Fraternity-Testvériség, 1956 (34. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1956-04-01 / 4-5. szám
40 FRATERNITY “There, now we have four pennies. Don’t you fret, little son, we’ve got the bigger half. Now we need only three more. Besides, if we’ve found this one in an hour, we’ll get those three by teatime, too. Even then I can still wash one batch of clothes by evening. Hurry now, let’s go through the drawers one by one; there might be pennies in all of them.” If only there had been one in every drawer! Then we’d have many. For in its younger days, the old cabinet must have served in a place where there were lots of things to stuff and stow away. But in our house the poor orphaned thing didn’t have much of a burden to carry, luckily, for it was so rickety, so wobbly, so tumble-down. My mother preached a little sermon to each new drawer as she came to it. “This was once a rich drawer. This one never had a thing. As for this one, it always lived on credit. Now then, you vile, miserable beggar, so you don’t have a single penny either! O now this one won’t have, anyway it guards our poverty. As for you, you’d better not have a penny if I ask you this once; you’ve never had one before. This one has the most, see!” she exclaimed, as she yanked out the lowest drawer, which didn’t have so much as a trace of a bottom. She hung it around my neck. Then we collapsed on the floor, doubled up with mirth. “Wait a minute”, she said suddenly. “We’ll have money in a jiffy. I’ll dig up some in your father’s suit.” There were nails driven into the wall, and on them hung our clothes. Wonder of wonders, as soon as my mother put her hand into the very first pocket, it lit on a penny. She could scarcely believe her own eyes. “I’ve got it”, she cried. “Here it is! Now how many do we have? Why, we can’t even reckon them up any more. One, two, three, four, five . . . Five! Only two more to go. Two pennies, indeed! What’s that? Why, nothing. Where there are five, two more are bound to be.” She ransacked all the pockets with great zeal, but alas, in vain. She didn’t find a single one. Even the best jest could not coax two more pennies from anywhere. Already the red roses were burning on my mother’s cheeks from all the work and excitement. She was not supposed to work, because it made her ill at once. Of course, this was exceptional work; no one can be forbidden the quest for money. Teatime came, and went. Soon it would be evening. My father must have a shirt for the morrow, yet we could not wash. Plain well-water won’t take out that oily dirt. And then my mother struck her forehead. “Oh, oh, what a fool I am! I’ve never looked in my own pocket. But, indeed, I shall look, now that I’ve thought of it.” And she did. If you please, another penny turned up there! The sixth one. We grew feverish. One more was all we needed. “Let me see your pockets. There may be one in there, too.” My pockets! Well, she was welcome to them. They were sure to be empty.
