While Sol was always in the books, Morris saw no point in staying in school when, at twelve, he was already set to make his way in the world.
They had grown up rough-and-tumble on the Lower East Side. “Du machst nich veynen,” Morris would reply with a dismissive wave. I should only have half the trouble you cause for me. “Ich zol azoy vissen fun tsoris,” Sol would mutter in Yiddish with a shake of his head. The two were as different as two people could be who had come out of the same womb. Sol was shorter and thin, with already receding hair and fists that had never been clenched in anger.
#THE BUTTON MAN FULL#
Morris was tall, over six feet, with full shoulders and muscular arms that made him appear even larger.
He only saw things as he wanted them to be, as he felt he could make them happen. To Sol, who labored over every dime, Morris never seemed to spend a minute thinking much on anything. “If it was, I doubt you’d be much of a success,” Sol said.įrom the start it was a schlecht shidech, their mother always said. “And what I can’t teach you, you’ll learn. “I know all you’ll need to know,” his younger brother said. “What would I possibly do for you?” Sol asked skeptically. It was Morris, his younger brother, who had asked him to come on board. But as the oldest son, when their father died it had fallen on him to take care of the family, so he dropped out of accounting school and found work preparing the books for the bridal shop on Orchard Street and for an engraver on Grand. Sol had always planned to pursue a reliable trade, like accounting or the law. There were six years between them-six years which could have been twenty. They had sixty machines in operation, a steady production in two other factories on Allen and Rivington Streets downtown, and a growing business even in the teeth of the Depression, when dozens of their competitors had been forced to close their doors. He and his brother Sol had had their own firm for seven years now. And a chill was always good for the coat business, anyone on the street would say. There was a chill in the air, for April, as Morris Raab headed back down Seventh Avenue.
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