can rent the spare rooms, take in “boarders.” Bruche says, “That’s all we need, having to worry about strangers in our house.” Teibl echoes her every word like a parrot.

  Pinni says to his wife, “Why don’t you try to say something on your own for a change, not repeat Bruche’s words?”

  Bruche steps forward and cools him off: “Some people know everything about others but nothing about themselves.” And Teibl repeats this as well, word for word.

  Pinni says to his wife, “What would you do if you were alone?” Bruche retorts, “Would you, should you—what a lot of questions!” And Teibl repeats her every word.

  Pinni spits a “Tphoo!” and leaves.

  F.

  Do you think we’re the only ones who go to look at the business? Our in-laws and friends also come along with us. The first is our in-law Yoneh the baker. After a while his wife Rivele comes. They can’t leave the knishes alone and have to take turns wherever they go. Then comes Moishe the bookbinder, followed by Fat Pessi. But wait! Here I must interrupt myself and say in the local language, “Excuse me, I made a mistake.” It is Fat Pessi who comes first, followed by Moishe. After them come some good friends who pray with us in shul, some Kasrilevka Jews who understand business. The owner doesn’t receive them kindly. As a matter of fact, he practically throws them out. He says he never imagined such a large family! This hurts my mother’s feelings. She goes with Bruche to see him privately, and Bruche gives him a piece of her mind he will never forget! The businessman swears by God that he’s giving up the business only because he’s getting married, but now he regrets
his decision. If a woman, he says, can open up her mouth like our Bruche, it’s not worth getting married. He says he’s better off remaining single.

  G.

  But he’s just saying that. He’s as eager to sell the business as we are to buy it, especially since we’ve almost sold our stand. I say “almost” because the greenhorn who came to take over our stand has forced a ten-dollar deposit on us. We’re already sorry we’ve taken his deposit, because now he hangs around us all day and won’t move a step away from our stand—a nudnik of a Jew, even more of a nudnik than my brother Elyahu! My brother is an angel compared to him. He makes such a pest of himself that we throw the deposit back in his face. But he refuses to take it back. He’s fallen in love with our stand. He’s sure we’ve become rich from it. “A greenhorn remains a greenhorn!” says our friend Pinni.

  H.

  What is a greenhorn? Ask me something easier! My friend Mike doesn’t really know either. We hear people saying “greenhorn,” so we say it too. I draw a picture of the man who’s buying the stand from us on the sidewalk. I draw him with a long horn on his forehead, in green chalk. (You should hear them laugh.) Everybody recognizes him and laughs, all except my brother Elyahu. He is not amused. Oh, he doesn’t hit me, but he does make me wipe off the green horn with a wet rag or else we could be fined. You can get fined for everything around here. Try spitting on the street, and a policeman will appear, grab you by the ear, and take you straight to the police station, where you’ll be fined five dollars. America is very strict!