August 22
It was my birthday today. I am twelve now. Ma gave me a big kiss when I came down for breakfast, and then baked a special cake for me! After supper, we all sang “Happy Birthday,” and Gert gave me a pinch to grow an inch. If Gert pinching me really made me grow I’d be about twenty feet tall by now. Still, I wish it would work. I hate being short.
August 23
Benny came over to tell me he has a new job, but he wouldn’t say what it is, just that it’s at the Ex, on the midway. He says if I want to know what it is I have to come and see for myself. I said I couldn’t because I didn’t have the money to get in, but he says he’ll give it to me himself because he’s going to be making a fortune.
I wonder what he’ll be doing. I guess I’ll have to go and find out, even if I do hate the midway. It’s always so noisy and crowded there, and the people in the little booths where you throw baseballs or darts or other things to win prizes call you “girlie” when you walk by and make fun of you when you pretend you can’t hear them. But Benny made his job sound so mysterious and exciting. If I don’t find out what it is, I’ll just die. I hope it isn’t against the law.
The best thing is, he won’t be selling papers anymore, and I won’t have to hear him go on and on all the time about how awful the Nazis are and how they’re assaulting Jews on the streets in Germany now. Ma says no news is good news, and I agree.
August 30
I didn’t have to get money from Benny, because yesterday Dora took me with her to the Ex. I don’t know where she got the money, because she always gives everything she earns to Ma. But Ma didn’t know we were going and Dora didn’t say where we’d been when we got back. So I’ve decided I won’t ask. Sometimes it’s better not to know.
Dora says she really loves the Ex, and so do I, except for the midway. It goes on forever. People say it’s the biggest annual exhibition in the entire world — and it’s right here in Toronto! It’s too noisy, but I have to admit it’s exciting. There are people everywhere selling popcorn and fried potatoes and roasted peanuts and other food that smells so good, even if Pa says it’s probably all trayf and Jewish people like us can’t eat it. It’s a good thing it’s too expensive for us to afford, or else I’d probably want to buy some and that would be bad.
But there are lots and lots of things to see, champion horses and cats and other animals on display and this year there’s a whole building full of things from China called the Forbidden City. I don’t know why it’s called forbidden, because it was just boring old pots and paintings and things. If Sophie saw it, she’d love it — or at least she’d say she loved it, but she’d probably really find it just as dull as Dora and I did. Sophie is always pretending to be so, so sophisticated, talking about art and eating bacon and saying everyone else has such bad taste. But last week I caught her looking at a movie magazine Gert borrowed from one of the girls at work, and she was so interested in reading the gossip that she didn’t even see me.
After a few minutes in the Forbidden City, we decided the Pure Food Building would be more interesting. We each got a whole shopping bag full of free samples, Shredded Wheat and gum and pamphlets about gelatin and baking powder and so many other things. We’ll probably throw most of the pamphlets out right away without even looking at them, but they were free, so we took them.
After that, we went to a fashion show in the Fashion Building. The clothes were simply divine. I especially liked a white, sleeveless slack suit with a red and blue stripe across the top. It had a V-neck and the pants flared out at the bottom like sailor pants, and there was even a cute little matching hat. It was adorable. Of course, I could never wear a suit like that myself. It would just show off my arms, and Gert would be sure to say something mean. Maybe I could wear it with a sweater on top.
I’ve written so much today that my pencil is getting dull. I need to sharpen it.
That’s better. After the fashion show, I made Dora take me to the midway to find Benny. It was just as awful as it always is. A horrible man shouted that he was going to guess my weight, but luckily he didn’t. I’d have died if he said it out loud right in front of the crowd. But they all laughed when I turned bright red, and that was almost as bad.
To get to where Benny and his sisters were, we had to go by the Ubangi Belles. They were dark people from Africa and they had big stretched-out lower lips you could put a whole saucer inside of and they were wearing almost nothing and dancing like crazy. They were pretending to be happy, but their eyes looked so sad it almost made me cry. The man there wanted people to pay to go inside and see them dance more. Why would anybody want to do that? People are meshugge.
When we got to the place where Benny worked, his sisters were standing in front of a little tank filled with water. There were wearing nothing but their bathing suits! Right there on the midway! They should be ashamed of themselves. It’s so embarrassing, knowing that those girls showing themselves off like that are your cousins, your own flesh and blood, even though I don’t know them very well because they’re so much older than me, and anyway, Benny is the only one in their family who comes around to our place very often and we hardly ever see them.
At least Rosie and Ruthie look good in a bathing suit. They’re both so pretty, like movie stars. I hope I look like them when I grow up. But even if I did, I wouldn’t show off in a bathing suit in public in broad daylight.
When we got there, Rosie and Ruthie were pointing to Benny, who was standing on a ladder behind the pool. He was wearing a bathing suit too, and all his ribs were sticking out. But at least he looked cleaner than he usually does. Rosie and Ruthie were shouting at the crowd, asking people to throw coins into the pool and if they did, then Benny would dive into the pool and try to get them.
Benny doesn’t know how to dive and he can’t swim. He must have nearly drowned every time he jumped into the tank. The time Dora and I saw him he came up sputtering and coughing and could hardly make it to the edge of the tank. What was he thinking of? What were Rosie and Ruthie thinking of to let him do it?
Well, at least he’s not doing it anymore. After the show was over, Dora and I went up to the stage to say hello to Benny and Rosie and Ruthie, and when we got there they were all shouting at each other and looking really upset. It was because Ruthie and Rosie wanted Benny to give them some of the money he got from the pool. They said he didn’t deserve it all because the audience just threw the coins into the water because they liked the way they looked in their bathing suits. Benny got so mad he threw all the coins back into the pool and told them to go get them themselves. Then he stomped behind the curtain to get his clothes and never came back. I guess he’s back to selling newspapers again. It serves him right, but I can’t help feeling sorry for him.
September 1932
September 1
There was an eclipse of the sun yesterday.
When I heard about it on the radio I got really excited. It sounded so mysterious and so thrilling. But yesterday afternoon when the eclipse started I was afraid to look. Sophie said you had to have smoked glasses because looking right at the eclipse without them could make you blind, and of course we didn’t have any smoked glasses and I don’t want to be blind. So I sort of squinched my eyes and looked close to the sun but not right at it. It got dark for a bit, kind of, but I didn’t really see anything special.
Well, at least I know it happened.
September 6
School started today. Finally.
Now that I’m in Junior Four, I’ll be using the 14¢ reader. A whole book of new stories and poems — I can hardly wait! I went over to Auntie Bella’s and got the reader from my cousin Millie yesterday. Millie used it last year, and she got it from Gert, who scribbled her name all over it, of course, right across some perfectly divine poems. Sometimes Gert makes me want to scream.
At least I have a reader. If I keep going to school next year like Ma and Pa and Sophie say they want me to, the reader will cost 16¢, and no one else in the family has go
ne that far in school yet, so we’ll have to buy a new one. I do like school, but the books and the scribblers are so expensive and anyway I want to go out and earn money and help the family like Sophie and Dora and even Gert do. Why do I have to be the smart one?
Rivka from across the street is in my class again, and my teacher is Miss Douglas. I think she’s going to be nice. She has lovely brown hair and today she wore a lovely navy blue dress with a pleated skirt and cute little capped sleeves in lace and she said that Sally was a perfectly lovely name. So who cares if she’s not Jewish?
Benny does, that’s who. Benny says she’s not Jewish because there aren’t any Jewish teachers at all. Benny says Jews aren’t allowed to be teachers or doctors or lawyers or even work on the streetcars or get jobs as sales clerks at Eaton’s, and since the Depression started Jews can’t even get the jobs they used to get because the goyim keep them all for themselves. Benny says it’s almost as bad here as it is in Germany, and if you ask him, that’s pretty bad.
I wish Benny would stop selling newspapers and go work in Uncle Bertzik’s factory. Then he wouldn’t be reading about all the horrible things happening in Germany and he could stop worrying about them and trying to get me to worry about them, too. Pa is so upset about going to court, and Sophie says she’s going out with Syd all the time, but I saw Syd in the market yesterday without Sophie when Sophie said she was going to see her. I have enough to worry about already.
September 7
We had Domestic Science for the first time today. The teacher handed out squares of flannelette and said we have to make underpants out of them. Underpants! Really! It was all right today, because it was just a piece of flannelette. But as soon as we cut them out, they’ll start to look like underpants, and we’ll be working on them right in front of each other. Even just thinking about it makes me blush.
September 8
I got every answer right in my arithmetic test yesterday. So did one of the goyishe girls, Myrtle MacDonald. But Myrtle had two errors in spelling and I just had one. Myrtle seems kind of nice, even if she isn’t Jewish.
September 15
Sophie and Pa are furious with each other, and it’s all my fault. I guess maybe I should have told Ma about that man on the streetcar. How was I supposed to know what would happen?
It all started on Monday night when these strangers rang the doorbell. It was a goyishe man and lady. They said they were Mr. and Mrs. Hayward, and they wanted to see Ma and Pa. Ma and Pa took them into the parlour and closed the door, and Gert and I tried to hear what they were saying but we couldn’t, except for once when Pa shouted but we couldn’t make out what he said. When they came out, Mr. and Mrs. Hayward looked angry and Pa’s face was bright red and Ma was trying not to cry but she was crying anyway. I didn’t know why until Sophie came home later.
Mr. and Mrs. Hayward are Steven’s parents! I should have guessed, because Mr. Hayward had freckles and red hair just like his.
And you’ll never guess why they came! They came because Steven told them he was engaged to Sophie! To be married!
Steven’s parents told Ma and Pa they didn’t approve of him marrying a Jewish girl, especially since Mr. Hayward is a minister in the United Church. Imagine, a church minister in our house! But Mr. Hayward said Steven was a grown man with a mind of his own and they had to accept it. They said that Steven had brought Sophie over to meet them and they thought she was a lovely girl even if she was Jewish, and they thought it was time to meet her family. That’s why they came.
Imagine, Sophie, who’s always telling the rest of us how to behave properly, sneaking around like that behind everyone’s backs. And getting engaged to a goy! A goy with a church minister for a father! And none of us knew a single thing about it.
Except me — and I didn’t tell, because of the cherries. I just feel so awful.
As soon as Sophie walked in the door, Pa started yelling at her and saying she was a sneak and a liar and a monster, and he made her tell him what was going on. Sophie began to cry like crazy and she told him it was all true and she wasn’t ashamed of anything. She knew he wouldn’t approve and that’s why she didn’t say anything, but she was going to marry Steven whether Pa liked it or not, because she loved him and he loved her and they were meant to be together and it was a free country and it was the twentieth century now, not the Dark Ages.
It was almost like a movie. If it was Joan Crawford talking about Clark Gable or John Barrymore and not just my own sister Sophie talking about Steven, it would have been ever so romantic.
But it made Pa even madder. It was awful. I’ve never seen him like that, not ever. He’s usually so quiet. He said Sophie was trying to destroy the family and the whole Jewish race and he wasn’t going to stand for it. He told her he’d kill himself if she married that goy, and he even grabbed the big sharp knife that Ma uses for cutting up chickens and started waving it around while he shouted. Ma was screaming at him to calm down and Sophie was still crying like crazy and telling him to stop, and so were all the rest of us, even Hindl. Finally, Sophie said she’d break off the engagement if Pa would just put the knife down, and he stopped shouting and stared at her, and she stared back and said nothing, just shook, and finally, he dropped the knife and she started crying again and ran off to her room. Pa started shouting at her again, even after she was gone, and then he stomped out, too. I think he went to the shul to pray. Ma went up to Sophie with a cup of tea, but Sophie wouldn’t take it. She said her heart was broken and she just wanted to die.
She hasn’t died yet. But she and Pa haven’t said a word to each other since.
I wrote so much today that I had to sharpen my pencil twice. Lucky I got some free ones at the Ex.
September 16
Sophie spent all day in her room. A friend of Steven’s came to the door with a note from him for Sophie. She wouldn’t even come down to get it, but Ma took it up to her and after a while she brought a note back from Sophie for Steven. Then Ma went back upstairs, and afterwards we could hear them both crying.
September 19
Sophie met Steven yesterday to tell him the engagement was off and she could never see him again. Ma told us about it so we would understand if Sophie was upset when she came home. She was, too. She had tear stains on her face and she looked just awful. I wish I could have been there. It must have been so sad and so beautiful, even if it was just in Altman’s delicatessen on College Street surrounded by people eating corned-beef sandwiches and pickles and Sophie made Syd go with her. But I’m glad Sophie came to her senses. Steven has so many freckles.
And Pa is right. We should stick to our own kind. Last week I was thinking I might actually talk to that girl in my class, Myrtle MacDonald, even if it made Rivka and some of the other Jewish girls angry, because Miss Douglas said Myrtle liked writing stories, too, just like me, and nobody else I know likes doing the things I do. But now I’m not going to, because no matter how much she likes writing, Myrtle is still not Jewish.
September 22
The letter finally came today to tell Pa when he has to go to court. It’s next month, on October 12.
Poor Pa. He started to shake when I read the letter out to him. Sophie felt so bad for him that she actually started to speak to him again. She told Pa he should fight the goyishe man in court because the goyishe man was wrong and Pa was right and it’s a free country and we shouldn’t let rich people run our lives. She said we should fight to the death, just like Paul Muni does in that movie, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. They send Paul to jail, Sophie said, but he never ever gives up. He even breaks out of prison. Sophie said we should be like Paul, and Pa should get a lawyer and fight, fight, fight.
But of course Ma and Pa have never ever been to any movie, and Pa didn’t know what she was talking about. He told Sophie she was meshugge and made her mad at him all over again. It serves her right — she ought to know we can’t afford a lawyer, especially now that the vegetable season is almost over and Pa has to look for other wor
k again.
5693!
October 1932
October 2
I’m going to write the date the Jewish way, too: 2 Tishrei 5693. It’s Rosh Hashanah, so it’s the year 5693 on the Jewish calendar now! Happy New Year! 5,693 is a lot more years than 1,932. We Jews have been around for a lot longer than the Christians have.
Anyway, I had so much fun yesterday. After we finished getting the house ready, me and Gert and the little ones put on our new outfits and went over to McCaul Street to the shul, like we do every year. All the girls go. We say we’re just going to visit our mothers, but we all know the real reason is to show off our dresses to each other.
Of course, my new dress really isn’t new. Gert had it before me, and my cousin Humty had it before her and Dora had it before her and I think even Sophie had it once. But it’s new to me, and Ma sewed a new pink ribbon around the neck that goes perfectly with the roses in the pattern. The girls at the shul said it looked adorable — even Rivka Goldstein, and she had a brand new dress of her very own, all in a silky material with a big bow at the waist. Rivka is so lucky to be the only girl in her family. I told everyone their dresses were adorable, too, but I really do think mine is the nicest. Except for Rivka’s, of course.
Hindl was excited because her whole outfit was black — her dress, her socks, her shoes, and even her underpants — they were the ones Ma made out of an old cotton blouse Mrs. Feinblatt next door didn’t want anymore. As soon as we got upstairs to where the ladies sit in the shul, Hindl ran up to Ma and said, “Look, Ma, everything matches,” and she pulled up her skirt to show off her black underpants right in front of all the ladies! Ma pretended to be embarrassed and told Hindl to shush, but I could tell she really thought it was funny just like all the other ladies.
October 6
Rivka came over to visit after school. It was a real surprise. I mean, we’re friends at school, and sometimes we walk home together because she lives just across the street, but golly, I hardly saw her all summer. I think she and her folks went to a cottage somewhere for a while. Pontypool, maybe. And anyway, I’m always busy with the little ones. It’s hard to make time for friends when you have so many sisters that take up all your time. And when you have only one really old doll with no paint on its nose and almost no hair left. No wonder I don’t like playing with dolls all that much.
Not a Nickel to Spare Page 3