Free Ella of All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor

replied. “Waiting for Henny. She and her boyfriends, they never know what time it is.”
    “Ella, I heard some wonderful news,” Tanta ventured. “You’re going on the stage! Oh my! What is it? An opera, maybe?”
    “No, it’s not an opera. It’s a show,” Ella replied shortly.
    “Hmm. Lena and Hyman took me to a show once. They had acts with dogs and monkeys.”
    Everyone laughed. Even Ella managed a smile. “Oh Tanta.”
    “All right, all right. So there’s no dogs with monkeys. So what kind of a thing is it?”
    “It’s an act with nine girls and one man. It’s called ‘Nine Crazy Kids.’ ”
    “ ‘Nine crazy kids’? It sounds meshuga [crazy] to me. For that you needed all those singing lessons?”
    Ella winced. “I’ll be singing. It’s just a beginning. After all, I have to get some experience. It’s just as my cousin Herman told Papa—if I only learn to walk across a stage properly, I will have learned a lot.”
    “I never heard of such a thing! What’s the matter, you don’t know how to walk?” Tanta asked. “What are you, a baby all of a sudden? You walk, like everybody, with the feet.”
    Ella’s spirits began to lift a bit. Right now, Tanta is a godsend, she reflected. Even the Strudel was tasting better with every bite.
    “So what do you intend?” persisted Tanta. “Are you going to walk or no?”
    Ella contemplated the last morsel of Strudel on her plate. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I am.”
    “Then it’s settled!” Papa cried. “You’re going to sign the contract!”
    Ella nodded. She could feel Mama’s searching gaze on her.
    “You’re sure?”
    “Yes, Mama.” Ella’s voice was firm. “I’m sure.”
    “I wonder, is this a life for a nice Jewish girl?” Tanta asked.
    “Nowadays there are plenty of nice Jewish girls on the stage,” observed Mama.
    “If they asked me,” Tanta continued, “I wouldn’t do it for a million dollars.”
    “First of all, Tanta, nobody is asking you,” Papa declared. “Besides, Ella has to make her own choice.”
    “Choice-schmoice! She’s still just a child.”
    “A person can’t stay under her parents’ roof forever,” Ella retorted. “A girl leaves home when she gets married, doesn’t she?”
    “That’s different!” scoffed Tanta. “When you get married, your husband takes over. Marriage and stage, they don’t mix. It’s one or the other. You wanna give up Jules?”
    “I don’t have to give him up. He’s willing to wait.”
    “You think so, huh? Well, from what I see, there’s plenty of other fish in the ocean, and with you away, some girl will snap him up just like that!” Tanta snapped her fingers. “Well, I’ll never learn to keep my mouth from talking. You should excuse me for speaking out my mind. But you know I love Ella like she was my own child.”
    Mama put up her hand. “It’s all right, Tanta.”
    She turned to Ella. “Tanta has expressed her feelings. Now let me tell you how I feel. I didn’t say anything before. But now that you’ve made your choice, I can tell you.”
    “Tell me what?”
    “Listen and you will understand. When I was a child,” Mama began, “I sang too.”
    “Yes, I know.”
    “I know that story,” Tanta interrupted. “Remember I was there.”
    Papa chuckled. “I know it too, even if I wasn’t there.”
    “Please, the both of you, let me tell it to Ella,” Mama pleaded. “So she’ll appreciate it—and maybe you will too.”
    Tanta waved her on. “Go ahead and tell. Don’t mind me.
    “Many people praised my singing,” Mama continued. “Everyone said I had an unusually fine voice and I was always asked to sing—in school, at parties and weddings.
    “Of course, those were different days,” she went on wistfully. “A career in the old country as a singer was a fantasy. At least that’s what people like my parents believed. But my brother, the eldest in the family, he was different. He was sure that somehow, there was a great future in store for