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slowly—he was skittish—and held out a heel of bread she had saved, as she might approach a dog encountered in the street.
    “Sammy, it’s Freydeh. I brought you a little bit of bread. I need to talk with you.”
    He gobbled the bread and then listened, squinting up at her. He had brown hair a few shades lighter than hers—she thought, but it was hard to tell because of his filth. He was scrawny and tough, but he looked years younger from being so short. He wasn’t sure if he was ten or eleven.
    “Can you help me?”
    “Gimme a quarter.”
    “I’ll buy you some secondhand clothes to keep you warm, that’s what I’ll do.”
    He hesitated. He’d rather have money, of course.
    “And I’ll buy you something to eat on the way.”
    Finally he nodded approval, and she arranged to meet him in the morning. She smiled slightly as she climbed back upstairs. He had no idea what she was going to do to him. His father had died of typhus when he was little, his mother had married again and bore at least two more babies to her new husband, who beat him. Finally he ran away. They had not bothered to look for him. Nobody had ever wanted him, except for the gang of boys he hung about with in the street or somebody needing him to do something for them—mind a horse, carry a package, send a message, run to the store. He had always been honest with her. She appreciated that. She knew it was silly of her to take an interest in a street arab, but she liked Sammy. Who did she have, anyhow? Until she could find Shaineh, she had no family. She thought Sammy was a cut above the little thieves of the neighborhood, and when she had a bit of extra food, she shared it with him.
    Before they started downtown, she bought him a used pair of trousers and a used jacket. He stank so they would have trouble in the offices wherehe was going to be her spokesman. She made him stand in the yard by the privies while she scrubbed his face and hands with a bit of cloth. Sammy cursed, enduring the cold water and her harsh scrubbing at the pump in the muddy yard between the tenement she lived in and the rear house. Then she had him put on the second- or thirdhand trousers. “ Le’mir geyn, Sammy—let’s get going.” Sullenly he followed her.
    She had worked hard on her English, but she knew she still spoke with a thick accent. Most of her life was conducted in Yiddish or in German and, once in a while, Russian. Opportunities to practice English were few, for most business of the pharmacy was conducted in Yiddish or German. Sammy spoke Yiddish of course and German too, but he had been born here and spoke English like a native. He had even gone to school for a couple of years, before he went on the streets. He could read and write English, but not Yiddish, and he had not stayed in school long enough to learn to write a cursive hand. When he had to write something, he printed.
    They took the horse-drawn trolley downtown, crowded as always. Sammy kept smoothing his new clothes—new to him—and she saw him trying to catch a glimpse of himself in the reflection off the windows. She waited till they were off the trolley and then rehearsed him. “Now, you’re my little brother and you live with me at the Silvermans’. That’s the best thing to tell them. Nu, mach snell. Hurry!”
    “I could be your son.”
    “You could be.” She smiled, putting her hand on his bony shoulder. “You like that better?” She would have had to have borne him when she was sixteen if he was eleven, but such early births were not uncommon, back in the Pale or here.
    The offices were near the docks, on a cobblestone street with many signs for makers of sails and other gear for ships. Where the docks came up to the street, the bowsprits of ships stuck out overhead, among the wharf shipping sheds and ferry houses on the water side. The street was thick with wagons loading and unloading from warehouses, draymen shouting to get out of the way, roustabouts heaving boxes and