The Collected Stories

all writers, he has a soft heart. He could not stand the heifer’s suffering. My wife and I cherish every line he writes. When he said that the heifer might disturb his thinking, I made up my mind, come what may. So I brought the heifer back. I am ready to lose as much as you will say—”
    “You will lose nothing, it’s a good heifer,” John Parker said. “What do you write?” he asked me.
    “Oh, facts in a Yiddish newspaper. I am trying to write a novel too,” I boasted.
    He remarked, “Once I was a member of a book club, but they sent me too many books and I had no time to read. A farm keeps you busy, but I still get
The Saturday Evening Post.
I have piles of them.”
    “I know. Benjamin Franklin was one of the founders.” I tried to show erudition about American literature.
    “Come into the house. We’ll have a drink.”
    The farmer’s family came out. His wife, a darkish woman with short black hair, looked Italian to me. She had a bumpy nose and sharp black eyes. She was dressed city-fashion. The boy was blond like his father, the girl Mediterranean-looking like her mother. Another man appeared. He seemed to be a hired hand. Two dogs dashed out of somewhere and, after barking for a few seconds, began to wag their tails and to rub up against my legs. Sam and Bessie again tried to explain the reason for their visit, and the farmer’s wife scrutinized me half wondering and half with irony. She asked us in, and soon a bottle of whiskey was opened and we clinked glasses. Mrs. Parker was saying, “When I came here from New York I missed the city so much that I almost died, but I’m not a heifer and nobody cared about my feelings. I was so lonesome that I tried to write, even though I’m not a writer. I still have a few composition books lying around and I myself don’t remember what I put down in them.”
    The woman looked at me hesitatingly and shyly. I knew exactly what she wanted and I asked, “May I look at them?”
    “What for? I have no literary talent. It is kind of a diary. Notes about my experiences.”
    “If you have no objections, I would like to read them, not here, but back at Sam’s farm.”
    The woman’s eyes brightened. “Why should I object? But please don’t laugh at me when you read the outpourings of my emotions.”
    She went to look for her manuscript and John Parker opened a chest drawer and counted out the money for the heifer. The men haggled. Sam offered to take a few dollars less than what he had paid. John Parker wouldn’t hear of it. I again proposed to make good the difference, but both men looked at me reproachfully and told me to mind my own business. After a while Mrs. Parker brought me a bundle of composition books in an old manila envelope that smelled of moth balls. We said goodbye and I took their phone number. When we got back, the sun had already set and the stars shone in the sky. It was a long time since I had seen such a starry sky. It hovered low, frightening and yet solemnly festive. It reminded me of Rosh Hashanah. I went up to my room. I could not believe it but Sylvia had changed my linen: a whiter sheet, a spotless blanket, and a cleaner pillowcase. She had even hung up a small picture with a windmill.
    That evening I ate supper with the family. Bessie and Sylvia asked me many questions and I told them about Dosha and our recent quarrel. Both wanted to know the reason for the quarrel, and when I told them they both laughed.
    “Because of foolishness like this, a love should not be broken,” Bessie said.
    “I’m afraid it’s too late.”
    “Call her this very moment,” Bessie commanded.
    I gave Sylvia the number. She turned the crank on the wall phone. Then she screamed into the phone as if the woman at the phone company were deaf. Perhaps she was. After a while Sylvia said, “Your Dosha is on the telephone,” and she winked.
    I told Dosha what I had done and the story about the heifer. She said, “I am the heifer.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I called you all the time.”
    “Dosha, you can come up here. There is another room in the house. These are kind people and I already feel at home here.”
    “Huh? Give me the address and phone number. Perhaps this coming week.”
    About ten o’clock Sam and Bessie went to sleep. They bid me good night with the gay anticipation of a young couple. Sylvia proposed that we go for a walk.
    There was no moon, but the summer night was bright. Fireflies lit up in the thickets. Frogs croaked,