This bell was ringing now, jingling in upon the slumber of a still newer
Kantor, snuggling peacefully enough within the ammoniac depths of a
cradle recently evacuated by Leon, heretofore impinged upon you.
On her knees before an oven that billowed forth hotly into her face,
Mrs. Kantor, fairly fat and not yet forty, and at the immemorial task of
plumbing a delicately swelling layer-cake with broom-straw, raised her
face, reddened and faintly moist.
"Isadore, run down and say your papa is out until six. If it's a
customer, remember the first asking-price is the two middle figures on
the tag, and the last asking-price is the two outside figures. See once,
with your papa out to buy your little brother his birthday present, and
your mother in a cake, if you can't make a sale for first price."
Isadore Kantor, aged eleven and hunched with a younger Kantor over an
oilcloth-covered table, hunched himself still deeper in barter for a
large crystal marble with a candy stripe down its center.
"Izzie, did you hear me?"
"Yes'm."
"Go down this minute--do you hear? Rudolph, stop always letting your big
brother get the best of you in marbles. Iz-zy!"
"In--a--minute."
"Don't let me have to ask you again, Isadore Kantor!"
"Aw, ma; I got some 'rithmetic to do. Let Esther go."
"Always Esther! Your sister stays right in the front room with her
spelling."
"Aw, ma; I got spelling, too."
"Every time I ask that boy he should do me one thing, right away he gets
lessons! With me, that lessons-talk don't go no more.
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