Page 94 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Failure in Ochota
same time, yet I did not know the grammar of any of those three
languages—or four languages, including the Yiddish spoken by the
mass of the Jews. My religious teachers probably did not know
Hebrew grammar, and when I was growing up and dependent on my
father’s support, I made several efforts to take lessons from private
teachers in partnership with other boys, but I could never keep up
the small fee which was my share. So I never got more than a
smattering of Hebrew or Russian grammar.
The grocery in Ochota did not work out very well, for many
reasons. There were few people in that neighborhood, and the best
customers were our own family. It did not take long to eat up the few
groceries that we had gotten, and my father’s earnings were not
enough to replenish even the smallest amount necessary to carry on
the business. Growing children are a problem to feed; not just the
cooking, washing dishes and general housework, but supplying the
material for the cook. We were making a meager living. In this
country, the United States, that means eating less meat and pie and
more potatoes and bread and vegetables; here, one can even have
more meat if one cares to cook the cheaper cuts of beef. In the old
country, where potatoes and bread are the staff of life, when a
meager living was spoken of it meant doing with even less bread and
potatoes, poor coffee and very little sugar, or just light tea.
Under such conditions, seven mouths will devour a small grocery
stock like a swarm of locusts will eat up an orchard. Our shelves
became bare and the herring barrels had nothing left in them but salt
and the juice of the fish. We lived in the rear of the store, but the
entrance was from the front, so we had to keep it open. No groceries
to sell or to eat for ourselves, and no money for the rent. We
belonged to the class who will always help others but will never ask
others for help, and my father would rather borrow money from the
money-lenders at a high rate with long-term instalments than ask his
brothers for a loan. The establishment was reduced to four walls and
a few dilapidated fixtures, and within two years we had to move back
to Pelcovizna.
My mother was heartbroken and we kids cried, but Fate had
decreed that we should wilt away in that no-man’s land. It was very
trying and heartbreaking to return to that old mudhole. Some of my

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