Bread Givers

At last, the day arrives for Sara to leave New York to attend college. She feels like Columbus heading off “in search of the New World.” She boards a train with all her belongings and dreams of all that lies in store for her future. When she arrives on campus, it’s as beautiful as she dreamed it would be. But as she gazes around her at the smiling, laughing students, she struggles to understand how she will fit in with them. They seem so young and carefree compared to her.

Not long after she arrives, Sara gets a job at the George Martin Hand Laundry working as an ironer. The owner, Mr. Martin, is a kind, easygoing man. He hires her on the spot and tells her she can work as many hours as she likes. And Sara does—until it gets so late that Mr. Martin, though impressed by her work ethic, says he has to close up for the night.

Sara is so tired from work that she oversleeps and misses her physical education class the next morning. She goes to the class, where the unsmiling instructor tells her she’s supposed to have a uniform. The instructor grudgingly lets Sara participate anyway. The class goes horribly, though, and Sara feels humiliated as she struggles to do all the exercises. After, dripping with sweat, she asks the teacher how much they’re paid to do all this physical labor. The teacher, annoyed and confused by Sara’s question, informs her that the students don’t get paid: this is a required class. Sara can’t believe it—she has to work and toil just to make a living. Why should she have to take this class, too? After she breaks a hurdle into pieces out a frustration, the teacher sends her to the dean’s office. The dean, somewhat amused, tells Sara they can exempt her from the class.

Later, Sara takes a liking to her psychology teacher, Mr. Edman, after she realizes how some of the concepts he lectures on in class can shed light on experiences she’s had in her own life. One day, he asks the class to provide an example of a time when anger or some other strong emotion interfered with their ability to think. Sara immediately thinks back to her naïve infatuation with Morris Lipkin, or how Zalmon threw a dollar’s worth of change at a customer for trying to bargain down a penny on some fish. Sara used to consider her many hardships a burden, but now she realizes that they were invaluable teaching experiences. 

After class one day, Sara asks Mr. Edman for more books to read. He gives her recommendations, and she pores through them enthusiastically. After she finishes one of the books, she approaches Mr. Edman and says she’s ready to “recite” what she’s learned from the book. Mr. Edman is puzzled for a moment, then he tells Sara that he doesn’t have time to teach her outside of class hours. Sara is aghast and disappointed at Mr. Edman’s apparent indifference to her education, but she understands the situation a bit better when she later overhears some teachers talking about how much they must teach compared to how little they’re paid.

Soon, it’s summer. Sara takes a job at a canning factory in New York to make ends meet. It’s not glamorous work, but at least she can breathe fresh air. When she returns to college that fall, she runs into Mr. Edman in the post office and overhears him give his address to the postman: 18 Bank St. Mr. Edman sees Sara and says hello, much to Sara’s delight. Later, Sara is out walking when she passes by 18 Bank St. and sees a “Room To Let” sign in the window. She knocks, and a woman answers and gives her a tour of the place, explaining that the psychology teacher Mr. Edman lives in the room below the available room. Sara feels that God himself has intervened and brought her to this opportunity; she accepts the room and moves in that afternoon.

Sara intercepts Mr. Edman on his way to his room later and excitedly tells him she lives in the same building now. “Oh, is that so?” he says quietly in response. In the evening, Sara hears him coughing in his room. She goes to the delicatessen sore and buys some milk, heats it up, and brings it to him in his room, explaining that it's good for his cough. The next day, it’s raining. Sara runs up to Mr. Edman with her umbrella and offers it to him, insisting that he’d best stay dry if he wants to recover. Mr. Edman, in an annoyed voice, asks Sara to please leave him alone—she’s bothering him. In a rush, Sara realizes how foolish she’s been—it’s like her silly crush on Morris Lipkin all over again.

After the mishap with Mr. Edman, Sara throws herself back into her studies. She gets to know the dean a bit better, and he tells her she’s always welcome at his house. Sara stops by from time to time to chat in his library. She talks about her struggle to fit in and make friends at school, and the dean tells Sara, “All pioneers have to get hard to survive,” he says. And Sara is a pioneer. She’ll be fine.

Time passes, and eventually it’s Sara’s senior year. The biggest newspaper owner in town, an alumnus of Sara’s college, offers a prize for the best essay on the topic, “What the College Has Done for Me.” Sara enters an essay in the contest. On Commencement Day, she’s stunned when it’s picked as the winner. When she goes to collect her reward on stage, all the students stand and call out her name, “Sara Smolinsky—Sara Smolinsky!”