The Bronx, between Claremont Parkway and Bronx Park, has known Hirsh Roth of the firm of Hirsh Roth & Co., wholesale and retail liquor dealers, for the last twenty years. He was there, a believer in the Bronx, when it was yet all rocks and farms, with a few scattered wooden shacks. He was there when the downtown people moved to the Bronx because the doctor said they needed country air and higher ground.

Roth saved up a few dollars sewing pants the whole day and eating herring with bread at night. His wife died of tuberculosis on such a diet after she gave birth to a man child, to Joseph, who is now the anonymous "& Co." of the father's business. Hirsh Roth moved to the "country" to save his own and the child's life. But, as he is a man with proselyting tendencies, he came downtown to the local of his union every Saturday night to persuade people to move to the Bronx.

He was at that time affiliated with a real estate firm, and sold lots and parcels to his former friends and co-workers. Many a fashionable house is now raised on ground he sold. Former pants operators own them. Half of Bathgate Avenue and Brook Avenue was populated by Hirsh Roth's efforts—ere he formulated a new theory: "The Bronx was becoming too populated." He then changed his business from selling real estate to selling liquor.

Many a man changes his business for material interest only. Not so Hirsh Roth. He always requires a theory. He went into the family liquor business to prevent drunkenness. "When a man has a little something at home he does not go to a saloon, that's the idea."

And all those years he boarded with his child in the house of a friend, a house builder. Hirsh Roth did not remarry; he had a theory for that also. "Marriage is a foolish thing a man should commit only once."

The builder, Feldman, had a daughter the same age as Joseph, Roth's son. Before either of the tots could utter an intelligible word, the parents had already affianced them. Dowry and everything else was settled between the two men, and a special glass of wine drunk to the health and happiness of the future couple. Then each went about his business with the feeling of a man who has cleared his mind of earthly cares.

The Bronx grew up in his arms, so to say. Early mornings he went to see how his "baby" developed. Every house was built under his eye. It mattered not whether it was his building or not. If he thought the style or the material was not what it ought to be he gave no peace to the owner or the builder. Many an architect's blue print had to be changed at his insistence. The depth of a foundation or a brick not properly fired had caused him many a sleepless night.

"Mazel Tow, Feldman; Josephson's house is finished"; or "They broke ground to-day on Berger's lot near Washington Avenue," were frequent greetings when he came home.

Fanny Feldman and Joseph Roth grew up together like brother and sister. They fought and quarrelled, and Mrs. Feldman made no distinction between her own and the stranger when she administered a deserved spanking. Then came the period when the high school boy hated even to speak to a girl. Joseph Roth refused to be seen with Fanny on the street, "because I am not a sissy," and thereupon received a beating from his father.

On some such an occasion he learned that Fanny was to be his wife.

"We are not in Russia!" he cried. "I am an American. We are in a free country. What do you mean by choosing for me a girl?"

He got another beating for his defiance. As he lay on his cot one night he made plans how to run away to the West and become a cowboy or something.

Fanny was a beautiful and clever girl. Though Joseph's behavior was very insulting to her, she agreed with the spirit of his revolt.

Of course Joseph was not to be compared with some of the young fellows she knew. There was young Reisin, who played the violin so beautifully; and that long-haired, almond-eyed Berger boy, who had several poems printed in newspapers—all the girls were after him. Joseph had no such qualities. He was not artistic. But she admired his spirit—in an abstract sense. It was so manly of him not to submit to the will of his father. He was an American, lord and master of his own actions, and not a slave or hireling.

Then one day Joseph disappeared from the house. The whole night the police of the Bronx and Manhattan were kept busy trying to find the sixteen-year-old boy. The next day his picture was in all the papers. On the third day he was brought back from Philadelphia, still an unrepentant sinner.

Did he get a beating? No, but on the next day his father took him to the store.

"No more school. You will help serve the customers."

Joseph was strong and willing, and was soon managing the business. But there was no day in which his name was not in some way linked up with Fanny's. For so many years Hirsh Roth had considered the matter of his son's marriage settled, that the unsettling of this plan was a calamity—as if a sure deal for a corner lot had fizzled out, or as if the very Bronx had failed in some way. The more he insisted the more the boy was steeled in his decision. He wouldn't even sit near the girl at table. He never even smiled to her; he snarled.

One day they were alone.

"Fanny," he told her, "they want to force me to marry you, and I don't want to—you hear, I don't want to, Fanny. I was never asked at all whether I want to marry you or not!"

"You are perfectly right, Joseph. They have no right to do that. We are in America. We are not in Russia. I like you, we will stick to our guns." And Fanny put out a warm little hand.

This short interview made Joseph happy. He had at least one ally; he could stand his father's importunities much more easily, though the parent presented the same stubborn opposition to his plans.

Then suddenly, Hirsh Roth told his son, "We are moving out from the Feldmans'. To do what he did to me, after all I did for him in all these years! I never again want to see a Feldman in my life," moaned the old man disconsolately.

That very night father and son moved in to Mrs. Josephson's.

For the first time Joseph did not feel at home. The Josephsons were very friendly people; Josephson never forgot he owed his fortune to Hirsh Roth's advice. But they were strangers. They called Joseph "Mr." Roth. Even the hot soup lacked warmth after that.

Hirsh Roth went to a meeting of his lodge. Joseph went out for a walk. He saw Fanny on the opposite side of the street. She was strolling leisurely with the young poet Berger.

He saluted her, but as he did so he remembered his father's moanings about the Feldmans. It made him feel very sinful.

The next few days Joseph surprised himself frequently thinking of Fanny; how she had shaken hands with him and become his ally on a certain proposition. The following evenings his father kept him busy in the store till late in the night. For a full month Hirsh managed to keep his son under his eye. He even took him to a lodge meeting. Joseph began to suspect he did it purposely to keep him away from Fanny.

He met her on the Elevated one afternoon as he had to go downtown on business.

"Hello, Miss Feldman."

"Oh! Mr. Roth, glad to see you again," she responded cheerily.

And they shook hands like old friends that have not met in a long time. They traveled together. He even went with her to a department store where she bought some notions. They talked about many things, and she managed to sell him a ticket for the next musicale of the synagogue.

"Will you be there, Miss Feldman?"

"Of course."

All through the winter they met here and there, and every time they learned to know each other better. It was enough that she should look friendly-like at another young man for his heart to beat faster and the blood to rise and rush.

Hirsh Roth never relaxed his vigilance over his son. Many an appointment with Fanny could not be kept on account of the older man. He wanted to know where his son went and from whence he came. From time to time he spoke about Feldman as of one who had betrayed him in the most rascally way.

Every meeting with Fanny now necessitated diplomacy, and was frequently espaced by weeks. The elder Roth grew thin and irritable as the spring approached. Joseph Roth planned many a time to ask details about Feldman's betrayal, hoping to patch up the quarrel. But he was afraid to complicate matters, to arouse suspicion.

One evening, late, as Joseph entered his room at the Josephson's he found his father waiting for him. The old man abused the boy in the most vehement way. It had been brought to his ears that Joseph had danced with Fanny Feldman at the last musicale.

"My son, my own son, danced with Feldman's daughter!"

It was more than Joseph could stand. How long was he to be bossed like that? His father had once chosen who was to be his wife, and now he was abusing him for dancing with whom he pleased. To his mind Miss Feldman was not at all the Fanny of a few months ago. Miss Feldman was the woman he loved, admired—the one he had chosen himself. Why should his father's dislike of her father interfere with his plans?

And it did not. He eloped with her a week later—eloped to Philadelphia on a paltry twenty-dollar bill, a week before the Easter holiday season began.

"We are married, Fanny and Joseph," he wired to his father two days later.

"Come home immediately, Mazel Tow," was the answer returned as fast as the wires could take it.

At the Josephsons' the young couple were told Hirsh Roth had again gone to live with the Feldmans. There Joseph found his father in the highest possible spirits.

"But why didn't you do it sooner, you silly boy? I almost ruined my stomach eating at the Josephsons. The thought of missing the good things Mrs. Feldman cooks during the Holy days almost drove me mad."

And turning to the beaming Feldman:

"Well, did I win a hat? Free choice, old friend, we have to give free choice to the world. But I almost died of a sick stomach waiting for the theory to work."