The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story

neighbours-big for his years and heavy, with fat lips, eyes clouded, hair black and low o

he would find her, had come so, often.-He loves her. The man who squats

a thick throat, "look-w

s not care. She watches two hands-grey-caked over red-unwrap from paper a dazzle of colou

duck," he

er rump, feels its green head that bobs

ck-yours,"

stomach she swings her arm backward and pulls. The duc

iled thick drawers showing between his

had a toy and a playmate.-I am all warm and full of love for Herbert Rabinowich: perhaps some day I can show him, or d

e one that was hers. She dwelt in a world about the bright small room like the

it had borne her: her breasts were high and proud, they had emptied, they had come to sag

flesh? Had she not borne a song through the harsh city? Had she not born

hin lips of Deborah. Her bed with white sheets, her bed with its pool of blood is an altar where she lays for

e. Her child shall leap above its father and its mother as the sun above forlorn fields.-She arose from her bed. She held her child in her arms. She walked through the reeling block with feet aflame. She entered the shop.-There-squatting with feet so wide to

no eyes. I am a woman who

upon my lips gave

about my flanks g

ith gladnes

my vision my eyes, in l

nother misery

ny hours in order to reap my pain? Why must I work so long, heap the hard wither of so man

door open. The m

friends. I was worrying over

epped into the ro

Meyer. "We are so glad when your H

the children who do not attend her. A grey lon

Meyer sews and smiles. "A toy. He shou

uts an anxious fi

lovely that he wants to. There's money enough for such

does not

She turned to where Esther sat with brooding eyes. Her face was serious now,

e you,

" A voice resonant and deep, a voice mellow

time, Esther? You know, I shou

u, Mrs. R

the older woman smiled. "You got

arp words of his mouth. Esther does not look. She takes the words as if like stones they had fallen in her lap. She smiles awa

last to her b

now. Now we rea

t he lets limply rise.

ones.-Do come, som

u, Mrs. R

oy come when he wants.

to have him? Good heart, fine boy, dear child.

ike a horse, swings

ne in the b

!" Meyer said aloud. "I like the boy. He

er. She was silent, seeing the dull boy with the dirty mind, and his mother a

mall and white, the world is full of men with thick lips, hairy hands, of men who will

world of men with hair and lips against her whiteness. Where is the