never see them again. There were twenty-two people in the stewardâs department, and when the meal was over, one by one they came into the galley where he was washing dishes, and they shook his hand and each of them said something about the soup.
Then the old man sent down for a plate of the soup. The old man was a Dane and fussy about his food and always cursing out the cook, but he sent back for a second plate of soup. He wanted to know how it was made.
âTell him to go jump in the drink,â the carpenter had said.
It was funny, the purser thought, because they were as hard-bitten a group of men on the ship as he had ever known, hard men who were all knotted up with work and too many long trips and too many torpedoes and too many dive bombers and the closeness of a piece of iron where they had been living almost forever. It was funny, he thought.
And he thought of how he would tell his wife about it, and she would not see anything in a pot of onion soup to make all this fuss about. He thought about his wife easily and pleasantly now, and he kept on thinking about her as the blinking light faded into the distance.
An Epitaph for Sidney
W E THOUGHT AT first that an epitaph for Sidney should be more than a few words, and I and some of the others who had known him well set out to collate what information we had; but in the end we did not use the material, and it was handed over to me. From what we have, you will be able to see why we were able to write an epitaph for Sidney in a line.
Some of us knew Sidney Greenspan when we were very young. He was born in the year 1915 in Washington Heights, and he grew up there and went to Public School 46, and then he went to De Witt Clinton High School, and then he went to City Collegeâbut he didnât finish at City College. He was a thin, spindle-legged little boy, and he never really achieved height or any sort of muscular efficiency, and since he read a lot and studied a good deal afterwards, he came by myopia early, and it remained with him.
He came from a family of very poor Jews, one of five children, with a thin, tired mother and a father who worked at a sewing machine in one sweatshop and then another; actually, he didnât have to work in sweatshops; he could have worked in union shops, as Sidney told him and pleaded with him, but he had been fifteen months out of work in the long strike during the twenties, and that had taken the starch and the heart out of him and turned him into a piece of putty. The result was that he worked ten and twelve hours a day in sweatshops, always thinking that if a strike came, it would leave him alone. Sidneyâs mother, who was like a shadow moving here and there, cooking and cleaning, but always like a shadow, gave to the children and never asked anything in return, not even love, until she died in 1932. Sidney had just entered college when she died. In a letter to a friend of his, he wrote â⦠I donât feel pity or sorrow, only anger.â¦â Mr. Greenspan lived on and shriveled up; he went on with his work motions, like an old clock that was winding out, ever more slowly.
Of Sidneyâs brothers and sisters, only two grew to maturity. One fell under a truck at the age of seven, a little boy named Lester, Celia, the elder sister, died of a mastoid. Adrian and Fannie are still alive; Adrian became a schoolteacher, and the old man, Mr. Greenspan, was most proud of him. Fannie married a fur worker; she was two years younger than Sidney, and when she was a little girl he adored her.
II
Even in this brief outline, there is enough to indicate that Sidney Greenspan was not of the stuff of which heroes are made, at least in the conception of heroes which is most popular in America today. The tenement district in which he lived and grew was not a slum, but very close to a slum; the fact that he was a small, thin boy gave his life reasonable hazard, in the way of Jew-baiting and the run of fights. He was
Then the old man sent down for a plate of the soup. The old man was a Dane and fussy about his food and always cursing out the cook, but he sent back for a second plate of soup. He wanted to know how it was made.
âTell him to go jump in the drink,â the carpenter had said.
It was funny, the purser thought, because they were as hard-bitten a group of men on the ship as he had ever known, hard men who were all knotted up with work and too many long trips and too many torpedoes and too many dive bombers and the closeness of a piece of iron where they had been living almost forever. It was funny, he thought.
And he thought of how he would tell his wife about it, and she would not see anything in a pot of onion soup to make all this fuss about. He thought about his wife easily and pleasantly now, and he kept on thinking about her as the blinking light faded into the distance.
An Epitaph for Sidney
W E THOUGHT AT first that an epitaph for Sidney should be more than a few words, and I and some of the others who had known him well set out to collate what information we had; but in the end we did not use the material, and it was handed over to me. From what we have, you will be able to see why we were able to write an epitaph for Sidney in a line.
Some of us knew Sidney Greenspan when we were very young. He was born in the year 1915 in Washington Heights, and he grew up there and went to Public School 46, and then he went to De Witt Clinton High School, and then he went to City Collegeâbut he didnât finish at City College. He was a thin, spindle-legged little boy, and he never really achieved height or any sort of muscular efficiency, and since he read a lot and studied a good deal afterwards, he came by myopia early, and it remained with him.
He came from a family of very poor Jews, one of five children, with a thin, tired mother and a father who worked at a sewing machine in one sweatshop and then another; actually, he didnât have to work in sweatshops; he could have worked in union shops, as Sidney told him and pleaded with him, but he had been fifteen months out of work in the long strike during the twenties, and that had taken the starch and the heart out of him and turned him into a piece of putty. The result was that he worked ten and twelve hours a day in sweatshops, always thinking that if a strike came, it would leave him alone. Sidneyâs mother, who was like a shadow moving here and there, cooking and cleaning, but always like a shadow, gave to the children and never asked anything in return, not even love, until she died in 1932. Sidney had just entered college when she died. In a letter to a friend of his, he wrote â⦠I donât feel pity or sorrow, only anger.â¦â Mr. Greenspan lived on and shriveled up; he went on with his work motions, like an old clock that was winding out, ever more slowly.
Of Sidneyâs brothers and sisters, only two grew to maturity. One fell under a truck at the age of seven, a little boy named Lester, Celia, the elder sister, died of a mastoid. Adrian and Fannie are still alive; Adrian became a schoolteacher, and the old man, Mr. Greenspan, was most proud of him. Fannie married a fur worker; she was two years younger than Sidney, and when she was a little girl he adored her.
II
Even in this brief outline, there is enough to indicate that Sidney Greenspan was not of the stuff of which heroes are made, at least in the conception of heroes which is most popular in America today. The tenement district in which he lived and grew was not a slum, but very close to a slum; the fact that he was a small, thin boy gave his life reasonable hazard, in the way of Jew-baiting and the run of fights. He was
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