THE CHILD IS THE MEANING
261
penetrated by an extraordinary calm and joy, an emotion succeeded
soon after by easy and imprudent spending. He did not win very
often, but when he did, he bought himself what he considered the best
shirts, neckties, and hats. The pleasure of entering a store and buying
whatever he liked seemed like a kind of drunkenness.
Rebecca suggested in vain that when he won he ought to make
some attempt to give her back the money he had taken from her.
And then, seeing that he was not going to pay her back, she tried
to persuade him to keep, some of the money so that he would not be
broke all the time.
"There must be something wrong with me," Samuel said to
her on the occasions when it was necessary for him to be penitent.
"I don't know what it is that makes me throw away money like that.
I get the feeling that I am always going to win and that my luck
has changed once and for all."
This feeling that he might some day break through and make
a lot of money made Samuel declare that one day his sister would
be repaid.
"You're going to get it all back," said Samuel, "every last nickel
and with interest."
His mother continued to regard Samuel's behavior as unpleasant
but inevitable. After all, there were 1pany misfortunes which were far
worse, and she thought that some day Samuel would change. It was
foolish to expect too much from a young man, and there was little
that could be done to alter a person's character or the nature of
things. She became angry again with Sarah when Sarah, intervening
as before, criticized Samuel; and when he told her to keep her big
nose out of his affairs, Sarah, who would say anything when en–
raged, shouted.
"You were the one who should have died instead of your brother.
Your brother was trying to make something of himself."
"Don't say th;,tt," .said the mother sternly, for she felt that it
was unfair, since it was not Samuel's fault that Leonard had died
in early youth.
As
the years passed and Rebecca did not find a husband, her
mother
~came
more and more troubled. And the unmarried state
of her daughter disturbed her much more than Samuel's shiftlessness
and
g~bling.
At first it seemed that Rebecca was too particular,
and there were friends of the family who felt that the success of
Sarah's husband was the reason that Rebecca had so high a criterion
