4                                  Bella Cohen Spewack

We landed in New York and were greeted by a short, frail blond
man with pink threaded cheeks. He told me that he was my cousin
but he was not. My mother and I spent the first night in a bed with
two others in a room back of the restaurant kept by Channeh
Rosenthal. Her little girl was a waxen famished looking creature
 

Children of the streets; photograph by Jessie Tarbo
(Community Service Society Papers)
 

Beals
 

who was always whining for her "mommeh" and sucked her thin
thumb. She was older than I was by two years. I remember her sulk¬
ing jealousy of my red dress.

I could sing well in Hungarian and German and spoke brokenly
as well in Roumanian, a smooth, declamatory Yiddish and before
long could mutter realistically English oaths. For all these, the
patrons of Channeh Rosenthal's restaurant would pay me in cop¬
pers which I dutifully handed over to my mother.

My mother did not stay long in Channeh Rosenthal's restaurant.
She went to an employment agency on Eourth Street between Ave¬
nue C and B one of a number on the block. The same string of