"Ah!"
"Good, isn't it?" Mrs. Saperstein was smiling. "That's real tea. Swee-Touch-Nee. Like in the old country. Not like the chazerai they try to sell you here."
His father nodded and lifted the glass again.
When he put it back on the table, it was empty and the polite formalities were over.
Now it was time to attend to business.
"Nu, Mrs. Saperstein?"
But Mrs. Saperstein wasn't quite ready to talk business yet.
She looked over at David.
"Such a nice boy, your David," she said conversationally. "He reminds me of my Howard at his age."
She picked up the plate of cookies and held it toward him.
"Take one," she urged. "I baked myself."
David took a cooky and put it in his mouth. It was hard and dry and crumbled into little pieces.
"Take another," she urged. "You look thin, you should eat."
David shook his head.
"Mrs. Saperstein," his father said. "I’m a busy man, it's late.
You got something for me?"
The old woman nodded.
"Kim shayn."
They followed her through the narrow railroad flat.
Inside one room, on the bed, were a number of men's suits, some dresses, shirts, one overcoat and, in paper bags, several pairs of shoes.
David's father walked over and picked up some of the clothing.
"Winter clothing," he said accusingly. "For this I came up four flights of stairs?"
"Like new, Mr. Woolf," the old woman said.
"My son Howard and his wife. Only one season.
They were going to give to the Salvation Army but I made them send to me."
David's father didn't answer. He was sorting out the clothing rapidly.
"My son Howard lives in the Bronx," she said proudly. "In a new house on Grand Concourse.
A doctor."
"Two dollars for the ganse gesheft," his father announced.
"Mr. Woolf," she exclaimed. "At least twenty dollars this is worth."
He shrugged.
"The only reason I’m buying is to give to HIAS.
Better the Salvation Army don't get."
David listened to their bargaining with only half a mind. HIAS was the abbreviation that stood for Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.
His father's statement didn't impress him one bit.
He knew the clothing would never find its way there. Instead, after it was carefully brushed and cleaned by his mother, it would turn up in the windows of the secondhand clothing stores along the lower Bowery and East Broadway.
"Ten dollars," Mrs. Saperstein was saying.
The pretense was gone now; she was bargaining in earnest. "Less I wouldn't take. Otherwise, it wouldn't pay my son Howard to bring it down. It costs him gas from the Bronx."
"Five dollars. Not one penny more."
"Six," the old woman said, looking at him shrewdly. "At least, the gasoline money he should get."
"The subways are still running," David's father said. "I should pay because your son is a big shot with an automobile?"
"Five fifty," the old woman said. David's father looked at her.
Then he shrugged his shoulders and reached under his long black coat.
He took out a purse, tied to his belt by a long black shoestring, and opened it.
"Five fifty," he sighed. "But as heaven is watching, I'm losing money."
He gestured to David and began counting the money out into the old woman's hand.
David rolled all the clothing into the overcoat and tied it by the sleeves.
He hefted the clothing onto his shoulder and started down the stairs.
He tossed the bundle of clothing up into the cart and moved around to the front of the wagon. He lifted the feed bag from the horse, and untying the reins from the hydrant, climbed on the wagon.
"Hey, Davy!"