Ethel Rosenberg wrote “Uncle Julius and the B.M.T.” (our November issue), which in some quarters has been hailed as a significant addition to American folklore. Be that as it may, a second piece about Uncle Julius, which this magazine has in proof, has been temporarily pushed aside by an apparently even more indomitable creature from Mrs. Rosenberg’s pen. With some misgivings we introduce Aunt Yetta. Some of our editors believe Aunt Yetta humorous; others think her a product of the naturalistic tradition in modern letters, pushed just a little too far.

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My Aunt Yetta examined the display of cookies on the counter. Her eyes roved restlessly from pan to pan. Finally her fingers swooped down. She was happily “feeling” some pieces to see if they were fresh.

“Lady,” the baker roared, “don’t handle the cake.”

“That’s cake?” my Aunt Yetta said in utter amazement. “I thought it was zweiback.”

How my aunt arrives at such conclusions no one knows. The baker—like everyone else treated to the operations of my aunt’s mind—opened his mouth. He closed his mouth. He raised his hands in a gesture of helpless defeat. I wouldn’t be surprised if he sold out the next day. My Aunt Yetta affects people that way.

Please. I wouldn’t like you to misunderstand. My Aunt Yetta is a woman whose heart is as big as her logic is peculiar. If somebody is sick, who is the first one to go rushing over with chicken soup—what am I saying, chicken soup?—a whole meal! And if, God forbid, us to long years, there’s a death in the neighborhood, who takes care of the unfortunate family during the week of shiva? Ask anybody. Where there is trouble, there is my Aunt Yetta, to 120 years. And she’s not a young woman any more. But some people find her a little upsetting.

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I’ll never forget the day she stopped one of her neighbors on the street.

“Mrs. Zelowitz,” my aunt said. “Where are you going?”

“Where am I going? I’m going shopping.”

“Shame on you!” my aunt said vigorously. “Shopping on Saturday. What’s the matter, the week isn’t plenty big?”

“Please, Mrs. Rivkin, I have no time to stand and argue. My boy is coming home for lunch any minute.”

“Make time,” my aunt said sternly. “You know why we have Hitlers? Because Jewish people who should know better go shopping on Saturday.”

Mrs. Zelowitz, irked at his heavy responsibility, replied with some relish, “What’s the matter you don’t talk to your girl Sylvia? I see her, I thank you nicely, practically every Saturday in the stores.”

“Oh, Sylvia,” my aunt dismissed her with a wave of the hand.

“Sylvia,” Mrs. Zelowitz said firmly.

“She’s an American,” my aunt said.

Mrs. Zelowitz bristled.

“I am also an American.”

“Mrs. Zelowitz,” my Aunt Yetta looked her right in the eye. “You are a married woman with children.”

Such logic cannot be refuted. One sputters, one protests, Aunt Yetta remains supremely confident and right. Take the time the poll-taker ran afoul of my Aunt Yetta’s reasoning.

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The poll-taker rang the bell and poised his pencil.

“How do you do?” he said. “I’m taking a poll. . . .”

“My goodness!” Aunt Yetta was thrilled. “Come in. Come in,” she urged him.

He entered and perched on the end of the chair.

“We’re taking a poll,” he said, “to determine which type of radio program is most popular. We. . . .”

“And you’re asking me,” my aunt interrupted excitedly. She sighed. That such a wonderful thing should happen to her! “All right. So I’ll tell you. My favorite program is Eddie Cantor.”

The young man put a check in the box opposite Cantor’s name.

“You like Eddie Cantor’s program,” he said as he wrote, his head bent over the page.

“Excuse me,” my Aunt Yetta said. “Positively not. For his program I don’t care altogether.”

He lifted his head and stared.

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “Didn’t you just say. . . .”

“I said my favorite program is Eddie Cantor, but his program I don’t like.” My Aunt Yetta smiled encouragingly. The young man sat very still, digesting this slowly.

“Would you mind . .. I don’t think I quite understand.”

The young people today!

“The program I don’t like,” my Aunt Yetta explained. “But Eddie Cantor is a fine man.” She waited for the light of reason to brighten his face. It remained unlit. “You know how he was brought up? By a grandmother. A poor boy on the East Side.” She emitted a series of sympathetic tsks.

The young man said anxiously that he failed to see what all this had to do with his poll.

“So look at him.” My Aunt Yetta’s patience is not too durable. “A fine house. A swimming pool. A fine family. Plenty of money. Still and all, he doesn’t forget what he was. For everybody he has a heart.”

The poll-taker agreed Mr. Cantor’s heart was of purest gold.

“For the veterans. For the crippled children. A camp for boys,” my Aunt Yetta said, counting off his munificence finger by finger. “And what’s the matter with Deanna Durbin?”

Nothing, absolutely nothing, the young man admitted nervously.

“A man like that should live forever, to 120 years.”

Could they, the young man suggested, go on with the poll? It was getting late and he still had a number of calls to make.

Listen to that! First he asks a question, and then all of a sudden he has no time to wait for an answer.

“So that’s why I listen to the program,” my Aunt Yetta said. “Because a man like that you have to look far to find. But the program. . . .” My Aunt Yetta wrinkled her nose.

The poll-taker cleared his throat.

“Getting back to the poll,” he said. “I have to put down a yes or no answer. Shall I leave it at no?”

“No? You’ll put down no?” My Aunt Yetta was so excited she could hardly speak. “A black mark you’ll put beside Eddie Cantor? Please leave my house,” she said.

The young man gathered his pad, his pencil, his shattered nerves, and left.

“Imagine,” Aunt Yetta mourned to Sylvia later. “Such a nice-looking boy, and he wants to put down I don’t like Eddie Cantor’s program.”

“Well, you don’t,” Sylvia said, “and why you listen to him like clockwork every week I’ll never understand.”

“What has this to do?” Aunt Yetta said coldly. As I remember, she felt Sylvia’s defection for a long time.

“I forgive,” Aunt Yetta frequently brooded, “but I don’t forget.”

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As I say, the simplest matters tend to get involved when my Aunt Yetta steps into the picture. Even standing on line becomes charged with explosive possibilities. As it happens, standing on line is something particularly abhorrent to her. She feels it’s a new kind of foolishness. What was wrong with the way it used to be, when you pushed right into the mob and shouted for your “next”? My aunt is a woman who likes to mix with the crowd.

Well, there was this line, extending halfway down the block outside the A & P. (One doesn’t question what it is for. They’re giving something out, or else why are all these people milling about? Exactly.) Suddenly, or so it certainly seemed to the two end women on line, my aunt materialized out of nowhere and placed herself, like a sandwich filling, between the two. Immediately there was a shrilled protest.

“Lady. What do you think you’re doing?” cried the last person on the line. “The line starts in back of me, not in front of me.”

“Never mind,” my aunt said decisively. “I was watching the line while I was crossing the street. You saw me coming so you hurry up quick ran ahead of me. Don’t worry. I was watching.”

“You hear that?” the woman shrieked. “She was watching. You hear? In my whole life. . . .Listen, Mrs. You want a place in line, so stand in line, like a person. Behind me.”

“Please,” my Aunt Yetta said loftily, raising her hand. “No discussions.”

“Mrs. Society Lady,” the woman cried passionately. “She doesn’t want discussions. Wait. I’ll give you discussions.” She glared at the woman standing in front of my aunt, who was listening with interest. “So why didn’t you go ahead of her too already?”

“You think I’m a hog?” was my aunt’s dignified reply.

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So Far as I know, only one person ever got the best of my aunt. That was, and what could be more logical, the landlord. Do I have to tell you about landlords? Now, what was it that my aunt wanted, do you think? Something big? A combination sink, maybe? A new stove? A little bit of heat? My aunt wanted, listen to this, all my aunt wanted was awnings. And how many awnings do you imagine? Two. Two awnings. This is the way it was.

My Aunt Yetta likes to sit at the window and look out at the street. The street is her world. She leans her elbows on a small pillow and drinks in the scene before her. The only trouble is, the sun is extremely strong during the hot summer months. The glare, she says, is blinding. Now it isn’t as though the attachments for the awnings aren’t already in place. Everything required is there.

“What am I asking for?” my Aunt Yetta said to the landlord. “Diamonds? Two old awnings.”

“You’ll get them. You’ll get them,” the landlord said. “Did I ever break a promise to you?”

“I should have so many good years,” my aunt said bluntly.

“Mrs. Rivkin,” the landlord said reproachfully. “If I said you’ll get them, you’ll get them.” But when? Ah. The first year they had to be repaired. The second year they had to be cleaned. The third year. . . did my aunt want old awnings? Pfeh! He would give her new awnings. Why didn’t she have a little patience? If he said he would do it, he would do it. Such things take time. Finally my Aunt Yetta drove him into a corner.

“One thing I ask,” she said desperately. “Give me already the old awnings. Let them be torn. Let them be dirty. As long as they keep out the sun.”

The landlord studied my aunt.

“Awnings?” he said slowly, rolling the word on his tongue. “Oh,” he said, as though my aunt hadn’t quite made it clear to him before, “awningsl”

“What am I talking for three years? Of course, awnings,” my aunt said impatiently. The landlord swore by his health that if it were up to him, personally. . . .

“Mrs. Rivkin, you know. I don’t have to tell you. But what can I do? My wife doesn’t like awnings.”

“Your wife?” my Aunt Yetta said, stupefied. .“Your wife? What has this to do with your wife?”

The landlord shrugged his shoulders.

“That’s life,” he said earnestly. .“One doesn’t like. The second doesn’t get.” And shaking his head thoughtfully in contemplation of this philosophic gem, he eased himself from my Aunt Yetta’s grasp.

He must have known my aunt would understand. After all, my aunt is a logical woman.

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