She relented, and soon the girls took turns winding the marvel and squealing with delight as the music repeated, and the ballerina in her pink tulle tutu never tired of dancing.

Reb Moskowitz turned to Batya’s father. “Koppel, my father-in-law-to-be, my future shver, are you ready to celebrate the engagement?”

“Let’s go to the tavern to drink to it.” Batya’s father slapped Reb Moskowitz’s back. “As the Good Book says, ‘If not now, when?’”

“I got it right here.” Reb Moskowitz withdrew a flask from his inside pocket, uncorked it, and took a gulp, then handed it to Batya’s father. “Lechayim.”

“Lechayim.” Batya’s father tipped the flask into his throat, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “This is how things are meant to be, and the proof, as the saying goes, is that it is happening.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Reb Moskowitz took another swig.

It was Batya’s third turn at the music box, but instead she was watching the men. Their celebration of her nuptials sealed her future. All afternoon she had been unsure whether to dread or look forward to the mystery that would be her adult life, telling herself that her future husband was wealthy and generous. Why didn’t she feel elated as a bride should?

Her mother put her arms around her. “I’m so happy,” she whispered, her chest heaving. “Some people have money, but we are rich with daughters. You’ll be our salvation, long before the Day of Judgment.”

Surale joined their hug, and Batya breathed in her sister’s still childish smell and her mother’s warmer musk. Her mother was right. Not only would they all be saved by this marriage, but Batya would also be rescued from the soul-crushing poverty of life in the shtetl—and fear of pogroms.

Reb Moskowitz opened his billfold again, and this time withdrew a pinkish bill sporting the number 100 in two corners. When he placed it on the table, the whole family gaped at the sight, none daring to touch it.

“No dowry is one thing,” Koppel said. “But as the Bible tells us, Jacob worked seven years for Rachel, and then seven more years to pay for her after marrying her sister.”

Reb Moskowitz laughed. “You want I should labor for fourteen years—or may I pay in kind?” He opened his arms as if for a hug. “Now that we’ll be family, it behooves us to share my bounty.”

Batya’s mother elbowed her husband. “Whoever here can change such a large bill?”

“Don’t you have coins?” Batya’s father asked Reb Moskowitz.