The Hired Girl(91)

He spoke so heartily that I began to worry. What if I was wrong about Mimi’s eyes? “I’ve meddled again,” I said anxiously. “After what happened with Mr. Solomon, I promised I’d never meddle again. Now I’ve meddled.”

“You have my permission to meddle,” said Mr. Rosenbach. “I give you carte blanche.”

I didn’t know what carte blanche was, so he spelled it for me and explained it. I thanked him, and he thanked me back, and I saw that it was time to leave. I was almost in the hall when I remembered Malka. She’s a maddening old thing, a little black fly with a bunion, but I turned back.

Mr. Rosenbach had seated himself at his desk and was glancing over the plans for his school. “Well, Janet?”

“Sir,” I said boldly, “I’m going to meddle again. I think Malka ought to have an electric carpet sweeper.”

To my surprise, Mr. Rosenbach knows about electric carpet sweepers, because he’s thinking of selling them in his store. There’s a new model called the Hoover that has a brush inside that spins around and around and sucks up the dirt. It’s supposed to be better than all the others, and it costs sixty dollars — what a dreadful price! I don’t believe Mr. Rosenbach minded about the money, but when I told him that Mrs. Rosenbach had already said no, he started to shake his head. It seems that Mrs. Rosenbach is in charge of all the household decisions, and he doesn’t like to go against her.

“I bet Mrs. Rosenbach’s never taken up a carpet,” I said. And I explained to him, point by point, how you have to move the furniture and pry up the carpet tacks, and roll up the carpet and sweep the floor. Then there’s the business of lugging the carpet down those steep back stairs, and hauling it over the clothesline, and beating it until your arms ache. And then you have to roll it up and drag it back up the stairs and hammer it down again. “I’m not lazy,” I said earnestly, “but there are fourteen carpets in this house, not counting the runners on the stairs, and most of them can’t be carried by a single person. And Malka’s old. I don’t think Mrs. Rosenbach knows what she’s asking.”

Mr. Rosenbach listened attentively. He even made Jewish noises of sympathy. Then he told me I should tell Malka not to worry about taking up any more carpets. He said he’d talk to Mrs. Rosenbach.

And now I think I have written quite enough. It’s past one thirty in the morning, and I’m tired . . . and Malka will kill me if I oversleep again.



Friday, September the eighth, 1911

Mimi just left. I feel shook-up. Imagine her coming up to my room and lying in wait for me, nursing her anger all the while! The way she lit into me . . . ! Oh, it’s awful!

It’s close to midnight and I’m tired. The Klemans came for dinner; also the Friedhoffs. Malka was fussy all day, anxious lest something should go wrong when Mr. Solomon’s Intended was coming for Shabbos. She approves of Mr. Solomon’s engagement, because the Klemans are more Orthodox and less Reform than the Rosenbachs. She doesn’t mind that Miss Kleman is Polish, because Malka’s part Polish herself.

I didn’t much care for Ruth Kleman. She is one of those willowy, narrow-faced girls that makes me feel like a big ox. The only time I liked her was when I caught her looking at Solly. Then her mouth softened and her eyes glowed. All the same, Nora Himmelrich is ten times prettier than Ruth Kleman, and nicer, too — Miss Kleman scarcely looked at me when I took her things at the door, and she said thank you in a chilly undertone. She’d never shake hands the way Nora did. I’m afraid Mr. Solomon told her the awful thing I did, and now she hates me.

After dinner, there was an avalanche of dirty dishes. While I was tackling them, little Oskar came downstairs and asked me to tell him a story. I couldn’t sit down, but Malka pulled him into her lap and gave him a jawbreaker to suck. Oskar wanted a story about snakes and a choo-choo train, so I invented a circus train full of deadly cobras and man-eating tigers and terrible bears. Of course all the dangerous animals got loose, and only the little boy Oskar kept his head and coaxed them back into their cages. I’m afraid it was a very tangled-up story, but it’s hard to keep your mind on snakes and kashrut at the same time. Once I almost used the wrong dish towel, but Malka stopped me.

It was past eleven by the time I scalded the dishcloths and trudged up to bed on my aching feet. When I got to my room, I saw that my door was shut. That puzzled me because I always leave it open, so the room will cool off. I went inside and there was Mimi, sitting in the middle of my bed (she didn’t bother taking her shoes off, the little slob) and glaring at me like a regular spitfire.