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The Etiquette Of Yetta
by
“It’s mine papa! Oh, it’s mine papa!” she informed the now jubilant and sympathetic Cornelias, who were quite ready to pass a vote of thanks to their pioneering vice-president, whose plan had afforded them more emotion and more true human sensation than they had experienced for many a day.
Isidore floated toward Clinton Street through clouds and seas of gold. The endowment together with his own first week’s wages made a larger sum than he had ever hoped to gather. He wafted the baby through this golden atmosphere, the baby wafted a second section of dill pickle, and Rosie, in her red and golden draperies gyrated around them.
“You shall go on the factory right away,” babbled Isidore, “und bring the mamma on the house. She shall never no more work on no factories. She shall stay on the house und take care of the baby und be Jewish ladies.”
“She don’t needs she shall take care of no baby,” Rosie, thus lightly deposed, remonstrated; “ain’t I takin’ care of her all right?”
“Sure, sure,” the placating Isidore made answer; “on’y you won’t have no time. You shall go on the school.”
This last sinister word broke through all Rosie’s golden dreams. “School?” she repeated in dismay. ” Me on the school?”
“For learn,” Isidore happily acquiesced, “all them things what makes American ladies.”
Rosie’s sentiments almost detached her from the triumphal procession, so rebellious were they, so helpless, so baffled and outraged. And in that moment of brainstorm they turned into Grand Street, and came upon a piano organ, and Yetta Aaronsohn, the erstwhile censorious Yetta, in the enjoyment of a complicated pas-seul.
“For von things,” Isidore ambled on, “American ladies they don’t never dance by streets on organs. You shall that on the school learn, und the reading, und the writing, und all things what is fer ladies. Monday you shall go on the school. Your mamma shall go by your side. She won’t,” he broke out ecstatically, “have nothings else to do. You shall go now on the factory for tell her.”
Rosie paused but an instant on this mission of joy. She overtook Yetta Aaronsohn homeward bound.
“I guess,” said Rosie with fashionable langour, “I guess maybe I goes on the school Monday.”
Yetta stared, then smiled. “Ain’t I told you from long,” said she, “that that Truant Officer could to make like that mit you?”
“I ain’t never seen no Truant Officer,” retorted Rosie. “In all my world I ain’t never seen one. I don’t know what are they even. On’y I finds me the papa mit bunches from money, und a hall, und he says I shall go on the school so somebody can learn me all things what American ladies makes.”
“Come on my school,” entreated Yetta. “You und me could to set beside ourselves.”
Rosie pondered. She counted her four hair ribbons. She wrapped her kimona toga wise about her and pondered.
“I don’t know,” she finally answered, “do I needs I shall set by side somebody what dances on streets mit organs,” and added, as Yetta’s expression seemed to hint at instant parting:
“Well, good afternoon, I must be going.”
Her evolution into “American Ladies” had already begun. The manners of the Cornelias had not been lost upon her.