Chapter 10 No.10

A nasty smell of sputtered-out candles fills the room. Rochtzi weeps. Bertzi is back on the couch and snores.

Different sounds, like the voices of winds, cattle, and wild beasts, and the whirr of a mill, are heard in his snoring. And her weeping-it seems as if the whole room were sighing and quivering and shaking....

EZRIELK THE SCRIBE

Forty days before Ezrielk descended upon this sinful world, his life-partner was proclaimed in Heaven, and the Heavenly Council decided that he was to transcribe the books of the Law, prayers, and Mezuzehs for the Kabtzonivke Jews, and thereby make a living for his wife and children. But the hard word went forth to him that he should not disclose this secret decree to anyone, and should even forget it himself for a goodly number of years. A glance at Ezrielk told one that he had been well lectured with regard to some important matter, and was to tell no tales out of school. Even Minde, the Kabtzonivke Bobbe, testified to this:

"Never in all my life, all the time I've been bringing Jewish children into God's world, have I known a child scream so loud at birth as Ezrielk-a sign that he'd had it well rubbed into him!"

Either the angel who has been sent to fillip little children above the lips when they are being born, was just then very sleepy (Ezrielk was born late at night), or some one had put him out of temper, but one way or another little Ezrielk, the very first minute of his Jewish existence, caught such a blow that his top lip was all but split in two.

After this kindly welcome, when God's angel himself had thus received Ezrielk, slaps, blows, and stripes rained down upon his head, body, and life, all through his days, without pause or ending.

Ezrielk began to attend Cheder when he was exactly three years old. His first teacher treated him very badly, beat him continually, and took all the joy of his childhood from him. By the time this childhood of his had passed, and he came to be married (he began to wear the phylacteries and the prayer-scarf on the day of his marriage), he was a very poor specimen, small, thin, stooping, and yellow as an egg-pudding, his little face dark, dreary, and weazened, like a dried Lender herring. The only large, full things about him were his earlocks, which covered his whole face, and his two blue eyes. He had about as much strength as a fly, he could not even break the wine-glass under the marriage canopy by himself, and had to ask for help of Reb Yainkef Butz, the beadle of the Old Shool.

Among the German Jews a boy like that would have been left unwed till he was sixteen or even seventeen, but our Ezrielk was married at thirteen, for his bride had been waiting for him seventeen years.

It was this way: Reb Seinwill Bassis, Ezrielk's father, and Reb Selig Tachshit, his father-in-law, were Hostre Chassidim, and used to drive every year to spend the Solemn Days at the Hostre Rebbe's. They both (not of you be it spoken!) lost all their children in infancy, and, as you can imagine, they pressed the Rebbe very closely on this important point, left him no peace, till he should bestir himself on their behalf, and exercise all his influence in the Higher Spheres. Once, on the Eve of Yom Kippur, before daylight, after the waving of the scape-fowls, when the Rebbe, long life to him, was in somewhat high spirits, our two Chassidim made another set upon him, but this time they had quite a new plan, and it simply had to work out!

"Do you know what? Arrange a marriage between your children! Good luck to you!" The whole company of Chassidim broke some plates, and actually drew up the marriage contract. It was a little difficult to draw up the contract, because they did not know which of our two friends would have the boy (the Rebbe, long life to him, was silent on this head), and which, the girl, but-a learned Jew is never at a loss, and they wrote out the contract with conditions.

For three years running after this their wives bore them each a child, but the children were either both boys or both girls, so that their vow to unite the son of one to a daughter of the other born in the same year could not be fulfilled, and the documents lay on the shelf.

True, the little couples departed for the "real world" within the first month, but the Rebbe consoled the father by saying:

"We may be sure they were not true Jewish children, that is, not true Jewish souls. The true Jewish soul once born into the world holds on, until, by means of various troubles and trials, it is cleansed from every stain. Don't worry, but wait."

The fourth year the Rebbe's words were established: Reb Selig Tachshit had a daughter born to him, and Reb Seinwill Bassis, Ezrielk.

Channehle, Ezrielk's bride, was tall, when they married, as a young fir-tree, beautiful as the sun, clever as the day is bright, and white as snow, with sky-blue, star-like eyes. Her hair was the color of ripe corn-in a word, she was fair as Abigail and our Mother Rachel in one, winning as Queen Esther, pious as Leah, and upright as our Grandmother Sarah.

But although the bride was beautiful, she found no fault with her bridegroom; on the contrary, she esteemed it a great honor to have him for a husband. All the Kabtzonivke girls envied her, and every Kabtzonivke woman who was "expecting" desired with all her heart that she might have such a son as Ezrielk. The reason is quite plain: First, what true Jewish maiden looks for beauty in her bridegroom? Secondly, our Ezrielk was as full of excellencies as a pomegranate is of seeds.

His teachers had not broken his bones for nothing. The blows had been of great and lasting good to him. Even before his wedding, Seinwill Bassis's Ezrielk was deeply versed in the Law, and could solve the hardest "questions," so that you might have made a Rabbi of him. He was, moreover, a great scribe. His "in-honor-ofs," and his "blessed bes" were known, not only in Kabtzonivke, but all over Kamenivke, and as for his singing-!

When Ezrielk began to sing, poor people forgot their hunger, thirst, and need, the sick, their aches and pains, the Kabtzonivke Jews in general, their bitter exile.

He mostly sang unfamiliar tunes and whole "things."

"Where do you get them, Ezrielk?"

The little Ezrielk would open his eyes (he kept them shut while he sang), his two big blue eyes, and answer wonderingly:

"Don't you hear how everything sings?"

After a little while, when Ezrielk had been singing so well and so sweetly and so wonderfully that the Kabtzonivke Jews began to feel too happy, people fell athinking, and they grew extremely uneasy and disturbed in their minds:

"It's not all so simple as it looks, there is something behind it. Suppose a not-good one had introduced himself into the child (which God forbid!)? It would do no harm to take him to the Aleskev Rebbe, long life to him."

As good luck would have it, the Hostre Rebbe came along just then to Kabtzonivke, and, after all, Ezrielk belonged to him, he was born through the merit of the Rebbe's miracle-working! So the Chassidim told him the story. The Rebbe, long life to him, sent for him. Ezrielk came and began to sing. The Rebbe listened a long, long time to his sweet voice, which rang out like a hundred thousand crystal and gold bells into every corner of the room.

"Do not be alarmed, he may and he must sing. He gets his tunes there where he got his soul."

And Ezrielk sang cheerful tunes till he was ten years old, that is, till he fell into the hands of the teacher Reb Yainkel Vittiss.

Now, the end and object of Reb Yainkel's teaching was not merely that his pupils should know a lot and know it well. Of course, we know that the Jew only enters this sinful world in order that he may more or less perfect himself, and that it is therefore needful he should, and, indeed, he must, sit day and night over the Torah and the Commentaries. Yainkel Vittiss's course of instruction began and ended with trying to imbue his pupils with a downright, genuine, Jewish-Chassidic enthusiasm.

The first day Ezrielk entered his Cheder, Reb Yainkel lifted his long, thick lashes, and began, while he gazed fixedly at him, to shake his head, saying to himself: "No, no, he won't do like that. There is nothing wrong with the vessel, a goodly vessel, only the wine is still very sharp, and the ferment is too strong. He is too cocky, too lively for me. A wonder, too, for he's been in good hands (tell me, weren't you under both Moisheh-Yusis?), and it's a pity, when you come to think, that such a goodly vessel should be wasted. Yes, he wants treating in quite another way."

And Yainkel Vittiss set himself seriously to the task of shaping and working up Ezrielk.

Reb Yainkel was not in the least concerned when he beat a pupil and the latter cried and screamed at the top of his voice. He knew what he was about, and was convinced that, when one beats and it hurts, even a Jewish child (which must needs get used to blows) may cry and scream, and the more the better; it showed that his method of instruction was taking effect. And when he was thrashing Ezrielk, and the boy cried and yelled, Reb Yainkel would tell him: "That's right, that's the way! Cry, scream-louder still! That's the way to get a truly contrite Jewish heart! You sing too merrily for me-a true Jew should weep even while he sings."

When Ezrielk came to be twelve years old, his teacher declared that he might begin to recite the prayers in Shool before the congregation, as he now had within him that which beseems a good Chassidic Jew.

So Ezrielk began to davven in the Kabtzonivke Old Shool, and a crowd of people, not only from Kabtzonivke, but even from Kamenivke and Ebionivke, used to fill and encircle the Shool to hear him.

Reb Yainkel was not mistaken, he knew what he was saying. Ezrielk was indeed fit to davven: life and the joy of life had vanished from his singing, and the terrorful weeping, the fearful wailing of a nation's two thousand years of misfortune, might be heard and felt in his voice.

Ezrielk was very weakly, and too young to lead the service often, but what a stir he caused when he lifted up his voice in the Shool!

Kabtzonivke, Kamenivke, and Ebionivke will never forget the first U-mipné Chatoénu led by the twelve-year-old Ezrielk, standing before the precentor's desk in a long, wide prayer-scarf.

The men, women, and children who were listening inside and outside the Old Shool felt a shudder go through them, their hair stood on end, and their hearts wept and fluttered in their breasts.

Ezrielk's voice wept and implored, "on account of our sins."

At the time when Ezrielk was distinguishing himself on this fashion with his chanting, the Jewish doctor from Kamenivke happened to be in the place. He saw the crowd round the Old Shool, and he went in. As you may suppose, he was much longer in coming out. He was simply riveted to the spot, and it is said that he rubbed his eyes more than once while he listened and looked. On coming away, he told them to bring Ezrielk to see him on the following day, saying that he wished to see him, and would take no fee.

Next day Ezrielk came with his mother to the doctor's house.

"A blow has struck me! A thunder has killed me! Reb Yainkel, do you know what the doctor said?"

"You silly woman, don't scream so! He cannot have said anything bad about Ezrielk. What is the matter? Did he hear him intone the Gemoreh, or perhaps sing? Don't cry and lament like that!"

"Reb Yainkel, what are you talking about? The doctor said that my Ezrielk is in danger, that he's ill, that he hasn't a sound organ-his heart, his lungs, are all sick. Every little bone in him is broken. He mustn't sing or study-the bath will be his death-he must have a long cure-he must be sent away for air. God (he said to me) has given you a precious gift, such as Heaven and earth might envy. Will you go and bury it with your own hands?"

"And you were frightened and believed him? Nonsense! I've had Ezrielk in my Cheder two years. Do I want him to come and tell me what goes on there? If he were a really good doctor, and had one drop of Jewish blood left in his veins, wouldn't he know that every true Jew has a sick heart, a bad lung, broken bones, and deformed limbs, and is well and strong in spite of it, because the holy Torah is the best medicine for all sicknesses? Ha, ha, ha! And he wants Ezrielk to give up learning and the bath? Do you know what? Go home and send Ezrielk to Cheder at once!"

The Kamenivke doctor made one or two more attempts at alarming Ezrielk's parents; he sent his assistant to them more than once, but it was no use, for after what Reb Yainkel had said, nobody would hear of any doctoring.

So Ezrielk continued to study the Talmud and occasionally to lead the service in Shool, like the Chassidic child he was, had a dip nearly every morning in the bath-house, and at thirteen, good luck to him, he was married.

The Hostre Rebbe himself honored the wedding with his presence. The Rebbe, long life to him, was fond of Ezrielk, almost as though he had been his own child. The whole time the saint stayed in Kabtzonivke, Kamenivke, and Ebionivke, Ezrielk had to be near him.

When they told the Rebbe the story of the doctor, he remarked, "Ett! what do they know?"

And Ezrielk continued to recite the prayers after his marriage, and to sing as before, and was the delight of all who heard him.

Agreeably to the marriage contract, Ezrielk and his Channehle had a double right to board with their parents "forever"; when they were born and the written engagements were filled in, each was an only child, and both Reb Seinwill and Reb Selig undertook to board them "forever." True, when the parents wedded their "one and only children," they had both of them a houseful of little ones and no Parnosseh (they really hadn't!), but they did not go back upon their word with regard to the "board forever."

Of course, it is understood that the two "everlasting boards" lasted nearly one whole year, and Ezrielk and his wife might well give thanks for not having died of hunger in the course of it, such a bad, bitter year as it was for their poor parents. It was the year of the great flood, when both Reb Seinwill Bassis and Reb Selig Tachshit had their houses ruined.

Ezrielk, Channehle, and their little son had to go and shift for themselves. But the other inhabitants of Kabtzonivke, regardless of this, now began to envy them in earnest: what other couple of their age, with a child and without a farthing, could so easily make a livelihood as they?

Hardly had it come to the ears of the three towns that Ezrielk was seeking a Parnosseh when they were all astir. All the Shools called meetings, and sought for means and money whereby they might entice the wonderful cantor and secure him for themselves. There was great excitement in the Shools. Fancy finding in a little, thin Jewish lad all the rare and precious qualities that go to make a great cantor! The trustees of all the Shools ran about day and night, and a fierce war broke out among them.

The war raged five times twenty-four hours, till the Great Shool in Kamenivke carried the day. Not one of the others could have dreamed of offering him such a salary-three hundred rubles and everything found!

"God is my witness"-thus Ezrielk opened his heart, as he sat afterwards with the company of Hostre Chassidim over a little glass of brandy-"that I find it very hard to leave our Old Shool, where my grandfather and great-grandfather used to pray. Believe me, brothers, I would not do it, only they give me one hundred and fifty rubles earnest-money, and I want to pass it on to my father and father-in-law, so that they may rebuild their houses. To your health, brothers! Drink to my remaining an honest Jew, and wish that my head may not be turned by the honor done to me!"

And Ezrielk began to davven and to sing (again without a choir) in the Great Shool, in the large town of Kamenivke. There he intoned the prayers as he had never done before, and showed who Ezrielk was! The Old Shool in Kabtzonivke had been like a little box for his voice.

In those days Ezrielk and his household lived in happiness and plenty, and he and Channehle enjoyed the respect and consideration of all men. When Ezrielk led the service, the Shool was filled to overflowing, and not only with Jews, even the richest Gentiles (I beg to distinguish!) came to hear him, and wondered how such a small and weakly creature as Ezrielk, with his thin chest and throat, could bring out such wonderful tunes and whole compositions of his own! Money fell upon the lucky couple, through circumcisions, weddings, and so on, like snow. Only one thing began, little by little, to disturb their happiness: Ezrielk took to coughing, and then to spitting blood.

He used to complain that he often felt a kind of pain in his throat and chest, but they did not consult a doctor.

"What, a doctor?" fumed Reb Yainkel. "Nonsense! It hurts, does it? Where's the wonder? A carpenter, a smith, a tailor, a shoemaker works with his hands, and his hands hurt. Cantors and teachers and match-makers work with their throat and chest, and these hurt, they are bound to do so. It is simply hemorrhoids."

So Ezrielk went on intoning and chanting, and the Kamenivke Jews licked their fingers, and nearly jumped out of their skin for joy when they heard him.

Two years passed in this way, and then came a change.

It was early in the morning of the Fast of the Destruction of the Temple, all the windows of the Great Shool were open, and all the tables, benches, and desks had been carried out from the men's hall and the women's hall the evening before. Men and women sat on the floor, so closely packed a pin could not have fallen to the floor between them. The whole street in which was the Great Shool was chuck full with a terrible crowd of men, women, and children, although it just happened to be cold, wet weather. The fact is, Ezrielk's Lamentations had long been famous throughout the Jewish world in those parts, and whoever had ears, a Jewish heart, and sound feet, came that day to hear him. The sad epidemic disease that (not of our days be it spoken!) swallows men up, was devastating Kamenivke and its surroundings that year, and everyone sought a place and hour wherein to weep out his opprest and bitter heart.

Ezrielk also sat on the floor reciting Lamentations, but the man who sat there was not the same Ezrielk, and the voice heard was not his. Ezrielk, with his sugar-sweet, honeyed voice, had suddenly been transformed into a strange being, with a voice that struck terror into his hearers; the whole people saw, heard, and felt, how a strange creature was flying about among them with a fiery sword in his hand. He slashes, hews, and hacks at their hearts, and with a terrible voice he cries out and asks: "Sinners! Where is your holy land that flowed with milk and honey? Slaves! Where is your Temple? Accursed slaves! You sold your freedom for money and calumny, for honors and worldly greatness!"

The people trembled and shook and were all but entirely dissolved in tears. "Upon Zion and her cities!" sang out once more Ezrielk's melancholy voice, and suddenly something snapped in his throat, just as when the strings of a good fiddle snap when the music is at its best. Ezrielk coughed, and was silent. A stream of blood poured from his throat, and he grew white as the wall.

The doctor declared that Ezrielk had lost his voice forever, and would remain hoarse for the rest of his life.

"Nonsense!" persisted Reb Yainkel. "His voice is breaking-it's nothing more!"

"God will help!" was the comment of the Hostre saint. A whole year went by, and Ezrielk's voice neither broke nor returned to him. The Hostre Chassidim assembled in the house of Elkoneh the butcher to consider and take counsel as to what Ezrielk should take to in order to earn a livelihood for wife and children. They thought it over a long, long time, talked and gave their several opinions, till they hit upon this: Ezrielk had still one hundred and fifty rubles in store-let him spend one hundred rubles on a house in Kabtzonivke, and begin to traffic with the remainder.

Thus Ezrielk became a trader. He began driving to fairs, and traded in anything and everything capable of being bought or sold.

Six months were not over before Ezrielk was out of pocket. He mortgaged his property, and with the money thus obtained he opened a grocery shop for Channehle. He himself (nothing satisfies a Jew!) started to drive about in the neighborhood, to collect the contributions subscribed for the maintenance of the Hostre Rebbe, long life to him!

Ezrielk was five months on the road, and when, torn, worn, and penniless, he returned home, he found Channehle brought to bed of her fourth child, and the shop bare of ware and equally without a groschen. But Ezrielk was now something of a trader, and is there any strait in which a Jewish trader has not found himself? Ezrielk had soon disposed of the whole of his property, paid his debts, rented a larger lodging, and started trading in several new and more ambitious lines: he pickled gherkins, cabbages, and pumpkins, made beet soup, both red and white, and offered them for sale, and so on. It was Channehle again who had to carry on most of the business, but, then, Ezrielk did not sit with his hands in his pockets. Toward Passover he had Shmooreh Matzes; he baked and sold them to the richest householders in Kamenivke, and before the Solemn Days he, as an expert, tried and recommended cantors and prayer-leaders for the Kamenivke Shools. When it came to Tabernacles, he trafficked in citrons and "palms."

For three years Ezrielk and his Channehle struggled at their trades, working themselves nearly to death (of Zion's enemies be it spoken!), till, with the help of Heaven, they came to be twenty years old.

By this time Ezrielk and Channehle were the parents of four living and two dead children. Channehle, the once so lovely Channehle, looked like a beaten Hoshanah, and Ezrielk-you remember the picture drawn at the time of his wedding?-well, then try to imagine what he was like now, after those seven years we have described for you! It's true that he was not spitting blood any more, either because Reb Yainkel had been right, when he said that would pass away, or because there was not a drop of blood in the whole of his body.

So that was all right-only, how were they to live? Even Reb Yainkel and all the Hostre Chassidim together could not tell him!

The singing had raised him and lifted him off his feet, and let him fall. And do you know why it was and how it was that everything Ezrielk took to turned out badly? It was because the singing was always there, in his head and his heart. He prayed and studied, singing. He bought and sold, singing. He sang day and night. No one heard him, because he was hoarse, but he sang without ceasing. Was it likely he would be a successful trader, when he was always listening to what Heaven and earth and everything around him were singing, too? He only wished he could have been a slaughterer or a Rav (he was apt enough at study), only, first, Rabbonim and slaughterers don't die every day, and, second, they usually leave heirs to take their places; third, even supposing there were no such heirs, one has to pay "privilege-money," and where is it to come from? No, there was nothing to be done. Only God could and must have pity on him and his wife and children, and help them somehow.

Ezrielk struggled and fought his need hard enough those days. One good thing for him was this-his being a Hostre Chossid; the Hostre Chassidim, although they have been famed from everlasting as the direst poor among the Jews, yet they divide their last mouthful with their unfortunate brethren. But what can the gifts of mortal men, and of such poor ones into the bargain, do in a case like Ezrielk's? And God alone knows what bitter end would have been his, if Reb Shmuel B?r, the Kabtzonivke scribe, had not just then (blessed be the righteous Judge!) met with a sudden death. Our Ezrielk was not long in feeling that he, and only he, should, and, indeed, must, step into Reb Shmuel's shoes. Ezrielk had been an expert at the scribe's work for years and years. Why, his father's house and the scribe's had been nearly under one roof, and whenever Ezrielk, as a child, was let out of Cheder, he would go and sit any length of time in Reb Shmuel's room (something in the occupation attracted him) and watch him write. And the little Ezrielk had more than once tried to make a piece of parchment out of a scrap of skin; and what Jewish boy cannot prepare the veins that are used to sew the phylacteries and the scrolls of the Law? Nor was the scribe's ink a secret to Ezrielk.

So Ezrielk became scribe in Kabtzonivke.

Of course, he did not make a fortune. Reb Shmuel B?r, who had been a scribe all his days, died a very poor man, and left a roomful of hungry, half-naked children behind him, but then-what Jew, I ask you (or has Messiah come?), ever expected to find a Parnosseh with enough, really enough, to eat?

YITZCHOK-YOSSEL BROITGEBER

At the time I am speaking of, the above was about forty years old. He was a little, thin Jew with a long face, a long nose, two large, black, kindly eyes, and one who would sooner be silent and think than talk, no matter what was being said to him. Even when he was scolded for something (and by whom and when and for what was he not scolded?), he used to listen with a quiet, startled, but sweet smile, and his large, kindly eyes would look at the other with such wonderment, mingled with a sort of pity, that the other soon stopped short in his abuse, and stood nonplussed before him.

"There, you may talk! You might as well argue with a horse, or a donkey, or the wall, or a log of wood!" and the other would spit and make off.

But if anyone observed that smile attentively, and studied the look in his eyes, he would, to a certainty, have read there as follows:

"O man, man, why are you eating your heart out? Seeing that you don't know, and that you don't understand, why do you undertake to tell me what I ought to do?"

And when he was obliged to answer, he used to do so in a few measured and gentle words, as you would speak to a little, ignorant child, smiling the while, and then he would disappear and start thinking again.

They called him "breadwinner," because, no matter how hard the man worked, he was never able to earn a living. He was a little tailor, but not like the tailors nowadays, who specialize in one kind of garment, for Yitzchok-Yossel made everything: trousers, cloaks, waistcoats, top-coats, fur-coats, capes, collars, bags for prayer-books, "little prayer-scarfs," and so on. Besides, he was a ladies' tailor as well. Summer and winter, day and night, he worked like an ox, and yet, when the Kabtzonivke community, at the time of the great cholera, in order to put an end to the plague, led him, aged thirty, out to the cemetery, and there married him to Malkeh the orphan, she cast him off two weeks later! She was still too young (twenty-eight), she said, to stay with him and die of hunger. She went out into the world, together with a large band of poor, after the great fire that destroyed nearly the whole town, and nothing more was heard of Malkeh the orphan from that day forward. And Yitzchok-Yossel Broitgeber betook himself, with needle and flat-iron, into the women's chamber in the New Shool, the community having assigned it to him as a workroom.

How came it about, you may ask, that so versatile a tailor as Yitzchok-Yossel should be so poor?

Well, if you do, it just shows you didn't know him!

Wait and hear what I shall tell you.

The story is on this wise: Yitzchok-Yossel Broitgeber was a tailor who could make anything, and who made nothing at all, that is, since he displayed his imagination in cutting out and sewing on the occasion I am referring to, nobody would trust him.

I can remember as if it were to-day what happened in Kabtzonivke, and the commotion there was in the little town when Yitzchok-Yossel made Reb Yecheskel the teacher a pair of trousers (begging your pardon!) of such fantastic cut that the unfortunate teacher had to wear them as a vest, though he was not then in need of one, having a brand new sheepskin not more than three years old.

And now listen! Binyomin Droibnik the trader's mother died (blessed be the righteous Judge!), and her whole fortune went, according to the Law, to her only son Binyomin. She had to be buried at the expense of the community. If she was to be buried at all, it was the only way. But the whole town was furious with the old woman for having cheated them out of their expectations and taken her whole fortune away with her to the real world. None knew exactly why, but it was confidently believed that old "Aunt" Leah had heaps of treasure somewhere in hiding.

It was a custom with us in Kabtzonivke to say, whenever anyone, man or woman, lived long, ate sicknesses by the clock, and still did not die, that it was a sign that he had in the course of his long life gathered great store of riches, that somewhere in a cellar he kept potsful of gold and silver.

The Funeral Society, the younger members, had long been whetting their teeth for "Aunt" Leah's fortune, and now she had died (may she merit Paradise!) and had fooled them.

"What about her money?"

"A cow has flown over the roof and laid an egg!"

In that same night Reb Binyomin's cow (a real cow) calved, and the unfortunate consequence was that she died. The Funeral Society took the calf, and buried "Aunt" Leah at its own expense.

Well, money or no money, inheritance or no inheritance, Reb Binyomin's old mother left him a quilt, a large, long, wide, wadded quilt. As an article of house furniture, a quilt is a very useful thing, especially in a house where there is a wife (no evil eye!) and a goodly number of children, little and big. Who doesn't see that? It looks simple enough! Either one keeps it for oneself and the two little boys (with whom Reb Binyomin used to sleep), or else one gives it to the wife and the two little girls (who also sleep all together), or, if not, then to the two bigger boys or the two bigger girls, who repose on the two bench-beds in the parlor and kitchen respectively. But this particular quilt brought such perplexity into Reb Binyomin's rather small head that he (not of you be it spoken!) nearly went mad.

"Why I and not she? Why she and not I? Or they? Or the others? Why they and not I? Why them and not us? Why the others and not them? Well, well, what is all this fuss? What did we cover them with before?"

Three days and three nights Reb Binyomin split his head and puzzled his brains over these questions, till the Almighty had pity on his small skull and feeble intelligence, and sent him a happy thought.

"After all, it is an inheritance from one's one and only mother (peace be upon her!), it is a thing from Thingland! I must adapt it to some useful purpose, so that Heaven and earth may envy me its possession!" And he sent to fetch Yitzchok-Yossel Broitgeber, the tailor, who could make every kind of garment, and said to him:

"Reb Yitzchok-Yossel, you see this article?"

"I see it."

"Yes, you see it, but do you understand it, really and truly understand it?"

"I think I do."

"But do you know what this is, ha?"

"A quilt."

"Ha, ha, ha! A quilt? I could have told you that myself. But the stuff, the material?"

"It's good material, beautiful stuff."

"Good material, beautiful stuff? No, I beg your pardon, you are not an expert in this, you don't know the value of merchandise. The real artisan, the true expert, would say: The material is light, soft, and elastic, like a lung, a sound and healthy lung. The stuff-he would say further-is firm, full, and smooth as the best calf's leather. And durable? Why, it's a piece out of the heart of the strongest ox, or the tongue of the Messianic ox itself! Do you know how many winters this quilt has lasted already? But enough! That is not why I have sent for you. We are neither of us, thanks to His blessed Name, do-nothings. The long and short of it is this: I wish to make out of this-you understand me?-out of this material, out of this piece of stuff, a thing, an article, that shall draw everybody to it, a fruit that is worth saying the blessing over, something superfine. An instance: what, for example, tell me, what would you do, if I gave this piece of goods into your hands, and said to you: Reb Yitzchok-Yossel, as you are (without sin be it spoken!) an old workman, a good workman, and, besides that, a good comrade, and a Jew as well, take this material, this stuff, and deal with it as you think best. Only let it be turned into a sort of costume, a sort of garment, so that not only Kabtzonivke, but all Kamenivke, shall be bitten and torn with envy. Eh? What would you turn it into?"

Yitzchok-Yossel was silent, Reb Yitzchok-Yossel went nearly out of his mind, nearly fainted for joy at these last words. He grew pale as death, white as chalk, then burning red like a flame of fire, and sparkled and shone. And no wonder: Was it a trifle? All his life he had dreamed of the day when he should be given a free hand in his work, so that everyone should see who Yitzchok-Yossel is, and at the end came-the trousers, Reb Yecheskel Melammed's trousers! How well, how cleverly he had made them! Just think: trousers and upper garment in one! He had been so overjoyed, he had felt so happy. So sure that now everyone would know who Yitzchok-Yossel Broitgeber is! He had even begun to think and wonder about Malkeh the orphan-poor, unfortunate orphan! Had she ever had one single happy day in her life? Work forever and next to no food, toil till she was exhausted and next to no drink, sleep where she could get it: one time in Elkoneh the butcher's kitchen, another time in Yisroel Dintzis' attic ... and when at last she got married (good luck to her!), she became the wife of Yitzchok-Yossel Broitgeber! And the wedding took place in the burial-ground. On one side they were digging graves, on the other they were bringing fresh corpses. There was weeping and wailing, and in the middle of it all, the musicians playing and fiddling and singing, and the relations dancing!... Good luck! Good luck! The orphan and her breadwinner are being led to the marriage canopy in the graveyard!

He will never forget with what gusto, she, his bride, the first night after their wedding, ate, drank, and slept-the whole of the wedding-supper that had been given them, bridegroom and bride: a nice roll, a glass of brandy, a tea-glass full of wine, and a heaped-up plate of roast meat was cut up and scraped together and eaten (no evil eye!) by her, by the bride herself. He had taken great pleasure in watching her face. He had known her well from childhood, and had no need to look at her to know what she was like, but he wanted to see what kind of feelings her face would express during this occupation. When they led him into the bridal chamber-she was already there-the companions of the bridegroom burst into a shout of laughter, for the bride was already snoring. He knew quite well why she had gone to sleep so quickly and comfortably. Was there not sufficient reason? For the first time in her life she had made a good meal and lain down in a bed with bedclothes!

The six groschen candle burnt, the flies woke and began to buzz, the mills clapt, and swung, and groaned, and he, Yitzchok-Yossel Broitgeber, the bridegroom, sat beside the bridal bed on a little barrel of pickled gherkins, and looked at Malkeh the orphan, his bride, his wife, listened to her loud thick snores, and thought.

The town dogs howled strangely. Evidently the wedding in the cemetery had not yet driven away the Angel of Death. From some of the neighboring houses came a dreadful crying and screaming of women and children.

Malkeh the orphan heard nothing. She slept sweetly, and snored as loud (I beg to distinguish!) as Caspar, the tall, stout miller, the owner of both mills.

Yitzchok-Yossel Broitgeber sits on the little barrel, looks at her face, and thinks. Her face is dark, roughened, and nearly like that of an old woman. A great, fat fly knocked against the wick, the candle suddenly began to burn brighter, and Yitzchok-Yossel saw her face become prettier, younger, and fresher, and overspread by a smile. That was all the effect of the supper and the soft bed. Then it was that he had promised himself, that he had sworn, once and for all, to show the Kabtzonivke Jews who he is, and then Malkeh the orphan will have food and a bed every day. He would have done this long ago, had it not been for those trousers. The people are so silly, they don't understand! That is the whole misfortune! And it's quite the other way about: let someone else try and turn out such an ingenious contrivance! But because it was he, and not someone else, they laughed and made fun of him. How Reb Yecheskel, his wife and children, did abuse him! That was his reward for all his trouble. And just because they themselves are cattle, horses, boors, who don't understand the tailor's art! Ha, if only they understood that tailoring is a noble, refined calling, limitless and bottomless as (with due distinction!) the holy Torah!

But all is not lost. Who knows? For here comes Binyomin Droibnik, an intelligent man, a man of brains and feeling. And think how many years he has been a trader! A retail trader, certainly, a jobber, but still-

"Come, Reb Yitzchok-Yossel, make an end! What will you turn it into?"

"Everything."

"That is to say?"

"A dressing-gown for your Dvoshke,-"

"And then?"

"A morning-gown with tassels,-"

"After that?"

"A coat."

"Well?"

"A dress-"

"And besides that?"

"A pair of trousers and a jacket-"

"Nothing more?"

"Why not? A-"

"For instance?"

"Pelisse, a wadded winter pelisse for you."

"There, there! Just that, and only that!" said Reb Binyomin, delighted.

Yitzchok-Yossel Broitgeber tucked away the quilt under his arm, and was preparing to be off.

"Reb Yitzchok-Yossel! And what about taking my measure? And how about your charge?"

Yitzchok-Yossel dearly loved to take anyone's measure, and was an expert at so doing. He had soon pulled a fair-sized sheet of paper out of one of his deep pockets, folded it into a long paper stick, and begun to measure Reb Binyomin Droibnik's limbs. He did not even omit to note the length and breadth of his feet.

"What do you want with that? Are you measuring me for trousers?"

"Ett, don't you ask! No need to teach a skilled workman his trade!"

"And what about the charge?"

"We shall settle that later."

"No, that won't do with me; I am a trader, you understand, and must have it all pat."

"Five gulden."

"And how much less?"

"How should I know? Well, four."

"Well, and half a ruble?"

"Well, well-"

"Remember, Reb Yitzchok-Yossel, it must be a masterpiece!"

"Trust me!"

For five days and five nights Yitzchok-Yossel set his imagination to work on Binyomin Droibnik's inheritance. There was no eating for him, no drinking, and no sleeping. The scissors squeaked, the needle ran hither and thither, up and down, the inheritance sighed and almost sobbed under the hot iron. But how happy was Yitzchok-Yossel those lightsome days and merry nights? Who could compare with him? Greater than the Kabtzonivke village elder, richer than Yisroel Dintzis, the tax-gatherer, and more exalted than the bailiff himself was Yitzchok-Yossel, that is, in his own estimation. All that he wished, thought, and felt was forthwith created by means of his scissors and iron, his thimble, needle, and cotton. No more putting on of patches, sewing on of pockets, cutting out of "Tefillin-S?cklech" and "little prayer-scarfs," no more doing up of old dresses. Freedom, freedom-he wanted one bit of work of the right sort, and that was all! Ha, now he would show them, the Kabtzonivke cripples and householders, now he would show them who Yitzchok-Yossel Broitgeber is! They would not laugh at him or tease him any more! His fame would travel from one end of the world to the other, and Malkeh the orphan, his bride, his wife, she also would hear of it, and-

She will come back to him! He feels it in every limb. It was not him she cast off, only his bad luck. He will rent a lodging (money will pour in from all sides)-buy a little furniture: a bed, a sofa, a table-in time he will buy a little house of his own-she will come, she has been homeless long enough-it is time she should rest her weary, aching bones-it is high time she should have her own corner!

She will come back, he feels it, she will certainly come home!

The last night! The work is complete. Yitzchok-Yossel spread it out on the table of the women's Shool, lighted a second groschen candle, sat down in front of it with wide open, sparkling eyes, gazed with delight at the product of his imagination and-was wildly happy!

So he sat the whole night.

It was very hard for him to part with his achievement, but hardly was it day when he appeared with it at Reb Binyomin Droibnik's.

"A good morning, a good year, Reb Yitzchok-Yossel! I see by your eyes that you have been successful. Is it true?"

"You can see for yourself, there-"

"No, no, there is no need for me to see it first. Dvoshke, Cheike, Shprintze, Dovid-Hershel, Yitzchok-Yoelik! You understand, I want them all to be present and see."

In a few minutes the whole family had appeared on the scene. Even the four little ones popped up from behind the heaps of ragged covering.

Yitzchok-Yossel untied his parcel and-

"Wuus is duuuusss???!!!"

"A pair of trousers with sleeves!"

JUDAH STEINBERG

Born, 1863, in Lipkany, Bessarabia; died, 1907, in Odessa; education Hasidic; entered business in a small Roumanian village for a short time; teacher, from 1889 in Jedency and from 1896 in Leowo, Bessarabia; removed to Odessa, in 1905, to become correspondent of New York Warheit; writer of fables, stories, and children's tales in Hebrew, and poems in Yiddish; historical drama, Ha-Sotah; collected works in Hebrew, 3 vols., Cracow, 1910-1911 (in course of publication).

A LIVELIHOOD

The two young fellows Maxim Klopatzel and Israel Friedman were natives of the same town in New Bessarabia, and there was an old link existing between them: a mutual detestation inherited from their respective parents. Maxim's father was the chief Gentile of the town, for he rented the corn-fields of its richest inhabitant; and as the lawyer of the rich citizen was a Jew, little Maxim imagined, when his father came to lose his tenantry, that it was owing to the Jews. Little Struli was the only Jewish boy he knew (the children were next door neighbors), and so a large share of their responsibility was laid on Struli's shoulders. Later on, when Klopatzel, the father, had abandoned the plough and taken to trade, he and old Friedman frequently came in contact with each other as rivals.

They traded and traded, and competed one against the other, till they both become bankrupt, when each argued to himself that the other was at the bottom of his misfortune-and their children grew on in mutual hatred.

A little later still, Maxim put down to Struli's account part of the nails which were hammered into his Savior, over at the other end of the town, by the well, where the Government and the Church had laid out money and set up a crucifix with a ladder, a hammer, and all other necessary implements.

And Struli, on his part, had an account to settle with Maxim respecting certain other nails driven in with hammers, and torn scrolls of the Law, and the history of the ten martyrs of the days of Titus, not to mention a few later ones.

Their hatred grew with them, its strength increased with theirs.

When Krushevan began to deal in anti-Semitism, Maxim learned that Christian children were carried off into the Shool, Struli's Shool, for the sake of their blood.

Thenceforth Maxim's hatred of Struli was mingled with fear. He was terrified when he passed the Shool at night, and he used to dream that Struli stood over him in a prayer robe, prepared to slaughter him with a ram's horn trumpet.

This because he had once passed the Shool early one Jewish New Year's Day, had peeped through the window, and seen the ram's horn blower standing in his white shroud, armed with the Shofar, and suddenly a heartrending voice broke out with Min ha-Mezar, and Maxim, taking his feet on his shoulders, had arrived home more dead than alive. There was very nearly a commotion. The priest wanted to persuade him that the Jews had tried to obtain his blood.

So the two children grew into youth as enemies. Their fathers died, and the increased difficulties of their position increased their enmity.

The same year saw them called to military service, from which they had both counted on exemption as the only sons of widowed mothers; only Israel's mother had lately died, bequeathing to the Czar all she had-a soldier; and Maxim's mother had united herself to a second provider-and there was an end of the two "only sons!"

Neither of them wished to serve; they were too intellectually capable, too far developed mentally, too intelligent, to be turned all at once into Russian soldiers, and too nicely brought up to march from Port Arthur to Mukden with only one change of shirt. They both cleared out, and stowed themselves away till they 'fell separately into the hands of the military.

They came together again under the fortress walls of Mukden.

They ate and hungered sullenly round the same cooking pot, received punches from the same officer, and had the same longing for the same home.

Israel had a habit of talking in his sleep, and, like a born Bessarabian, in his Yiddish mixed with a large portion of Roumanian words.

One night, lying in the barracks among the other soldiers, and sunk in sleep after a hard day, Struli began to talk sixteen to the dozen. He called out names, he quarrelled, begged pardon, made a fool of himself-all in his sleep.

It woke Maxim, who overheard the homelike names and phrases, the name of his native town.

He got up, made his way between the rows of sleepers, and sat down by Israel's pallet, and listened.

Next day Maxim managed to have a large helping of porridge, more than he could eat, and he found Israel, and set it before him.

"Maltzimesk!" said the other, thanking him in Roumanian, and a thrill of delight went through Maxim's frame.

The day following, Maxim was hit by a Japanese bullet, and there happened to be no one beside him at the moment.

The shock drove all the soldier-speech out of his head. "Help, I am killed!" he called out, and fell to the ground.

Struli was at his side like one sprung from the earth, he tore off his Four-Corners, and made his comrade a bandage.

The wound turned out to be slight, for the bullet had passed through, only grazing the flesh of the left arm. A few days later Maxim was back in the company.

"I wanted to see you again, Struli," he said, greeting his comrade in Roumanian.

A flash of brotherly affection and gratitude lighted Struli's Semitic eyes, and he took the other into his arms, and pressed him to his heart.

They felt themselves to be "countrymen," of one and the same native town.

Neither of them could have told exactly when their union of spirit had been accomplished, but each one knew that he thanked God for having brought him together with so near a compatriot in a strange land.

And when the battle of Mukden had made Maxim all but totally blind, and deprived Struli of one foot, they started for home together, according to the passage in the Midrash, "Two men with one pair of eyes and one pair of feet between them." Maxim carried on his shoulders a wooden box, which had now became a burden in common for them, and Struli limped a little in front of him, leaning lightly against his companion, so as to keep him in the smooth part of the road and out of other people's way.

Struli had become Maxim's eyes, and Maxim, Struli's feet; they were two men grown into one, and they provided for themselves out of one pocket, now empty of the last ruble.

They dragged themselves home. "A kasa, a kasa!" whispered Struli into Maxim's ear, and the other turned on him his two glazed eyes looking through a red haze, and set in swollen red lids.

A childlike smile played on his lips:

"A kasa, a kasa!" he repeated, also in a whisper.

Home appeared to their fancy as something holy, something consoling, something that could atone and compensate for all they had suffered and lost. They had seen such a home in their dreams.

But the nearer they came to it in reality, the more the dream faded. They remembered that they were returning as conquered soldiers and crippled men, that they had no near relations and but few friends, while the girls who had coquetted with Maxim before he left would never waste so much as a look on him now he was half-blind; and Struli's plans for marrying and emigrating to America were frustrated: a cripple would not be allowed to enter the country.

All their dreams and hopes finally dissipated, and there remained only one black care, one all-obscuring anxiety: how were they to earn a living?

They had been hoping all the while for a pension, but in their service book was written "on sick-leave." The Russo-Japanese war was distinguished by the fact that the greater number of wounded soldiers went home "on sick-leave," and the money assigned by the Government for their pension would not have been sufficient for even a hundredth part of the number of invalids.

Maxim showed a face with two wide open eyes, to which all the passers-by looked the same. He distinguished with difficulty between a man and a telegraph post, and wore a smile of mingled apprehension and confidence. The sound feet stepped hesitatingly, keeping behind Israel, and it was hard to say which steadied himself most against the other. Struli limped forward, and kept open eyes for two. Sometimes he would look round at the box on Maxim's shoulders, as though he felt its weight as much as Maxim.

Meantime the railway carriages had emptied and refilled, and the locomotive gave a great blast, received an answer from somewhere a long way off, a whistle for a whistle, and the train set off, slowly at first, and then gradually faster and faster, till all that remained of it were puffs of smoke hanging in the air without rhyme or reason.

The two felt more depressed than ever. "Something to eat? Where are we to get a bite?" was in their minds.

Suddenly Yisroel remembered with a start: this was the anniversary of his mother's death-if he could only say one Kaddish for her in a Klaus!

"Is it far from here to a Klaus?" he inquired of a passer-by.

"There is one a little way down that side-street," was the reply.

"Maxim!" he begged of the other, "come with me!"

"Where to?"

"To the synagogue."

Maxim shuddered from head to foot. His fear of a Jewish Shool had not left him, and a thousand foolish terrors darted through his head.

But his comrade's voice was so gentle, so childishly imploring, that he could not resist it, and he agreed to go with him into the Shool.

It was the time for Afternoon Prayer, the daylight and the dark held equal sway within the Klaus, the lamps before the platform increasing the former to the east and the latter to the west. Maxim and Yisroel stood in the western part, enveloped in shadow. The Cantor had just finished "Incense," and was entering upon Ashré, and the melancholy night chant of Minchah and Maariv gradually entranced Maxim's emotional Roumanian heart.

The low, sad murmur of the Cantor seemed to him like the distant surging of a sea, in which men were drowned by the hundreds and suffocating with the water. Then, the Ashré and the Kaddish ended, there was silence. The congregation stood up for the Eighteen Benedictions. Here and there you heard a half-stifled sigh. And now it seemed to Maxim that he was in the hospital at night, at the hour when the groans grow less frequent, and the sufferers fall one by one into a sweet sleep.

Tears started into his eyes without his knowing why. He was no longer afraid, but a sudden shyness had come over him, and he felt, as he watched Yisroel repeating the Kaddish, that the words, which he, Maxim, could not understand, were being addressed to someone unseen, and yet mysteriously present in the darkening Shool.

When the prayers were ended, one of the chief members of the congregation approached the "Mandchurian," and gave Yisroel a coin into his hand.

Yisroel looked round-he did not understand at first what the donor meant by it.

Then it occurred to him-and the blood rushed to his face. He gave the coin to his companion, and explained in a half-sentence or two how they had come by it.

Once outside the Klaus, they both cried, after which they felt better.

"A livelihood!" the same thought struck them both.

"We can go into partnership!"

AT THE MATZES

It was quite early in the morning, when Sossye, the scribe's daughter, a girl of seventeen, awoke laughing; a sunbeam had broken through the rusty window, made its way to her underneath the counterpane, and there opened her eyes.

It woke her out of a deep dream which she was ashamed to recall, but the dream came back to her of itself, and made her laugh.

Had she known whom she was going to meet in her dreams, she would have lain down in her clothes, occurs to her, and she laughs aloud.

"Got up laughing!" scolds her mother. "There's a piece of good luck for you! It's a sign of a black year for her (may it be to my enemies!)."

Sossye proceeds to dress herself. She does not want to fall out with her mother to-day, she wants to be on good terms with everyone.

In the middle of dressing she loses herself in thought, with one naked foot stretched out and an open stocking in her hands, wondering how the dream would have ended, if she had not awoke so soon.

Chayyimel, a villager's son, who boards with her mother, passes the open doors leading to Sossye's room, and for the moment he is riveted to the spot. His eyes dance, the blood rushes to his cheeks, he gets all he can by looking, and then hurries away to Cheder without his breakfast, to study the Song of Songs.

And Sossye, fresh and rosy from sleep, her brown eyes glowing under the tumbled gold locks, betakes herself to the kitchen, where her mother, with her usual worried look, is blowing her soul out before the oven into a smoky fire of damp wood.

"Look at the girl standing round like a fool! Run down to the cellar, and fetch me an onion and some potatoes!"

Sossye went down to the cellar, and found the onions and potatoes sprouting.

At sight of a green leaf, her heart leapt. Greenery! greenery! summer is coming! And the whole of her dream came back to her!

"Look, mother, green sprouts!" she cried, rushing into the kitchen.

"A thousand bad dreams on your head! The onions are spoilt, and she laughs! My enemies' eyes will creep out of their lids before there will be fresh greens to eat, and all this, woe is me, is only fit to throw away!"

"Greenery, greenery!" thought Sossye, "summer is coming!"

Greenery had got into her head, and there it remained, and from greenery she went on to remember that to-day was the first Passover-cake baking at Gedalyeh the baker's, and that Shloimeh Shieber would be at work there.

Having begged of her mother the one pair of boots that stood about in the room and fitted everyone, she put them on, and was off to the Matzes.

It was, as we have said, the first day's work at Gedalyeh the baker's, and the sack of Passover flour had just been opened. Gravely, the flour-boy, a two weeks' orphan, carried the pot of flour for the Mehereh, and poured it out together with remembrances of his mother, who had died in the hospital of injuries received at their hands, and the water-boy came up behind him, and added recollections of his own.

"The hooligans threw his father into the water off the bridge-may they pay for it, süsser Gott! May they live till he is a man, and can settle his account with them!"

Thus the grey-headed old Henoch, the kneader, and he kneaded it all into the dough, with thoughts of his own grandchildren: this one fled abroad, the other in the regiment, and a third in prison.

The dough stiffens, the horny old hands work it with difficulty. The dough gets stiffer every year, and the work harder, it is time for him to go to the asylum!

The dough is kneaded, cut up in pieces, rolled and riddled-is that a token for the whole Congregation of Israel? And now appear the round Matzes, which must wander on a shovel into the heated oven of Shloimeh Shieber, first into one corner, and then into another, till another shovel throws them out into a new world, separated from the old by a screen thoroughly scoured for Passover, which now rises and now falls. There they are arranged in columns, a reminder of Pithom and Rameses. Kuk-ruk, kuk-ruk, ruk-ruk, whisper the still warm Matzes one to another; they also are remembering, and they tell the tale of the Exodus after their fashion, the tale of the flight out of Egypt-only they have seen more flights than one.

Thus are the Matzes kneaded and baked by the Jews, with "thoughts." The Gentiles call them "blood," and assert that Jews need blood for their Matzes, and they take the trouble to supply us with fresh "thoughts" every year!

But at Gedalyeh the baker's all is still cheerfulness. Girls and boys, in their unspent vigor, surround the tables, there is rolling and riddling and cleaning of clean rolling-pins with pieces of broken glass (from where ever do Jews get so much broken glass?), and the whole town is provided with kosher Matzes. Jokes and silver trills escape the lively young workers, the company is as merry as though the Exodus were to-morrow.

But it won't be to-morrow. Look at them well, because another day you will not find them so merry, they will not seem like the same.

One of the likely lads has left his place, and suddenly appeared at a table beside a pretty, curly-haired girl. He has hurried over his Matzes, and now he wants to help her.

She thanks him for his attention with a rolling-pin over the fingers, and there is such laughter among the spectators that Berke, the old overseer, exclaims, "What impertinence!"

But he cannot finish, because he has to laugh himself. There is a spark in the embers of his being which the girlish merriment around him kindles anew.

And the other lads are jealous of the beaten one. They know very well that no girl would hit a complete stranger, and that the blow only meant, "Impudent boy, why need the world know of anything between us?"

Shloimehle Shieber, armed with the shovels, stands still for a minute trying to distinguish Sossye's voice in the peals of laughter. The Matzes under his care are browning in the oven.

And Sossye takes it into her head to make her Matzes with one pointed corner, so that he may perhaps know them for hers, and laughs to herself as she does so.

There is one table to the side of the room which was not there last year; it was placed there for the formerly well-to-do housemistresses, who last year, when they came to bake their Matzes, gave Yom-tov money to the others. Here all goes on quietly; the laughter of the merry people breaks against the silence, and is swallowed up.

The work grows continually pleasanter and more animated. The riddler stamps two or three Matzes with hieroglyphs at once, in order to show off. Shloimeh at the oven cannot keep pace with him, and grows angry:

"May all bad...."

The wish is cut short in his mouth, he has caught a glance of Sossye's through the door of the baking-room, he answers with two, gets three back, Sossye pursing her lips to signify a kiss. Shloimeh folds his hands, which also means something.

Meantime ten Matzes get scorched, and one of Sossye's is pulled in two. "Brennen brennt mir mein Harz," starts a worker singing in a plaintive key.

"Come! hush, hush!" scolds old Berke. "Songs, indeed! What next, you impudent boy?"

"My sorrows be on their head!" sighs a neighbor of Sossye's. "They'd soon be tired of their life, if they were me. I've left two children at home fit to scream their hearts out. The other is at the breast, I have brought it along. It is quiet just now, by good luck."

"What is the use of a poor woman's having children?" exclaims another, evidently "expecting" herself. Indeed, she has a child a year-and a seven-days' mourning a year afterwards.

"Do you suppose I ask for them? Do you think I cry my eyes out for them before God?"

"If she hasn't any, who's to inherit her place at the Matzes-baking-a hundred years hence?"

"All very well for you to talk, you're a grass-widow (to no Jewish daughter may it apply!)!"

"May such a blow be to my enemies as he'll surely come back again!"

"It's about time! After three years!"

"Will you shut up, or do you want another beating?"

Sossye went off into a fresh peal of laughter, and the shovel fell out of Shloimeh's hand.

Again he caught a glance, but this time she wrinkled her nose at him, as much as to say, "Fie, you shameless boy! Can't you behave yourself even before other people?"

Hereupon the infant gave account of itself in a small, shrill voice, and the general commotion went on increasing. The overseer scolded, the Matzes-printing-wheel creaked and squeaked, the bits of glass were ground against the rolling-pins, there was a humming of songs and a proclaiming of secrets, followed by bursts of laughter, Sossye's voice ringing high above the rest.

And the sun shone into the room through the small window-a white spot jumped around and kissed everyone there.

Is it the Spirit of Israel delighting in her young men and maidens and whispering in their ears: "What if it is Matzes-kneading, and what if it is Exile? Only let us be all together, only let us all be merry!"

Or is it the Spring, transformed into a white patch of sunshine, in which all have equal share, and which has not forgotten to bring good news into the house of Gedalyeh the Matzeh-baker?

A beautiful sun was preparing to set, and promised another fine day for the morrow.

"Ding-dong, gul-gul-gul-gul-gul-gul!"

It was the convent bells calling the Christians to confession!

All tongues were silenced round the tables at Gedalyeh the baker's.

A streak of vapor dimmed the sun, and gloomy thoughts settled down upon the hearts of the workers.

"Easter! Their Easter is coming on!" and mothers' eyes sought their children.

The white patch of sunshine suddenly gave a terrified leap across the ceiling and vanished in a corner.

"Kik-kik, kik-rik, kik-rik," whispered the hot Matzes. Who is to know what they say?

Who can tell, now that the Jews have baked this year's Matzes, how soon they will set about providing them with material for the next?-"thoughts," and broken glass for the rolling-pins.

DAVID FRISCHMANN

Born, 1863, in Lodz, Russian Poland, of a family of merchants; education, Jewish and secular, the latter with special attention to foreign languages and literatures; has spent most of his life in Warsaw; Hebrew critic, editor, poet, satirist, and writer of fairy tales; translator of George Eliot's Daniel Deronda into Hebrew; contributor to Sholom-Alechem's Jüdische Volksbibliothek, Spektor's Hausfreund, and various periodicals; editor of monthly publication Reshafim; collected works in Hebrew, Ketabim Nibharim, 2 vols., Warsaw, 1899-1901, and Reshimot, 4 parts, Warsaw, 1911.

THREE WHO ATE

Once upon a time three people ate. I recall the event as one recalls a dream. Black clouds obscure the men, because it happened long ago.

Only sometimes it seems to me that there are no clouds, but a pillar of fire lighting up the men and their doings, and the fire grows bigger and brighter, and gives light and warmth to this day.

I have only a few words to tell you, two or three words: once upon a time three people ate. Not on a workday or an ordinary Sabbath, but on a Day of Atonement that fell on a Sabbath.

Not in a corner where no one sees or hears, but before all the people in the great Shool, in the principal Shool of the town.

Neither were they ordinary men, these three, but the chief Jews of the community: the Rabbi and his two Dayonim.

The townsfolk looked up to them as if they had been angels, and certainly held them to be saints. And now, as I write these words, I remember how difficult it was for me to understand, and how I sometimes used to think the Rabbi and his Dayonim had done wrong. But even then I felt that they were doing a tremendous thing, that they were holy men with holy instincts, and that it was not easy for them to act thus. Who knows how hard they fought with themselves, who knows how they suffered, and what they endured?

And even if I live many years and grow old, I shall never forget the day and the men, and what was done on it, for they were no ordinary men, but great heroes.

Those were bitter times, such as had not been for long, and such as will not soon return.

A great calamity had descended on us from Heaven, and had spread abroad among the towns and over the country: the cholera had broken out.

The calamity had reached us from a distant land, and entered our little town, and clutched at young and old.

By day and by night men died like flies, and those who were left hung between life and death.

Who can number the dead who were buried in those days! Who knows the names of the corpses which lay about in heaps in the streets!

In the Jewish street the plague made great ravages: there was not a house where there lay not one dead-not a family in which the calamity had not broken out.

In the house where we lived, on the second floor, nine people died in one day. In the basement there died a mother and four children, and in the house opposite we heard wild cries one whole night through, and in the morning we became aware that there was no one left in it alive.

The grave-diggers worked early and late, and the corpses lay about in the streets like dung. They stuck one to the other like clay, and one walked over dead bodies.

The summer broke up, and there came the Solemn Days, and then the most dreadful day of all-the Day of Atonement.

I shall remember that day as long as I live.

The Eve of the Day of Atonement-the reciting of Kol Nidré!

At the desk before the ark there stands, not as usual the precentor and two householders, but the Rabbi and his two Dayonim.

The candles are burning all round, and there is a whispering of the flames as they grow taller and taller. The people stand at their reading-desks with grave faces, and draw on the robes and prayer-scarfs, the Spanish hoods and silver girdles; and their shadows sway this way and that along the walls, and might be the ghosts of the dead who died to-day and yesterday and the day before yesterday. Evidently they could not rest in their graves, and have also come into the Shool.

Hush!... the Rabbi has begun to say something, and the Dayonim, too, and a groan rises from the congregation.

"With the consent of the All-Present and with the consent of this congregation, we give leave to pray with them that have transgressed."

And a great fear fell upon me and upon all the people, young and old. In that same moment I saw the Rabbi mount the platform. Is he going to preach? Is he going to lecture the people at a time when they are falling dead like flies? But the Rabbi neither preached nor lectured. He only called to remembrance the souls of those who had died in the course of the last few days. But how long it lasted! How many names he mentioned! The minutes fly one after the other, and the Rabbi has not finished! Will the list of souls never come to an end? Never? And it seems to me the Rabbi had better call out the names of those who are left alive, because they are few, instead of the names of the dead, who are without number and without end.

I shall never forget that night and the praying, because it was not really praying, but one long, loud groan rising from the depth of the human heart, cleaving the sky and reaching to Heaven. Never since the world began have Jews prayed in greater anguish of soul, never have hotter tears fallen from human eyes.

That night no one left the Shool.

After the prayers they recited the Hymn of Unity, and after that the Psalms, and then chapters from the Mishnah, and then ethical books....

And I also stand among the congregation and pray, and my eyelids are heavy as lead, and my heart beats like a hammer.

"U-Malochim yechofézun-and the angels fly around."

And I fancy I see them flying in the Shool, up and down, up and down. And among them I see the bad angel with the thousand eyes, full of eyes from head to feet.

That night no one left the Shool, but early in the morning there were some missing-two of the congregation had fallen during the night, and died before our eyes, and lay wrapped in their prayer-scarfs and white robes-nothing was lacking for their journey from the living to the dead.

They kept on bringing messages into the Shool from the Gass, but nobody wanted to listen or to ask questions, lest he should hear what had happened in his own house. No matter how long I live, I shall never forget that night, and all I saw and heard.

But the Day of Atonement, the day that followed, was more awful still.

And even now, when I shut my eyes, I see the whole picture, and I think I am standing once more among the people in the Shool.

It is Atonement Day in the afternoon.

The Rabbi stands on the platform in the centre of the Shool, tall and venerable, and there is a fascination in his noble features. And there, in the corner of the Shool, stands a boy who never takes his eyes off the Rabbi's face.

In truth I never saw a nobler figure.

The Rabbi is old, seventy or perhaps eighty years, but tall and straight as a fir-tree. His long beard is white like silver, but the thick, long hair of his head is whiter still, and his face is blanched, and his lips are pale, and only his large black eyes shine and sparkle like the eyes of a young lion.

I stood in awe of him when I was a little child. I knew he was a man of God, one of the greatest authorities in the Law, whose advice was sought by the whole world.

I knew also that he inclined to leniency in all his decisions, and that none dared oppose him.

The sight I saw that day in Shool is before my eyes now.

The Rabbi stands on the platform, and his black eyes gleam and shine in the pale face and in the white hair and beard.

The Additional Service is over, and the people are waiting to hear what the Rabbi will say, and one is afraid to draw one's breath.

And the Rabbi begins to speak.

His weak voice grows stronger and higher every minute, and at last it is quite loud.

He speaks of the sanctity of the Day of Atonement and of the holy Torah; of repentance and of prayer, of the living and of the dead, and of the pestilence that has broken out and that destroys without pity, without rest, without a pause-for how long? for how much longer?

And by degrees his pale cheeks redden and his lips also, and I hear him say: "And when trouble comes to a man, he must look to his deeds, and not only to those which concern him and the Almighty, but to those which concern himself, to his body, to his flesh, to his own health."

I was a child then, but I remember how I began to tremble when I heard these words, because I had understood.

The Rabbi goes on speaking. He speaks of cleanliness and wholesome air, of dirt, which is dangerous to man, and of hunger and thirst, which are men's bad angels when there is a pestilence about, devouring without pity.

And the Rabbi goes on to say:

"And men shall live by My commandments, and not die by them. There are times when one must turn aside from the Law, if by so doing a whole community may be saved."

I stand shaking with fear. What does the Rabbi want? What does he mean by his words? What does he think to accomplish? And suddenly I see that he is weeping, and my heart beats louder and louder. What has happened? Why does he weep? And there I stand in the corner, in the silence, and I also begin to cry.

And to this day, if I shut my eyes, I see him standing on the platform, and he makes a sign with his hand to the two Dayonim to the left and right of him. He and they whisper together, and he says something in their ear. What has happened? Why does his cheek flame, and why are theirs as white as chalk?

And suddenly I hear them talking, but I cannot understand them, because the words do not enter my brain. And yet all three are speaking so sharply and clearly!

And all the people utter a groan, and after the groan I hear the words, "With the consent of the All-Present and with the consent of this congregation, we give leave to eat and drink on the Day of Atonement."

Silence. Not a sound is heard in the Shool, not an eyelid quivers, not a breath is drawn.

And I stand in my corner and hear my heart beating: one-two-one-two. A terror comes over me, and it is black before my eyes. The shadows move to and fro on the wall, and amongst the shadows I see the dead who died yesterday and the day before yesterday and the day before the day before yesterday-a whole people, a great assembly.

And suddenly I grasp what it is the Rabbi asks of us. The Rabbi calls on us to eat, to-day! The Rabbi calls on Jews to eat on the Day of Atonement-not to fast, because of the cholera-because of the cholera-because of the cholera ... and I begin to cry loudly. And it is not only I-the whole congregation stands weeping, and the Dayonim on the platform weep, and the greatest of all stands there sobbing like a child.

And he implores like a child, and his words are soft and gentle, and every now and then he weeps so that his voice cannot be heard.

"Eat, Jews, eat! To-day we must eat. This is a time to turn aside from the Law. We are to live through the commandments, and not die through them!"

But no one in the Shool has stirred from his place, and there he stands and begs of them, weeping, and declares that he takes the whole responsibility on himself, that the people shall be innocent. But no one stirs. And presently he begins again in a changed voice-he does not beg, he commands:

"I give you leave to eat-I-I-I!"

And his words are like arrows shot from the bow.

But the people are deaf, and no one stirs.

Then he begins again with his former voice, and implores like a child:

"What would you have of me? Why will you torment me till my strength fails? Think you I have not struggled with myself from early this morning till now?"

And the Dayonim also plead with the people.

And of a sudden the Rabbi grows as white as chalk, and lets his head fall on his breast. There is a groan from one end of the Shool to the other, and after the groan the people are heard to murmur among themselves.

Then the Rabbi, like one speaking to himself, says:

"It is God's will. I am eighty years old, and have never yet transgressed a law. But this is also a law, it is a precept. Doubtless the Almighty wills it so! Beadle!"

The beadle comes, and the Rabbi whispers a few words into his ear.

He also confers with the Dayonim, and they nod their heads and agree.

And the beadle brings cups of wine for Sanctification, out of the Rabbi's chamber, and little rolls of bread. And though I should live many years and grow very old, I shall never forget what I saw then, and even now, when I shut my eyes, I see the whole thing: three Rabbis standing on the platform in Shool, and eating before the whole people, on the Day of Atonement!

The three belong to the heroes.

Who shall tell how they fought with themselves, who shall say how they suffered, and what they endured?

"I have done what you wished," says the Rabbi, and his voice does not shake, and his lips do not tremble.

"God's Name be praised!"

And all the Jews ate that day, they ate and wept.

Rays of light beam forth from the remembrance, and spread all around, and reach the table at which I sit and write these words.

Once again: three people ate.

At the moment when the awesome scene in the Shool is before me, there are three Jews sitting in a room opposite the Shool, and they also are eating.

They are the three "enlightened" ones of the place: the tax-collector, the inspector, and the teacher.

The window is wide open, so that all may see; on the table stands a samovar, glasses of red wine, and eatables. And the three sit with playing-cards in their hands, playing Preference, and they laugh and eat and drink.

Do they also belong to the heroes?

MICHA JOSEPH BERDYCZEWSKI

Born, 1865, in Berschad, Podolia, Southwestern Russia; educated in Yeshibah of Volozhin; studied also modern literatures in his youth; has been living alternately in Berlin and Breslau; Hebrew, Yiddish, and German writer, on philosophy, ?sthetics, and Jewish literary, spiritual, and timely questions; contributor to Hebrew periodicals; editor of Bet-Midrash, supplement to Bet-Ozar ha-Sifrut; contributed Ueber den Zusammenhang zwischen Ethik und Aesthetik to Berner Studien zur Philosophie und ihrer Geschichte; author of two novels, Mibayit u-Mihuz, and Mahanaim; a book on the Hasidim, Warsaw, 1900; Jüdische Ketobim vun a weiten Korov, Warsaw; Hebrew essays on miscellaneous subjects, eleven parts, Warsaw and Breslau (in course of publication).

MILITARY SERVICE

"They look as if they'd enough of me!"

So I think to myself, as I give a glance at my two great top-boots, my wide trousers, and my shabby green uniform, in which there is no whole part left.

I take a bit of looking-glass out of my box, and look at my reflection. Yes, the military cap on my head is a beauty, and no mistake, as big as Og king of Bashan, and as bent and crushed as though it had been sat upon for years together.

Under the cap appears a small, washed-out face, yellow and weazened, with two large black eyes that look at me somewhat wildly.

I don't recognize myself; I remember me in a grey jacket, narrow, close-fitting trousers, a round hat, and a healthy complexion.

I can't make out where I got those big eyes, why they shine so, why my face should be yellow, and my nose, pointed.

And yet I know that it is I myself, Chayyim Blumin, and no other; that I have been handed over for a soldier, and have to serve only two years and eight months, and not three years and eight months, because I have a certificate to the effect that I have been through the first four classes in a secondary school.

Though I know quite well that I am to serve only two years and eight months, I feel the same as though it were to be forever; I can't, somehow, believe that my time will some day expire, and I shall once more be free.

I have tried from the very beginning not to play any tricks, to do my duty and obey orders, so that they should not say, "A Jew won't work-a Jew is too lazy."

Even though I am let off manual labor, because I am on "privileged rights," still, if they tell me to go and clean the windows, or polish the flooring with sand, or clear away the snow from the door, I make no fuss and go. I wash and clean and polish, and try to do the work well, so that they should find no fault with me.

They haven't yet ordered me to carry pails of water.

Why should I not confess it? The idea of having to do that rather frightens me. When I look at the vessel in which the water is carried, my heart begins to flutter: the vessel is almost as big as I am, and I couldn't lift it even if it were empty.

I often think: What shall I do, if to-morrow, or the day after, they wake me at three o'clock in the morning and say coolly:

"Get up, Blumin, and go with Ossadtchok to fetch a pail of water!"

You ought to see my neighbor Ossadtchok! He looks as if he could squash me with one finger. It is as easy for him to carry a pail of water as to drink a glass of brandy. How can I compare myself with him?

I don't care if it makes my shoulder swell, if I could only carry the thing. I shouldn't mind about that. But God in Heaven knows the truth, that I won't be able to lift the pail off the ground, only they won't believe me, they will say:

"Look at the lazy Jew, pretending he is a poor creature that can't lift a pail!"

There-I mind that more than anything.

I don't suppose they will send me to fetch water, for, after all, I am on "privileged rights," but I can't sleep in peace: I dream all night that they are waking me at three o'clock, and I start up bathed in a cold sweat.

Drill does not begin before eight in the morning, but they wake us at six, so that we may have time to clean our rifles, polish our boots and leather girdle, brush our coat, and furbish the brass buttons with chalk, so that they should shine like mirrors.

I don't mind the getting up early, I am used to rising long before daylight, but I am always worrying lest something shouldn't be properly cleaned, and they should say that a Jew is so lazy, he doesn't care if his things are clean or not, that he's afraid of touching his rifle, and pay me other compliments of the kind.

I clean and polish and rub everything all I know, but my rifle always seems in worse condition than the other men's. I can't make it look the same as theirs, do what I will, and the head of my division, a corporal, shouts at me, calls me a greasy fellow, and says he'll have me up before the authorities because I don't take care of my arms.

But there is worse than the rifle, and that is the uniform. Mine is years old-I am sure it is older than I am. Every day little pieces fall out of it, and the buttons tear themselves out of the cloth, dragging bits of it after them.

I never had a needle in my hand in all my life before, and now I sit whole nights and patch and sew on buttons. And next morning, when the corporal takes hold of a button and gives a pull, to see if it's firmly sewn, a pang goes through my heart: the button is dragged out, and a piece of the uniform follows.

Another whole night's work for me!

After the inspection, they drive us out into the yard and teach us to stand: it must be done so that our stomachs fall in and our chests stick out. I am half as one ought to be, because my stomach is flat enough anyhow, only my chest is weak and narrow and also flat-flat as a board.

The corporal squeezes in my stomach with his knee, pulls me forward by the flaps of the coat, but it's no use. He loses his temper, and calls me greasy fellow, screams again that I am pretending, that I won't serve, and this makes my chest fall in more than ever.

I like the gymnastics.

In summer we go out early into the yard, which is very wide and covered with thick grass.

It smells delightfully, the sun warms us through, it feels so pleasant.

The breeze blows from the fields, I open my mouth and swallow the freshness, and however much I swallow, it's not enough, I should like to take in all the air there is. Then, perhaps, I should cough less, and grow a little stronger.

We throw off the old uniforms, and remain in our shirts, we run and leap and go through all sorts of performances with our hands and feet, and it's splendid! At home I never had so much as an idea of such fun.

At first I was very much afraid of jumping across the ditch, but I resolved once and for all-I've got to jump it. If the worst comes to the worst, I shall fall and bruise myself. Suppose I do? What then? Why do all the others jump it and don't care? One needn't be so very strong to jump!

And one day, before the gymnastics had begun, I left my comrades, took heart and a long run, and when I came to the ditch, I made a great bound, and, lo and behold, I was over on the other side! I couldn't believe my own eyes that I had done it so easily.

Ever since then I have jumped across ditches, and over mounds, and down from mounds, as well as any of them.

Only when it comes to climbing a ladder or swinging myself over a high bar, I know it spells misfortune for me.

I spring forward, and seize the first rung with my right hand, but I cannot reach the second with my left.

I stretch myself, and kick out with my feet, but I cannot reach any higher, not by so much as a vershok, and so there I hang and kick with my feet, till my right arm begins to tremble and hurt me. My head goes round, and I fall onto the grass. The corporal abuses me as usual, and the soldiers laugh.

I would give ten years of my life to be able to get higher, if only three or four rungs, but what can I do, if my arms won't serve me?

Sometimes I go out to the ladder by myself, while the soldiers are still asleep, and stand and look at it: perhaps I can think of a way to manage? But in vain. Thinking, you see, doesn't help you in these cases.

Sometimes they tell one of the soldiers to stand in the middle of the yard with his back to us, and we have to hop over him. He bends down a little, lowers his head, rests his hands on his knees, and we hop over him one at a time. One takes a good run, and when one comes to him, one places both hands on his shoulders, raises oneself into the air, and-over!

I know exactly how it ought to be done; I take the run all right, and plant my hands on his shoulders, only I can't raise myself into the air. And if I do lift myself up a little way, I remain sitting on the soldier's neck, and were it not for his seizing me by the feet, I should fall, and perhaps kill myself.

Then the corporal and another soldier take hold of me by the arms and legs, and throw me over the man's head, so that I may see there is nothing dreadful about it, as though I did not jump right over him because I was afraid, while it is that my arms are so weak, I cannot lean upon them and raise myself into the air.

But when I say so, they only laugh, and don't believe me. They say, "It won't help you; you will have to serve anyhow!"

When, on the other hand, it comes to "theory," the corporal is very pleased with me.

He says that except himself no one knows "theory" as I do.

He never questions me now, only when one of the others doesn't know something, he turns to me:

"Well, Blumin, you tell me!"

I stand up without hurrying, and am about to answer, but he is apparently not pleased with my way of rising from my seat, and orders me to sit down again.

"When your superior speaks to you," says he, "you ought to jump up as though the seat were hot," and he looks at me angrily, as much as to say, "You may know theory, but you'll please to know your manners as well, and treat me with proper respect."

"Stand up again and answer!"

I start up as though I felt a prick from a needle, and answer the question as he likes it done: smartly, all in one breath, and word for word according to the book.

He, meanwhile, looks at the primer, to make sure I am not leaving anything out, but as he reads very slowly, he cannot catch me up, and when I have got to the end, he is still following with his finger and reading. And when he has finished, he gives me a pleased look, and says enthusiastically "Right!" and tells me to sit down again.

"Theory," he says, "that you do know!"

Well, begging his pardon, it isn't much to know. And yet there are soldiers who are four years over it, and don't know it then. For instance, take my comrade Ossadtchok; he says that, when it comes to "theory", he would rather go and hang or drown himself. He says, he would rather have to carry three pails of water than sit down to "theory."

I tell him, that if he would learn to read, he could study the whole thing by himself in a week; but he won't listen.

"Nobody," he says, "will ever ask my advice."

One thing always alarmed me very much: However was I to take part in the man?uvres?

I cannot lift a single pud (I myself only weigh two pud and thirty pounds), and if I walk three versts, my feet hurt, and my heart beats so violently that I think it's going to burst my side.

At the man?uvres I should have to carry as much as fifty pounds' weight, and perhaps more: a rifle, a cloak, a knapsack with linen, boots, a uniform, a tent, bread, and onions, and a few other little things, and should have to walk perhaps thirty to forty versts a day.

But when the day and the hour arrived, and the command was given "Forward, march!" when the band struck up, and two thousand men set their feet in motion, something seemed to draw me forward, and I went. At the beginning I found it hard, I felt weighted to the earth, my left shoulder hurt me so, I nearly fainted. But afterwards I got very hot, I began to breathe rapidly and deeply, my eyes were starting out of my head like two cupping-glasses, and I not only walked, I ran, so as not to fall behind-and so I ended by marching along with the rest, forty versts a day.

Only I did not sing on the march like the others. First, because I did not feel so very cheerful, and second, because I could not breathe properly, let alone sing.

At times I felt burning hot, but immediately afterwards I would grow light, and the marching was easy, I seemed to be carried along rather than to tread the earth, and it appeared to me as though another were marching in my place, only that my left shoulder ached, and I was hot.

I remember that once it rained a whole night long, it came down like a deluge, our tents were soaked through, and grew heavy. The mud was thick. At three o'clock in the morning an alarm was sounded, we were ordered to fold up our tents and take to the road again. So off we went.

It was dark and slippery. It poured with rain. I was continually stepping into a puddle, and getting my boot full of water. I shivered and shook, and my teeth chattered with cold. That is, I was cold one minute and hot the next. But the marching was no difficulty to me, I scarcely felt that I was on the march, and thought very little about it. Indeed, I don't know what I was thinking about, my mind was a blank.

We marched, turned back, and marched again. Then we halted for half an hour, and turned back again.

And this went on a whole night and a whole day.

Then it turned out that there had been a mistake: it was not we who ought to have marched, but another regiment, and we ought not to have moved from the spot. But there was no help for it then.

It was night. We had eaten nothing all day. The rain poured down, the mud was ankle-deep, there was no straw on which to pitch our tents, but we managed somehow. And so the days passed, each like the other. But I got through the man?uvres, and was none the worse.

Now I am already an old soldier; I have hardly another year and a half to serve-about sixteen months. I only hope I shall not be ill. It seems I got a bit of a chill at the man?uvres, I cough every morning, and sometimes I suffer with my feet. I shiver a little at night till I get warm, and then I am very hot, and I feel very comfortable lying abed. But I shall probably soon be all right again.

They say, one may take a rest in the hospital, but I haven't been there yet, and don't want to go at all, especially now I am feeling better. The soldiers are sorry for me, and sometimes they do my work, but not just for love. I get three pounds of bread a day, and don't eat more than one pound. The rest I give to my comrade Ossadtchok. He eats it all, and his own as well, and then he could do with some more. In return for this he often cleans my rifle, and sometimes does other work for me, when he sees I have no strength left.

I am also teaching him and a few other soldiers to read and write, and they are very pleased.

My corporal also comes to me to be taught, but he never gives me a word of thanks.

The superior of the platoon, when he isn't drunk, and is in good humor, says "you" to me instead of "thou," and sometimes invites me to share his bed-I can breathe easier there, because there is more air, and I don't cough so much, either.

Only it sometimes happens that he comes back from town tipsy, and makes a great to-do: How do I, a common soldier, come to be sitting on his bed?

He orders me to get up and stand before him "at attention," and declares he will "have me up" for it.

When, however, he has sobered down, he turns kind again, and calls me to him; he likes me to tell him "stories" out of books.

Sometimes the orderly calls me into the orderly-room, and gives me a report to draw up, or else a list or a calculation to make. He himself writes badly, and is very poor at figures.

I do everything he wants, and he is very glad of my help, only it wouldn't do for him to confess to it, and when I have finished, he always says to me:

"If the commanding officer is not satisfied, he will send you to fetch water."

I know it isn't true, first, because the commanding officer mustn't know that I write in the orderly-room, a Jew can't be an army secretary; secondly, because he is certain to be satisfied: he once gave me a note to write himself, and was very pleased with it.

"If you were not a Jew," he said to me then, "I should make a corporal of you."

Still, my corporal always repeats his threat about the water, so that I may preserve a proper respect for him, although I not only respect him, I tremble before his size. When he comes back tipsy from town, and finds me in the orderly-room, he commands me to drag his muddy boots off his feet, and I obey him and drag off his boots.

Sometimes I don't care, and other times it hurts my feelings.

ISAIAH BERSCHADSKI

Pen name of Isaiah Domaschewitski; born, 1871, near Derechin, Government of Grodno (Lithuania), White Russia; died, 1909, in Warsaw; education, Jewish and secular; teacher of Hebrew in Ekaterinoslav, Southern Russia; in business, in Ekaterinoslav and Baku; editor, in 1903, of Ha-Zeman, first in St. Petersburg, then in Wilna; after a short sojourn in Riga removed to Warsaw; writer of novels and short stories, almost exclusively in Hebrew; contributor to Ha-Meliz, Ha-Shiloah, and other periodicals; pen names besides Berschadski: Berschadi, and Shimoni; collected works in Hebrew, Tefusim u-Zelalim, Warsaw, 1899, and Ketabim Aharonim, Warsaw, 1909.

FORLORN AND FORSAKEN

Forlorn and forsaken she was in her last years. Even when she lay on the bed of sickness where she died, not one of her relations or friends came to look after her; they did not even come to mourn for her or accompany her to the grave. There was not even one of her kin to say the first Kaddish over her resting-place. My wife and I were the only friends she had at the close of her life, no one but us cared for her while she was ill, or walked behind her coffin. The only tears shed at the lonely old woman's grave were ours. I spoke the only Kaddish for her soul, but we, after all, were complete strangers to her!

Yes, we were strangers to her, and she was a stranger to us! We made her acquaintance only a few years before her death, when she was living in two tiny rooms opposite the first house we settled in after our marriage. Nobody ever came to see her, and she herself visited nowhere, except at the little store where she made her necessary purchases, and at the house-of-study near by, where she prayed twice every day. She was about sixty, rather undersized, and very thin, but more lithesome in her movements than is common at that age. Her face was full of creases and wrinkles, and her light brown eyes were somewhat dulled, but her ready smile and quiet glance told of a good heart and a kindly temper. Her simple old gown was always neat, her wig tastefully arranged, her lodging and its furniture clean and tidy-and all this attracted us to her from the first day onward. We were still more taken with her retiring manner, the quiet way in which she kept herself in the background and the slight melancholy of her expression, telling of a life that had held much sadness.

We made advances. She was very willing to become acquainted with us, and it was not very long before she was like a mother to us, or an old aunt. My wife was then an inexperienced "housemistress" fresh to her duties, and found a great help in the old woman, who smilingly taught her how to proceed with the housekeeping. When our first child was born, she took it to her heart, and busied herself with its upbringing almost more than the young mother. It was evident that dandling the child in her arms was a joy to her beyond words. At such moments her eyes would brighten, her wrinkles grew faint, a curiously satisfied smile played round her lips, and a new note of joy came into her voice.

At first sight all this seemed quite simple, because a woman is naturally inclined to care for little children, and it may have been so with her to an exceptional degree, but closer examination convinced me that here lay yet another reason; her attentions to the child, so it seemed, awakened pleasant memories of a long-ago past, when she herself was a young mother caring for children of her own, and looking at this strange child had stirred a longing for those other children, further from her eyes, but nearer to her heart, although perhaps quite unknown to her-who perhaps existed only in her imagination.

And when we were made acquainted with the details of her life, we knew our conjectures to be true. Her history was very simple and commonplace, but very tragic. Perhaps the tragedy of such biographies lies in their being so very ordinary and simple!

She lived quietly and happily with her husband for twenty years after their marriage. They were not rich, but their little house was a kingdom of delight, where no good thing was wanting. Their business was farming land that belonged to a Polish nobleman, a business that knows of good times and of bad, of fat years and lean years, years of high prices and years of low. But on the whole it was a good business and profitable, and it afforded them a comfortable living. Besides, they were used to the country, they could not fancy themselves anywhere else. The very thing that had never entered their head is just what happened. In the beginning of the "eighties" they were obliged to leave the estate they had farmed for ten years, because the lease was up, and the recently promulgated "temporary laws" forbade them to renew it. This was bad for them from a material point of view, because it left them without regular income just when their children were growing up and expenses had increased, but their mental distress was so great, that, for the time, the financial side of the misfortune was thrown into the shade.

When we made her acquaintance, many years had passed since then, many another trouble had come into her life, but one could hear tears in her voice while she told the story of that first misfortune. It was a bitter Tisho-b'ov for them when they left the house, the gardens, the barns, and the stalls, their whole life, all those things concerning which they had forgotten, and their children had hardly known, that they were not their own possession.

Their town surroundings made them more conscious of their altered circumstances. She herself, the elder children oftener still, had been used to drive into the town now and again, but that was on pleasure trips, which had lasted a day or two at most; they had never tried staying there longer, and it was no wonder if they felt cramped and oppressed in town after their free life in the open.

When they first settled there, they had a capital of about ten thousand rubles, but by reason of inexperience in their new occupation they were worsted in competition with others, and a few turns of bad luck brought them almost to ruin. The capital grew less from year to year; everything they took up was more of a struggle than the last venture; poverty came nearer and nearer, and the father of the family began to show signs of illness, brought on by town life and worry. This, of course, made their material position worse, and the knowledge of it reacted disastrously on his health. Three years after he came to town, he died, and she was left with six children and no means of subsistence. Already during her husband's life they had exchanged their first lodging for a second, a poorer and cheaper one, and after his death they moved into a third, meaner and narrower still, and sold their precious furniture, for which, indeed, there was no place in the new existence. But even so the question of bread and meat was not answered. They still had about six hundred rubles, but, as they were without a trade, it was easy to foresee that the little stock of money would dwindle day by day till there was none of it left-and what then?

The eldest son, Yossef, aged twenty-one, had gone from home a year before his father's death, to seek his fortune elsewhere; but his first letters brought no very good news, and now the second, Avròhom, a lad of eighteen, and the daughter Rochel, who was sixteen, declared their intention to start for America. The mother was against it, begged them with tears not to go, but they did not listen to her. Parting with them, forever most likely, was bad enough in itself, but worst of all was the thought that her children, for whose Jewish education their father had never grudged money even when times were hardest, should go to America, and there, forgetting everything they had learned, become "ganze Goyim." She was quite sure that her husband would never have agreed to his children's being thus scattered abroad, and this encouraged her to oppose their will with more determination. She urged them to wait at least till their elder brother had achieved some measure of success, and could help them. She held out this hope to them, because she believed in her son Yossef and his capacity, and was convinced that in a little time he would become their support.

If only Avròhom and Rochel had not been so impatient (she would lament to us), everything would have turned out differently! They would not have been bustled off to the end of creation, and she would not have been left so lonely in her last years, but-it had apparently been so ordained!

Avròhom and Rochel agreed to defer the journey, but when some months had passed, and Yossef was still wandering from town to town, finding no rest for the sole of his foot, she had to give in to her children and let them go. They took with them two hundred rubles and sailed for America, and with the remaining three hundred rubles she opened a tiny shop. Her expenses were not great now, as only the three younger children were left her, but the shop was not sufficient to support even these. The stock grew smaller month by month, there never being anything over wherewith to replenish it, and there was no escaping the fact that one day soon the shop would remain empty.

And as if this were not enough, there came bad news from the children in America. They did not complain much; on the contrary, they wrote most hopefully about the future, when their position would certainly, so they said, improve; but the mother's heart was not to be deceived, and she felt instinctively that meanwhile they were doing anything but well, while later-who could foresee what would happen later?

One day she got a letter from Yossef, who wrote that, convinced of the impossibility of earning a livelihood within the Pale, he was about to make use of an opportunity that offered itself, and settle in a distant town outside of it. This made her very sad, and she wept over her fate-to have a son living in a Gentile city, where there were hardly any Jews at all. And the next letter from America added sorrow to sorrow. Avròhom and Rochel had parted company, and were living in different towns. She could not bear the thought of her young daughter fending for herself among strangers-a thought that tortured her all the more as she had a peculiar idea of America. She herself could not account for the terror that would seize her whenever she remembered that strange, distant life.

But the worst was nearly over; the turn for the better came soon. She received word from Yossef that he had found a good position in his new home, and in a few weeks he proved his letter true by sending her money. From America, too, the news that came was more cheerful, even joyous. Avròhom had secured steady work with good pay, and before long he wrote for his younger brother to join him in America, and provided him with all the funds he needed for travelling expenses. Rochel had engaged herself to a young man, whose praises she sounded in her letters. Soon after her wedding, she sent money to bring over another brother, and her husband added a few lines, in which he spoke of "his great love for his new relations," and how he "looked forward with impatience to having one of them, his dear brother-in-law, come to live with him."

This was good and cheering news, and it all came within a year's time, but the mother's heart grieved over it more than it rejoiced. Her delight at her daughter's marriage with a good man she loved was anything but unmixed. Melancholy thoughts blended with it, whether she would or not. The occasion was one which a mother's fancy had painted in rainbow colors, on the preparations for which it had dwelt with untold pleasure-and now she had had no share in it at all, and her heart writhed under the disappointment. To make her still sadder, she was obliged to part with two more children. She tried to prevent their going, but they had long ago set their hearts on following their brother and sister to America, and the recent letters had made them more anxious to be off.

So they started, and there remained only the youngest daughter, Rivkeh, a girl of thirteen. Their position was materially not a bad one, for every now and then the old woman received help from her children in America and from her son Yossef, so that she was not even obliged to keep up the shop, but the mother in her was not satisfied, because she wanted to see her children's happiness with her own eyes. The good news that continued to arrive at intervals brought pain as well as pleasure, by reminding her how much less fortunate she was than other mothers, who were counted worthy to live together with their children, and not at a distance from them like her.

The idea that she should go out to those of them who were in America, never occurred to her, or to them, either! But Yossef, who had taken a wife in his new town, and who, soon after, had set up for himself, and was doing very well, now sent for his mother and little sister to come and live with him. At first the mother was unwilling, fearing that she might be in the way of her daughter-in-law, and thus disturb the household peace; even later, when she had assured herself that the young wife was very kind, and there was nothing to be afraid of, she could not make up her mind to go, even though she longed to be with Yossef, her oldest son, who had always been her favorite, and however much she desired to see his wife and her little grandchildren.

Why she would not fulfil his wish and her own, she herself was not clearly conscious; but she shrank from the strange fashion of the life they led, and she never ceased to hope, deep down in her heart, that some day they would come back to her. And this especially with regard to Yossef, who sometimes complained in his letters that his situation was anything but secure, because the smallest circumstance might bring about an edict of expulsion. She quite understood that her son would consider this a very bad thing, but she herself looked at it with other eyes; round about here, too, were people who made a comfortable living, and Yossef was no worse than others, that he should not do the same.

Six or seven years passed in this way; the youngest daughter was twenty, and it was time to think of a match for her. Her mother felt sure that Yossef would provide the dowry, but she thought best Rivkeh and her brother should see each other, and she consented readily to let Rivkeh go to him, when Yossef invited her to spend several months as his guest. No sooner had she gone, than the mother realized what it meant, this parting with her youngest and, for the last years, her only child. She was filled with regret at not having gone with her, and waited impatiently for her return. Suddenly she heard that Rivkeh had found favor with a friend of Yossef's, the son of a well-to-do merchant, and that Rivkeh and her brother were equally pleased with him. The two were already engaged, and the wedding was only deferred till she, the mother, should come and take up her abode with them for good.

The longing to see her daughter overcame all her doubts. She resolved to go to her son, and began preparations for the start. These were just completed, when there came a letter from Yossef to say that the situation had taken a sudden turn for the worse, and he and his family might have to leave their town.

This sudden news was distressing and welcome at one and the same time. She was anxious lest the edict of expulsion should harm her son's position, and pleased, on the other hand, that he should at last be coming back, for God would not forsake him here, either; what with the fortune he had, and his aptitude for trade, he would make a living right enough. She waited anxiously, and in a few months had gone through all the mental suffering inherent in a state of uncertainty such as hers, when fear and hope are twined in one.

The waiting was the harder to bear that all this time no letter from Yossef or Rivkeh reached her promptly. And the end of it all was this: news came that the danger was over, and Yossef would remain where he was; but as far as she was concerned, it was best she should do likewise, because trailing about at her age was a serious thing, and it was not worth while her running into danger, and so on.

The old woman was full of grief at remaining thus forlorn in her old age, and she longed more than ever for her children after having hoped so surely that she would be with them soon. She could not understand Yossef's reason for suddenly changing his mind with regard to her coming; but it never occurred to her for one minute to doubt her children's affection. And we, when we had read the treasured bundle of letters from Yossef and Rivkeh, we could not doubt it, either. There was love and longing for the distant mother in every line, and several of the letters betrayed a spirit of bitterness, a note of complaining resentment against the hard times that had brought about the separation from her. And yet we could not help thinking, "Out of sight, out of mind," that which is far from the eyes, weighs lighter at the heart. It was the only explanation we could invent, for why, otherwise, should the mother have to remain alone among strangers?

All these considerations moved me to interfere in the matter without the old woman's knowledge. She could read Yiddish, but could not write it, and before we made friends, her letters to the children were written by a shopkeeper of her acquaintance. But from the time we got to know her, I became her constant secretary, and one day, when writing to Yossef for her, I made use of the opportunity to enclose a letter from myself. I asked his forgiveness for mixing myself up in another's family affairs, and tried to justify the interference by dwelling on our affectionate relations with his mother. I then described, in the most touching words at my command, how hard it was for her to live forlorn, how she pined for the presence of her children and grandchildren, and ended by telling them, that it was their duty to free their mother from all this mental suffering.

There was no direct reply to this letter of mine, but the next one from the son to his mother gave her to understand that there are certain things not to be explained, while the impossibility of explaining them may lead to a misunderstanding. This hint made the position no clearer to us, and the fact of Yossef's not answering me confirmed us in our previous suspicions.

Meanwhile our old friend fell ill, and quickly understood that she would soon die. Among the things she begged me to do after her death and having reference to her burial, there was one particular petition several times repeated: to send a packet of Hebrew books, which had been left by her husband, to her son Yossef, and to inform him of her death by telegram. "My American children"-she explained with a sigh-"have certainly forgotten everything they once learned, forgotten all their Jewishness! But my son Yossef is a different sort; I feel sure of him, that he will say Kaddish after me and read a chapter in the Mishnah, and the books will come in useful for his children-Grandmother's legacy to them."

When I fulfilled the old woman's last wish, I learned how mistaken she had been. The answer to my letter written during her lifetime came now that she was dead. Her children thanked us warmly for our care of her, and they also explained why she and they had remained apart.

She had never known-and it was far better so-by what means her son had obtained the right to live outside the Pale. It was enough that she should have to live forlorn, where would have been the good of her knowing that she was forsaken as well-that the one of her children who had gone altogether over to "them" was Yossef?

TASHRAK

Pen name of Israel Joseph Zevin; born, 1872, in Gori-Gorki, Government of Mohileff (Lithuania), White Russia; came to New York in 1889; first Yiddish sketch published in Jüdisches Tageblatt, 1893; first English story in The American Hebrew, 1906; associate editor of Jüdisches Tageblatt; writer of sketches, short stories, and biographies, in Hebrew, Yiddish, and English; contributor to Ha-Ibri, Jewish Comment, and numerous Yiddish periodicals; collected works, Geklibene Schriften, 1 vol., New York, 1910, and Tashrak's Beste Erz?hlungen, 4 vols., New York, 1910.

THE HOLE IN A BEIGEL

When I was a little Cheder-boy, my Rebbe, Bunem-Breine-Gite's, a learned man, who was always tormenting me with Talmudical questions and with riddles, once asked me, "What becomes of the hole in a Beigel, when one has eaten the Beigel?"

This riddle, which seemed to me then very hard to solve, stuck in my head, and I puzzled over it day and night. I often bought a Beigel, took a bite out of it, and immediately replaced the bitten-out piece with my hand, so that the hole should not escape. But when I had eaten up the Beigel, the hole had somehow always disappeared, which used to annoy me very much. I went about preoccupied, thought it over at prayers and at lessons, till the Rebbe noticed that something was wrong with me.

At home, too, they remarked that I had lost my appetite, that I ate nothing but Beigel-Beigel for breakfast, Beigel for dinner, Beigel for supper, Beigel all day long. They also observed that I ate it to the accompaniment of strange gestures and contortions of both my mouth and my hands.

One day I summoned all my courage, and asked the Rebbe, in the middle of a lesson on the Pentateuch:

"Rebbe, when one has eaten a Beigel, what becomes of the hole?"

"Why, you little silly," answered the Rebbe, "what is a hole in a Beigel? Just nothing at all! A bit of emptiness! It's nothing with the Beigel and nothing without the Beigel!"

Many years have passed since then, and I have not yet been able to satisfy myself as to what is the object of a hole in a Beigel. I have considered whether one could not have Beigels without holes. One lives and learns. And America has taught me this: One can have Beigels without holes, for I saw them in a dairy-shop in East Broadway. I at once recited the appropriate blessing, and then I asked the shopman about these Beigels, and heard a most interesting history, which shows how difficult it is to get people to accept anything new, and what sacrifices it costs to introduce the smallest reform.

This is the story:

A baker in an Illinois city took it into his head to make straight Beigels, in the shape of candles. But this reform cost him dear, because the united owners of the bakeries in that city immediately made a set at him and boycotted him.

They argued: "Our fathers' fathers baked Beigels with holes, the whole world eats Beigels with holes, and here comes a bold coxcomb of a fellow, upsets the order of the universe, and bakes Beigels without holes! Have you ever heard of such impertinence? It's just revolution! And if a person like this is allowed to go on, he will make an end of everything: to-day it's Beigels without holes, to-morrow it will be holes without Beigels! Such a thing has never been known before!"

And because of the hole in a Beigel, a storm broke out in that city that grew presently into a civil war. The "bosses" fought on, and dragged the bakers'-hands Union after them into the conflict. Now the Union contained two parties, of which one declared that a hole and a Beigel constituted together a private affair, like religion, and that everyone had a right to bake Beigels as he thought best, and according to his conscience. The other party maintained, that to sell Beigels without holes was against the constitution, to which the first party replied that the constitution should be altered, as being too ancient, and contrary to the spirit of the times. At this the second party raised a clamor, crying that the rules could not be altered, because they were Toras-Lokshen and every letter, every stroke, every dot was a law in itself! The city papers were obliged to publish daily accounts of the meetings that were held to discuss the hole in a Beigel, and the papers also took sides, and wrote fiery polemical articles on the subject. The quarrel spread through the city, until all the inhabitants were divided into two parties, the Beigel-with-a-hole party and the Beigel-without-a-hole party. Children rose against their parents, wives against their husbands, engaged couples severed their ties, families were broken up, and still the battle raged-and all on account of the hole in a Beigel!

AS THE YEARS ROLL ON

Rosalie laid down the cloth with which she had been dusting the furniture in her front parlor, and began tapping the velvet covering of the sofa with her fingers. The velvet had worn threadbare in places, and there was a great rent in the middle.

Had the rent been at one of the ends, it could have been covered with a cushion, but there it was, by bad luck, in the very centre, and making a shameless display of itself: Look, here I am! See what a rent!

Yesterday she and her husband had invited company. The company had brought children, and you never have children in the house without having them leave some mischief behind them.

To-day the sun was shining more brightly than ever, and lighting up the whole room. Rosalie took the opportunity to inspect her entire set of furniture. Eight years ago, when she was given the set at her marriage, how happy, she had been! Everything was so fresh and new.

She had noticed before that the velvet was getting worn, and the polish of the chairs disappearing, and the seats losing their spring, but to-day all this struck her more than formerly. The holes, the rents, the damaged places, stared before them with such malicious mockery-like a poor man laughing at his own evil plight.

Rosalie felt a painful melancholy steal over her. Now she could not but see that her furniture was old, that she would soon be ashamed to invite people into her parlor. And her husband will be in no hurry to present her with a new one-he has grown so parsimonious of late!

She replaced the holland coverings of the sofa and chairs, and went out to do her bedroom. There, on a chair, lay her best dress, the one she had put on yesterday for her guests.

She considered the dress: that, too, was frayed in places; here and there even drawn together and sewn over. The bodice was beyond ironing out again-and this was her best dress. She opened the wardrobe, for she wanted to make a general survey of her belongings. It was such a light day, one could see even in the back rooms. She took down one dress after another, and laid them out on the made beds, observing each with a critical eye. Her sense of depression increased the while, and she felt as though stone on stone were being piled upon her heart.

She began to put the clothes back into the wardrobe, and she hung up every one of them with a sigh. When she had finished with the bedroom, she went into the dining-room, and stood by the sideboard on which were set out her best china service and colored plates. She looked them over. One little gold-rimmed cup had lost its handle, a bowl had a piece glued in at the side. On the top shelf stood the statuette of a little god with a broken bow and arrow in his hand, and here there was one little goblet missing out of a whole service.

As soon as everything was in order, Rosalie washed her face and hands, combed up her hair, and began to look at herself in a little hand-glass, but the bath-room, to which she had retired, was dark, and she betook herself back into the front parlor, towel in hand, where she could see herself in the big looking-glass on the wall. Time, which had left traces on the furniture, on the contents of the wardrobe, and on the china, had not spared the woman, though she had been married only eight years. She looked at the crow's-feet by her eyes, and the lines in her forehead, which the worrying thoughts of this day had imprinted there even more sharply than usual. She tried to smile, but the smile in the glass looked no more attractive than if she had given her mouth a twist. She remembered that the only way to remain young is to keep free from care. But how is one to set about it? She threw on a scarlet Japanese kimono, and stuck an artificial flower into her hair, after which she lightly powdered her face and neck. The scarlet kimono lent a little color to her cheeks, and another critical glance at the mirror convinced her that she was still a comely woman, only no more a young one.

The bloom of youth had fled, never to return. Verfallen! And the desire to live was stronger than ever, even to live her life over again from the beginning, sorrows and all.

She began to reflect what she should cook for supper. There was time enough, but she must think of something new: her husband was tired of her usual dishes. He said her cooking was old-fashioned, that it was always the same thing, day in and day out. His taste was evidently getting worn-out, too.

And she wondered what she could prepare, so as to win back her husband's former good temper and affectionate appreciation.

At one time he was an ardent young man, with a fiery tongue. He had great ideals, and he strove high. He talked of making mankind happy, more refined, more noble and free. He had dreamt of a world without tears and troubles, of a time when men should live as brothers, and jealousy and hatred should be unknown. In those days he loved with all the warmth of his youth, and when he talked of love, it was a delight to listen. The world grew to have another face for her then, life, another significance, Paradise was situated on the earth.

Gradually his ideals lost their freshness, their shine wore off, and he became a business man, racking his brain with speculations, trying to grow rich without the necessary qualities and capabilities, and he was left at last with prematurely grey hair as the only result of his efforts.

Eight years after their marriage he was as worn as their furniture in the front parlor.

Rosalie looked out of the window. It was even much brighter outside than indoors. She saw people going up and down the street with different anxieties reflected in their faces, with wrinkles telling different histories of the cares of life. She saw old faces, and the young faces of those who seemed to have tasted of age ere they reached it. "Everything is old and worn and shabby," whispered a voice in her ear.

A burst of childish laughter broke upon her meditations. Round the corner came with a rush a lot of little boys with books under their arms, their faces full of the zest of life, and dancing and jumping till the whole street seemed to be jumping and dancing, too. Elder people turned smilingly aside to make way for them. Among the children Rosalie espied two little girls, also with books under their arms, her little girls! And the mother's heart suddenly brimmed with joy, a delicious warmth stole into her limbs and filled her being.

Rosalie went to the door to meet her two children on their return from school, and when she had given each little face a motherly kiss, she felt a breath of freshness and new life blowing round her.

She took off their cloaks, and listened to their childish prattle about their teachers and the day's lessons.

The clear voices rang through the rooms, awaking sympathetic echoes in every corner. The home wore a new aspect, and the sun shone even more brightly than before and in more friendly, kindly fashion.

The mother spread a little cloth at the edge of the table, gave them milk and sandwiches, and looked at them as they ate-each child the picture of the mother, her eyes, her hair, her nose, her look, her gestures-they ate just as she would do.

And Rosalie feels much better and happier. She doesn't care so much now about the furniture being old, the dresses worn, the china service not being whole, about the wrinkles round her eyes and in her forehead. She only minds about her husband's being so worn-out, so absent-minded that he cannot take pleasure in the children as she can.

DAVID PINSKI

Born, 1872, in Mohileff (Lithuania), White Russia; refused admission to Gymnasium in Moscow under percentage restrictions; 1889-1891, secretary to Bene Zion in Vitebsk; 1891-1893, student in Vienna; 1893, co-editor of Spektor's Hausfreund and Perez's Yom-tov Bl?ttlech; 1893, first sketch published in New York Arbeiterzeitung; 1896, studied philosophy in Berlin; 1899, came to New York, and edited Das Abendblatt, a daily, and Der Arbeiter, a weekly; 1912, founder and co-editor of Die Yiddishe Wochenschrift; author of short stories, sketches, an essay on the Yiddish drama, and ten dramas, among them Yesurun, Eisik Scheftel, Die Mutter, Die Familie Zwie, Der Oitzer, Der eibiger Jüd (first part of a series of Messiah dramas), Der stummer Moschiach, etc.; one volume of collected dramas, Dramen, Warsaw, 1909.

REB SHLOIMEH

The seventy-year-old Reb Shloimeh's son, whose home was in the country, sent his two boys to live with their grandfather and acquire town, that is, Gentile, learning.

"Times have changed," considered Reb Shloimeh; "it can't be helped!" and he engaged a good teacher for the children, after making inquiries here and there.

"Give me a teacher who can tell the whole of their Law, as the saying goes, standing on one leg!" he would say to his friends, with a smile.

At seventy-one years of age, Reb Shloimeh lived more indoors than out, and he used to listen to the teacher instructing his grandchildren.

"I shall become a doctor in my old age!" he would say, laughing.

The teacher was one day telling his pupils about mathematical geography. Reb Shloimeh sat with a smile on his lips, and laughing in his heart at the little teacher who told "such huge lies" with so much earnestness.

"The earth revolves," said the teacher to his pupils, and Reb Shloimeh smiles, and thinks, "He must have seen it!" But the teacher shows it to be so by the light of reason, and Reb Shloimeh becomes graver, and ceases smiling; he is endeavoring to grasp the proofs; he wants to ask questions, but can find none that will do, and he sits there as if he had lost his tongue.

The teacher has noticed his grave look, and understands that the old man is interested in the lesson, and he begins to tell of even greater wonders. He tells how far the sun is from the earth, how big it is, how many earths could be made out of it-and Reb Shloimeh begins to smile again, and at last can bear it no longer.

"Look here," he exclaimed, "that I cannot and will not listen to! You may tell me the earth revolves-well, be it so! Very well, I'll allow you, that, perhaps, according to reason-even-the size of the earth-the appearance of the earth-do you see?-all that sort of thing. But the sun! Who has measured the sun! Who, I ask you! Have you been on it? A pretty thing to say, upon my word!" Reb Shloimeh grew very excited. The teacher took hold of Reb Shloimeh's hand, and began to quiet him. He told him by what means the astronomers had discovered all this, that it was no matter of speculation; he explained the telescope to him, and talked of mathematical calculations, which he, Reb Shloimeh, was not able to understand. Reb Shloimeh had nothing to answer, but he frowned and remained obstinate. "Hê" (he said, and made a contemptuous motion with his hand), "it's nothing to me, not knowing that or being able to understand it! Science, indeed! Fiddlesticks!"

He relapsed into silence, and went on listening to the teacher's "stories." "We even know," the teacher continued, "what metals are to be found in the sun."

"And suppose I won't believe you?" and Reb Shloimeh smiled maliciously.

"I will explain directly," answered the teacher.

"And tell us there's a fair in the sky!" interrupted Reb Shloimeh, impatiently. He was very angry, but the teacher took no notice of his anger.

"Two hundred years ago," began the teacher, "there lived, in England, a celebrated naturalist and mathematician, Isaac Newton. It was told of him that when God said, Let there be light, Newton was born."

"Psh! I should think, very likely!" broke in Reb Shloimeh. "Why not?"

The teacher pursued his way, and gave an explanation of spectral analysis. He spoke at some length, and Reb Shloimeh sat and listened with close attention. "Now do you understand?" asked the teacher, coming to an end.

Reb Shloimeh made no reply, he only looked up from under his brows.

The teacher went on:

"The earth," he said, "has stood for many years. Their exact number is not known, but calculation brings it to several million-"

"ê," burst in the old man, "I should like to know what next! I thought everyone knew that-that even they-"

"Wait a bit, Reb Shloimeh," interrupted the teacher, "I will explain directly."

"Ma! It makes me sick to hear you," was the irate reply, and Reb Shloimeh got up and left the room.

All that day Reb Shloimeh was in a bad temper, and went about with knitted brows. He was angry with science, with the teacher, with himself, because he must needs have listened to it all.

"Chatter and foolishness! And there I sit and listen to it!" he said to himself with chagrin. But he remembered the "chatter," something begins to weigh on his heart and brain, he would like to find a something to catch hold of, a proof of the vanity and emptiness of their teaching, to invent some hard question, and stick out a long red tongue at them all-those nowadays barbarians, those nowadays Newtons.

"After all, it's mere child's play," he reflects. "It's ridiculous to take their nonsense to heart."

"Only their proofs, their proofs!" and the feeling of helplessness comes over him once more.

"Ma!" He pulls himself together. "Is it all over with us? Is it all up?! All up?! The earth revolves! Gammon! As to their explanations-very wonderful, to be sure! O, of course, it's all of the greatest importance! Dear me, yes!"

He is very angry, tears the buttons off his coat, puts his hat straight on his head, and spits.

"Apostates, nothing but apostates nowadays," he concludes. Then he remembers the teacher-with what enthusiasm he spoke!

His explanations ring in Reb Shloimeh's head, and prove things, and once more the old gentleman is perplexed.

Preoccupied, cross, with groans and sighs, he went to bed. But he was restless all night, turning from one side to the other, and groaning. His old wife tried to cheer him.

"Such weather as it is to-day," she said, and coughed. "I have a pain in the side, too."

Next morning when the teacher came, Reb Shloimeh inquired with a displeased expression:

"Well, are you going to tell stories again to-day?"

"We shall not take geography to-day," answered the teacher.

"Have your 'astronomers' found out by calculation on which days we may learn geography?" asked Reb Shloimeh, with malicious irony.

"No, that's a discovery of mine!" and the teacher smiled.

"And when have 'your' astronomers decreed the study of geography?" persisted Reb Shloimeh.

"To-morrow."

"To-morrow!" he repeated crossly, and left the room, missing a lesson for the first time.

Next day the teacher explained the eclipses of the sun and moon to his pupils. Reb Shloimeh sat with his chair drawn up to the table, and listened without a movement.

"It is all so exact," the teacher wound up his explanation, "that the astronomers are able to calculate to a minute when there will be an eclipse, and have never yet made a mistake."

At these last words Reb Shloimeh nodded in a knowing way, and looked at the pupils as much as to say, "You ask me about that!"

The teacher went on to tell of comets, planets, and other suns. Reb Shloimeh snorted, and was continually interrupting the teacher with exclamations. "If you don't believe me, go and measure for yourself!"-"If it is not so, call me a liar!"-"Just so!"-"Within one yard of it!"

Reb Shloimeh repaid his Jewish education with interest. There were not many learned men in the town like Reb Shloimeh. The Rabbis without flattery called him "a full basket," and Reb Shloimeh could not picture to himself the existence of sciences other than "Jewish," and when at last he did picture it, he would not allow that they were right, unfalsified and right. He was so far intelligent, he had received a so far enlightened education, that he could understand how among non-Jews also there are great men. He would even have laughed at anyone who had maintained the contrary. But that among non-Jews there should be men as great as any Jewish ones, that he did not believe!-let alone, of course, still greater ones.

And now, little by little, Reb Shloimeh began to believe that "their" learning was not altogether insignificant, for he, "the full basket," was not finding it any too easy to master. And what he had to deal with were not empty speculations, unfounded opinions. No, here were mathematical computations, demonstrations which almost anyone can test for himself, which impress themselves on the mind! And Reb Shloimeh is vexed in his soul. He endeavored to cling to his old thoughts, his old conceptions. He so wished to cry out upon the clear reasoning, the simple explanations, with the phrases that are on the lips of every ignorant obstructionist. And yet he felt that he was unjust, and he gave up disputing with the teacher, as he paid close attention to the latter's demonstrations. And the teacher would say quite simply:

"One can measure," he would say, "why not? Only it takes a lot of learning."

When the teacher was at the door, Reb Shloimeh stayed him with a question.

"Then," he asked angrily, "the whole of 'your' learning is nothing but astronomy and geography?"

"Oh, no!" said the teacher, "there's a lot besides-a lot!"

"For instance?"

"Do you want me to tell you standing on one leg?"

"Well, yes, 'on one leg,'" he answered impatiently, as though in anger.

"But one can't tell you 'on one leg,'" said the teacher. "If you like, I shall come on Sabbath, and we can have a chat."

"Sabbath?" repeated Reb Shloimeh in a dissatisfied tone.

"Sabbath, because I can't come at any other time," said the teacher.

"Then let it be Sabbath," said Reb Shloimeh, reflectively.

"But soon after dinner," he called after the teacher, who was already outside the door. "And everything else is as right as your astronomy?" he shouted, when the teacher had already gone a little way.

"You will see!" and the teacher smiled.

Never in his whole life had Reb Shloimeh waited for a Sabbath as he waited for this one, and the two days that came before it seemed very long to him; he never relaxed his frown, or showed a cheerful face the whole time. And he was often seen, during those two days, to lift his hands to his forehead. He went about as though there lay upon him a heavy weight, which he wanted to throw off; or as if he had a very disagreeable bit of business before him, and wished he could get it over.

On Sabbath he could hardly wait for the teacher's appearance. "You wanted a lot of asking," he said to him reproachfully.

The old lady went to take her nap, the grandchildren to their play, and Reb Shloimeh took the snuff-box between his fingers, leant against the back of the "grandfather's chair" in which he was sitting, and listened with close attention to the teacher's words.

The teacher talked a long time, mentioned the names of sciences, and explained their meaning, and Reb Shloimeh repeated each explanation in brief. "Physics, then, is the science of-" "That means, then, that we have here-that physiology explains-"

The teacher would help him, and then immediately begin to talk of another branch of science. By the time the old lady woke up, the teacher had given examples of anatomy, physiology, physics, chemistry, zoology, and sociology.

It was quite late; people were coming back from the Afternoon Service, and those who do not smoke on Sabbath, raised their eyes to the sky. But Reb Shloimeh had forgotten in what sort of world he was living. He sat with wrinkled forehead and drawn brows, listening attentively, seeing nothing before him but the teacher's face, only catching up his every word.

"You are still talking?" asked the old lady, in astonishment, rubbing her eyes.

Reb Shloimeh turned his head toward his wife with a dazed look, as though wondering what she meant by her question.

"Oho!" said the old lady, "you only laugh at us women!"

Reb Shloimeh drew his brows closer together, wrinkled his forehead still more, and once more fastened his eyes on the teacher's lips.

"It will soon be time to light the fire," muttered the old lady.

The teacher glanced at the clock. "It's late," he said.

"I should think it was!" broke in the old lady. "Why I was allowed to sleep so long, I'm sure I don't know! People get to talking and even forget about tea."

Reb Shloimeh gave a look out of the window.

"O wa!" he exclaimed, somewhat vexed, "they are already coming out of Shool, the service is over! What a thing it is to sit talking! O wa!"

He sprang from his seat, gave the pane a rub with his hand, and began to recite the Afternoon Prayer. The teacher put on his things, but "Wait!" Reb Shloimeh signed to him with his hand.

Reb Shloimeh finished reciting "Incense."

"When shall you teach the children all that?" he asked then, looking into the prayer-book with a scowl.

"Not for a long time, not so quickly," answered the teacher. "The children cannot understand everything."

"I should think not, anything so wonderful!" replied Reb Shloimeh, ironically, gazing at the prayer-book and beginning "Happy are we." He swallowed the prayers as he said them, half of every word; no matter how he wrinkled his forehead, he could not expel the stranger thoughts from his brain, and fix his attention on the prayers. After the service he tried taking up a book, but it was no good, his head was a jumble of all the new sciences. By means of the little he had just learned, he wanted to understand and know everything, to fashion a whole body out of a single hair, and he thought, and thought, and thought....

Sunday, when the teacher came, Reb Shloimeh told him that he wished to have a little talk with him. Meantime he sat down to listen. The hour during which the teacher taught the children was too long for him, and he scarcely took his eyes off the clock.

"Do you want another pupil?" he asked the teacher, stepping with him into his own room. He felt as though he were getting red, and he made a very angry face.

"Why not?" answered the teacher, looking hard into Reb Shloimeh's face. Reb Shloimeh looked at the floor, his brows, as was usual with him in those days, drawn together.

"You understand me-a pupil-" he stammered, "you understand-not a little boy-a pupil-an elderly man-you understand-quite another sort-"

"Well, well, we shall see!" answered the teacher, smiling.

"I mean myself!" he snapped out with great displeasure, as if he had been forced to confess some very evil deed. "Well, I have sinned-what do you want of me?"

"Oh, but I should be delighted!" and the teacher smiled.

"I always said I meant to be a doctor!" said Reb Shloimeh, trying to joke. But his features contracted again directly, and he began to talk about the terms, and it was arranged that every day for an hour and a half the teacher should read to him and explain the sciences. To begin with, Reb Shloimeh chose physiology, sociology, and mathematical geography.

Days, weeks, and months have gone by, and Reb Shloimeh has become depressed, very depressed. He does not sleep at night, he has lost his appetite, doesn't care to talk to people.

Bad, bitter thoughts oppress him.

For seventy years he had not only known nothing, but, on the contrary, he had known everything wrong, understood head downwards. And it seemed to him that if he had known in his youth what he knew now, he would have lived differently, that his years would have been useful to others.

He could find no stain on his life-it was one long record of deeds of charity; but they appeared to him now so insignificant, so useless, and some of them even mischievous. Looking round him, he saw no traces of them left. The rich man of whom he used to beg donations is no poorer for them, and the pauper for whom he begged them is the same pauper as before. It is true, he had always thought of the paupers as sacks full of holes, and had only stuffed things into them because he had a soft heart, and could not bear to see a look of disappointment, or a tear rolling down the pale cheek of a hungry pauper. His own little world, as he had found it and as it was now, seemed to him much worse than before, in spite of all the good things he had done in it.

Not one good rich man! Not one genuine pauper! They are all just as hungry and their palms itch-there is no easing them. Times get harder, the world gets poorer. Now he understands the reason of it all, now it all lies before him as clear as on a map-he would be able to make every one understand. Only now-now it was getting late-he has no strength left. His spent life grieves him. If he had not been so active, such a "father of the community," it would not have grieved him so much. But he had had a great influence in the town, and this influence had been badly, blindly used! And Reb Shloimeh grew sadder day by day.

He began to feel a pain at his heart, a stitch in the side, a burning in his brain, and he was wrapt in his thoughts. Reb Shloimeh was philosophizing.

To be of use to somebody, he reflected, means to leave an impress of good in their life. One ought to help once for all, so that the other need never come for help again. That can be accomplished by wakening and developing a man's intelligence, so that he may always know for himself wherein his help lies.

And in such work he would have spent his life. If he had only understood long ago, ah, how useful he would have been! And a shudder runs through him.

Tears of vexation come more than once into his eyes.

It was no secret in the town that old Reb Shloimeh spent two to three hours daily sitting with the teacher, only what they did together, that nobody knew. They tried to worm something out of the maid, but what was to be got out of a "glomp with two eyes," whose one reply was, "I don't know." They scolded her for it. "How can you not know, glomp?" they exclaimed. "Aren't you sometimes in the room with them?"

"Look here, good people, what's the use of coming to me?" the maid would cry. "How can I know, sitting in the kitchen, what they are about? When I bring in the tea, I see them talking, and I go!"

"Dull beast!" they would reply. Then they left her, and betook themselves to the grandchildren, who knew nothing, either.

"They have tea," was their answer to the question, "What does grandfather do with the teacher?"

"But what do they talk about, sillies?"

"We haven't heard!" the children answered gravely.

They tried the old lady.

"Is it my business?" she answered.

They tried to go in to Reb Shloimeh's house, on the pretext of some business or other, but that didn't succeed, either. At last, a few near and dear friends asked Reb Shloimeh himself.

"How people do gossip!" he answered.

"Well, what is it?"

"We just sit and talk!"

There it remained. The matter was discussed all over the town. Of course, nobody was satisfied. But he pacified them little by little.

The apostate teacher must turn hot and cold with him!

They imagined that they were occupied with research, and that Reb Shloimeh was opening the teacher's eyes for him-and they were pacified. When Reb Shloimeh suddenly fell on melancholy, it never came into anyone's head that there might be a connection between this and the conversations. The old lady settled that it was a question of the stomach, which had always troubled him, and that perhaps he had taken a chill. At his age such things were frequent. "But how is one to know, when he won't speak?" she lamented, and wondered which would be best, cod-liver oil or dried raspberries.

Every one else said that he was already in fear of death, and they pitied him greatly. "That is a sickness which no doctor can cure," people said, and shook their heads with sorrowful compassion. They talked to him by the hour, and tried to prevent him from being alone with his thoughts, but it was all no good; he only grew more depressed, and would often not speak at all.

"Such a man, too, what a pity!" they said, and sighed. "He's pining away-given up to the contemplation of death."

"And if you come to think, why should he fear death?" they wondered. "If he fears it, what about us? Och! och! och! Have we so much to show in the next world?" And Reb Shloimeh had a lot to show. Jews would have been glad of a tenth part of his world-to-come, and Christians declared that he was a true Christian, with his love for his fellow-men, and promised him a place in Paradise. "Reb Shloimeh is goodness itself," the town was wont to say. His one lifelong occupation had been the affairs of the community. "They are my life and my delight," he would repeat to his intimate friends, "as indispensable to me as water to a fish." He was a member of all the charitable societies. The Talmud Torah was established under his own roof, and pretty nearly maintained at his expense. The town called him the "father of the community," and all unfortunate, poor, and bitter hearts blessed him unceasingly.

Reb Shloimeh was the one person in the town almost without an enemy, perhaps the one in the whole province. Rich men grumbled at him. He was always after their money-always squeezing them for charities. They called him the old fool, the old donkey, but without meaning what they said. They used to laugh at him, to make jokes upon him, of course among themselves; but they had no enmity against him. They all, with a full heart, wished him joy of his tranquil life.

Reb Shloimeh was born, and had spent years, in wealth. After making an excellent marriage, he set up a business. His wife was the leading spirit within doors, the head of the household, and his whole life had been apparently a success.

When he had married his last child, and found himself a grandfather, he retired from business, and lived his last years on the interest of his fortune.

Free from the hate and jealousy of neighbors, pleasant and satisfactory in every respect, such was Reb Shloimeh's life, and for all that he suddenly became melancholy! It can be nothing but the fear of death!

But very soon Reb Shloimeh, as it were with a wave of the hand, dismissed the past altogether.

He said to himself with a groan that what had been was over and done; he would never grow young again, and once more a shudder went through him at the thought, and there came again the pain in his side and caught his breath, but Reb Shloimeh took no notice, and went on thinking. "Something must be done!" he said to himself, in the tone of one who has suddenly lost his whole fortune-the fortune he has spent his life in getting together, and there is nothing for him but to start work again with his five fingers.

And Reb Shloimeh started. He began with the Talmud Torah, where he had already long provided for the children's bodily needs-food and clothing.

Now he would supply them with spiritual things-instruction and education.

He dismissed the old teachers, and engaged young ones in their stead, even for Jewish subjects. Out of the Talmud Torah he wanted to make a little university. He already fancied it a success. He closed his eyes, laid his forehead on his hands, and a sweet, happy smile parted his lips. He pictured to himself the useful people who would go forth out of the Talmud Torah. Now he can die happy, he thinks. But no, he does not want to die! He wants to live! To live and to work, work, work! He will not and cannot see an end to his life! Reb Shloimeh feels more and more cheerful, lively, and fresh-to work--to work-till-

The whole town was in commotion.

There was a perfect din in the Shools, in the streets, in the houses. Hypocrites and crooked men, who had never before been seen or heard of, led the dance.

"To make Gentiles out of the children, forsooth! To turn the Talmud Torah into a school! That we won't allow! No matter if we have to turn the world upside down, no matter what happens!"

Reb Shloimeh heard the cries, and made as though he heard nothing. He thought it would end there, that no one would venture to oppose him further.

"What do you say to that?" he asked the teachers. "Fanaticism has broken out already!"

"It will give trouble," replied the teachers.

"Eh, nonsense!" said Reb Shloimeh, with conviction. But on Sabbath, at the Reading of the Law, he saw that he had been mistaken. The opposition had collected, and they got onto the platform, and all began speaking at once. It was impossible to make out what they were saying, beyond a word here and there, or the fragment of a sentence: "-none of it!" "we won't allow-!" "-made into Gentiles!"

Reb Shloimeh sat in his place by the east wall, his hands on the desk where lay his Pentateuch. He had taken off his spectacles, and glanced at the platform, put them on again, and was once more reading the Pentateuch. They saw this from the platform, and began to shout louder than ever. Reb Shloimeh stood up, took off his prayer-scarf, and was moving toward the door, when he heard some one call out, with a bang of his fist on the platform:

"With the consent of the Rabbis and the heads of the community, and in the name of the Holy Torah, it is resolved to take the children away from the Talmud Torah, seeing that in place of the Torah there is uncleanness--"

Reb Shloimeh grew pale, and felt a rent in his heart. He stared at the platform with round eyes and open mouth.

"The children are to be made into Gentiles," shouted the person on the platform meantime, "and we have plenty of Gentiles, thank God, already! Thus may they perish, with their name and their remembrance! We are not short of Gentiles-there are more every day! And hatred increases, and God knows what the Jews are coming to! Whoso has God in his heart, and is jealous for the honor of the Law, let him see to it that the children cease going to the place of peril!"

Reb Shloimeh wanted to call out, "Silence, you scoundrel!" The words all but rolled off his tongue, but he contained himself, and moved on.

"The one who obeys will be blessed," proclaimed the individual on the platform, "and whoso despises the decree, his end shall be Gehenna, with that of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who sinned and made Israel to sin!"

With these last words the speaker threw a fiery glance at Reb Shloimeh.

A quiver ran through the Shool, and all eyes were turned on Reb Shloimeh, expecting him to begin abusing the speaker. A lively scene was anticipated. But Reb Shloimeh smiled.

He quietly handed his prayer-scarf to the beadle, wished the bystanders "good Sabbath," and walked out of Shool, leaving them all disconcerted.

That Sabbath Reb Shloimeh was the quietest man in the whole town. He was convinced that the interdict would have no effect on anyone. "People are not so foolish as all that," he thought, "and they wouldn't treat him in that way!" He sat and laid plans for carrying on the education in the Talmud Torah, and he felt so light of heart that he sang to himself for very pleasure.

The old wife, meanwhile, was muttering and moaning. She had all her life been quite content with her husband and everything he did, and had always done her best to help him, hoping that in the world to come she would certainly share his portion of immortality. And now she saw with horror that he was like to throw away his future. But how ever could it be? she wondered, and was bathed in tears: "What has come over you? What has happened to make you like that? They are not just to you, are they, when they say that about taking children and making Gentiles of them?" Reb Shloimeh smiled. "Do you think," he said to her, "that I have gone mad in my old age? Don't be afraid. I'm in my right mind, and you shall not lose your place in Paradise."

But the wife was not satisfied with the reply, and continued to mutter and to weep. There were goings-on in the town, too. The place was aboil with excitement. Of course they talked about Reb Shloimeh; nobody could make out what had come to him all of a sudden.

"That is the teacher's work!" explained one of a knot of talkers.

"And we thought Reb Shloimeh such a sage, such a clever man, so book-learned. How can the teacher (may his name perish!) have talked him over?"

"It's a pity on the children's account!" one would exclaim here and there. "In the Talmud Torah, under his direction, they wanted for nothing, and what's to become of them now! They'll be running wild in the streets!"

"What then? Do you mean it would be better to make Gentiles of them?"

"Well, there! Of course, I understand!" he would hasten to say, penitently. And a resolution was passed, to the effect that the children should not be allowed to attend the Talmud Torah.

Reb Shloimeh stood at his window, and watched the excited groups in the street, saw how the men threw themselves about, rocked themselves, bit their beards, described half-circles with their thumbs, and he smiled.

In the evening the teachers came and told him what had been said in the town, and how all held that the children were not to be allowed to go to the Talmud Torah. Reb Shloimeh was a little disturbed, but he composed himself again and thought:

"Eh, they will quiet down, never mind! They won't do it to me!--"

Entering the Talmud Torah on Sunday, he was greeted by four empty walls. Even two orphans, who had no relations or protector in the town, had not come. They had been frightened and talked at and not allowed to attend, and free meals had been secured for all of them, so that they should not starve.

For the moment Reb Shloimeh lost his head. He glanced at the teachers as though ashamed in their presence, and his glance said, "What is to be done now?"

Suddenly he pulled himself together.

"No!" he exclaimed, "they shall not get the better of me," and he ran out of the Talmud Torah, and was gone.

He ran from house to house, to the parents and relations of the children. But they all looked askance at him, and he accomplished nothing: they all kept to it-"No!"

"Come, don't be silly! Send, send the children to the Talmud Torah," he begged. "You will see, you will not regret it!"

And he drew a picture for them of the sort of people the children would become.

But it was no use.

"We haven't got to manage the world," they answered him. "We have lived without all that, and our children will live as we are living now. We have no call to make Gentiles of them!"

"We know, we know! People needn't come to us with stories," they would say in another house. "We don't intend to sell our souls!" was the cry in a third.

"And who says I have sold mine?" Reb Shloimeh would ask sharply.

"How should we know? Besides, who was talking of you?" they answered with a sweet smile.

Reb Shloimeh reached home tired and depressed. The old wife had a shock on seeing him.

"Dear Lord!" she exclaimed, wringing her hands. "What is the matter with you? What makes you look like that?"

The teachers, who were there waiting for him, asked no questions: they had only to look at his ghastly appearance to know what had happened.

Reb Shloimeh sank into his arm-chair.

"Nothing," he said, looking sideways, but meaning it for the teachers.

"Nothing is nothing!" and they betook themselves to consoling him. "We will find something else to do, get hold of some other children, or else wait a little-they'll ask to be taken back presently."

Reb Shloimeh did not hear them. He had let his head sink on to his breast, turned his look sideways, and thoughts he could not piece together, fragments of thoughts, went round and round in the drooping head.

"Why? Why?" He asked himself over and over. "To do such a thing to me! Well, there you are! There you have it!-You've lived your life-like a man!-"

His heart felt heavy and hurt him, and his brain grew warm, warm. In one minute there ran through his head the impression which his so nearly finished life had made on him of late, and immediately after it all the plans he had thought out for setting to right his whole past life by means of the little bit left him. And now it was all over and done! "Why? Why?" he asked himself without ceasing, and could not understand it.

He felt his old heart bursting with love to all men. It beat more and more strongly, and would not cease from loving; and he would fain have seen everyone so happy, so happy! He would have worked with his last bit of strength, he would have drawn his last breath for the cause to which he had devoted himself. He is no longer conscious of the whereabouts of his limbs, he feels his head growing heavier, his feet cold, and it is dark before his eyes.

When he came to himself again, he was in bed; on his head was a bandage with ice; the old wife was lamenting; the teachers stood not far from the bed, and talked among themselves. He wanted to lift his hand and draw it across his forehead, but somehow he does not feel his hand at all. He looks at it-it lies stretched out beside him. And Reb Shloimeh understood what had happened to him.

"A stroke!" he thought, "I am finished, done for!"

He tried to give a whistle and make a gesture with his hand: "Verfallen!" but the lips would not meet properly, and the hand never moved.

"There you are, done for!" the lips whispered. He glanced round, and fixed his eyes on the teachers, and then on his wife, wishing to read in their faces whether there was danger, whether he was dying, or whether there was still hope. He looked, and could not make out anything. Then, whispering, he called one of the teachers, whose looks had met his, to his side.

The teacher came running.

"Done for, eh?" asked Reb Shloimeh.

"No, Reb Shloimeh, the doctors give hope," the teacher replied, so earnestly that Reb Shloimeh's spirits revived.

"Nu, nu," said Reb Shloimeh, as though he meant, "So may it be! Out of your mouth into God's ears!"

The other teachers all came nearer.

"Good?" whispered Reb Shloimeh, "good, ha? There's a hero for you!" he smiled.

"Never mind," they said cheeringly, "you will get well again, and work, and do many things yet!"

"Well, well, please God!" he answered, and looked away.

And Reb Shloimeh really got better every day. The having lived wisely and the will to live longer saved him.

The first time that he was able to move a hand or lift a foot, a broad, sweet smile spread itself over his face, and a fire kindled in his all but extinguished eyes.

"Good luck to you!" he cried out to those around. He was very cheerful in himself, and began to think once more about doing something or other. "People must be taught, they must be taught, even if the world turn upside down," he thought, and rubbed his hands together with impatience.

"If it's not to be in the Talmud Torah, it must be somewhere else!" And he set to work thinking where it should be. He recalled all the neighbors to his memory, and suddenly grew cheerful.

Not far away there lived a bookbinder, who employed as many as ten workmen. They work sometimes from fifteen to sixteen hours, and have no strength left for study. One must teach them, he thinks. The master is not likely to object. Reb Shloimeh was the making of him, he it was who protected him, introduced him into all the best families, and finally set him on his feet.

Reb Shloimeh grows more and more lively, and is continually trying to rise from his couch.

Once out of bed, he could hardly endure to stay in the room, and how happy he felt, when, leaning on a stick, he stept out into the street! He hurried in the direction of the bookbinder's.

He was convinced that people's feelings toward him had changed for the better, that they would rejoice on seeing him.

How he looked forward to seeing a friendly smile on every face! He would have counted himself the happiest of men, if he had been able to hope that now everything was different, and would come right.

But he did not see the smile.

The town looked upon the apoplectic stroke as God's punishment-it was obvious. "Aha!" they had cried on hearing of it, and everyone saw in it another proof, and it also was "obvious"-of the fact that there is a God in the world, and that people cannot do just what they like. The great fanatics overflowed with eloquence, and saw in it an act of Heavenly vengeance. "Serves him right! Serves him right!" they thought. "Whose fault is it?" people replied, when some one reminded them that it was very sad-such a man as he had been, "Who told him to do it? He has himself to thank for his misfortunes."

The town had never ceased talking of him the whole time. Every one was interested in knowing how he was, and what was the matter with him. And when they heard that he was better, that he was getting well, they really were pleased; they were sure that he would give up all his foolish plans, and understand that God had punished him, and that he would be again as before.

But it soon became known that he clung to his wickedness, and people ceased to rejoice.

The Rabbi and his fanatical friends came to see him one day by way of visiting the sick. Reb Shloimeh felt inclined to ask them if they had come to stare at him as one visited by a miracle, but he refrained, and surveyed them with indifference.

"Well, how are you, Reb Shloimeh?" they asked.

"Gentiles!" answered Reb Shloimeh, almost in spite of himself, and smiled.

The Rabbi and the others became confused.

They sat a little while, couldn't think of anything to say, and got up from their seats. Then they stood a bit, wished him a speedy return to health, and went away, without hearing any answer from Reb Shloimeh to their "good night."

It was not long before the whole town knew of the visit, and it began to boil like a kettle.

To commit such sin is to play with destiny. Once you are in, there is no getting out! Give the devil a hair, and he'll snatch at the whole beard.

So when Reb Shloimeh showed himself in the street, they stared at him and shook their heads, as though to say, "Such a man-and gone to ruin!"

Reb Shloimeh saw it, and it cut him to the heart. Indeed, it brought the tears to his eyes, and he began to walk quicker in the direction of the bookbinder's.

At the bookbinder's they received him in friendly fashion, with a hearty "Welcome!" but he fancied that here also they looked at him askance, and therefore he gave a reason for his coming.

"Walking is hard work," he said, "one must have stopping-places."

With this same excuse he went there every day. He would sit for an hour or two, talking, telling stories, and at last he began to tell the "stories" which the teacher had told.

He sat in the centre of the room, and talked away merrily, with a pun here and a laugh there, and interested the workmen deeply. Sometimes they would all of one accord stop working, open their mouths, fix their eyes, and hang on his lips with an intelligent smile.

Or else they stood for a few minutes tense, motionless as statues, till Reb Shloimeh finished, before the master should interpose.

"Work, work-you will hear it all in time!" he would say, in a cross, dissatisfied tone.

And the workmen would unwillingly bend their backs once more over their task, but Reb Shloimeh remained a little thrown out. He lost the thread of what he was telling, began buttoning and unbuttoning his coat, and glanced guiltily at the binder.

But he went his own way nevertheless.

As to his hearers, he was overjoyed with them. When he saw that the workmen began to take interest in every book that was brought them to be bound, he smiled happily, and his eyes sparkled with delight.

And if it happened to be a book treating of the subjects on which they had heard something from Reb Shloimeh, they threw themselves upon it, nearly tore it to pieces, and all but came to blows as to who should have the binding of it.

Reb Shloimeh began to feel that he was doing something, that he was being really useful, and he was supremely happy.

The town, of course, was aware of Reb Shloimeh's constant visits to the bookbinder's, and quickly found out what he did there.

"He's just off his head!" they laughed, and shrugged their shoulders. They even laughed in Reb Shloimeh's face, but he took no notice of it.

His pleasure, however, came to a speedy end. One day the binder spoke out.

"Reb Shloimeh," he said shortly, "you prevent us from working with your stories. What do you mean by it? You come and interfere with the work."

"But do I disturb?" he asked. "They go on working all the time--"

"And a pretty way of working," answered the bookbinder. "The boys are ready enough at finding an excuse for idling as it is! And why do you choose me? There are plenty of other workshops--"

It was an honest "neck and crop" business, and there was nothing left for Reb Shloimeh but to take up his stick and go.

"Nothing-again!" he whispered.

There was a sting in his heart, a beating in his temples, and his head burned.

"Nothing-again! This time it's all over. I must die-die-a story with an end."

Had he been young, he would have known what to do. He would never have begun to think about death, but now-where was the use of living on? What was there to wait for? All over!-all over!-

It was as much as he could do to get home. He sat down in the arm-chair, laid his head back, and thought.

He pictured to himself the last weeks at the bookbinder's and the change that had taken place in the workmen; how they had appeared better-mannered, more human, more intelligent. It seemed to him that he had implanted in them the love of knowledge and the inclination to study, had put them in the way of viewing more rightly what went on around them. He had been of some account with them-and all of a sudden-!

"No!" he said to himself. "They will come to me-they must come!" he thought, and fixed his eyes on the door.

He even forgot that they worked till nine o'clock at night, and the whole evening he never took his eyes off the door.

The time flew, it grew later and later, and the book-binders did not come.

At last he could bear it no longer, and went out into the street; perhaps he would see them, and then he would call them in.

It was dark in the street; the gas lamps, few and far between, scarcely gave any light. A chilly autumn night; the air was saturated with moisture, and there was dreadful mud under foot. There were very few passers-by, and Reb Shloimeh remained standing at his door.

When he heard a sound of footsteps or voices, his heart began to beat quicker. His old wife came out three times to call him into the house again, but he did not hear her, and remained standing outside.

The street grew still. There was nothing more to be heard but the rattles of the night-watchmen. Reb Shloimeh gave a last look into the darkness, as though trying to see someone, and then, with a groan, he went indoors.

Next morning he felt very weak, and stayed in bed. He began to feel that his end was near, that he was but a guest tarrying for a day.

"It's all the same, all the same!" he said to himself, thinking quietly about death.

All sorts of ideas went through his head. He thought as it were unconsciously, without giving himself a clear account of what he was thinking of.

A variety of images passed through his mind, scenes out of his long life, certain people, faces he had seen here and there, comrades of his childhood, but they all had no interest for him. He kept his eyes fixed on the door of his room, waiting for death, as though it would come in by the door.

He lay like that the whole day. His wife came in continually, and asked him questions, and he was silent, not taking his eyes off the door, or interrupting the train of his thoughts. It seemed as if he had ceased either to see or to hear. In the evening the teachers began coming.

"Finished!" said Reb Shloimeh, looking at the door. Suddenly he heard a voice he knew, and raised his head.

"We have come to visit the sick," said the voice.

The door opened, and there came in four workmen at once.

At first Reb Shloimeh could not believe his eyes, but soon a smile appeared upon his lips, and he tried to sit up.

"Come, come!" he said joyfully, and his heart beat rapidly with pleasure.

The workmen remained standing some way from the bed, not venturing to approach the sick man, but Reb Shloimeh called them to him.

"Nearer, nearer, children!" he said.

They came a little nearer.

"Come here, to me!" and he pointed to the bed.

They came up to the bed.

"Well, what are you all about?" he asked with a smile.

The workmen were silent.

"Why did you not come last night?" he asked, and looked at them smiling.

The workmen were silent, and shuffled with their feet.

"How are you, Reb Shloimeh?" asked one of them.

"Very well, very well," answered Reb Shloimeh, still smiling. "Thank you, children! Thank you!"

"Sit down, children, sit down." he said after a pause. "I will tell you some more stories."

"It will tire you, Reb Shloimeh," said a workman. "When you are better--"

"Sit down, sit down!" said Reb Shloimeh, impatiently. "That's my business!"

The workmen exchanged glances with the teachers and the teachers signed to them not to sit down.

"Not to-day, Reb Shloimeh, another time, when you-"

"Sit down, sit down!" interrupted Reb Shloimeh, "Do me the pleasure!"

Once more the workmen exchanged looks with the teachers, and, at a sign from them, they sat down.

Reb Shloimeh began telling them the long story of the human race, he spoke with ardor, and it was long since his voice had sounded as it sounded then.

He spoke for a long, long time.

They interrupted him two or three times, and reminded him that it was bad for him to talk so much. But he only signified with a gesture that they were to let him alone.

"I am getting better," he said, and went on.

At length the workmen rose from their seats.

"Let us go, Reb Shloimeh. It's getting late for us," they begged.

"True, true," he replied, "but to-morrow, do you hear? Look here, children, to-morrow!" he said, giving them his hand.

The workmen promised to come. They moved away a few steps, and then Reb Shloimeh called them back.

"And the others?" he inquired feebly, as though he were ashamed of asking.

"They were lazy, they wouldn't come," was the reply.

"Well, well," he said, in a tone that meant "Well, well, I know, you needn't say any more, but look here, to-morrow!"

"Now I am well again," he whispered as the workmen went out. He could scarcely move a limb, but he was very cheerful, looked at every one with a happy smile, and his eyes shone.

"Now I am well," he whispered when they had been obliged to put him into bed and cover him up. "Now I am well," he repeated, feeling the while that his head was strangely heavy, his heart faint, and that he was very poorly. Before many minutes he had fallen into a state of unconsciousness.

A dreadful, heartbreaking cry recalled him to himself. He opened his eyes. The room was full of people. In many eyes were tears.

"Soon, then," he thought, and began to remember something.

"What o'clock is it?" he asked of the person who stood beside him.

"Five."

"They stop work at nine," he whispered to himself, and called one of the teachers to him.

"When the workmen come, they are to let them in, do you hear!" he said. The teacher promised.

"They will come at nine," added Reb Shloimeh.

In a little while he asked to write his will. After writing the will, he undressed and closed his eyes.

They thought he had fallen asleep, but Reb Shloimeh was not asleep. He lay and thought, not about his past life, but about the future, the future in which men would live. He thought of what man would come to be. He pictured to himself a bright, glad world, in which all men would be equal in happiness, knowledge, and education, and his dying heart beat a little quicker, while his face expressed joy and contentment. He opened his eyes, and saw beside him a couple of teachers.

"And will it really be?" he asked and smiled.

"Yes, Reb Shloimeh," they answered, without knowing to what his question referred, for his face told them it was something good. The smile accentuated itself on his lips.

Once again he lost himself in thought.

He wanted to imagine that happy world, and see with his mind's eye nothing but happy people, educated people, and he succeeded.

The picture was not very distinct. He was imagining a great heap of happiness-happiness with a body and soul, and he felt himself so happy.

A sound of lamentation disturbed him.

"Why do they weep?" he wondered. "Every one will have a good time-everyone!"

He opened his eyes; there were already lights burning. The room was packed with people. Beside him stood all his children, come together to take leave of their father.

He fixed his gaze on the little grandchildren, a gaze of love and gladness.

"They will see the happy time," he thought.

He was just going to ask the people to stop lamenting, but at that moment his eye caught the workmen of the evening before.

"Come here, come here, children!" and he raised his voice a little, and made a sign with his head. People did not know what he meant. He begged them to send the workmen to him, and it was done.

He tried to sit up; those around helped him.

"Thank you-children-for coming-thank you!" he said. "Stop-weeping!" he implored of the bystanders. "I want to die quietly-I want every one to-to-be as happy-as I am! Live, all of you, in the-hope of a-good time-as I die-in-that hope. Dear chil-dren-" and he turned to the workmen, "I told you-last night-how man has lived so far. How he lives now, you know for yourselves-but the coming time will be a very happy one: all will be happy-all! Only work honestly, and learn! Learn, children! Everything will be all right! All will be hap--"

A sweet smile appeared on his lips, and Reb Shloimeh died.

In the town they-but what else could they say in the town of a man who had died without repeating the Confession, without a tremor at his heart, without any sign of repentance? What else could they say of a man who spent his last minutes in telling people to learn, to educate themselves? What else could they say of a man who left his whole capital to be devoted to educational purposes and schools?

What was to be expected of them, when his own family declared in court that their father was not responsible when he made his last will?

Forgive them, Reb Shloimeh, for they mean well-they know not what they say and do.

S. LIBIN

Pen name of Israel Hurewitz; born, 1872, in Gori-Gorki, Government of Mohileff (Lithuania), White Russia; assistant to a druggist at thirteen; went to London at twenty, and, after seven months there, to New York (1893); worked as capmaker; first sketch, "A Sifz vun a Arbeiterbrust"; contributor to Die Arbeiterzeitung, Das Abendblatt, Die Zukunft, Vorw?rts, etc.; prolific Yiddish playwright and writer of sketches on New York Jewish life; dramas to the number of twenty-six produced on the stage; collected works, Geklibene Skizzen, 1 vol., New York, 1902, and 2 vols., New York, 1907.

A PICNIC

Ask Shmuel, the capmaker, just for a joke, if he would like to come for a picnic! He'll fly out at you as if you had invited him to a swing on the gallows. The fact is, he and his Sarah once went for a picnic, and the poor man will remember it all his days.

It was on a Sabbath towards the end of August. Shmuel came home from work, and said to his wife:

"Sarah, dear!"

"Well, husband?" was her reply.

"I want to have a treat," said Shmuel, as though alarmed at the boldness of the idea.

"What sort of a treat? Shall you go to the swimming-bath to-morrow?"

"Ett! What's the fun of that?"

"Then, what have you thought of by way of an exception? A glass of ice water for supper?"

"Not that, either."

"A whole siphon?"

Shmuel denied with a shake of the head.

"Whatever can it be!" wondered Sarah. "Are you going to fetch a pint of beer?"

"What should I want with beer?"

"Are you going to sleep on the roof?"

"Wrong again!"

"To buy some more carbolic acid, and drive out the bugs?"

"Not a bad idea," observed Shmuel, "but that is not it, either."

"Well, then, whatever is it, for goodness' sake! The moon?" asked Sarah, beginning to lose patience. "What have you been and thought of? Tell me once for all, and have done with it!"

And Shmuel said:

"Sarah, you know, we belong to a lodge."

"Of course I do!" and Sarah gave him a look of mingled astonishment and alarm. "It's not more than a week since you took a whole dollar there, and I'm not likely to have forgotten what it cost you to make it up. What is the matter now? Do they want another?"

"Try again!"

"Out with it!"

"I-want us, Sarah," stammered Shmuel,-"to go for a picnic."

"A picnic!" screamed Sarah. "Is that the only thing you have left to wish for?"

"Look here, Sarah, we toil and moil the whole year through. It's nothing but trouble and worry, trouble and worry. Call that living! When do we ever have a bit of pleasure?"

"Well, what's to be done?" said his wife, in a subdued tone.

"The summer will soon be over, and we haven't set eyes on a green blade of grass. We sit day and night sweating in the dark."

"True enough!" sighed his wife, and Shmuel spoke louder:

"Let us have an outing, Sarah. Let us enjoy ourselves for once, and give the children a breath of fresh air, let us have a change, if it's only for five minutes!"

"What will it cost?" asks Sarah, suddenly, and Shmuel has soon made the necessary calculation.

"A family ticket is only thirty cents, for Yossele, Rivele, Hannahle, and Berele; for Resele and Doletzke I haven't to pay any carfare at all. For you and me, it will be ten cents there and ten back-that makes fifty cents. Then I reckon thirty cents for refreshments to take with us: a pineapple (a damaged one isn't more than five cents), a few bananas, a piece of watermelon, a bottle of milk for the children, and a few rolls-the whole thing shouldn't cost us more than eighty cents at the outside."

"Eighty cents!" and Sarah clapped her hands together in dismay. "Why, you can live on that two days, and it takes nearly a whole day's earning. You can buy an old ice-box for eighty cents, you can buy a pair of trousers-eighty cents!"

"Leave off talking nonsense!" said Shmuel, disconcerted. "Eighty cents won't make us rich. We shall get on just the same whether we have them or not. We must live like human beings one day in the year! Come, Sarah, let us go! We shall see lots of other people, and we'll watch them, and see how they enjoy themselves. It will do you good to see the world, to go where there's a bit of life! Listen, Sarah, what have you been to worth seeing since we came to America? Have you seen Brooklyn Bridge, or Central Park, or the Baron Hirsch baths?"

"You know I haven't!" Sarah broke in. "I've no time to go about sight-seeing. I only know the way from here to the market."

"And what do you suppose?" cried Shmuel. "I should be as great a greenhorn as you, if I hadn't been obliged to look everywhere for work. Now I know that America is a great big place. Thanks to the slack times, I know where there's an Eighth Street, and a One Hundred and Thirtieth Street with tin works, and an Eighty-Fourth Street with a match factory. I know every single lane round the World Building. I know where the cable car line stops. But you, Sarah, know nothing at all, no more than if you had just landed. Let us go, Sarah, I am sure you won't regret it!"

"Well, you know best!" said his wife, and this time she smiled. "Let us go!"

And thus it was that Shmuel and his wife decided to join the lodge picnic on the following day.

Next morning they all rose much earlier than usual on a Sunday, and there was a great noise, for they took the children and scrubbed them without mercy. Sarah prepared a bath for Doletzke, and Doletzke screamed the house down. Shmuel started washing Yossele's feet, but as Yossele habitually went barefoot, he failed to bring about any visible improvement, and had to leave the little pair of feet to soak in a basin of warm water, and Yossele cried, too. It was twelve o'clock before the children were dressed and ready to start, and then Sarah turned her attention to her husband, arranged his trousers, took the spots out of his coat with kerosene, sewed a button onto his vest. After that she dressed herself, in her old-fashioned satin wedding dress. At two o'clock they set forth, and took their places in the car.

"Haven't we forgotten anything?" asked Sarah of her husband.

Shmuel counted his children and the traps. "No, nothing, Sarah!" he said.

Doletzke went to sleep, the other children sat quietly in their places. Sarah, too, fell into a doze, for she was tired out with the preparations for the excursion.

All went smoothly till they got some way up town, when Sarah gave a start.

"I don't feel very well-my head is so dizzy," she said to Shmuel.

"I don't feel very well, either," answered Shmuel. "I suppose the fresh air has upset us."

"I suppose it has," said his wife. "I'm afraid for the children."

Scarcely had she spoken when Doletzke woke up, whimpering, and was sick. Yossele, who was looking at her, began to cry likewise. The mother scolded him, and this set the other children crying. The conductor cast a wrathful glance at poor Shmuel, who was so frightened that he dropped the hand-bag with the provisions, and then, conscious of the havoc he had certainly brought about inside the bag by so doing, he lost his head altogether, and sat there in a daze. Sarah was hushing the children, but the look in her eyes told Shmuel plainly enough what to expect once they had left the car. And no sooner had they all reached the ground in safety than Sarah shot out:

"So, nothing would content him but a picnic? Much good may it do him! You're a workman, and workmen have no call to go gadding about!"

Shmuel was already weary of the whole thing, and said nothing, but he felt a tightening of the heart.

He took up Yossele on one arm and Resele on the other, and carried the bag with the presumably smashed-up contents besides.

"Hush, my dears! Hush, my babies!" he said. "Wait a little and mother will give you some bread and sugar. Hush, be quiet!" He went on, but still the children cried.

Sarah carried Doletzke, and rocked her as she walked, while Berele and Hannahle trotted alongside.

"He has shortened my days," said Sarah, "may his be shortened likewise."

Soon afterwards they turned into the park.

"Let us find a tree and sit down in the shade," said Shmuel. "Come, Sarah!"

"I haven't the strength to drag myself a step further," declared Sarah, and she sank down like a stone just inside the gate. Shmuel was about to speak, but a glance at Sarah's face told him she was worn out, and he sat down beside his wife without a word. Sarah gave Doletzke the breast. The other children began to roll about in the grass, laughed and played, and Shmuel breathed easier.

Girls in holiday attire walked about the park, and there were groups under the trees. Here was a handsome girl surrounded by admiring boys, and there a handsome young man encircled by a bevy of girls.

Out of the leafy distance of the park came the melancholy song of a workman; near by stood a man playing on a fiddle. Sarah looked about her and listened, and by degrees her vexation vanished. It is true that her heart was still sore, but it was not with the soreness of anger. She was taking her life to pieces and thinking it over, and it seemed a very hard and bitter one, and when she looked at her husband and thought of his life, she was near crying, and she laid her hands upon his knee.

Shmuel also sat lost in thought. He was thinking about the trees and the roses and the grass, and listening to the fiddle. And he also was sad at heart.

"O Sarah!" he sighed, and he would have said more, but just at that moment it began to spot with rain, and before they had time to move there came a downpour. People started to scurry in all directions, but Shmuel stood like a statue.

"Shlimm-mazel, look after the children!" commanded Sarah. Shmuel caught up two of them, Sarah another two or three, and they ran to a shelter. Doletzke began to cry afresh.

"Mame, hungry!" began Berele.

"Hungry, hungry!" wailed Yossele. "I want to eat!"

Shmuel hastily opened the hand-bag, and then for the first time he saw what had really happened: the bottle had broken, and the milk was flooding the bag; the rolls and bananas were soaked, and the pineapple (a damaged one to begin with) looked too nasty for words. Sarah caught sight of the bag, and was so angry, she was at a loss how to wreak vengeance on her husband. She was ashamed to scream and scold in the presence of other people, but she went up to him, and whispered fervently into his ear, "The same to you, my good man!"

The children continued to clamor for food.

"I'll go to the refreshment counter and buy a glass of milk and a few rolls," said Shmuel to his wife.

"Have you actually some money left?" asked Sarah. "I thought it had all been spent on the picnic."

"There are just five cents over."

"Well, then go and be quick about it. The poor things are starving."

Shmuel went to the refreshment stall, and asked the price of a glass of milk and a few rolls.

"Twenty cents, mister," answered the waiter.

Shmuel started as if he had burnt his finger, and returned to his wife more crestfallen than ever.

"Well, Shlimm-mazel, where's the milk?" inquired Sarah.

"He asked twenty cents."

"Twenty cents for a glass of milk and a roll? Are you Montefiore?" Sarah could no longer contain herself. "They'll be the ruin of us! If you want to go for another picnic, we shall have to sell the bedding."

The children never stopped begging for something to eat.

"But what are we to do?" asked the bewildered Shmuel.

"Do?" screamed Sarah. "Go home, this very minute!"

Shmuel promptly caught up a few children, and they left the park. Sarah was quite quiet on the way home, merely remarking to her husband that she would settle her account with him later.

"I'll pay you out," she said, "for my satin dress, for the hand-bag, for the pineapple, for the bananas, for the milk, for the whole blessed picnic, for the whole of my miserable existence."

"Scold away!" answered Shmuel. "It is you who were right. I don't know what possessed me. A picnic, indeed! You may well ask what next? A poor wretched workman like me has no business to think of anything beyond the shop."

Sarah, when they reached home, was as good as her word. Shmuel would have liked some supper, as he always liked it, even in slack times, but there was no supper given him. He went to bed a hungry man, and all through the night he repeated in his sleep:

"A picnic, oi, a picnic!"

MANASSEH

It was a stifling summer evening. I had just come home from work, taken off my coat, unbuttoned my waistcoat, and sat down panting by the window of my little room.

There was a knock at the door, and without waiting for my reply, in came a woman with yellow hair, and very untidy in her dress.

I judged from her appearance that she had not come from a distance. She had nothing on her head, her sleeves were tucked up, she held a ladle in her hand, and she was chewing something or other.

"I am Manasseh's wife," said she.

"Manasseh Gricklin's?" I asked.

"Yes," said my visitor, "Gricklin's, Gricklin's."

I hastily slipped on a coat, and begged her to be seated.

Manasseh was an old friend of mine, he was a capmaker, and we worked together in one shop.

And I knew that he lived somewhere in the same tenement as myself, but it was the first time I had the honor of seeing his wife.

"Look here," began the woman, "don't you work in the same shop as my husband?"

"Yes, yes," I said.

"Well, and now tell me," and the yellow-haired woman gave a bound like a hyena, "how is it I see you come home from work with all other respectable people, and my husband not? And it isn't the first time, either, that he's gone, goodness knows where, and come home two hours after everyone else. Where's he loitering about?"

"I don't know," I replied gravely.

The woman brandished her ladle in such a way that I began to think she meant murder.

"You don't know?" she exclaimed with a sinister flash in her eyes. "What do you mean by that? Don't you two leave the shop together? How can you help seeing what becomes of him?"

Then I remembered that when Manasseh and I left the shop, he walked with me a few blocks, and then went off in another direction, and that one day, when I asked him where he was going, he had replied, "To some friends."

"He must go to some friends," I said to the woman.

"To some friends?" she repeated, and burst into strange laughter. "Who? Whose? Ours? We're greeners, we are, we have no friends. What friends should he have, poor, miserable wretch?"

"I don't know," I said, "but that is what he told me."

"All right!" said Manasseh's wife. "I'll teach him a lesson he won't forget in a hurry."

With these words she departed.

When she had left the room, I pictured to myself poor consumptive Manasseh being taught a "lesson" by his yellow-haired wife, and I pitied him.

Manasseh was a man of about thirty. His yellowish-white face was set in a black beard; he was very thin, always ailing and coughing, had never learnt to write, and he read only Yiddish-a quiet, respectable man, I might almost say the only hand in the shop who never grudged a fellow-worker his livelihood. He had been only a year in the country, and the others made sport of him, but I always stood up for him, because I liked him very much.

Wherever does he go, now? I wondered to myself, and I resolved to find out.

Next morning I met Manasseh as usual, and at first I intended to tell him of his wife's visit to me the day before; but the poor operative looked so low-spirited, so thoroughly unhappy, that I felt sure his wife had already given him the promised "lesson," and I hadn't the courage to mention her to him just then.

In the evening, as we were going home from the workshop, Manasseh said to me:

"Did my wife come to see you yesterday?"

"Yes, Brother Manasseh," I answered. "She seemed something annoyed with you."

"She has a dreadful temper," observed the workman. "When she is really angry, she's fit to kill a man. But it's her bitter heart, poor thing-she's had so many troubles! We're so poor, and she's far away from her family."

Manasseh gave a deep sigh.

"She asked you where I go other days after work?" he continued.

"Yes."

"Would you like to know?"

"Why not, Mister Gricklin!"

"Come along a few blocks further," said Manasseh, "and I'll show you."

"Come along!" I agreed, and we walked on together.

A few more blocks and Manasseh led me into a narrow street, not yet entirely built in with houses.

Presently he stopped, with a contented smile. I looked round in some astonishment. We were standing alongside a piece of waste ground, with a meagre fencing of stones and burnt wire, and utilized as a garden.

"Just look," said the workman, pointing at the garden, "how delightful it is! One so seldom sees anything of the kind in New York."

Manasseh went nearer to the fence, and his eyes wandered thirstily over the green, flowering plants, just then in full beauty. I also looked at the garden. The things that grew there were unknown to me, and I was ignorant of their names. Only one thing had a familiar look-a few tall, graceful "moons" were scattered here and there over the place, and stood like absent-minded dreamers, or beautiful sentinels. And the roses were in bloom, and their fragrance came in wafts over the fencing.

"You see the 'moons'?" asked Manasseh, in rapt tones, but more to himself than to me. "Look how beautiful they are! I can't take my eyes off them. I am capable of standing and looking at them for hours. They make me feel happy, almost as if I were at home again. There were a lot of them at home!"

The operative sighed, lost himself a moment in thought, and then said:

"When I smell the roses, I think of old days. We had quite a large garden, and I was so fond of it! When the flowers began to come out, I used to sit there for hours, and could never look at it enough. The roses appeared to be dreaming with their great golden eyes wide open. The cucumbers lay along the ground like pussy-cats, and the stalks and leaves spread ever so far across the beds. The beans fought for room like street urchins, and the pumpkins and the potatoes-you should have seen them! And the flowers were all colors-pink and blue and yellow, and I felt as if everything were alive, as if the whole garden were alive-I fancied I heard them talking together, the roses, the potatoes, the beans. I spent whole evenings in my garden. It was dear to me as my own soul. Look, look, look, don't the roses seem as if they were alive?"

But I looked at Manasseh, and thought the consumptive workman had grown younger and healthier. His face was less livid, and his eyes shone with happiness.

"Do you know," said Manasseh to me, as we walked away from the garden, "I had some cuttings of rose-trees at home, in a basket out on the fire-escape, and they had begun to bud."

There was a pause.

"Well," I inquired, "and what happened?"

"My wife laid out the mattress to air on the top of the basket, and they were all crushed."

Manasseh made an outward gesture with his hand, and I asked no more questions.

The poky, stuffy shop in which he worked came into my mind, and my heart was sore for him.

YOHRZEIT FOR MOTHER

The Ginzburgs' first child died of inflammation of the lungs when it was two years and three months old.

The young couple were in the depths of grief and despair-they even thought seriously of committing suicide.

But people do not do everything they think of doing. Neither Ginzburg nor his wife had the courage to throw themselves into the cold and grizzly arms of death. They only despaired, until, some time after, a newborn child bound them once more to life.

It was a little girl, and they named her Dvoreh, after Ginzburg's dead mother.

The Ginzburgs were both free-thinkers in the full sense of the word, and their naming the child after the dead had no superstitious significance whatever.

It came about quite simply.

"Dobinyu," Ginzburg had asked his wife, "how shall we call our daughter?"

"I don't know," replied the young mother.

"No more do I," said Ginzburg.

"Let us call her Dvorehle," suggested Dobe, automatically, gazing at her pretty baby, and very little concerned about its name.

Had Ginzburg any objection to make? None at all, and the child's name was Dvorehle henceforward. When the first child had lived to be a year old, the parents had made a feast-day, and invited guests to celebrate their first-born's first birthday with them.

With the second child it was not so.

The Ginzburgs loved their Dvorehle, loved her painfully, infinitely, but when it came to the anniversary of her birth they made no rejoicings.

I do not think I shall be going too far if I say they did not dare to do so.

Dvorehle was an uncommon child: a bright girlie, sweet-tempered, pretty, and clever, the light of the house, shining into its every corner. She could be a whole world of delight to her parents, this wee Dvorehle. But it was not the delight, not the happiness they had known with the first child, not the same. That had been so free, so careless. Now it was different: terrible pictures of death, of a child's death, would rise up in the midst of their joy, and their gladness suddenly ended in a heavy sigh. They would be at the height of enchantment, kissing and hugging the child and laughing aloud, they would be singing to it and romping with it, everything else would be forgotten. Then, without wishing to do so, they would suddenly remember that not so long ago it was another child, also a girl, that went off into just the same silvery little bursts of laughter-and now, where is it?-dead! O how it goes through the heart! The parents turn pale in the midst of their merrymaking, the mother's eyes fill with tears, and the father's head droops.

"Who knows?" sighs Dobe, looking at their little laughing Dvorehle. "Who knows?"

Ginzburg understands the meaning of her question and is silent, because he is afraid to say anything in reply.

It seems to me that parents who have buried their first-born can never be really happy again.

So Dvorehle's first birthday was allowed to pass as it were unnoticed. When it came to her second, it was nearly the same thing, only Dobe said, "Ginzburg, when our daughter is three years old, then we will have great rejoicings!"

They waited for the day with trembling hearts. Their child's third year was full of terror for them, because their eldest-born had died in her third year, and they felt as though it must be the most dangerous one for their second child.

A dreadful conviction began to haunt them both, only they were afraid to confess it one to the other. This conviction, this fixed idea of theirs, was that when Dvorehle reached the age of their eldest child when it died, Death would once more call their household to mind.

Dvorehle grew to be two years and eight months old. O it was a terrible time! And-and the child fell ill, with inflammation of the lungs, just like the other one.

O pictures that arose and stood before the parents! O terror, O calamity! They were free-thinkers, the Ginzburgs, and if any one had told them that they were not free from what they called superstition, that the belief in a Higher Power beyond our understanding still had a root in their being, if you had spoken thus to Ginzburg or to his wife, they would have laughed at you, both of them, out of the depths of a full heart and with laughter more serious than many another's words. But what happened now is wonderful to tell.

Dobe, sitting by the sick child's cot, began to speak, gravely, and as in a dream:

"Who knows? Who knows? Perhaps? Perhaps?" She did not conclude.

"Perhaps what?" asked Ginzburg, impatiently.

"Why should it come like this?" Dobe went on. "The same time, the same sickness?"

"A simple blind coincidence of circumstances," replied her husband.

"But so exactly-one like the other, as if somebody had made it happen on purpose."

Ginzburg understood his wife's meaning, and answered short and sharp:

"Dobe, don't talk nonsense."

Meanwhile Dvorehle's illness developed, and the day came on which the doctor said that a crisis would occur within twenty-four hours. What this meant to the Ginzburgs would be difficult to describe, but each of them determined privately not to survive the loss of their second child.

They sat beside it, not lifting their eyes from its face. They were pale and dazed with grief and sleepless nights, their hearts half-dead within them, they shed no tears, they were so much more dead than alive themselves, and the child's flame of life flickered and dwindled, flickered and dwindled.

A tangle of memories was stirring in Ginzburg's head, all relating to deaths and graves. He lived through the death of their first child with all details-his father's death, his mother's-early in a summer morning-that was-that was-he recalls it-as though it were to-day.

"What is to-day?" he wonders. "What day of the month is it?" And then he remembers, it is the first of May.

"The same day," he murmurs, as if he were talking in his sleep.

"What the same day?" asks Dobe.

"Nothing," says Ginzburg. "I was thinking of something."

He went on thinking, and fell into a doze where he sat.

He saw his mother enter the room with a soft step, take a chair, and sit down by the sick child.

"Mother, save it!" he begs her, his heart is full to bursting, and he begins to cry.

"Isrolik," says his mother, "I have brought a remedy for the child that bears my name."

"Mame!!!"

He is about to throw himself upon her neck and kiss her, but she motions him lightly aside.

"Why do you never light a candle for my Yohrzeit?" she inquires, and looks at him reproachfully.

"Mame, have pity on us, save the child!"

"The child will live, only you must light me a candle."

"Mame" (he sobs louder), "have pity!"

"Light my candle-make haste, make haste-"

"Ginzburg!" a shriek from his wife, and he awoke with a start.

"Ginzburg, the child is dying! Fly for the doctor."

Ginzburg cast a look at the child, a chill went through him, he ran to the door.

The doctor came in person.

"Our child is dying! Help save it!" wailed the unhappy mother, and he, Ginzburg, stood and shivered as with cold.

The doctor scrutinized the child, and said:

"The crisis is coming on." There was something dreadful in the quiet of his tone.

"What can be done?" and the Ginzburgs wrung their hands.

"Hush! Nothing! Bring some hot water, bottles of hot water!-Champagne!-Where is the medicine? Quick!" commanded the doctor.

Everything was to hand and ready in an instant.

The doctor began to busy himself with the child, the parents stood by pale as death.

"Well," asked Dobe, "what?"

"We shall soon know," said the doctor.

Ginzburg looked round, glided like a shadow into a corner of the room, and lit the little lamp that stood there.

"What is that for?" asked Dobe, in a fright.

"Nothing, Yohrzeit-my mother's," he answered in a strange voice, and his hands never ceased trembling.

"Your child will live," said the doctor, and father and mother fell upon the child's bed with their faces, and wept.

The flame in the lamp burnt brighter and brighter.

SLACK TIMES THEY SLEEP

Despite the fact of the winter nights being long and dark as the Jewish exile, the Breklins go to bed at dusk.

But you may as well know that when it is dusk outside in the street, the Breklins are already "way on" in the night, because they live in a basement, separated from the rest of the world by an air-shaft, and when the sun gathers his beams round him before setting, the first to be summoned are those down the Breklins' shaft, because of the time required for them to struggle out again.

The same thing in the morning, only reversed. People don't usually get up, if they can help it, before it is really light, and so it comes to pass that when other people have left their beds, and are going about their business, the Breklins are still asleep and making the long, long night longer yet.

If you ask me, "How is it they don't wear their sides out with lying in bed?" I shall reply: They do rise with aching sides, and if you say, "How can people be so lazy?" I can tell you, They don't do it out of laziness, and they lie awake a great part of the time.

What's the good of lying in bed if one isn't asleep?

There you have it in a nutshell-it's a question of the economic conditions. The Breklins are very poor, their life is a never-ending struggle with poverty, and they have come to the conclusion that the cheapest way of waging it, and especially in winter, is to lie in bed under a great heap of old clothes and rags of every description.

Breklin is a house-painter, and from Christmas to Purim (I beg to distinguish!) work is dreadfully slack. When you're not earning a crooked penny, what are you to do?

In the first place, you must live on "cash," that is, on the few dollars scraped together and put by during the "season," and in the second place, you must cut down your domestic expenses, otherwise the money won't hold out, and then you might as well keep your teeth in a drawer.

But you may neither eat nor drink, nor live at all to mention-if it's winter, the money goes all the same: it's bitterly cold, and you can't do without the stove, and the nights are long, and you want a lamp.

And the Breklins saw that their money would not hold out till Purim-that their Fast of Esther would be too long. Coal was beyond them, and kerosene as dear as wine, and yet how could they possibly spend less? How could they do without a fire when it was so cold? Without a lamp when it was so dark? And the Breklins had an "idea"!

Why sit up at night and watch the stove and the lamp burning away their money, when they might get into bed, bury themselves in rags, and defy both poverty and cold? There is nothing in particular to do, anyhow. What should there be, a long winter evening through? Nothing! They only sat and poured out the bitterness in their heart one upon the other, quarrelled, and scolded. They could do that in bed just as well, and save firing and light into the bargain.

So, at the first approach of darkness, the bed was made ready for Mr. Breklin, and his wife put to sleep their only, three-year-old child. Avremele did not understand why he was put to bed so early, but he asked no questions. The room began to feel cold, and the poor little thing was glad to nestle deep into the bedcoverings.

The lamp and the fire were extinguished, the stove would soon go out of itself, and the Breklin family slept.

They slept, and fought against poverty by lying in bed.

It was waging cheap warfare.

Having had his first sleep out, Breklin turns to his wife:

"What do you suppose the time to be now, Yudith?"

Yudith listens attentively.

"It must be past eight o'clock," she says.

"What makes you think so?" asks Breklin.

"Don't you hear the clatter of knives and forks? Well-to-do folk are having supper."

"We also used to have supper about this time, in the Tsisin," said Breklin, and he gave a deep sigh of longing.

"We shall soon forget the good times altogether," says Yudith, and husband and wife set sail once more for the land of dreams.

A few hours later Breklin wakes with a groan.

"What is the matter?" inquires Yudith.

"My sides ache with lying."

"Mine, too," says Yudith, and they both begin yawning.

"What o'clock would it be now?" wonders Breklin, and Yudith listens again.

"About ten o'clock," she tells him.

"No later? I don't believe it. It must be a great deal later than that."

"Well, listen for yourself," persists Yudith, "and you'll hear the housekeeper upstairs scolding somebody. She's putting out the gas in the hall."

"Oi, weh is mir! How the night drags!" sighs Breklin, and turns over onto his other side.

Yudith goes on talking, but as much to herself as to him:

"Upstairs they are still all alive, and we are asleep in bed."

"Weh is mir, weh is mir!" sighs Breklin over and over, and once more there is silence.

The night wears on.

"Are you asleep?" asks Breklin, suddenly.

"I wish I were! Who could sleep through such a long night? I'm lying awake and racking my brains."

"What over?" asks Breklin, interested.

"I'm trying to think," explains Yudith, "what we can have for dinner to-morrow that will cost nothing, and yet be satisfying."

"Oi, weh is mir!" sighs Breklin again, and is at a loss what to advise.

"I wonder" (this time it is Yudith) "what o'clock it is now!"

"It will soon be morning," is Breklin's opinion.

"Morning? Nonsense!" Yudith knows better.

"It must be morning soon!" He holds to it.

"You are very anxious for the morning," says Yudith, good-naturedly, "and so you think it will soon be here, and I tell you, it's not midnight yet."

"What are you talking about? You don't know what you're saying! I shall go out of my mind."

"You know," says Yudith, "that Avremele always wakes at midnight and cries, and he's still fast asleep."

"No, Mame," comes from under Avremele's heap of rags.

"Come to me, my beauty! So he was awake after all!" and Yudith reaches out her arms for the child.

"Perhaps he's cold," says Breklin.

"Are you cold, sonny?" asks Yudith.

"Cold, Mame!" replies Avremele.

Yudith wraps the coverlets closer and closer round him, and presses him to her side.

And the night wears on.

"O my sides!" groans Breklin.

"Mine, too!" moans Yudith, and they start another conversation.

One time they discuss their neighbors; another time the Breklins try to calculate how long it is since they married, how much they spend a week on an average, and what was the cost of Yudith's confinement.

It is seldom they calculate anything right, but talking helps to while away time, till the basement begins to lighten, whereupon the Breklins jump out of bed, as though it were some perilous hiding-place, and set to work in a great hurry to kindle the stove.

ABRAHAM RAISIN

Born, 1876, in Kaidanov, Government of Minsk (Lithuania), White Russia; traditional Jewish education; self-taught in Russian language; teacher at fifteen, first in Kaidanov, then in Minsk; first poem published in Perez's Jüdische Bibliothek, in 1891; served in the army, in Kovno, for four years; went to Warsaw in 1900, and to New York in 1911; Yiddish lyric poet and novelist; occasionally writes Hebrew; contributor to Spektor's Hausfreund, New York Abendpost, and New York Arbeiterzeitung; co-editor of Das zwanzigste Jahrhundert; in 1903, published and edited, in Cracow, Das jüdische Wort, first to urge the claim of Yiddish as the national Jewish language; publisher and editor, since 1911, of Dos neie Land, in New York; collected works (poems and tales), 4 vols., Warsaw, 1908-1912.

SHUT IN

Lebele is a little boy ten years old, with pale cheeks, liquid, dreamy eyes, and black hair that falls in twisted ringlets, but, of course, the ringlets are only seen when his hat falls off, for Lebele is a pious little boy, who never uncovers his head.

There are things that Lebele loves and never has, or else he has them only in part, and that is why his eyes are always dreamy and troubled, and always full of longing.

He loves the summer, and sits the whole day in Cheder. He loves the sun, and the Rebbe hangs his caftan across the window, and the Cheder is darkened, so that it oppresses the soul. Lebele loves the moon, the night, but at home they close the shutters, and Lebele, on his little bed, feels as if he were buried alive. And Lebele cannot understand people's behaving so oddly.

It seems to him that when the sun shines in at the window, it is a delight, it is so pleasant and cheerful, and the Rebbe goes and curtains it-no more sun! If Lebele dared, he would ask:

"What ails you, Rebbe, at the sun? What harm can it do you?"

But Lebele will never put that question: the Rebbe is such a great and learned man, he must know best. Ai, how dare he, Lebele, disapprove? He is only a little boy. When he is grown up, he will doubtless curtain the window himself. But as things are now, Lebele is not happy, and feels sadly perplexed at the behavior of his elders.

Late in the evening, he comes home from Cheder. The sun has already set, the street is cheerful and merry, the cockchafers whizz and, flying, hit him on the nose, the ear, the forehead.

He would like to play about a bit in the street, let them have supper without him, but he is afraid of his father. His father is a kind man when he talks to strangers, he is so gentle, so considerate, so confidential. But to him, to Lebele, he is very unkind, always shouting at him, and if Lebele comes from Cheder a few minutes late, he will be angry.

"Where have you been, my fine fellow? Have you business anywhere?"

Now go and tell him that it is not at all so bad out in the street, that it's a pleasure to hear how the cockchafers whirr, that even the hits they give you on the wing are friendly, and mean, "Hallo, old fellow!" Of course it's a wild absurdity! It amuses him, because he is only a little boy, while his father is a great man, who trades in wood and corn, and who always knows the current prices-when a thing is dearer and when it is cheaper. His father can speak the Gentile language, and drive bargains, his father understands the Prussian weights. Is that a man to be thought lightly of? Go and tell him, if you dare, that it's delightful now out in the street.

And Lebele hurries straight home. When he has reached it, his father asks him how many chapters he has mastered, and if he answers five, his father hums a tune without looking at him; but if he says only three, his father is angry, and asks:

"How's that? Why so little, ha?"

And Lebele is silent, and feels guilty before his father.

After that his father makes him translate a Hebrew word.

"Translate Kimlùnah!"

"Kimlùnah means 'like a passing the night,'" answers Lebele, terrified.

His father is silent-a sign that he is satisfied-and they sit down to supper. Lebele's father keeps an eye on him the whole time, and instructs him how to eat.

"Is that how you hold your spoon?" inquires the father, and Lebele holds the spoon lower, and the food sticks in his throat.

After supper Lebele has to say grace aloud and in correct Hebrew, according to custom. If he mumbles a word, his father calls out:

"What did I hear? what? once more, 'Wherewith Thou dost feed and sustain us.' Well, come, say it! Don't be in a hurry, it won't burn you!"

And Lebele says it over again, although he is in a great hurry, although he longs to run out into the street, and the words do seem to burn him.

When it is dark, he repeats the Evening Prayer by lamplight; his father is always catching him making a mistake, and Lebele has to keep all his wits about him. The moon, round and shining, is already floating through the sky, and Lebele repeats the prayers, and looks at her, and longs after the street, and he gets confused in his praying.

Prayers over, he escapes out of the house, puzzling over some question in the Talmud against the morrow's lesson. He delays there a while gazing at the moon, as she pours her pale beams onto the Gass. But he soon hears his father's voice:

"Come indoors, to bed!"

It is warm outside, there is not a breath of air stirring, and yet it seems to Lebele as though a wind came along with his father's words, and he grows cold, and he goes in like one chilled to the bone, takes his stand by the window, and stares at the moon.

"It is time to close the shutters-there's nothing to sit up for!" Lebele hears his father say, and his heart sinks. His father goes out, and Lebele sees the shutters swing to, resist, as though they were being closed against their will, and presently there is a loud bang. No more moon!-his father has hidden it!

A while after, the lamp has been put out, the room is dark, and all are asleep but Lebele, whose bed is by the window. He cannot sleep, he wants to be in the street, whence sounds come in through the chinks. He tries to sit up in bed, to peer out, also through the chinks, and even to open a bit of the shutter, without making any noise, and to look, look, but without success, for just then his father wakes and calls out:

"What are you after there, eh? Do you want me to come with the strap?"

And Lebele nestles quietly down again into his pillow, pulls the coverlet over his head, and feels as though he were buried alive.

THE CHARITABLE LOAN

The largest fair in Klemenke is "Ulas." The little town waits for Ulas with a beating heart and extravagant hopes. "Ulas," say the Klemenke shopkeepers and traders, "is a Heavenly blessing; were it not for Ulas, Klemenke would long ago have been '?us Klemenke,' America would have taken its last few remaining Jews to herself."

But for Ulas one must have the wherewithal-the shopkeepers need wares, and the traders, money.

Without the wherewithal, even Ulas is no good! And Chayyim, the dealer in produce, goes about gloomily. There are only three days left before Ulas, and he hasn't a penny wherewith to buy corn to trade with. And the other dealers in produce circulate in the market-place with caps awry, with thickly-rolled cigarettes in their mouths and walking-sticks in their hands, and they are talking hard about the fair.

"In three days it will be lively!" calls out one.

"Pshshsh," cries another in ecstasy, "in three days' time the place will be packed!"

And Chayyim turns pale. He would like to call down a calamity on the fair, he wishes it might rain, snow, or storm on that day, so that not even a mad dog should come to the market-place; only Chayyim knows that Ulas is no weakling, Ulas is not afraid of the strongest wind-Ulas is Ulas!

And Chayyim's eyes are ready to start out of his head. A charitable loan-where is one to get a charitable loan? If only five and twenty rubles!

He asks it of everyone, but they only answer with a merry laugh:

"Are you mad? Money-just before a fair?"

And it seems to Chayyim that he really will go mad.

"Suppose you went across to Loibe-B?res?" suggests his wife, who takes her full share in his distress.

"I had thought of that myself," answers Chayyim, meditatively.

"But what?" asks the wife.

Chayyim is about to reply, "But I can't go there, I haven't the courage," only that it doesn't suit him to be so frank with his wife, and he answers:

"Devil take him! He won't lend anything!"

"Try! It won't hurt," she persists.

And Chayyim reflects that he has no other resource, that Loibe-B?res is a rich man, and living in the same street, a neighbor in fact, and that he requires no money for the fair, being a dealer in lumber and timber.

"Give me out my Sabbath overcoat!" says Chayyim to his wife, in a resolute tone.

"Didn't I say so?" the wife answers. "It's the best thing you can do, to go to him."

Chayyim placed himself before a half-broken looking-glass which was nailed to the wall, smoothed his beard with both hands, tightened his earlocks, and then took off his hat, and gave it a polish with his sleeve.

"Just look and see if I haven't got any white on my coat off the wall!"

"If you haven't?" the wife answered, and began slapping him with both hands over the shoulders.

"I thought we once had a little clothes-brush. Where is it? ha?"

"Perhaps you dreamt it," replied his wife, still slapping him on the shoulders, and she went on, "Well, I should say you had got some white on your coat!"

"Come, that'll do!" said Chayyim, almost angrily. "I'll go now."

He drew on his Sabbath overcoat with a sigh, and muttering, "Very likely, isn't it, he'll lend me money!" he went out.

On the way to Loibe-B?res, Chayyim's heart began to fail him. Since the day that Loibe-B?res came to live at the end of the street, Chayyim had been in the house only twice, and the path Chayyim was treading now was as bad as an examination: the "approach" to him, the light rooms, the great mirrors, the soft chairs, Loibe-B?res himself with his long, thick beard and his black eyes with their "gevirish" glance, the lady, the merry, happy children, even the maid, who had remained in his memory since those two visits-all these things together terrified him, and he asked himself, "Where are you going to? Are you mad? Home with you at once!" and every now and then he would stop short on the way. Only the thought that Ulas was near, and that he had no money to buy corn, drove him to continue.

"He won't lend anything-it's no use hoping." Chayyim was preparing himself as he walked for the shock of disappointment; but he felt that if he gave way to that extent, he would never be able to open his mouth to make his request known, and he tried to cheer himself:

"If I catch him in a good humor, he will lend! Why should he be afraid of lending me a few rubles over the fair? I shall tell him that as soon as ever I have sold the corn, he shall have the loan back. I will swear it by wife and children, he will believe me-and I will pay it back."

But this does not make Chayyim any the bolder, and he tries another sort of comfort, another remedy against nervousness.

"He isn't a bad man-and, after all, our acquaintance won't date from to-day-we've been living in the same street twenty years-Parabotzker Street-"

And Chayyim recollects that a fortnight ago, as Loibe-B?res was passing his house on his way to the market-place, and he, Chayyim, was standing in the yard, he gave him the greeting due to a gentleman ("and I could swear I gave him my hand," Chayyim reminded himself). Loibe-B?res had made a friendly reply, he had even stopped and asked, like an old acquaintance, "Well, Chayyim, and how are you getting on?" And Chayyim strains his memory and remembers further that he answered on this wise:

"I thank you for asking! Heaven forgive me, one does a little bit of business!"

And Chayyim is satisfied with his reply, "I answered him quite at my ease."

Chayyim resolves to speak to him this time even more leisurely and independently, not to cringe before him.

Chayyim could already see Loibe-B?res' house in the distance. He coughed till his throat was clear, stroked his beard down, and looked at his coat.

"Still a very good coat!" he said aloud, as though trying to persuade himself that the coat was still good, so that he might feel more courage and more proper pride.

But when he got to Loibe-B?res' big house, when the eight large windows looking onto the street flashed into his eyes, the windows being brightly illuminated from within, his heart gave a flutter.

"Oi, Lord of the World, help!" came of its own accord to his lips. Then he felt ashamed, and caught himself up, "Ett, nonsense!"

As he pushed the door open, the "prayer" escaped him once more, "Help, mighty God! or it will be the death of me!"

Loibe-B?res was seated at a large table covered with a clean white table-cloth, and drinking while he talked cheerfully with his household.

"There's a Jew come, Tate!" called out a boy of twelve, on seeing Chayyim standing by the door.

"So there is!" called out a second little boy, still more merrily, fixing Chayyim with his large, black, mischievous eyes.

All the rest of those at table began looking at Chayyim, and he thought every moment that he must fall of a heap onto the floor.

"It will look very bad if I fall," he said to himself, made a step forward, and, without saying good evening, stammered out:

"I just happened to be passing, you understand, and I saw you sitting-so I knew you were at home-well, I thought one ought to call-neighbors-"

"Well, welcome, welcome!" said Loibe-B?res, smiling. "You've come at the right moment. Sit down."

A stone rolled off Chayyim's heart at this reply, and, with a glance at the two little boys, he quietly took a seat.

"Leah, give Reb Chayyim a glass of tea," commanded Loibe-B?res.

"Quite a kind man!" thought Chayyim. "May the Almighty come to his aid!"

He gave his host a grateful look, and would gladly have fallen onto the Gevir's thick neck, and kissed him.

"Well, and what are you about?" inquired his host.

"Thanks be to God, one lives!"

The maid handed him a glass of tea. He said, "Thank you," and then was sorry: it is not the proper thing to thank a servant. He grew red and bit his lips.

"Have some jelly with it!" Loibe-B?res suggested.

"An excellent man, an excellent man!" thought Chayyim, astonished. "He is sure to lend."

"You deal in something?" asked Loibe-B?res.

"Why, yes," answered Chayyim. "One's little bit of business, thank Heaven, is no worse than other people's!"

"What price are oats fetching now?" it occurred to the Gevir to ask.

Oats had fallen of late, but it seemed better to Chayyim to say that they had risen.

"They have risen very much!" he declared in a mercantile tone of voice.

"Well, and have you some oats ready?" inquired the Gevir further.

"I've got a nice lot of oats, and they didn't cost me much, either. I got them quite cheap," replied Chayyim, with more warmth, forgetting, while he spoke, that he hadn't had an ear of oats in his granary for weeks.

"And you are thinking of doing a little speculating?" asked Loibe-B?res. "Are you not in need of any money?"

"Thanks be to God," replied Chayyim, proudly, "I have never yet been in need of money."

"Why did I say that?" he thought then, in terror at his own words. "How am I going to ask for a loan now?" and Chayyim wanted to back the cart a little, only Loibe-B?res prevented him by saying:

"So I understand you make a good thing of it, you are quite a wealthy man."

"My wealth be to my enemies!" Chayyim wanted to draw back, but after a glance at Loibe-B?res' shining face, at the blue jar with the jelly, he answered proudly:

"Thank Heaven, I have nothing to complain of!"

"There goes your charitable loan!" The thought came like a kick in the back of his head. "Why are you boasting like that? Tell him you want twenty-five rubles for Ulas-that he must save you, that you are in despair, that-"

But Chayyim fell deeper and deeper into a contented and happy way of talking, praised his business more and more, and conversed with the Gevir as with an equal.

But he soon began to feel he was one too many, that he should not have sat there so long, or have talked in that way. It would have been better to have talked about the fair, about a loan. Now it is too late:

"I have no need of money!" and Chayyim gave a despairing look at Loibe-B?res' cheerful face, at the two little boys who sat opposite and watched him with sly, mischievous eyes, and who whispered knowingly to each other, and then smiled more knowingly still!

A cold perspiration covered him. He rose from his chair.

"You are going already?" observed Loibe-B?res, politely.

"Now perhaps I could ask him!" It flashed across Chayyim's mind that he might yet save himself, but, stealing a glance at the two boys with the roguish eyes that watched him so slyly, he replied with dignity:

"I must! Business! There is no time!" and it seems to him, as he goes toward the door, that the two little boys with the mischievous eyes are putting out their tongues after him, and that Loibe-B?res himself smiles and says, "Stick your tongues out further, further still!"

Chayyim's shoulders seem to burn, and he makes haste to get out of the house.

THE TWO BROTHERS

It is three months since Yainkele and Berele-two brothers, the first fourteen years old, the second sixteen-have been at the college that stands in the town of X-, five German miles from their birthplace Dalissovke, after which they are called the "Dalissovkers."

Yainkele is a slight, pale boy, with black eyes that peep slyly from beneath the two black eyebrows. Berele is taller and stouter than Yainkele, his eyes are lighter, and his glance is more defiant, as though he would say, "Let me alone, I shall laugh at you all yet!"

The two brothers lodged with a poor relation, a widow, a dealer in second-hand goods, who never came home till late at night. The two brothers had no bed, but a chest, which was broad enough, served instead, and the brothers slept sweetly on it, covered with their own torn clothes; and in their dreams they saw their native place, the little street, their home, their father with his long beard and dim eyes and bent back, and their mother with her long, pale, melancholy face, and they heard the little brothers and sisters quarrelling, as they fought over a bit of herring, and they dreamt other dreams of home, and early in the morning they were homesick, and then they used to run to the Dalissovke Inn, and ask the carrier if there were a letter for them from home.

The Dalissovke carriers were good Jews with soft hearts, and they were sorry for the two poor boys, who were so anxious for news from home, whose eyes burned, and whose hearts beat so fast, so loud, but the carriers were very busy; they came charged with a thousand messages from the Dalissovke shopkeepers and traders, and they carried more letters than the post, but with infinitely less method. Letters were lost, and parcels were heard of no more, and the distracted carriers scratched the nape of their neck, and replied to every question:

"Directly, directly, I shall find it directly-no, I don't seem to have anything for you-"

That is how they answered the grown people who came to them; but our two little brothers stood and looked at Lezer the carrier-a man in a wadded caftan, summer and winter-with thirsty eyes and aching hearts; stood and waited, hoping he would notice them and say something, if only one word. But Lezer was always busy: now he had gone into the yard to feed the horse, now he had run into the inn, and entered into a conversation with the clerk of a great store, who had brought a list of goods wanted from a shop in Dalissovke.

And the brothers used to stand and stand, till the elder one, Berele, lost patience. Biting his lips, and all but crying with vexation, he would just articulate: "Reb Lezer, is there a letter from father?"

But Reb Lezer would either suddenly cease to exist, run out into the street with somebody or other, or be absorbed in a conversation, and Berele hardly expected the answer which Reb Lezer would give over his shoulder:

"There isn't one-there isn't one."

"There isn't one!" Berele would say with a deep sigh, and sadly call to Yainkele to come away. Mournfully, and with a broken spirit, they went to where the day's meal awaited them.

"I am sure he loses the letters!" Yainkele would say a few minutes later, as they walked along.

"He is a bad man!" Berele would mutter with vexation.

But one day Lezer handed them a letter and a small parcel.

The letter ran thus:

"Dear Children,

Be good, boys, and learn with diligence. We send you herewith half a cheese and a quarter of a pound of sugar, and a little berry-juice in a bottle.

Eat it in health, and do not quarrel over it.

From me, your father,

Chayyim Hecht."

That day Lezer the carrier was the best man in the world in their eyes, they would not have been ashamed to eat him up with horse and cart for very love. They wrote an answer at once-for letter-paper they used to tear out, with fluttering hearts, the first, imprinted pages in the Gemoreh-and gave it that evening to Lezer the carrier. Lezer took it coldly, pushed it into the breast of his coat, and muttered something like "All right!"

"What did he say, Berele?" asked Yainkele, anxiously.

"I think he said 'all right,'" Berele answered doubtfully.

"I think he said so, too," Yainkele persuaded himself. Then he gave a sigh, and added fearfully:

"He may lose the letter!"

"Bite your tongue out!" answered Berele, angrily, and they went sadly away to supper.

And three times a week, early in the morning, when Lezer the carrier came driving, the two brothers flew, not ran, to the Dalissovke Inn, to ask for an answer to their letter; and Lezer the carrier grew more preoccupied and cross, and answered either with mumbled words, which the brothers could not understand, and dared not ask him to repeat, or else not at all, so that they went away with heavy hearts. But one day they heard Lezer the carrier speak distinctly, so that they understood quite well:

"What are you doing here, you two? What do you come plaguing me for? Letter? Fiddlesticks! How much do you pay me? Am I a postman? Eh? Be off with you, and don't worry."

The brothers obeyed, but only in part: their hearts were like lead, their thin little legs shook, and tears fell from their eyes onto the ground. And they went no more to Lezer the carrier to ask for a letter.

"I wish he were dead and buried!" they exclaimed, but they did not mean it, and they longed all the time just to go and look at Lezer the carrier, his horse and cart. After all, they came from Dalissovke, and the two brothers loved them.

One day, two or three weeks after the carrier sent them about their business in the way described, the two brothers were sitting in the house of the poor relation and talking about home. It was summer-time, and a Friday afternoon.

"I wonder what father is doing now," said Yainkele, staring at the small panes in the small window.

"He must be cutting his nails," answered Berele, with a melancholy smile.

"He must be chopping up lambs' feet," imagined Yainkele, "and Mother is combing Chainele, and Chainele is crying."

"Now we've talked nonsense enough!" decided Berele. "How can we know what is going on there?"

"Perhaps somebody's dead!" added Yainkele, in sudden terror.

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Berele. "When people die, they let one know-"

"Perhaps they wrote, and the carrier won't give us the letter-"

"Ai, that's chatter enough!" Berele was quite cross. "Shut up, donkey! You make me laugh," he went on, to reassure Yainkele, "they are all alive and well."

Yainkele became cheerful again, and all at once he gave a bound into the air, and exclaimed with eager eyes:

"Berele, do what I say! Let's write by the post!"

"Right you are!" agreed Berele. "Only I've no money."

"I have four kopeks; they are over from the ten I got last night. You know, at my 'Thursday' they give me ten kopeks for supper, and I have four over.

"And I have one kopek," said Berele, "just enough for a post-card."

"But which of us will write it?" asked Yainkele.

"I," answered Berele, "I am the eldest, I'm a first-born son."

"But I gave four kopeks!"

"A first-born is worth more than four kopeks."

"No! I'll write half, and you'll write half, ha?"

"Very well. Come and buy a card."

And the two brothers ran to buy a card at the postoffice.

"There will be no room for anything!" complained Yainkele, on the way home, as he contemplated the small post-card. "We will make little tiny letters, teeny weeny ones!" advised Berele.

"Father won't be able to read them!"

"Never mind! He will put on his spectacles. Come along-quicker!" urged Yainkele. His heart was already full of words, like a sea, and he wanted to pour it out onto the bit of paper, the scrap on which he had spent his entire fortune.

They reached their lodging, and settled down to write.

Berele began, and Yainkele stood and looked on.

"Begin higher up! There is room there for a whole line. Why did you put 'to my beloved Father' so low down?" shrieked Yainkele.

"Where am I to put it, then? In the sky, eh?" asked Berele, and pushed Yainkele aside.

"Go away, I will leave you half. Don't confuse me!-You be quiet!" and Yainkele moved away, and stared with terrified eyes at Berele, as he sat there, bent double, and wrote and wrote, knitted his brows, and dipped the pen, and reflected, and wrote again.

"That's enough!" screamed Yainkele, after a few minutes.

"It's not the half yet," answered Berele, writing on.

"But I ought to have more than half!" said Yainkele, crossly. The longing to write, to pour out his heart onto the post-card, was overwhelming him.

But Berele did not even hear: he had launched out into such rhetorical Hebrew expressions as "First of all, I let you know that I am alive and well," which he had learnt in "The Perfect Letter-Writer," and his little bits of news remained unwritten. He had yet to abuse Lezer the carrier, to tell how many pages of the Gemoreh he had learnt, to let them know they were to send another parcel, because they had no "Monday" and no "Wednesday," and the "Tuesday" was no better than nothing.

And Berele writes and writes, and Yainkele can no longer contain himself-he sees that Berele is taking up more than half the card.

"Enough!" He ran forward with a cry, and seized the penholder.

"Three words more!" begged Berele.

"But remember, not more than three!" and Yainkele's eyes flashed. Berele set to work to write the three words; but that which he wished to express required yet ten to fifteen words, and Berele, excited by the fact of writing, pecked away at the paper, and took up yet another bit of the other half.

"You stop!" shrieked Yainkele, and broke into hysterical sobs, as he saw what a small space remained for him.

"Hush! Just 'from me, thy son,'" begged Berele, "nothing else!"

But Yainkele, remembering that he had given a whole vierer toward the post-card, and that they would read so much of Berele at home, and so little of him, flew into a passion, and came and tried to tear away the card from under Berele's hands. "Let me put 'from me, thy son'!" implored Berele.

"It will do without 'from me, thy son'!" screamed Yainkele, although he felt that one ought to put it. His anger rose, and he began tugging at the card. Berele held tight, but Yainkele gave such a pull that the card tore in two.

"What have you done, villain!" cried Berele, glaring at Yainkele.

"I meant to do it!" wailed Yainkele.

"Oh, but why did you?" cried Berele, gazing in despair at the two torn halves of the post-card.

But Yainkele could not answer. The tears choked him, and he threw himself against the wall, tearing his hair. Then Berele gave way, too, and the little room resounded with lamentations.

LOST HIS VOICE

It was in the large synagogue in Klemenke. The week-day service had come to an end. The town cantor who sings all the prayers, even when he prays alone, and who is longer over them than other people, had already folded his prayer-scarf, and was humming the day's Psalm to himself, to a tune. He sang the last words "cantorishly" high:

"And He will be our guide until death." In the last word "death" he tried, as usual, to rise artistically to the higher octave, then to fall very low, and to rise again almost at once into the height; but this time he failed, the note stuck in his throat and came out false.

He got a fright, and in his fright he looked round to make sure no one was standing beside him. Seeing only old Henoch, his alarm grew less, he knew that old Henoch was deaf.

As he went out with his prayer-scarf and phylacteries under his arm, the unsuccessful "death" rang in his ears and troubled him.

"Plague take it," he muttered, "it never once happened to me before."

Soon, however, he remembered that two weeks ago, on the Sabbath before the New Moon, as he stood praying with the choristers before the altar, nearly the same thing had happened to him when he sang "He is our God" as a solo in the Kedushah.

Happily no one remarked it-anyway the "bass" had said nothing to him. And the memory of the unsuccessful "Hear, O Israel" of two weeks ago and of to-day's "unto death" were mingled together, and lay heavily on his heart.

He would have liked to try the note once more as he walked, but the street was just then full of people, and he tried to refrain till he should reach home. Contrary to his usual custom, he began taking rapid steps, and it looked as if he were running away from someone. On reaching home, he put away his prayer-scarf without saying so much as good morning, recovered his breath after the quick walk, and began to sing, "He shall be our guide until death."

"That's right, you have so little time to sing in! The day is too short for you!" exclaimed the cantoress, angrily. "It grates on the ears enough already!"

"How, it grates?" and the cantor's eyes opened wide with fright, "I sing a note, and you say 'it grates'? How can it grate?"

He looked at her imploringly, his eyes said: "Have pity on me! Don't say, 'it grates'! because if it does grate, I am miserable, I am done for!"

But the cantoress was much too busy and preoccupied with the dinner to sympathize and to understand how things stood with her husband, and went on:

"Of course it grates! Why shouldn't it? It deafens me. When you sing in the choir, I have to bear it, but when you begin by yourself-what?"

The cantor had grown as white as chalk, and only just managed to say:

"Grune, are you mad? What are you talking about?"

"What ails the man to-day!" exclaimed Grune, impatiently. "You've made a fool of yourself long enough! Go and wash your hands and come to dinner!"

The cantor felt no appetite, but he reflected that one must eat, if only as a remedy; not to eat would make matters worse, and he washed his hands.

He chanted the grace loud and cantor-like, glancing occasionally at his wife, to see if she noticed anything wrong; but this time she said nothing at all, and he was reassured. "It was my fancy-just my fancy!" he said to himself. "All nonsense! One doesn't lose one's voice so soon as all that!"

Then he remembered that he was already forty years old, and it had happened to the cantor Meyer Lieder, when he was just that age-

That was enough to put him into a fright again. He bent his head, and thought deeply. Then he raised it, and called out loud:

"Grune!"

"Hush! What is it? What makes you call out in that strange voice?" asked Grune, crossly, running in.

"Well, well, let me live!" said the cantor. "Why do you say 'in that strange voice'? Whose voice was it? eh? What is the matter now?"

There was a sound as of tears as he spoke.

"You're cracked to-day! As nonsensical-Well, what do you want?"

"Beat up one or two eggs for me!" begged the cantor, softly.

"Here's a new holiday!" screamed Grune. "On a Wednesday! Have you got to chant the Sabbath prayers? Eggs are so dear now-five kopeks apiece!"

"Grune," commanded the cantor, "they may be one ruble apiece, two rubles, five rubles, one hundred rubles. Do you hear? Beat up two eggs for me, and don't talk!"

"To be sure, you earn so much money!" muttered Grune.

"Then you think it's all over with me?" said the cantor, boldly. "No, Grune!"

He wanted to tell her that he wasn't sure about it yet, there was still hope, it might be all a fancy, perhaps it was imagination, but he was afraid to say all that, and Grune did not understand what he stammered out. She shrugged her shoulders, and only said, "Upon my word!" and went to beat up the eggs.

The cantor sat and sang to himself. He listened to every note as though he were examining some one. Finding himself unable to take the high octave, he called out despairingly:

"Grune, make haste with the eggs!" His one hope lay in the eggs.

The cantoress brought them with a cross face, and grumbled:

"He wants eggs, and we're pinching and starving-"

The cantor would have liked to open his heart to her, so that she should not think the eggs were what he cared about; he would have liked to say, "Grune, I think I'm done for!" but he summoned all his courage and refrained.

"After all, it may be only an idea," he thought.

And without saying anything further, he began to drink up the eggs as a remedy.

When they were finished, he tried to make a few cantor-like trills. In this he succeeded, and he grew more cheerful.

"It will be all right," he thought, "I shall not lose my voice so soon as all that! Never mind Meyer Lieder, he drank! I don't drink, only a little wine now and again, at a circumcision."

His appetite returned, and he swallowed mouthful after mouthful.

But his cheerfulness did not last: the erstwhile unsuccessful "death" rang in his ears, and the worry returned and took possession of him.

The fear of losing his voice had tormented the cantor for the greater part of his life. His one care, his one anxiety had been, what should he do if he were to lose his voice? It had happened to him once already, when he was fourteen years old. He had a tenor voice, which broke all of a sudden. But that time he didn't care. On the contrary, he was delighted, he knew that his voice was merely changing, and that in six months he would get the baritone for which he was impatiently waiting. But when he had got the baritone, he knew that when he lost that, it would be lost indeed-he would get no other voice. So he took great care of it-how much more so when he had his own household, and had taken the office of cantor in Klemenke! Not a breath of wind was allowed to blow upon his throat, and he wore a comforter in the hottest weather.

It was not so much on account of the Klemenke householders-he felt sure they would not dismiss him from his office. Even if he were to lose his voice altogether, he would still receive his salary. It was not brought to him to his house, as it was-he had to go for it every Friday from door to door, and the Klemenke Jews were good-hearted, and never refused anything to the outstretched hand. He took care of his voice, and trembled to lose it, only out of love for the singing. He thought a great deal of the Klemenke Jews-their like was not to be found-but in the interpretation of music they were uninitiated, they had no feeling whatever. And when, standing before the altar, he used to make artistic trills and variations, and take the highest notes, that was for himself-he had great joy in it-and also for his eight singers, who were all the world to him. His very life was bound up with them, and when one of them exclaimed, "Oi, cantor! Oi, how you sing!" his happiness was complete.

The singers had come together from various towns and villages, and all their conversations and their stories turned and wrapped themselves round cantors and music. These stories and legends were the cantor's delight, he would lose himself in every one of them, and give a sweet, deep sigh:

"As if music were a trifle! As if a feeling were a toy!" And now that he had begun to fear he was losing his voice, it seemed to him the singers were different people-bad people! They must be laughing at him among themselves! And he began to be on his guard against them, avoided taking a high note in their presence, lest they should find out-and suffered all the more.

And what would the neighboring cantors say? The thought tormented him further. He knew that he had a reputation among them, that he was a great deal thought of, that his voice was much talked of. He saw in his mind's eye a couple of cantors whispering together, and shaking their heads sorrowfully: they are pitying him! "How sad! You have heard? The poor Klemenke cantor--"

The vision quite upset him.

"Perhaps it's only fancy!" he would say to himself in those dreadful moments, and would begin to sing, to try his highest notes. But the terror he was in took away his hearing, and he could not tell if his voice were what it should be or not.

In two weeks time his face grew pale and thin, his eyes were sunk, and he felt his strength going.

"What is the matter with you, cantor?" said a singer to him one day.

"Ha, what is the matter?" asked the cantor, with a start, thinking they had already found out. "You ask what is the matter with me? Then you know something about it, ha!"

"No, I know nothing. That is why I ask you why you look so upset."

"Upset, you say? Nothing more than upset, ha? That's all?"

"The cantor must be thinking out some new piece for the Solemn Days," decided the choir.

Another month went by, and the cantor had not got the better of his fear. Life had become distasteful to him. If he had known for certain that his voice was gone, he would perhaps have been calmer. Verfallen! No one can live forever (losing his voice and dying was one and the same to him), but the uncertainty, the tossing oneself between yes and no, the Olom ha-Tohu of it all, embittered the cantor's existence.

At last, one fine day, the cantor resolved to get at the truth: he could bear it no longer.

It was evening, the wife had gone to the market for meat, and the choir had gone home, only the eldest singer, Y?ssel "bass," remained with the cantor.

The cantor looked at him, opened his mouth and shut it again; it was difficult for him to say what he wanted to say.

At last he broke out with:

"Y?ssel!"

"What is it, cantor?"

"Tell me, are you an honest man?"

Y?ssel "bass" stared at the cantor, and asked:

"What are you asking me to-day, cantor?"

"Brother Y?ssel," the cantor said, all but weeping, "Brother Y?ssel!"

That was all he could say.

"Cantor, what is wrong with you?"

"Brother Y?ssel, be an honest man, and tell me the truth, the truth!"

"I don't understand! What is the matter with you, cantor?"

"Tell me the truth: Do you notice any change in me?"

"Yes, I do," answered the singer, looking at the cantor, and seeing how pale and thin he was. "A very great change--"

"Now I see you are an honest man, you tell me the truth to my face. Do you know when it began?"

"It will soon be a month," answered the singer.

"Yes, brother, a month, a month, but I felt-"

The cantor wiped off the perspiration that covered his forehead, and continued:

"And you think, Y?ssel, that it's lost now, for good and all?"

"That what is lost?" asked Y?ssel, beginning to be aware that the conversation turned on something quite different from what was in his own mind.

"What? How can you ask? Ah? What should I lose? Money? I have no money-I mean-of course-my voice."

Then Y?ssel understood everything-he was too much of a musician not to understand. Looking compassionately at the cantor, he asked:

"For certain?"

"For certain?" exclaimed the cantor, trying to be cheerful. "Why must it be for certain? Very likely it's all a mistake-let us hope it is!"

Y?ssel looked at the cantor, and as a doctor behaves to his patient, so did he:

"Take do!" he said, and the cantor, like an obedient pupil, drew out do.

"Draw it out, draw it out! Four quavers-draw it out!" commanded Y?ssel, listening attentively.

The cantor drew it out.

"Now, if you please, re!"

The cantor sang out re-re-re.

The singer moved aside, appeared to be lost in thought, and then said, sadly:

"Gone!"

"Forever?"

"Well, are you a little boy? Are you likely to get another voice? At your time of life, gone is gone!"

The cantor wrung his hands, threw himself down beside the table, and, laying his head on his arms, he burst out crying like a child.

Next morning the whole town had heard of the misfortune-that the cantor had lost his voice.

"It's an ill wind--" quoted the innkeeper, a well-to-do man. "He won't keep us so long with his trills on Sabbath. I'd take a bitter onion for that voice of his, any day!"

LATE

It was in sad and hopeless mood that Antosh watched the autumn making its way into his peasant's hut. The days began to shorten and the evenings to lengthen, and there was no more petroleum in the hut to fill his humble lamp; his wife complained too-the store of salt was giving out; there was very little soap left, and in a few days he would finish his tobacco. And Antosh cleared his throat, spat, and muttered countless times a day:

"No salt, no soap, no tobacco; we haven't got anything. A bad business!"

Antosh had no prospect of earning anything in the village. The one village Jew was poor himself, and had no work to give. Antosh had only one hope left. Just before the Feast of Tabernacles he would drive a whole cart-load of fir-boughs into the little town and bring a tidy sum of money home in exchange.

He did this every year, since buying his thin horse in the market for six rubles.

"When shall you have Tabernacles?" he asked every day of the village Jew. "Not yet," was the Jew's daily reply. "But when shall you?" Antosh insisted one day.

"In a week," answered the Jew, not dreaming how very much Antosh needed to know precisely.

In reality there were only five more days to Tabernacles, and Antosh had calculated with business accuracy that it would be best to take the fir-boughs into the town two days before the festival. But this was really the first day of it.

He rose early, ate his dry, black bread dipped in salt, and drank a measure of water. Then he harnessed his thin, starved horse to the cart, took his hatchet, and drove into the nearest wood.

He cut down the branches greedily, seeking out the thickest and longest.

"Good ware is easier sold," he thought, and the cart filled, and the load grew higher and higher. He was calculating on a return of three gulden, and it seemed still too little, so that he went on cutting, and laid on a few more boughs. The cart could hold no more, and Antosh looked at it from all sides, and smiled contentedly.

"That will be enough," he muttered, and loosened the reins. But scarcely had he driven a few paces, when he stopped and looked the cart over again.

"Perhaps it's not enough, after all?" he questioned fearfully, cut down five more boughs, laid them onto the already full cart, and drove on.

He drove slowly, pace by pace, and his thoughts travelled slowly too, as though keeping step with the thin horse.

Antosh was calculating how much salt and how much soap, how much petroleum and how much tobacco he could buy for the return for his ware. At length the calculating tired him, and he resolved to put it off till he should have the cash. Then the calculating would be done much more easily.

But when he reached the town, and saw that the booths were already covered with fir-boughs, he felt a pang at his heart. The booths and the houses seemed to be twirling round him in a circle, and dancing. But he consoled himself with the thought that every year, when he drove into town, he found many booths already covered. Some cover earlier, some later. The latter paid the best.

"I shall ask higher prices," he resolved, and all the while fear tugged at his heart. He drove on. Two Jewish women were standing before a house; they pointed at the cart with their finger, and laughed aloud.

"Why do you laugh?" queried Antosh, excitedly.

"Because you are too soon with your fir-boughs," they answered, and laughed again.

"How too soon?" he asked, astonished. "Too soon-too soon-" laughed the women.

"Pfui," Antosh spat, and drove on, thinking, "Berko said himself, 'In a week.' I am only two days ahead."

A cold sweat covered him, as he reflected he might have made a wrong calculation, founded on what Berko had told him. It was possible that he had counted the days badly-had come too late! There is no doubt: all the booths are covered with fir-boughs. He will have no salt, no tobacco, no soap, and no petroleum.

Sadly he followed the slow paces of his languid horse, which let his weary head droop as though out of sympathy for his master.

Meantime the Jews were crowding out of the synagogues in festal array, with their prayer-scarfs and prayer-books in their hands. When they perceived the peasant with the cart of fir-boughs, they looked questioningly one at the other: Had they made a mistake and begun the festival too early?

"What have you there?" some one inquired.

"What?" answered Antosh, taken aback. "Fir-boughs! Buy, my dear friend, I sell it cheap!" he begged in a piteous voice.

The Jews burst out laughing.

"What should we want it for now, fool?" "The festival has begun!" said another. Antosh was confused with his misfortune, he scratched the back of his head, and exclaimed, weeping:

"Buy! Buy! I want salt, soap! I want petroleum."

The group of Jews, who had begun by laughing, were now deeply moved. They saw the poor, starving peasant standing there in his despair, and were filled with a lively compassion.

"A poor Gentile-it's pitiful!" said one, sympathetically. "He hoped to make a fortune out of his fir-boughs, and now!" observed another.

"It would be proper to buy up that bit of fir," said a third, "else it might cause a Chillul ha-Shem." "On a festival?" objected some one else.

"It can always be used for firewood," said another, contemplating the cartful.

"Whether or no! It's a festival--"

"No salt, no soap, no petroleum-" It was the refrain of the bewildered peasant, who did not understand what the Jews were saying among themselves. He could only guess that they were talking about him. "Hold! he doesn't want money! He wants ware. Ware without money may be given even on a festival," called out one.

The interest of the bystanders waxed more lively. Among them stood a storekeeper, whose shop was close by. "Give him, Chayyim, a few jars of salt and other things that he wants-even if it comes to a few gulden. We will contribute."

"All right, willingly!" said Chayyim, "A poor Gentile!"

"A precept, a precept! It would be carrying out a religious precept, as surely as I am a Jew!" chimed in every individual member of the crowd.

Chayyim called the peasant to him; all the rest followed. He gave him out of the stores two jars of salt, a bar of soap, a bottle of petroleum, and two packets of tobacco.

The peasant did not know what to do for joy. He could only stammer in a low voice, "Thank you! thank you!"

"And there's a bit of Sabbath loaf," called out one, when he had packed the things away, "take that with you!"

"There's some more!" and a second hand held some out to him.

"More!"

"More!"

"And more!"

They brought Antosh bread and cake from all sides; his astonishment was such that he could scarcely articulate his thanks.

The people were pleased with themselves, and Yainkel Leives, a cheerful man, who was well supplied for the festival, because his daughter's "intended" was staying in his house, brought Antosh a glass of brandy:

"Drink, and drive home, in the name of God!"

Antosh drank the brandy with a quick gulp, bit off a piece of cake, and declared joyfully, "I shall never forget it!"

"Not at all a bad Gentile," remarked someone in the crowd.

"Well, what would you have? Did you expect him to beat you?" queried another, smiling.

The words "to beat" made a melancholy impression on the crowd, and it dispersed in silence.

THE KADDISH

From behind the curtain came low moans, and low words of encouragement from the old and experienced Bobbe. In the room it was dismal to suffocation. The seven children, all girls, between twenty-three and four years old, sat quietly, each by herself, with drooping head, and waited for something dreadful.

At a little table near a great cupboard with books sat the "patriarch" Reb Selig Chanes, a tall, thin Jew, with a yellow, consumptive face. He was chanting in low, broken tones out of a big Gemoreh, and continually raising his head, giving a nervous glance at the curtain, and then, without inquiring what might be going on beyond the low moaning, taking up once again his sad, tremulous chant. He seemed to be suffering more than the woman in childbirth herself.

"Lord of the World!"-it was the eldest daughter who broke the stillness-"Let it be a boy for once! Help, Lord of the World, have pity!"

"Oi, thus might it be, Lord of the World!" chimed in the second.

And all the girls, little and big, with broken heart and prostrate spirit, prayed that there might be born a boy.

Reb Selig raised his eyes from the Gemoreh, glanced at the curtain, then at the seven girls, gave vent to a deep-drawn Oi, made a gesture with his hand, and said with settled despair, "She will give you another sister!"

The seven girls looked at one another in desperation; their father's conclusion quite crushed them, and they had no longer even the courage to pray.

Only the littlest, the four-year-old, in the torn frock, prayed softly:

"Oi, please God, there will be a little brother."

"I shall die without a Kaddish!" groaned Reb Selig.

The time drags on, the moans behind the curtain grow louder, and Reb Selig and the elder girls feel that soon, very soon, the "grandmother" will call out in despair, "A little girl!" And Reb Selig feels that the words will strike home to his heart like a blow, and he resolves to run away.

He goes out into the yard, and looks up at the sky. It is midnight. The moon swims along so quietly and indifferently, the stars seem to frolic and rock themselves like little children, and still Reb Selig hears, in the "grandmother's" husky voice, "A girl!"

"Well, there will be no Kaddish! Verfallen!" he says, crossing the yard again. "There's no getting it by force!"

But his trying to calm himself is useless; the fear that it should be a girl only grows upon him. He loses patience, and goes back into the house.

But the house is in a turmoil.

"What is it, eh?"

"A little boy! Tate, a boy! Tatinke, as surely may I be well!" with this news the seven girls fall upon him with radiant faces.

"Eh, a little boy?" asked Reb Selig, as though bewildered, "eh? what?"

"A boy, Reb Selig, a Kaddish!" announced the "grandmother." "As soon as I have bathed him, I will show him you!"

"A boy ... a boy ..." stammered Reb Selig in the same bewilderment, and he leant against the wall, and burst into tears like a woman.

The seven girls took alarm.

"That is for joy," explained the "grandmother," "I have known that happen before."

"A boy ... a boy!" sobbed Reb Selig, overcome with happiness, "a boy ... a boy ... a Kaddish!"

The little boy received the name of Jacob, but he was called, by way of a talisman, Alter.

Reb Selig was a learned man, and inclined to think lightly of such protective measures; he even laughed at his Cheike for believing in such foolishness; but, at heart, he was content to have it so. Who could tell what might not be in it, after all? Women sometimes know better than men.

By the time Alterke was three years old, Reb Selig's cough had become worse, the sense of oppression on his chest more frequent. But he held himself morally erect, and looked death calmly in the face, as though he would say, "Now I can afford to laugh at you-I leave a Kaddish!"

"What do you think, Cheike," he would say to his wife, after a fit of coughing, "would Alterke be able to say Kaddish if I were to die to-day or to-morrow?"

"Go along with you, crazy pate!" Cheike would exclaim in secret alarm. "You are going to live a long while! Is your cough anything new?"

Selig smiled, "Foolish woman, she supposes I am afraid to die. When one leaves a Kaddish, death is a trifle."

Alterke was sitting playing with a prayer-book and imitating his father at prayer, "A num-num-a num-num."

"Listen to him praying!" and Cheike turned delightedly to her husband. "His soul is piously inclined!"

Selig made no reply, he only gazed at his Kaddish with a beaming face. Then an idea came into his head: Alterke will be a Tzaddik, will help him out of all his difficulties in the other world.

"Mame, I want to eat!" wailed Alterke, suddenly.

He was given a piece of the white bread which was laid aside, for him only, every Sabbath.

Alterke began to eat.

"Who bringest forth! Who bringest forth!" called out Reb Selig.

"Tan't!" answered the child.

"It is time you taught him to say grace," observed Cheike.

And Reb Selig drew Alterke to him and began to repeat with him.

"Say: Boruch."

"Bo'uch," repeated the child after his fashion.

"Attoh."

"Attoh."

When Alterke had finished "Who bringest forth," Cheike answered piously Amen, and Reb Selig saw Alterke, in imagination, standing in the synagogue and repeating Kaddish, and heard the congregation answer Amen, and he felt as though he were already seated in the Garden of Eden.

Another year went by, and Reb Selig was feeling very poorly. Spring had come, the snow had melted, and he found the wet weather more trying than ever before. He could just drag himself early to the synagogue, but going to the afternoon service had become a difficulty, and he used to recite the afternoon and later service at home, and spend the whole evening with Alterke.

It was late at night. All the houses were shut. Reb Selig sat at his little table, and was looking into the corner where Cheike's bed stood, and where Alterke slept beside her. Selig had a feeling that he would die that night. He felt very tired and weak, and with an imploring look he crept up to Alterke's crib, and began to wake him.

The child woke with a start.

"Alterke"-Reb Selig was stroking the little head-"come to me for a little!"

The child, who had had his first sleep out, sprang up, and went to his father.

Reb Selig sat down in the chair which stood by the little table with the open Gemoreh, lifted Alterke onto the table, and looked into his eyes.

"Alterke!"

"What, Tate?"

"Would you like me to die?"

"Like," answered the child, not knowing what "to die" meant, and thinking it must be something nice.

"Will you say Kaddish after me?" asked Reb Selig, in a strangled voice, and he was seized with a fit of coughing.

"Will say!" promised the child.

"Shall you know how?"

"Shall!"

"Well, now, say: Yisgaddal."

"Yisdaddal," repeated the child in his own way.

"Veyiskaddash."

"Veyistaddash."

And Reb Selig repeated the Kaddish with him several times.

The small lamp burnt low, and scarcely illuminated Reb Selig's yellow, corpse-like face, or the little one of Alterke, who repeated wearily the difficult, and to him unintelligible words of the Kaddish. And Alterke, all the while, gazed intently into the corner, where Tate's shadow and his own had a most fantastic and frightening appearance.

AVRòHOM THE ORCHARD-KEEPER

When he first came to the place, as a boy, and went straight to the house-of-study, and people, having greeted him, asked "Where do you come from?" and he answered, not without pride, "From the Government of Wilna"-from that day until the day he was married, they called him "the Wilner."

In a few years' time, however, when the house-of-study had married him to the daughter of the Psalm-reader, a coarse, undersized creature, and when, after six months' "board" with his father-in-law, he became a teacher, the town altered his name to "the Wilner teacher." Again, a few years later, when he got a chest affection, and the doctor forbade him to keep school, and he began to deal in fruit, the town learnt that his name was Avròhom, to which they added "the orchard-keeper," and his name is "Avròhom the orchard-keeper" to this day.

Avròhom was quite content with his new calling. He had always wished for a business in which he need not have to do with a lot of people in whom he had small confidence, and in whose society he felt ill at ease.

People have a queer way with them, he used to think, they want to be always talking! They want to tell everything, find out everything, answer everything!

When he was a student he always chose out a place in a corner somewhere, where he could see nobody, and nobody could see him; and he used to murmur the day's task to a low tune, and his murmured repetition made him think of the ruin in which Rabbi José, praying there, heard the Bas-Kol mourn, cooing like a dove, over the exile of Israel. And then he longed to float away to that ruin somewhere in the wilderness, and murmur there like a dove, with no one, no one, to interrupt him, not even the Bas-Kol. But his vision would be destroyed by some hard question which a fellow-student would put before him, describing circles with his thumb and chanting to a shrill Gemoreh-tune.

In the orchard, at the end of the Gass, however, which Avròhom hired of the Gentiles, he had no need to exchange empty words with anyone. Avròhom had no large capital, and could not afford to hire an orchard for more than thirty rubles. The orchard was consequently small, and only grew about twenty apple-trees, a few pear-trees, and a cherry-tree. Avròhom used to move to the garden directly after the Feast of Weeks, although that was still very early, the fruit had not yet set, and there was nothing to steal.

But Avròhom could not endure sitting at home any longer, where the wife screamed, the children cried, and there was a continual "fair." What should he want there? He only wished to be alone with his thoughts and imaginings, and his quiet "tunes," which were always weaving themselves inside him, and were nearly stifled.

It is early to go to the orchard directly after the Feast of Weeks, but Avròhom does not mind, he is drawn back to the trees that can think and hear so much, and keep so many things to themselves.

And Avròhom betakes himself to the orchard. He carries with him, besides phylacteries and prayer-scarf, a prayer-book with the Psalms and the "Stations," two volumes of the Gemoreh which he owns, a few works by the later scholars, and the Tales of Jerusalem; he takes his wadded winter garment and a cushion, makes them into a bundle, kisses the Mezuzeh, mutters farewell, and is off to the orchard.

As he nears the orchard his heart begins to beat loudly for joy, but he is hindered from going there at once. In the yard through which he must pass lies a dog. Later on, when Avròhom has got to know the dog, he will even take him into the orchard, but the first time there is a certain risk-one has to know a dog, otherwise it barks, and Avròhom dreads a bark worse than a bite-it goes through one's head! And Avròhom waits till the owner comes out, and leads him through by the hand.

"Back already?" exclaims the owner, laughing and astonished.

"Why not?" murmurs Avròhom, shamefacedly, and feeling that it is, indeed, early.

"What shall you do?" asks the owner, graver. "There is no hut there at all-last year's fell to pieces."

"Never mind, never mind," begs Avròhom, "it will be all right."

"Well, if you want to come!" and the owner shrugs his shoulders, and lets Avròhom into the orchard.

Avròhom immediately lays his bundle on the ground, stretches himself out full length on the grass, and murmurs, "Good! good!"

At last he is silent, and listens to the quiet rustle of the trees. It seems to him that the trees also wonder at his coming so soon, and he looks at them beseechingly, as though he would say:

"Trees-you, too! I couldn't help it ... it drew me...."

And soon he fancies that the trees have understood everything, and murmur, "Good, good!"

And Avròhom already feels at home in the orchard. He rises from the ground, and goes to every tree in turn, as though to make its acquaintance. Then he considers the hut that stands in the middle of the orchard.

It has fallen in a little certainly, but Avròhom is all the better pleased with it. He is not particularly fond of new, strong things, a building resembling a ruin is somehow much more to his liking. Such a ruin is inwardly full of secrets, whispers, and melodies. There the tears fall quietly, while the soul yearns after something that has no name and no existence in time or space. And Avròhom creeps into the fallen-in hut, where it is dark and where there are smells of another world. He draws himself up into a ball, and remains hid from everyone.

But to remain hid from the world is not so easy. At first it can be managed. So long as the fruit is ripening, he needs no one, and no one needs him. When one of his children brings him food, he exchanges a few words with it, asks what is going on at home, and how the mother is, and he feels he has done his duty, if, when obliged to go home, he spends there Friday night and Saturday morning. That over, and the hot stew eaten, he returns to the orchard, lies down under a tree, opens the Tales of Jerusalem, goes to sleep reading a fantastical legend, dreams of the Western Wall, Mother Rachel's Grave, the Cave of Machpelah, and other holy, quiet places-places where the air is full of old stories such as are given, in such easy Hebrew, in the Tales of Jerusalem.

But when the fruit is ripe, and the trees begin to bend under the burden of it, Avròhom must perforce leave his peaceful world, and become a trader.

When the first wind begins to blow in the orchard, and covers the ground thereof with apples and pears, Avròhom collects them, makes them into heaps, sorts them, and awaits the market-women with their loud tongues, who destroy all the peace and quiet of his Garden of Eden.

On Sabbath he would like to rest, but of a Sabbath the trade in apples-on tick of course-is very lively in the orchards. There is a custom in the town to that effect, and Avròhom cannot do away with it. Young gentlemen and young ladies come into the orchard, and hold a sort of revel; they sing and laugh, they walk and they chatter, and Avròhom must listen to it all, and bear it, and wait for the night, when he can creep back into his hut, and need look at no one but the trees, and hear nothing but the wind, and sometimes the rain and the thunder.

But it is worse in the autumn, when the fruit is getting over-ripe, and he can no longer remain in the orchard. With a bursting heart he bids farewell to the trees, to the hut in which he has spent so many quiet, peaceful moments. He conveys the apples to a shed belonging to the farm, which he has hired, ever since he had the orchard, for ten gulden a month, and goes back to the Gass.

In the Gass, at that time, there is mud and rain. Town Jews drag themselves along sick and disheartened. They cough and groan. Avròhom stares round him, and fails to recognize the world.

"Bad!" he mutters. "Fê!" and he spits. "Where is one to get to?"

And Avròhom recalls the beautiful legends in the Tales of Jerusalem, he recalls the land of Israel.

There he knows it is always summer, always warm and fine. And every autumn the vision draws him.

But there is no possibility of his being able to go there-he must sell the apples which he has brought from the orchard, and feed the wife and the children he has "outside the land." And all through the autumn and part of the winter, Avròhom drags himself about with a basket of apples on his arm and a yearning in his heart. He waits for the dear summer, when he will be able to go back and hide himself in the orchard, in the hut, and be alone, where the town mud and the town Jews with dulled senses shall be out of sight, and the week-day noise, out of hearing.

HIRSH DAVID NAUMBERG

Born, 1876, in Msczczonow, Government of Warsaw, Russian Poland, of Hasidic parentage; traditional Jewish education in the house of his grandfather; went to Warsaw in 1898; at present (1912) in America; first literary work appeared in 1900; writer of stories, etc., in Hebrew and Yiddish; co-editor of Ha-Zofeh, Der Freind, Ha-Boker; contributor to Ha-Zeman, Heint, Ha-Dor, Ha-Shiloah, etc.; collected works, 5 vols., Warsaw, 1908-1911.

THE RAV AND THE RAV'S SON

The Sabbath midday meal is over, and the Saken Rav passes his hands across his serene and pious countenance, pulls out both earlocks, straightens his skull-cap, and prepares to expound a passage of the Torah as God shall enlighten him. There sit with him at table, to one side of him, a passing guest, a Libavitch Chossid, like the Rav himself, a man with yellow beard and earlocks, and a grubby shirt collar appearing above the grubby yellow kerchief that envelopes his throat; to the other side of him, his son Sholem, an eighteen-year-old youth, with a long pale face, deep, rather dreamy eyes, a velvet hat, but no earlocks, a secret Maskil, who writes Hebrew verses, and contemplates growing into a great Jewish author. The Rebbetzin has been suffering two or three months with rheumatism, and lies in another room.

The Rav is naturally humble-minded, and it is no trifle to him to expound the Torah. To take a passage of the Bible and say, The meaning is this and that, is a thing he hasn't the cheek to do. It makes him feel as uncomfortable as if he were telling lies. Up to twenty-five years of age he was a Misnaggid, but under the influence of the Saken Rebbetzin, he became a Chossid, bit by bit. Now he is over fifty, he drives to the Rebbe, and comes home every time with increased faith in the latter's supernatural powers, and, moreover, with a strong desire to expound a little of the Torah himself; only, whenever a good idea comes into his head, it oppresses him, because he has not sufficient self-confidence to express it.

The difficulty for him lies in making a start. He would like to do as the Rebbe does (long life to him!)-give a push to his chair, a look, stern and somewhat angry, at those sitting at table, then a groaning sigh. But the Rav is ashamed to imitate him, or is partly afraid, lest people should catch him doing it. He drops his eyes, holds one hand to his forehead, while the other plays with the knife on the table, and one hardly hears:

"When thou goest forth to war with thine enemy-thine enemy-that is, the inclination to evil, oi, oi,-a-" he nods his head, gathers a little confidence, continues his explanation of the passage, and gradually warms to the part. He already looks the stranger boldly in the face. The stranger twists himself into a correct attitude, nods assent, but cannot for the life of him tear his gaze from the brandy-bottle on the table, and cannot wonder sufficiently at so much being allowed to remain in it at the end of a meal. And when the Rav comes to the fact that to be in "prison" means to have bad habits, and "well-favored woman" means that every bad habit has its good side, the guest can no longer restrain himself, seizes the bottle rather awkwardly, as though in haste, fills up his glass, spills a little onto the cloth, and drinks with his head thrown back, gulping it like a regular tippler, after a hoarse and sleepy "to your health." This has a bad effect on the Rav's enthusiasm, it "mixes his brains," and he turns to his son for help. To tell the truth, he has not much confidence in his son where the Law is concerned, although he loves him dearly, the boy being the only one of his children in whom he may hope, with God's help, to have comfort, and who, a hundred years hence, shall take over from him the office of Rav in Saken. The elder son is rich, but he is a usurer, and his riches give the Rav no satisfaction whatever. He had had one daughter, but she died, leaving some little orphans. Sholem is, therefore, the only one left him. He has a good head, and is quick at his studies, a quiet, well-behaved boy, a little obstinate, a bit opinionated, but that is no harm in a boy, thinks the old man. True, too, that last week people told him tales. Sholem, they said, read heretical books, and had been seen carrying "burdens" on Sabbath. But this the father does not believe, he will not and cannot believe it. Besides, Sholem is certain to have made amends. If a Talmid-Chochem commit a sin by day, it should be forgotten by nightfall, because a Talmid-Chochem makes amends, it says so in the Gemoreh.

However, the Rav is ashamed to give his own exegesis of the Law before his son, and he knows perfectly well that nothing will induce Sholem to drive with him to the Rebbe.

But the stranger and his brandy-drinking have so upset him that he now looks at his son in a piteous sort of way. "Hear me out, Sholem, what harm can it do you?" says his look.

Sholem draws himself up, and pulls in his chair, supports his head with both his hands, and gazes into his father's eyes out of filial duty. He loves his father, but in his heart he wonders at him; it seems to him his father ought to learn more about his heretical leanings-it is quite time he should-and he continues to gaze in silence and in wonder, not unmixed with compassion, and never ceases thinking, "Upon my word, Tate, what a simpleton you are!"

But when the Rav came in the course of his exposition to speak of "death by kissing" (by the Lord), and told how the righteous, the holy Tzaddikim, die from the very sweetness of the Blessed One's kiss, a spark kindled in Sholem's eyes, and he moved in his chair. One of those wonders had taken place which do frequently occur, only they are seldom remarked: the Chassidic exposition of the Torah had suggested to Sholem a splendid idea for a romantic poem!

It is an old commonplace that men take in, of what they hear and see, that which pleases them. Sholem is fascinated. He wishes to die anyhow, so what could be more appropriate and to the purpose than that his love should kiss him on his death-bed, while, in that very instant, his soul departs?

The idea pleased him so immensely that immediately after grace, the stranger having gone on his way, and the Rav laid himself down to sleep in the other room, Sholem began to write. His heart beat violently while he made ready, but the very act of writing out a poem after dinner on Sabbath, in the room where his father settled the cases laid before him by the townsfolk, was a bit of heroism well worth the risk. He took the writing-materials out of his locked box, and, the pen and ink-pot in one hand and a collection of manuscript verse in the other, he went on tiptoe to the table.

He folded back the table-cover, laid down his writing apparatus, and took another look around to make sure no one was in the room. He counted on the fact that when the Rav awoke from his nap, he always coughed, and that when he walked he shuffled so with his feet, and made so much noise with his long slippers, that one could hear him two rooms off. In short, there was no need to be anxious.

He grows calmer, reads the manuscript poems, and his face tells that he is pleased. Now he wants to collect his thoughts for the new one, but something or other hinders him. He unfastens the girdle, round his waist, rolls it up, and throws it into the Rav's soft stuffed chair.

And now that there is nothing to disturb from without, a second and third wonder must take place within: the Rav's Torah, which was transformed by Sholem's brain into a theme for romance, must now descend into his heart, thence to pour itself onto the paper, and pass, by this means, into the heads of Sholem's friends, who read his poems with enthusiasm, and have sinful dreams afterwards at night.

And he begins to imagine himself on his death-bed, sick and weak, unable to speak, and with staring eyes. He sees nothing more, but he feels a light, ethereal kiss on his cheek, and his soul is aware of a sweet voice speaking. He tries to take out his hands from under the coverlet, but he cannot-he is dying-it grows dark.

A still brighter and more unusual gleam comes into Sholem's eyes, his heart swells with emotion seeking an outlet, his brain works like running machinery, a whole dictionary of words, his whole treasure of conceptions and ideas, is turned over and over so rapidly that the mind is unconscious of its own efforts. His poetic instinct is searching for what it needs. His hand works quietly, forming letter on letter, word on word. Now and again Sholem lifts his eyes from the paper and looks round, he has a feeling as though the four walls and the silence were thinking to themselves: "Hush, hush! Disturb not the poet at his work of creation! Disturb not the priest about to offer sacrifice to God."

To the Rav, meanwhile, lying in the other room, there had come a fresh idea for the exposition of the Torah, and he required to look up something in a book. The door of the reception-room opened, the Rav entered, and Sholem had not heard him.

It was a pity to see the Rav's face, it was so contracted with dismay, and a pity to see Sholem's when he caught sight of his father, who, utterly taken aback, dropt into a seat exactly opposite Sholem, and gave a groan-was it? or a cry?

But he did not sit long, he did not know what one should do or say to one's son on such an occasion; his heart and his eyes inclined to weeping, and he retired into his own room. Sholem remained alone with a very sore heart and a soul opprest. He put the writing-materials back into their box, and went out with the manuscript verses tucked away under his Tallis-koton.

He went into the house-of-study, but it looked dreadfully dismal; the benches were pushed about anyhow, a sign that the last worshippers had been in a great hurry to go home to dinner. The beadle was snoring on a seat somewhere in a corner, as loud and as fast as if he were trying to inhale all the air in the building, so that the next congregation might be suffocated. The cloth on the platform reading-desk was crooked and tumbled, the floor was dirty, and the whole place looked as dead as though its Sabbath sleep were to last till the resurrection.

He left the house-of-study, walked home and back again; up and down, there and back, many times over. The situation became steadily clearer to him; he wanted to justify himself, if only with a word, in his father's eyes; then, again, he felt he must make an end, free himself once and for all from the paternal restraint, and become a Jewish author. Only he felt sorry for his father; he would have liked to do something to comfort him. Only what? Kiss him? Put his arms round his neck? Have his cry out before him and say, "Tatishe, you and I, we are neither of us to blame!" Only how to say it so that the old man shall understand? That is the question.

And the Rav sat in his room, bent over a book in which he would fain have lost himself. He rubbed his brow with both hands, but a stone lay on his heart, a heavy stone; there were tears in his eyes, and he was all but crying. He needed some living soul before whom he could pour out the bitterness of his heart, and he had already turned to the Rebbetzin:

"Zelde!" he called quietly.

"A-h," sighed the Rebbetzin from her bed. "I feel bad; my foot aches, Lord of the World! What is it?"

"Nothing, Zelde. How are you getting on, eh?" He got no further with her; he even mentally repented having so nearly added to her burden of life.

It was an hour or two before the Rav collected himself, and was able to think over what had happened. And still he could not, would not, believe that his son, Sholem, had broken the Sabbath, that he was worthy of being stoned to death. He sought for some excuse for him, and found none, and came at last to the conclusion that it was a work of Satan, a special onset of the Tempter. And he kept on thinking of the Chassidic legend of a Rabbi who was seen by a Chossid to smoke a pipe on Sabbath. Only it was an illusion, a deception of the Evil One. But when, after he had waited some time, no Sholem appeared, his heart began to beat more steadily, the reality of the situation made itself felt, he got angry, and hastily left the house in search of the Sabbath-breaker, intending to make an example of him.

Hardly, however, had he perceived his son walking to and fro in front of the house-of-study, with a look of absorption and worry, than he stopped short. He was afraid to go up to his son. Just then Sholem turned, they saw each other, and the Rav had willy-nilly to approach him.

"Will you come for a little walk?" asked the Rav gently, with downcast eyes. Sholem made no reply, and followed him.

They came to the Eruv, the Rav looked in all his pockets, found his handkerchief, tied it round his neck, and glanced at his son with a kind of prayer in his eye. Sholem tied his handkerchief round his neck.

When they were outside the town, the old man coughed once and again and said:

"What is all this?"

But Sholem was determined not to answer a word, and his father had to summon all his courage to continue:

"What is all this? Eh? Sabbath-breaking! It is-"

He coughed and was silent.

They were walking over a great, broad meadow, and Sholem had his gaze fixed on a horse that was moving about with hobbled legs, while the Rav shaded his eyes with one hand from the beams of the setting sun.

"How can anyone break the Sabbath? Come now, is it right? Is it a thing to do? Just to go and break the Sabbath! I knew Hebrew grammar, and could write Hebrew, too, once upon a time, but break the Sabbath! Tell me yourself, Sholem, what you think! When you have bad thoughts, how is it you don't come to your father? I suppose I am your father, ha?" the old man suddenly fired up. "Am I your father? Tell me-no? Am I perhaps not your father?"

"For I am his father," he reflected proudly. "That I certainly am, there isn't the smallest doubt about it! The greatest heretic could not deny it!"

"You come to your father," he went on with more decision, and falling into a Gemoreh chant, "and you tell him all about it. What harm can it do to tell him? No harm whatever. I also used to be tempted by bad thoughts. Therefore I began driving to the Rebbe of Libavitch. One mustn't let oneself go! Do you hear me, Sholem? One mustn't let oneself go!"

The last words were long drawn out, the Rav emphasizing them with his hands and wrinkling his forehead. Carried away by what he was saying, he now felt all but sure that Sholem had not begun to be a heretic.

"You see," he continued very gently, "every now and then we come to a stumbling-block, but all the same, we should not-"

Meantime, however, the manuscript folio of verses had been slipping out from under Sholem's Four-Corners, and here it fell to the ground. The Rav stood staring, as though startled out of a sweet dream by the cry of "fire." He quivered from top to toe, and seized his earlocks with both hands. For there could be no doubt of the fact that Sholem had now broken the Sabbath a second time-by carrying the folio outside the town limit. And worse still, he had practiced deception, by searching his pockets when they had come to the Eruv, as though to make sure not to transgress by having anything inside them.

Sholem, too, was taken by surprise. He hung his head, and his eyes filled with tears. The old man was about to say something, probably to begin again with "What is all this?" Then he hastily stopt and snatched up the folio, as though he were afraid Sholem might get hold of it first.

"Ha-ha-azoi!" he began panting. "Azoi! A heretic! A Goi."

But it was hard for him to speak. He might not move from where he stood, so long as he held the papers, it being outside the Eruv. His ankles were giving way, and he sat down to have a look at the manuscript.

"Aha! Writing!" he exclaimed as he turned the leaves. "Come here to me," he called to Sholem, who had moved a few steps aside. Sholem came and stood obediently before him. "What is this?" asked the Rav, sternly.

"Poems!"

"What do you mean by poems? What is the good of them?" He felt that he was growing weak again, and tried to stiffen himself morally. "What is the good of them, heretic, tell me!"

"They're just meant to read, Tatishe!"

"What do you mean by 'read'? A Jeroboam son of Nebat, that's what you want to be, is it? A Jeroboam son of Nebat, to lead others into heresy! No! I won't have it! On no account will I have it!"

The sun had begun to disappear; it was full time to go home; but the Rav did not know what to do with the folio. He was afraid to leave it in the field, lest Sholem or another should pick it up later, so he got up and began to recite the Afternoon Prayer. Sholem remained standing in his place, and tried to think of nothing and to do nothing.

The old man finished "Sacrifices," tucked the folio into his girdle, and, without moving a step, looked at Sholem, who did not move either.

"Say the Afternoon Prayer, Shegetz!" commanded the old man.

Sholem began to move his lips. And the Rav felt, as he went on with the prayer, that this anger was cooling down. Before he came to the Eighteen Benedictions, he gave another look at his son, and it seemed madness to think of him as a heretic, to think that Sholem ought by rights to be thrown into a ditch and stoned to death.

Sholem, for his part, was conscious for the first time of his father's will: for the first time in his life, he not only loved his father, but was in very truth subject to him.

The flaming red sun dropt quietly down behind the horizon just before the old man broke down with emotion over "Thou art One," and took the sky and the earth to witness that God is One and His Name is One, and His people Israel one nation on the earth, to whom He gave the Sabbath for a rest and an inheritance. The Rav wept and swallowed his tears, and his eyes were closed. Sholem, on the other hand, could not take his eye off the manuscript that stuck out of his father's girdle, and it was all he could do not to snatch it and run away.

They said nothing on the way home in the dark, they might have been coming from a funeral. But Sholem's heart beat fast, for he knew his father would throw the manuscript into the fire, where it would be burnt, and when they came to the door of their house, he stopped his father, and said in a voice eloquent of tears:

"Give it me back, Tatishe, please give it me back!"

And the Rav gave it him back without looking him in the face, and said:

"Look here, only don't tell Mother! She is ill, she mustn't be upset. She is ill, not of you be it spoken!"

MEYER BLINKIN

Born, 1879, in a village near Pereyaslav, Government of Poltava, Little Russia, of Hasidic parentage; educated in Kieff, where he acquired the trade of carpenter in order to win the right of residence; studied medicine; began to write in 1906; came to New York in 1908; writer of stories to the number of about fifty, which have been published in various periodicals; wrote also Der Sod, and Dr. Makower.

WOMEN

A Prose Poem

Hedged round with tall, thick woods, as though designedly, so that no one should know what happens there, lies the long-drawn-out old town of Pereyaslav.

To the right, connected with Pereyaslav by a wooden bridge, lies another bit of country, named-Pidvorkes.

The town itself, with its long, narrow, muddy streets, with the crowded houses propped up one against the other like tombstones, with their meagre grey walls all to pieces, with the broken window-panes stuffed with rags-well, the town of Pereyaslav was hardly to be distinguished from any other town inhabited by Jews.

Here, too, people faded before they bloomed. Here, too, men lived on miracles, were fruitful and multiplied out of all season and reason. They talked of a livelihood, of good times, of riches and pleasures, with the same appearance of firm conviction, and, at the same time the utter disbelief, with which one tells a legend read in a book.

And they really supposed these terms to be mere inventions of the writers of books and nothing more! For not only were they incapable of a distinct conception of their real meaning, but some had even given up the very hope of ever being able to earn so much as a living, and preferred not to reach out into the world with their thoughts, straining them for nothing, that is, for the sake of a thing so plainly out of the question as a competence. At night the whole town was overspread by a sky which, if not grey with clouds, was of a troubled and washed-out blue. But the people were better off than by day. Tired out, overwrought, exhausted, prematurely aged as they were, they sought and found comfort in the lap of the dreamy, secret, inscrutable night. Their misery was left far behind, and they felt no more grief and pain.

An unknown power hid everything from them as though with a thick, damp, stone wall, and they heard and saw nothing.

They did not hear the weak voices, like the mewing of blind kittens, of their pining children, begging all day for food as though on purpose-as though they knew there was none to give them. They did not hear the sighs and groans of their friends and neighbors, filling the air with the hoarse sound of furniture dragged across the floor; they did not see, in sleep, Death-from-hunger swing quivering, on threads of spider-web, above their heads.

Even the little fires that flickered feverishly on their hearths, and testified to the continued existence of breathing men, even these they saw no longer. Silence cradled everything to sleep, extinguished it, and caused it to be forgotten.

Hardly, however, was it dawn, hardly had the first rays pierced beneath the closed eyelids, before a whole world of misery awoke and came to life again.

The frantic cries of hundreds of starving children, despairing exclamations and imprecations and other piteous sounds filled the air. One gigantic curse uncoiled and crept from house to house, from door to door, from mouth to mouth, and the population began to move, to bestir themselves, to run hither and thither.

Half-naked, with parched bones and shrivelled skin, with sunken yet burning eyes, they crawled over one another like worms in a heap, fastened on to the bites in each other's mouth, and tore them away-

But this is summer, and they are feeling comparatively cheerful, bold, and free in their movements. They are stifled and suffocated, they are in a melting-pot with heat and exhaustion, but there are counter-balancing advantages; one can live for weeks at a time without heating the stove; indeed, it is pleasanter indoors without fire, and lighting will cost very little, now the evenings are short.

In winter it was different. An inclement sky, an enfeebled sun, a sick day, and a burning, biting frost!

People, too, were different. A bitterness came over them, and they went about anxious and irritable, with hanging head, possessed by gloomy despair. It never even occurred to them to tear their neighbor's bite out of his mouth, so depressed and preoccupied did they become. The days were months, the evenings years, and the weeks-oh! the weeks were eternities!

And no one knew of their misery but the winter wind that tore at their roofs and howled in their all but smokeless chimneys like one bewitched, like a lost soul condemned to endless wandering.

But there were bright stars in the abysmal darkness; their one pride and consolation were the Pidvorkes, the inhabitants of the aforementioned district of that name. Was it a question of the upkeep of a Reader or of a bath, the support of a burial-society, of a little hospital or refuge, a Rabbi, of providing Sabbath loaves for the poor, flour for the Passover, the dowry of a needy bride-the Pidvorkes were ready! The sick and lazy, the poverty-stricken and hopeless, found in them support and protection. The Pidvorkes! They were an inexhaustible well that no one had ever found to fail them, unless the Pidvorke husbands happened to be present, on which occasion alone one came away with empty hands.

The fair fame of the Pidvorkes extended beyond Pereyaslav to all poor towns in the neighborhood. Talk of husbands-they knew about the Pidvorkes a hundred miles round; the least thing, and they pointed out to their wives how they should take a lesson from the Pidvorke women, and then they would be equally rich and happy.

It was not because the Pidvorkes had, within their border, great, green velvety hills and large gardens full of flowers that they had reason to be proud, or others, to be proud of them; not because wide fields, planted with various kinds of corn, stretched for miles around them, the delicate ears swaying in sunshine and wind; not even because there flowed round the Pidvorkes a river so transparent, so full of the reflection of the sky, you could not decide which was the bluest of the two. Pereyaslav at any rate was not affected by any of these things, perhaps knew nothing of them, and certainly did not wish to know anything, for whoso dares to let his mind dwell on the like, sins against God. Is it a Jewish concern? A townful of men who have a God, and religious duties to perform, with reward and punishment, who have that world to prepare for, and a wife and children in this one, people must be mad (of the enemies of Zion be it said!) to stare at the sky, the fields, the river, and all the rest of it-things which a man on in years ought to blush to talk about.

No, they are proud of the Pidvorke women, and parade them continually. The Pidvorke women are no more attractive, no taller, no cleverer than others. They, too, bear children and suckle them, one a year, after the good old custom; neither are they more thought of by their husbands. On the contrary, they are the best abused and tormented women going, and herein lies their distinction.

They put up, with the indifference of all women alike, to the belittling to which they are subjected by their husbands; they swallow their contempt by the mouthful without a reproach, and yet they are exceptions; and yet they are distinguished from all other women, as the rushing waters of the Dnieper from the stagnant pools in the marsh.

About five in the morning, when the men-folk turn in bed, and bury their faces in the white feather pillows, emitting at the same time strange, broken sounds through their big, stupid, red noses-at this early hour their wives have transacted half-a-day's business in the market-place. Dressed in short, light skirts with blue aprons, over which depends on their left a large leather pocket for the receiving of coin and the giving out of change-one cannot be running every minute to the cash-box-they stand in their shops with miscellaneous ware, and toil hard. They weigh and measure, buy and sell, and all this with wonderful celerity. There stands one of them by herself in a shop, and tries to persuade a young, barefoot peasant woman to buy the printed cotton she offers her, although the customer only wants a red cotton with a large, flowery pattern. She talks without a pause, declaring that the young peasant may depend upon her, she would not take her in for the world, and, indeed, to no one else would she sell the article so cheap. But soon her eye catches two other women pursuing a peasant man, and before even making out whether he has any wares with him or not, she leaves her customer and joins them. If they run, she feels so must she. The peasant is sure to be wanting grease or salt, and that may mean ten kopeks' unexpected gain. Meantime she is not likely to lose her present customer, fascinated as the latter must be by her flow of speech.

So she leaves her, and runs after the peasant, who is already surrounded by a score of women, shrieking, one louder than the other, praising their ware to the skies, and each trying to make him believe that he and she are old acquaintances. But presently the tumult increases, there is a cry, "Cheap fowls, who wants cheap fowls?" Some rich landholder has sent out a supply of fowls to sell, and all the women swing round towards the fowls, keeping a hold on the peasant's cart with their left hand, so that you would think they wanted to drag peasant, horse, and cart along with them. They bargain for a few minutes with the seller of fowls, and advise him not to be obstinate and to take their offers, else he will regret it later.

Suddenly a voice thunders, "The peasants are coming!" and they throw themselves as for dear life upon the cart-loads of produce; they run as though to a conflagration, get under each other's feet, their eyes glisten as though they each wanted to pull the whole market aside. There is a shrieking and scolding, until one or another gets the better of the rest, and secures the peasant's wares. Then only does each woman remember that she has customers waiting in her shop, and she runs in with a beaming smile and tells them that, as they have waited so long, they shall be served with the best and the most beautiful of her store.

By eight o'clock in the morning, when the market is over, when they have filled all the bottles left with them by their customers, counted up the change and their gains, and each one has slipped a coin into her knotted handkerchief, so that her husband should not know of its existence (one simply must! One is only human-one is surely not expected to wrangle with him about every farthing?)-then, when there is nothing more to be done in the shops, they begin to gather in knots, and every one tells at length the incidents and the happy strokes of business of the day. They have forgotten all the bad luck they wished each other, all the abuse they exchanged, while the market was in progress; they know that "Parnosseh is Parnosseh," and bear no malice, or, if they do, it is only if one has spoken unkindly of another during a period of quiet, on a Sabbath or a holiday.

Each talks with a special enthusiasm, and deep in her sunken eyes with their blue-black rings there burns a proud, though tiny, fire, as she recalls how she got the better of a customer, and sold something which she had all but thrown away, and not only sold it, but better than usual; or else they tell how late their husbands sleep, and then imagine their wives are still in bed, and set about waking them, "It's time to get up for the market," and they at once pretend to be sleepy-then, when they have already been and come back!

And very soon a voice is heard to tremble with pleasant excitement, and a woman begins to relate the following:

"Just you listen to me: I was up to-day when God Himself was still asleep."-"That is not the way to talk, Sheine!" interrupts a second.-"Well, well, well?" (there is a good deal of curiosity). "And what happened?"-"It was this way: I went out quietly, so that no one should hear, not to wake them, because when Lezer went to bed, it was certainly one o'clock. There was a dispute of some sort at the Rabbi's. You can imagine how early it was, because I didn't even want to wake Soreh, otherwise she always gets up when I do (never mind, it won't hurt her to learn from her mother!). And at half past seven, when I saw there were no more peasants coming in to market, I went to see what was going on indoors. I heard my man calling me to wake up: 'Sheine, Sheine, Sheine!' and I go quietly and lean against the bed, and wait to hear what will happen next. 'Look here!-There is no waking her!-Sheine! It's getting-up time and past! Are you deaf or half-witted? What's come to you this morning?' I was so afraid I should laugh. I gave a jump and called out, O woe is me, why ever didn't you wake me sooner? Bandit! It's already eight o'clock!"

Her hearers go off into contented laughter, which grows clearer, softer, more contented still. Each one tells her tale of how she was wakened by her husband, and one tells this joke: Once, when her husband had called to rouse her (he also usually woke her after market), she answered that on that morning she did not intend to get up for market, that he might go for once instead. This apparently pleases them still better, for their laughter renews itself, more spontaneous and hearty even than before. Each makes a witty remark, each feels herself in merry mood, and all is cheerfulness.

They would wax a little more serious only when they came to talk of their daughters. A woman would begin by trying to recall her daughter's age, and beg a second one to help her remember when the girl was born, so that she might not make a mistake in the calculation. And when it came to one that had a daughter of sixteen, the mother fell into a brown study; she felt herself in a very, very critical position, because when a girl comes to that age, one ought soon to marry her. And there is really nothing to prevent it: money enough will be forthcoming, only let the right kind of suitor present himself, one, that is, who shall insist on a well-dowered bride, because otherwise-what sort of a suitor do you call that? She will have enough to live on, they will buy a shop for her, she is quite capable of managing it-only let Heaven send a young man of acceptable parentage, so that one's husband shall have no need to blush with shame when he is asked about his son-in-law's family and connections.

And this is really what they used to do, for when their daughters were sixteen, they gave them in marriage, and at twenty the daughters were "old," much-experienced wives. They knew all about teething, chicken-pox, measles, and more besides, even about croup. If a young mother's child fell ill, she hastened to her bosom crony, who knew a lot more than she, having been married one whole year or two sooner, and got advice as to what should be done.

The other would make close inquiry whether the round swellings about the child's neck increased in size and wandered, that is, appeared at different times and different places, in which case it was positively nothing serious, but only the tonsils. But if they remained in one place and grew larger, the mother must lose no time, but must run to the doctor.

Their daughters knew that they needed to lay by money, not only for a dowry, but because a girl ought to have money of her own. They knew as well as their mothers that a bridegroom would present himself and ask a lot of money (the best sign of his being the right sort!), and they prayed God for the same without ceasing.

No sooner were they quit of household matters than they went over to the discussion of their connections and alliances-it was the greatest pleasure they had.

The fact that their children, especially their daughters, were so discreet that not one (to speak in a good hour and be silent in a bad!) had as yet ever (far be it from the speaker to think of such a thing!) given birth to a bastard, as was known to happen in other places-this was the crowning point of their joy and exultation.

It even made up to them for the other fact, that they never got a good word from their husbands for their hard, unnatural toil.

And as they chat together, throwing in the remark that "the apple never falls far from the tree," that their daughters take after them in everything, the very wrinkles vanish from their shrivelled faces, a spring of refreshment and blessedness wells up in their hearts, they are lifted above their cares, a feeling of relaxation comes over them, as though a soothing balsam had penetrated their strained and weary limbs.

Meantime the daughters have secrets among themselves. They know a quantity of interesting things that have happened in their quarter, but no one else gets to know of them; they are imparted more with the eyes than with the lips, and all is quiet and confidential.

And if the great calamity had not now befallen the Pidvorkes, had it not stretched itself, spread its claws with such an evil might, had the shame not been so deep and dreadful, all might have passed off quietly as always. But the event was so extraordinary, so cruelly unique-such a thing had not happened since girls were girls, and bridegrooms, bridegrooms, in the Pidvorkes-that it inevitably became known to all. Not (preserve us!) to the men-they know of nothing, and need to know of nothing-only to the women. But how much can anyone keep to oneself? It will rise to the surface, and lie like oil on the water.

From early morning on the women have been hissing and steaming, bubbling and boiling over. They are not thinking of Parnosseh; they have forgotten all about Parnosseh; they are in such a state, they have even forgotten about themselves. There is a whole crowd of them packed like herrings, and all fire and flame. But the male passer-by hears nothing of what they say, he only sees the troubled faces and the drooping heads; they are ashamed to look into one another's eyes, as though they themselves were responsible for the great affliction. An appalling misfortune, an overwhelming sense of shame, a yellow-black spot on their reputation weighs them to the ground. Uncleanness has forced itself into their sanctuary and defiled it; and now they seek a remedy, and means to save themselves, like one drowning; they want to heal the plague spot, to cover it up, so that no one shall find it out. They stand and think, and wrinkle the brows so used to anxiety; their thoughts evolve rapidly, and yet no good result comes of it, no one sees a way of escape out of the terrifying net in which the worst of all evil has entangled them. Should a stranger happen to come upon them now, one who has heard of them, but never seen them, he would receive a shock. The whole of Pidvorkes looks quite different, the women, the streets, the very sun shines differently, with pale and narrow beams, which, instead of cheering, seem to burden the heart.

The little grey-curled clouds with their ragged edges, which have collected somewhere unbeknown, and race across the sky, look down upon the women, and whisper among themselves. Even the old willows, for whom the news is no novelty, for many more and more complicated mysteries have come to their knowledge, even they look sad, while the swallows, by the depressed and gloomy air with which they skim the water, plainly express their opinion, which is no other than this: God is punishing the Pidvorkes for their great sin, what time they carried fire in their beaks, long ago, to destroy the Temple.

God bears long with people's iniquity, but he rewards in full at the last.

The peasants driving slowly to market, unmolested and unobstructed, neither dragged aside nor laid forcible hold of, were singularly disappointed. They began to think the Jews had left the place.

And the women actually forgot for very trouble that it was market-day. They stood with hands folded, and turned feverishly to every newcomer. What does she say to it? Perhaps she can think of something to advise.

No one answered; they could not speak; they had nothing to say; they only felt that a great wrath had been poured out on them, heavy as lead, that an evil spirit had made its way into their life, and was keeping them in a perpetual state of terror; and that, were they now to hold their peace, and not make an end, God Almighty only knows what might come of it! No one felt certain that to-morrow or the day after the same thunderbolt might not fall on another of them.

Somebody made a movement in the crowd, and there was a sudden silence, as though all were preparing to listen to a weak voice, hardly louder than stillness itself. Their eyes widened, their faces were contracted with annoyance and a consciousness of insult. Their hearts beat faster, but without violence. Suddenly there was a shock, a thrill, and they looked round with startled gaze, to see whence it came, and what was happening. And they saw a woman forcing her way frantically through the crowd, her hands working, her lips moving as in fever, her eyes flashing fire, and her voice shaking as she cried: "Come on and see me settle them! First I shall thrash him, and then I shall go for her! We must make a cinder-heap of them; it's all we can do."

She was a tall, bony woman, with broad shoulders, who had earned for herself the nickname Cossack, by having, with her own hands, beaten off three peasants who wanted to strangle her husband, he, they declared, having sold them by false weight-it was the first time he had ever tried to be of use to her.

"But don't shout so, Breindel!" begged a woman's voice.

"What do you mean by 'don't shout'! Am I going to hold my tongue? Never you mind, I shall take no water into my mouth. I'll teach them, the apostates, to desecrate the whole town!"

"But don't shout so!" beg several more.

Breindel takes no notice. She clenches her right fist, and, fighting the air with it, she vociferates louder than ever:

"What has happened, women? What are you frightened of? Look at them, if they are not all a little afraid! That's what brings trouble. Don't let us be frightened, and we shall spare ourselves in the future. We shall not be in terror that to-morrow or the day after (they had best not live to hear of it, sweet Father in Heaven!) another of us should have this come upon her!"

Breindel's last words made a great impression. The women started as though someone had poured cold water over them without warning. A few even began to come forward in support of Breindel's proposal. Soreh Leoh said: She advised going, but only to him, the bridegroom, and telling him not to give people occasion to laugh, and not to cause distress to her parents, and to agree to the wedding's taking place to-day or to-morrow, before anything happened, and to keep quiet.

"I say, he shall not live to see it; he shall not be counted worthy to have us come begging favors of him!" cried an angry voice.

But hereupon rose that of a young woman from somewhere in the crowd, and all the others began to look round, and no one knew who it was speaking. At first the young voice shook, then it grew firmer and firmer, so that one could hear clearly and distinctly what was said:

"You might as well spare yourselves the trouble of talking about a thrashing; it's all nonsense; besides, why add to her parents' grief by going to them? Isn't it bad enough for them already? If we really want to do something, the best would be to say nothing to anybody, not to get excited, not to ask anybody's help, and let us make a collection out of our own pockets. Never mind! God will repay us twice what we give. Let us choose out two of us, to take him the money quietly, so that no one shall know, because once a whisper of it gets abroad, it will be carried over seven seas in no time; you know that walls have ears, and streets, eyes."

The women had been holding their breath and looking with pleasurable pride at young Malkehle, married only two months ago and already so clever! The great thick wall of dread and shame against which they had beaten their heads had retreated before Malkehle's soft words; they felt eased; the world grew lighter again. Every one felt envious in her heart of hearts of her to whose apt and golden speech they had just listened. Everyone regretted that such an excellent plan had not occurred to herself. But they soon calmed down, for after all it was a sister who had spoken, one of their own Pidvorkes. They had never thought that Malkehle, though she had been considered clever as a girl, would take part in their debate; and they began to work out a plan for getting together the necessary money, only so quietly that not a cock should crow.

And now their perplexities began! Not one of them could give such a great sum, and even if they all clubbed together, it would still be impossible. They could manage one hundred, two hundred, three hundred rubles, but the dowry was six hundred, and now he says, that unless they give one thousand, he will break off the engagement. What, says he, there will be a summons out against him? Very likely! He will just risk it. The question went round: Who kept a store in a knotted handkerchief, hidden from her husband? They each had such a store, but were all the contents put together, the half of the sum would not be attained, not by a long way.

And again there arose a tempest, a great confusion of women's tongues. Part of the crowd started with fiery eloquence to criticise their husbands, the good-for-nothings, the slouching lazybones; they proved that as their husbands did nothing to earn money, but spent all their time "learning," there was no need to be afraid of them; and if once in a way they wanted some for themselves, nobody had the right to say them nay. Others said that the husbands were, after all, the elder, one must and should ask their advice! They were wiser and knew best, and why should they, the women (might the words not be reckoned as a sin!), be wiser than the rest of the world put together? And others again cried that there was no need that they should divorce their husbands because a girl was with child, and the bridegroom demanded the dowry twice over.

The noise increased, till there was no distinguishing one voice from another, till one could not make out what her neighbor was saying: she only knew that she also must shriek, scold, and speak her mind. And who knows what would have come of it, if Breindel-Cossack, with her powerful gab, had not begun to shout, that she and Malkehle had a good idea, which would please everyone very much, and put an end to the whole dispute.

All became suddenly dumb; there was a tense silence, as at the first of the two recitals of the Eighteen Benedictions; the women only cast inquiring looks at Malkehle and Breindel, who both felt their cheeks hot. Breindel, who, ever since the wise Malkehle had spoken such golden words, had not left her side, now stepped forward, and her voice trembled with emotion and pleasant excitement as she said: "Malkehle and I think like this: that we ought to go to Chavvehle, she being so wise and so well-educated, a doctor's wife, and tell her the whole story from beginning to end, so that she may advise us, and if you are ashamed to speak to her yourselves, you should leave it to us two, only on the condition that you go with us. Don't be frightened, she is kind; she will listen to us."

A faint smile, glistening like diamond dust, shone on all faces; their eyes brightened and their shoulders straightened, as though just released from a heavy burden. They all knew Chavvehle for a good and gracious woman, who was certain to give them some advice; she did many such kindnesses without being asked; she had started the school, and she taught their children for nothing; she always accompanied her husband on his visits to the sick-room, and often left a coin of her own money behind to buy a fowl for the invalid. It was even said that she had written about them in the newspapers! She was very fond of them. When she talked with them, her manner was simple, as though they were her equals, and she would ask them all about everything, like any plain Jewish housewife. And yet they were conscious of a great distance between them and Chavveh. They would have liked Chavveh to hear nothing of them but what was good, to stand justified in her eyes as (ten times lehavdil) in those of a Christian. They could not have told why, but the feeling was there.

They are proud of Chavveh; it is an honor for them each and all (and who are they that they should venture to pretend to it?) to possess such a Chavveh, who was highly spoken of even by rich Gentiles. Hence this embarrassed smile at the mention of her name; she would certainly advise, but at the same time they avoided each other's look. The wise Malkeh had the same feeling, but she was able to cheer the rest. Never mind! It doesn't matter telling her. She is a Jewish daughter, too, and will keep it to herself. These things happen behind the "high windows" also. Whereupon they all breathed more freely, and went up the hill to Chavveh. They went in serried ranks, like soldiers, shoulder to shoulder, relief and satisfaction reflected in their faces. All who met them made way for them, stood aside, and wondered what it meant. Some of their own husbands even stood and looked at the marching women, but not one dared to go up to them and ask what was doing. Their object grew dearer to them at every step. A settled resolve and a deep sense of goodwill to mankind urged them on. They all felt that they were going in a good cause, and would thereby bar the road to all such occurrences in the future.

The way to Chavveh was long. She lived quite outside the Pidvorkes, and they had to go through the whole market-place with the shops, which stood close to one another, as though they held each other by the hand, and then only through narrow lanes of old thatched peasant huts, with shy little window-panes. But beside nearly every hut stood a couple of acacia-trees, and the foam-white blossoms among the young green leaves gave a refreshing perfume to the neighborhood. Emerging from the streets, they proceeded towards a pretty hill planted with pink-flowering quince-trees. A small, clear stream flowed below it to the left, so deceptively clear that it reflected the hillside in all its natural tints. You had to go quite close in order to make sure it was only a delusion, when the stream met your gaze as seriously as though there were no question of it at all.

On the top of the hill stood Chavveh's house, adorned like a bride, covered with creepers and quinces, and with two large lamps under white glass shades, upheld in the right hands of two statues carved in white marble. The distance had not wearied them; they had walked and conversed pleasantly by the way, each telling a story somewhat similar to the one that had occasioned their present undertaking.

"Do you know," began Shifreh, the wholesale dealer, "mine tried to play me a trick with the dowry, too? It was immediately before the ceremony, and he insisted obstinately that unless a silver box and fifty rubles were given to him in addition to what had been promised to him, he would not go under the marriage canopy!"

"Well, if it hadn't been Zorah, it would have been Chayyim Treitel," observed some one, ironically.

They all laughed, but rather weakly, just for the sake of laughing; not one of them really wished to part from her husband, even in cases where he disliked her, and they quarrelled. No indignity they suffered at their husbands' hands could hurt them so deeply as a wish on his part to live separately. After all they are man and wife. They quarrel and make it up again.

And when they spied Chavvehle's house in the distance, they all cried out joyfully, with one accord:

"There is Chavvehle's house!" Once more they forgot about themselves; they were filled with enthusiasm for the common cause, and with a pain that will lie forever at their heart should they not do all that sinful man is able.

The wise Malkehle's heart beat faster than anyone's. She had begun to consider how she should speak to Chavvehle, and although apt, incisive phrases came into her head, one after another, she felt that she would never be able to come out with them in Chavvehle's presence; were it not for the other women's being there, she would have felt at her ease.

All of a sudden a voice exclaimed joyfully, "There we are at the house!" All lifted their heads, and their eyes were gladdened by the sight of the tall flowers arranged about a round table, in the shelter of a widely-branching willow, on which there shone a silver samovar. In and out of the still empty tea-glasses there stole beams of the sinking sun, as it dropt lower and lower behind the now dark-blue hill.

"What welcome guests!" Chavveh met them with a sweet smile, and her eyes awoke answering love and confidence in the women's hearts.

Not a glance, not a movement betrayed surprise on Chavvehle's part, any more than if she had been expecting them everyone.

They felt that she was behaving like any sage, and were filled with a sense of guilt towards her.

Chavvehle excused herself to one or two other guests who were present, and led the women into her summer-parlor, for she had evidently understood that what they had come to say was for her ears only.

They wanted to explain at once, but they couldn't, and the two who of all found it hardest to speak were the selected spokeswomen, Breindel-Cossack and Malkehle the wise. Chavvehle herself tried to lead them out of their embarrassment.

"You evidently have something important to tell me," she said, "for otherwise one does not get a sight of you."

And now it seemed more difficult than ever, it seemed impossible ever to tell the angelic Chavvehle of the bad action about which they had come. They all wished silently that their children might turn out one-tenth as good as she was, and their impulse was to take Chavvehle into their arms, kiss her and hug her, and cry a long, long time on her shoulder; and if she cried with them, it would be so comforting.

Chavvehle was silent. Her great, wide-open blue eyes grew more and more compassionate as she gazed at the faces of her sisters; it seemed as though they were reading for themselves the sorrowful secret the women had come to impart.

And the more they were impressed with her tactful behavior, and the more they felt the kindness of her gaze, the more annoyed they grew with themselves, the more tongue-tied they became. The silence was so intense as to be almost seen and felt. The women held their breath, and only exchanged roundabout glances, to find out what was going on in each other's mind; and they looked first of all at the two who had undertaken to speak, while the latter, although they did not see this, felt as if every one's gaze was fixed upon them, wondering why they were silent and holding all hearts by a thread.

Chavvehle raised her head, and spoke sweetly:

"Well, dear sisters, tell me a little of what it is about. Do you want my help in any matter? I should be so glad--"

"Dear sisters" she called them, and lightning-like it flashed through their hearts that Chavveh was, indeed, their sister. How could they feel otherwise when they had it from Chavveh herself? Was she not one of their own people? Had she not the same God? True, her speech was a little strange to them, and she was not overpious, but how should God be angry with such a Chavveh as this? If it must be, let him punish them for her sin; they would willingly suffer in her place.

The sun had long set; the sky was grey, save for one red streak, and the room had grown dark. Chavvehle rose to light the candles, and the women started and wiped their tearful eyes, so that Chavveh should not remark them. Chavveh saw the difficulty they had in opening their hearts to her, and she began to speak to them of different things, offered them refreshment according to their several tastes, and now Malkehle felt a little more courageous, and managed to say:

"No, good, kind Chavvehle, we are not hungry. We have come to consult with you on a very important matter!"

And then Breindel tried hard to speak in a soft voice, but it sounded gruff and rasping:

"First of all, Chavveh, we want you to speak to us in Yiddish, not in Polish. We are all Jewish women, thank God, together!"

Chavvehle, who had nodded her head during the whole of Breindel's speech, made another motion of assent with her silken eyebrows, and replied:

"I will talk Yiddish to you with pleasure, if that is what you prefer."

"The thing is this, Chavvehle," began Shifreh, the wholesale dealer, "it is a shame and a sorrow to tell, but when the thunderbolt has fallen, one must speak. You know Rochel Esther Leoh's. She is engaged, and the wedding was to have been in eight weeks-and now she, the good-for-nothing, is with child-and he, the son of perdition, says now that if he isn't given more than five hundred rubles, he won't take her--"

Chavvehle was deeply troubled by their words. She saw how great was their distress, and found, to her regret, that she had little to say by way of consolation.

"I feel with you," she said, "in your pain. But do not be so dismayed. It is certainly very bad news, but these things will happen, you are not the first--"

She wanted to say more, but did not know how to continue.

"But what are we to do?" asked several voices at once. "That is what we came to you for, dearie, for you to advise us. Are we to give him all the money he asks, or shall they both know as much happiness as we know what to do else? Or are we to hang a stone round our necks and drown ourselves for shame? Give us some advice, dear, help us!"

Then Chavvehle understood that it was not so much the women who were speaking and imploring, as their stricken hearts, their deep shame and grief, and it was with increased sympathy that she answered them:

"What can I say to help you, dear sisters? You have certainly not deserved this blow; you have enough to bear as it is-things ought to have turned out quite differently; but now that the misfortune has happened, one must be brave enough not to lose one's head, and not to let such a thing happen again, so that it should be the first and last time! But what exactly you should do, I cannot tell you, because I don't know! Only if you should want my help or any money, I will give you either with the greatest pleasure."

They understood each other--

The women parted with Chavveh in great gladness, and turned towards home conscious of a definite purpose. Now they all felt they knew just what to do, and were sure it would prevent all further misfortune and disgrace.

They could have sung out for joy, embraced the hill, the stream, the peasant huts, and kissed and fondled them all together. Mind you, they had even now no definite plan of action, it was just Chavvehle's sympathy that had made all the difference-feeling that Chavveh was with them! Wrapped in the evening mist, they stepped vigorously and cheerily homewards.

Gradually the speed and the noise of their march increased, the air throbbed, and at last a high, sharp voice rose above the rest, whereupon they grew stiller, and the women listened.

"I tell you what, we won't beat them. Only on Sabbath we must all come together like one man, break into the house-of-study just before they call up to the Reading of the Law, and not let them read till they have sworn to agree to our sentence of excommunication!

"She is right!"

"Excommunicate him!"

"Tear him in pieces!"

"Let him be dressed in robe and prayer-scarf, and swear by the eight black candles that he--"

"Swear! Swear!"

The noise was dreadful. No one was allowed to finish speaking. They were all aflame with one fire of revenge, hate, and anger, and all alike athirst for justice. Every new idea, every new suggestion was hastily and hotly seized upon by all together, and there was a grinding of teeth and a clenching of fists. Nature herself seemed affected by the tumult, the clouds flew faster, the stars changed their places, the wind whistled, the trees swayed hither and thither, the frogs croaked, there was a great boiling up of the whole concern.

"Women, women," cried one, "I propose that we go to the court of the Shool, climb into the round millstones, and all shout together, so that they may know what we have decided."

"Right! Right! To the Shool!" cried a chorus of voices.

A common feeling of triumph running through them, they took each other friendly-wise by the hand, and made gaily for the court of the Shool. When they got into the town, they fell on each other's necks, and kissed each other with tears and joy. They knew their plan was the best and most excellent that could be devised, and would protect them all from further shame and trouble.

The Pidvorkes shuddered to hear their tread.

All the remaining inhabitants, big and little, men and women, gathered in the court of the Shool, and stood with pale faces and beating hearts to see what would happen.

The eyes of the young bachelors rolled uneasily, the girls had their faces on one another's shoulders, and sobbed.

Breindel, agile as a cat, climbed on to the highest millstone, and proclaimed in a voice of thunder:

"Seeing that such and such a thing has happened, a great scandal such as is not to be hid, and such as we do not wish to hide, all we women have decided to excommunicate--"

Such a tumult arose that for a minute or two Breindel could not be heard, but it was not long before everyone knew who and what was meant.

"We also demand that neither he nor his nearest friends shall be called to the Reading of the Law; that people shall have nothing to do with them till after the wedding!"

"Nothing to do with them! Nothing to do with them!" shook the air.

"That people shall not lend to them nor borrow of them, shall not come within their four ells!" continued the voice from the millstone.

"And she shall be shut up till her time comes, so that no one shall see her. Then we will take her to the burial-ground, and the child shall be born in the burial-ground. The wedding shall take place by day, and without musicians-"

"Without musicians!"

"Without musicians!"

'Without musicians!"

"Serve her right!"

"She deserves worse!"

A hundred voices were continually interrupting the speaker, and more women were climbing onto the millstones, and shouting the same things.

"On the wedding-day there will be great black candles burning throughout the whole town, and when the bride is seated at the top of the marriage-hall, with her hair flowing loose about her, all the girls shall surround her, and the Badchen shall tell her, 'This is the way we treat one who has not held to her Jewishness, and has blackened all our faces--'"

"Yes!"

"Yes!"

"So it is!"

"The apostates!"

The last words struck the hearers' hearts like poisoned arrows. A deathly pallor, born of unrealized terror at the suggested idea, overspread all their faces, their feelings were in a tumult of shame and suffering. They thirsted and longed after their former life, the time before the calamity disturbed their peace. Weary and wounded in spirit, with startled looks, throbbing pulses, and dilated pupils, and with no more than a faint hope that all might yet be well, they slowly broke the stillness, and departed to their homes.

L?B SCHAPIRO

Born, about 1880, in the Government of Kieff, Little Russia; came to Chicago in 1906, and to New York for a short time in 1907-1908; now (1912) in business in Switzerland; contributor to Die Zukunft, New York; collected works, Novellen, 1 vol., Warsaw, 1910.

IF IT WAS A DREAM

Yes, it was a terrible dream! But when one is only nine years old, one soon forgets, and Meyerl was nine a few weeks before it came to pass.

Yes, and things had happened in the house every now and then to remind one of it, but then Meyerl lived more out of doors than indoors, in the wild streets of New York. Tartilov and New York-what a difference! New York had supplanted Tartilov, effaced it from his memory. There remained only a faint occasional recollection of that horrid dream.

If it really was a dream!

It was this way: Meyerl dreamt that he was sitting in Cheder learning, but more for show's sake than seriously, because during the Days of Penitence, near the close of the session, the Rebbe grew milder, and Cheder less hateful. And as he sat there and learnt, he heard a banging of doors in the street, and through the window saw Jews running to and fro, as if bereft of their senses, flinging themselves hither and thither exactly like leaves in a gale, or as when a witch rises from the ground in a column of dust, and whirls across the road so suddenly and unexpectedly that it makes one's flesh creep. And at the sight of this running up and down in the street, the Rebbe collapsed in his chair white as death, his under lip trembling.

Meyerl never saw him again. He was told later that the Rebbe had been killed, but somehow the news gave him no pleasure, although the Rebbe used to beat him; neither did it particularly grieve him. It probably made no great impression on his mind. After all, what did it mean, exactly? Killed? and the question slipped out of his head unanswered, together with the Rebbe, who was gradually forgotten.

And then the real horror began. They were two days hiding away in the bath-house-he and some other little boys and a few older people-without food, without drink, without Father and Mother. Meyerl was not allowed to get out and go home, and once, when he screamed, they nearly suffocated him, after which he sobbed and whimpered, unable to stop crying all at once. Now and then he fell asleep, and when he woke everything was just the same, and all through the terror and the misery he seemed to hear only one word, Goyim, which came to have a very definite and terrible meaning for him. Otherwise everything was in a maze, and as far as seeing goes, he really saw nothing at all.

Later, when they came out again, nobody troubled about him, or came to see after him, and a stranger took him home. And neither his father nor his mother had a word to say to him, any more than if he had just come home from Cheder as on any other day.

Everything in the house was broken, they had twisted his father's arm and bruised his face. His mother lay on the bed, her fair hair tossed about, and her eyes half-closed, her face pale and stained, and something about her whole appearance so rumpled and sluttish-it reminded one of a tumbled bedquilt. His father walked up and down the room in silence, looking at no one, his bound arm in a white sling, and when Meyerl, conscious of some invisible calamity, burst out crying, his father only gave him a gloomy, irritated look, and continued to span the room as before.

In about three weeks' time they sailed for America. The sea was very rough during the passage, and his mother lay the whole time in her berth, and was very sick. Meyerl was quite fit, and his father did nothing but pace the deck, even when it poured with rain, till they came and ordered him down-stairs.

Meyerl never knew exactly what happened, but once a Gentile on board the ship passed a remark on his father, made fun of him, or something-and his father drew himself up, and gave the other a look-nothing more than a look! And the Gentile got such a fright that he began crossing himself, and he spit out, and his lips moved rapidly. To tell the truth, Meyerl was frightened himself by the contraction of his father's mouth, the grind of his teeth, and by his eyes, which nearly started from his head. Meyerl had never seen him look like that before, but soon his father was once more pacing the deck, his head down, his wet collar turned up, his hands in his sleeves, and his back slightly bent.

When they arrived in New York City, Meyerl began to feel giddy, and it was not long before the whole of Tartilov appeared to him like a dream.

It was in the beginning of winter, and soon the snow fell, the fresh white snow, and it was something like! Meyerl was now a "boy," he went to "school," made snowballs, slid on the slides, built little fires in the middle of the street, and nobody interfered. He went home to eat and sleep, and spent what you may call his "life" in the street.

In their room were cold, piercing draughts, which made it feel dreary and dismal. Meyerl's father, a lean, large-boned man, with a dark, brown face and black beard, had always been silent, and it was but seldom he said so much as "Are you there, Tzippe? Do you hear me, Tzippe?" But now his silence was frightening! The mother, on the other hand, used to be full of life and spirits, skipping about the place, and it was "Shloimeh!" here, and "Shloimeh!" there, and her tongue wagging merrily! And suddenly there was an end of it all. The father only walked back and forth over the room, and she turned to look after him like a child in disgrace, and looked and looked as though forever wanting to say something, and never daring to say it. There was something new in her look, something dog-like! Yes, on my word, something like what there was in the eyes of Mishke the dog with which Meyerl used to like playing "over there," in that little town in dreamland. Sometimes Meyerl, waking suddenly in the night, heard, or imagined he heard, his mother sobbing, while his father lay in the other bed puffing at his cigar, but so hard, it was frightening, because it made a little fire every time in the dark, as though of itself, in the air, just over the place where his father's black head must be lying. Then Meyerl's eyes would shut of themselves, his brain was confused, and his mother and the glowing sparks and the whole room sank away from him, and Meyerl dropped off to sleep.

Twice that winter his mother fell ill. The first time it lasted two days, the second, four, and both times the illness was dangerous. Her face glowed like an oven, her lower lip bled beneath her sharp white teeth, and yet wild, terrifying groans betrayed what she was suffering, and she was often violently sick, just as when they were on the sea.

At those times she looked at her husband with eyes in which there was no prayer. Mishke once ran a thorn deep into his paw, and he squealed and growled angrily, and sucked his paw, as though he were trying to swallow it, thorn and all, and the look in his eyes was the look of Meyerl's mother in her pain.

In those days his father, too, behaved differently, for, instead of walking to and fro across the room, he ran, puffing incessantly at his cigar, his brow like a thunder-cloud and occasional lightnings flashing from his eyes. He never looked at his wife, and neither of them looked at Meyerl, who then felt himself utterly wretched and forsaken.

And-it is very odd, but-it was just on these occasions that Meyerl felt himself drawn to his home. In the street things were as usual, but at home it was like being in Shool during the Solemn Days at the blowing of the ram's horn, when so many tall "fathers" stand with prayer-scarfs over their heads, and hold their breath, and when out of the distance there comes, unfolding over the heads of the people, the long, loud blast of the Shofar.

And both times, when his mother recovered, the shadow that lay on their home had darkened, his father was gloomier than ever, and his mother, when she looked at him, had a still more crushed and dog-like expression, as though she were lying outside in the dust of the street.

The snowfalls became rarer, then they ceased altogether, and there came into the air a feeling of something new-what exactly, it would have been hard for Meyerl to say. Anyhow it was something good, very good, for everyone in the street was glad of it, one could see that by their faces, which were more lightsome and gay.

On the Eve of Passover the sky of home cleared a little too, street and house joined hands through the windows, opened now for the first time since winter set in, and this neighborly act of theirs cheered Meyerl's heart.

His parents made preparations for Passover, and poor little preparations they were: there was no Matzes-baking with its merry to-do; a packet of cold, stale Matzes was brought into the house; there was no pail of beet-root soup in the corner, covered with a coarse cloth of unbleached linen; no dusty china service was fetched from the attic, where it had lain many years between one Passover and another; his father brought in a dinner service from the street, one he had bought cheap, and of which the pieces did not match. But the exhilaration of the festival made itself felt for all that, and warmed their hearts. At home, in Tartilov, it had happened once or twice that Meyerl had lain in his little bed with open eyes, staring stock-still, with terror, into the silent blackness of the night, and feeling as if he were the only living soul in the whole world, that is, the whole house; and the sudden crow of a cock would be enough on these occasions to send a warm current of relief and security through his heart.

His father's face looked a little more cheerful. In the daytime, while he dusted the cups, his eyes had something pensive in them, but his lips were set so that you thought: There, now, now they are going to smile! The mother danced the Matzeh pancakes up and down in the kitchen, so that they chattered and gurgled in the frying-pan. When a neighbor came in to borrow a cooking pot, Meyerl happened to be standing beside his mother. The neighbor got her pot, the women exchanged a few words about the coming holiday, and then the neighbor said, "So we shall soon be having a rejoicing at your house?" and with a wink and a smile she pointed at his mother with her finger, whereupon Meyerl remarked for the first time that her figure had grown round and full. But he had no time just then to think it over, for there came a sound of broken china from the next room, his mother stood like one knocked on the head, and his father appeared in the door, and said:

"Go!"

His voice sent a quiver through the window-panes, as if a heavy wagon were just crossing the bridge outside at a trot, the startled neighbor turned, and whisked out of the house.

Meyerl's parents looked ill at ease in their holiday garb, with the faces of mourners. The whole ceremony of the Passover home service was spoilt by an atmosphere of the last meal on the Eve of the Fast of the Destruction of the Temple. And when Meyerl, with the indifferent voice of one hired for the occasion, sang out the "Why is this night different?" his heart shrank together; there was the same hush round about him as there is in Shool when an orphan recites the first "Sanctification" for his dead parents.

His mother's lips moved, but gave forth no sound; from time to time she wetted a finger with her tongue, and turned over leaf after leaf in her service-book, and from time to time a large, bright tear fell, over her beautiful but depressed face onto the book, or the white table-cloth, or her dress. His father never looked at her. Did he see she was crying? Meyerl wondered. Then, how strangely he was reciting the Haggadah! He would chant a portion in long-drawn-out fashion, and suddenly his voice would break, sometimes with a gurgle, as though a hand had seized him by the throat and closed it. Then he would look silently at his book, or his eye would wander round the room with a vacant stare. Then he would start intoning again, and again his voice would break.

They ate next to nothing, said grace to themselves in a whisper, after which the father said:

"Meyerl, open the door!"

Not without fear, and the usual uncertainty as to the appearance of the Prophet Elijah, whose goblet stood filled for him on the table, Meyerl opened the door.

"Pour out Thy wrath upon the Gentiles, who do not know Thee!"

A slight shudder ran down between Meyerl's shoulders, for a strange, quite unfamiliar voice had sounded through the room from one end to the other, shot up against the ceiling, flung itself down again, and gone flapping round the four walls, like a great, wild bird in a cage. Meyerl hastily turned to look at his father, and felt the hair bristle on his head with fright: straight and stiff as a screwed-up fiddle-string, there stood beside the table a wild figure, in a snow-white robe, with a dark beard, a broad, bony face, and a weird, black flame in the eyes. The teeth were ground together, and the voice would go over into a plaintive roar, like that of a hungry, bloodthirsty animal. His mother sprang up from her seat, trembling in every limb, stared at him for a few seconds, and then threw herself at his feet. Catching hold of the edge of his robe with both hands, she broke into lamentation:

"Shloimeh, Shloimeh, you'd better kill me! Shloimeh! kill me! oi, oi, misfortune!"

Meyerl felt as though a large hand with long fingernails had introduced itself into his inside, and turned it upside down with one fell twist. His mouth opened widely and crookedly, and a scream of childish terror burst from his throat. Tartilov had suddenly leapt wildly into view, affrighted Jews flew up and down the street like leaves in a storm, the white-faced Rebbe sat in his chair, his under lip trembling, his mother lay on her bed, looking all pulled about like a rumpled counterpane. Meyerl saw all this as clearly and sharply as though he had it before his eyes, he felt and knew that it was not all over, that it was only just beginning, that the calamity, the great calamity, the real calamity, was still to come, and might at any moment descend upon their heads like a thunderbolt, only what it was he did not know, or ask himself, and a second time a scream of distraught and helpless terror escaped his throat.

A few neighbors, Italians, who were standing in the passage by the open door, looked on in alarm, and whispered among themselves, and still the wild curses filled the room, one minute loud and resonant, the next with the spiteful gasping of a man struck to death.

"Mighty God! Pour out Thy wrath on the peoples who have no God in their hearts! Pour out Thy wrath upon the lands where Thy Name is unknown! 'He has devoured, devoured my body, he has laid waste, laid waste my house!'"

"Thy wrath shall pursue them,

Pursue them-o'ertake them!

O'ertake them-destroy them,

From under Thy heavens!"

SHALOM ASCH

Born, 1881, in Kutno, Government of Warsaw, Russian Poland; Jewish education and Hasidic surroundings; began to write in 1900, earliest works being in Hebrew; Sippurim was published in 1903, and A St?dtel in 1904; wrote his first drama in 1905; distinguished for realism, love of nature, and description of patriarchal Jewish life in the villages; playwright; dramas: Gott von Nekomoh, Meschiach's Zeiten, etc.; collected works, Schriften, Warsaw, 1908-1912 (in course of publication).

A SIMPLE STORY

Feigele, like all young girls, is fond of dressing and decking herself out.

She has no time for these frivolities during the week, there is work in plenty, no evil eye! and sewing to do; rent is high, and times are bad. The father earns but little, and there is a deal wanting towards her three hundred rubles dowry, beside which her mother trenches on it occasionally, on Sabbath, when the family purse is empty.

"There are as many marriageable young men as dogs, only every dog wants a fat bone," comes into her head.

She dislikes much thinking. She is a young girl and a pretty one. Of course, one shouldn't be conceited, but when she stands in front of the glass, she sees her bright face and rosy cheeks and the fall of her black hair. But she soon forgets it all, as though she were afraid that to rejoice in it might bring her ill-luck.

Sabbath it is quite another thing-there is time and to spare, and on Sabbath Feigele's toilet knows no end.

The mother calls, "There, Feigele, that's enough! You will do very well as you are." But what should old-fashioned women like her know about it? Anything will do for them. Whether you've a hat and jacket on or not, they're just as pleased.

But a young girl like Feigele knows the difference. He is sitting out there on the bench, he, Eleazar, with a party of his mates, casting furtive glances, which he thinks nobody sees, and nudging his neighbor, "Look, fire and flame!" and she, Feigele, behaves as though unaware of his presence, walks straight past, as coolly and unconcernedly as you please, and as though Eleazar might look and look his eyes out after her, take his own life, hang himself, for all she cares.

But, O Feigele, the vexation and the heartache when one fine day you walk past, and he doesn't look at you, but at Malkeh, who has a new hat and jacket that suit her about as well as a veil suits a dog-and yet he looks at her, and you turn round again, and yet again, pretending to look at something else (because it isn't proper), but you just glance over your shoulder, and he is still looking after Malkeh, his whole face shining with delight, and he nudges his mate, as to say, "Do you see?" O Feigele, you need a heart of adamant, if it is not to burst in twain with mortification!

However, no sooner has Malkeh disappeared down a sidewalk, than he gets up from the bench, dragging his mate along with him, and they follow, arm-in-arm, follow Feigele like her shadow, to the end of the avenue, where, catching her eye, he nods a "Good Sabbath!" Feigele answers with a supercilious tip-tilt of her head, as much as to say, "It is all the same to me, I'm sure; I'll just go down this other avenue for a change," and, lo and behold, if she happens to look around, there is Eleazar, too, and he follows, follows like a wearisome creditor.

And then, O Feigele, such a lovely, blissful feeling comes over you. Don't look, take no notice of him, walk ahead stiffly and firmly, with your head high, let him follow and look at you. And he looks, and he follows, he would follow you to the world's end, into the howling desert. Ha, ha, how lovely it feels!

But once, on a Sabbath evening, walking in the gardens with a girl friend, and he following, Feigele turned aside down a dark path, and sat down on a bench behind a bushy tree.

He came and sat down, too, at the other end of the bench.

Evening: the many branching trees overshadow and obscure, it grows dark, they are screened and hidden from view.

A breeze blows, lightly and pleasantly, and cools the air.

They feel it good to be there, their hearts beat in the stillness.

Who will say the first word?

He coughs, ahem! to show that he is there, but she makes no sign, implying that she neither knows who he is, nor what he wants, and has no wish to learn.

They are silent, they only hear their own beating hearts and the wind in the leaves.

"I beg your pardon, do you know what time it is?"

"No, I don't," she replies stiffly, meaning, "I know quite well what you are after, but don't be in such a hurry, you won't get anything the sooner."

The girl beside her gives her a nudge. "Did you hear that?" she giggles.

Feigele feels a little annoyed with her. Does the girl think she is the object? And she presently prepares to rise, but remains, as though glued to the seat.

"A beautiful night, isn't it?"

"Yes, a beautiful evening."

And so the conversation gets into swing, with a question from him and an answer from her, on different subjects, first with fear and fluttering of the heart, then they get closer one to another, and become more confidential. When she goes home, he sees her to the door, they shake hands and say, "Till we meet again!"

And they meet a second and a third time, for young hearts attract each other like a magnet. At first, of course, it is accidental, they meet by chance in the company of two other people, a girl friend of hers and a chum of his, and then, little by little, they come to feel that they want to see each other alone, all to themselves, and they fix upon a quiet time and place.

And they met.

They walked away together, outside the town, between the sky and the fields, walked and talked, and again, conscious that the talk was an artificial one, were even more gladly silent. Evening, and the last sunbeams were gliding over the ears of corn on both sides of the way. Then a breeze came along, and the ears swayed and whispered together, as the two passed on between them down the long road. Night was gathering, it grew continually darker, more melancholy, more delightful.

"I have been wanting to know you for a long time, Feigele."

"I know. You followed me like a shadow."

They are silent.

"What are you thinking about, Feigele?"

"What are you thinking about, Eleazar?"

And they plunge once more into a deep converse about all sorts of things, and there seems to be no reason why it should ever end.

It grows darker and darker.

They have come to walk closer together.

Now he takes her hand, she gives a start, but his hand steals further and further into hers.

Suddenly, as dropt from the sky, he bends his face, and kisses her on the cheek.

A thrill goes through her, she takes her hand out of his and appears rather cross, but he knows it is put on, and very soon she is all right again, as if the incident were forgotten.

An hour or two go by thus, and every day now they steal away and meet outside the town.

And Eleazar began to frequent her parents' house, the first time with an excuse-he had some work for Feigele. And then, as people do, he came to know when the work would be done, and Feigele behaved as though she had never seen him before, as though not even knowing who he was, and politely begged him to take a seat.

So it came about by degrees that Eleazar was continually in and out of the house, coming and going as he pleased and without stating any pretext whatever.

Feigele's parents knew him for a steady young man, he was a skilled artisan earning a good wage, and they knew quite well why a young man comes to the home of a young girl, but they feigned ignorance, thinking to themselves, "Let the children get to know each other better, there will be time enough to talk it over afterwards."

Evening: a small room, shadows moving on the walls, a new table on which burns a large, bright lamp, and sitting beside it Feigele sewing and Eleazar reading aloud a novel by Shomer.

Father and mother, tired out with a whole day's work, sleep on their beds behind the curtain, which shuts off half the room.

And so they sit, both of them, only sometimes Eleazar laughs aloud, takes her by the hand, and exclaims with a smile, "Feigele!"

"What do you want, silly?"

"Nothing at all, nothing at all."

And she sews on, thinking, "I have got you fast enough, but don't imagine you are taking somebody from the street, just as she is; there are still eighty rubles wanting to make three hundred in the bank."

And she shows him her wedding outfit, the shifts and the bedclothes, of which half lie waiting in the drawers.

They drew closer one to another, they became more and more intimate, so that all looked upon them as engaged, and expected the marriage contract to be drawn up any day. Feigele's mother was jubilant at her daughter's good fortune, at the prospect of such a son-in-law, such a golden son-in-law!

Reb Yainkel, her father, was an elderly man, a worn-out peddler, bent sideways with the bag of junk continually on his shoulder.

Now he, too, has a little bit of pleasure, a taste of joy, for which God be praised!

Everyone rejoices, Feigele most of all, her cheeks look rosier and fresher, her eyes darker and brighter.

She sits at her machine and sews, and the whole room rings with her voice:

"Un was ich hob' gewollt, hob' ich ausgeführt,

Soll ich azoi leben!

Ich hob' gewollt a shenem Choson,

Hot' mir Gott gegeben."

In the evening comes Eleazar.

"Well, what are you doing?"

"What should I be doing? Wait, I'll show you something."

"What sort of thing?"

She rises from her place, goes to the chest that stands in the stove corner, takes something out of it, and hides it under her apron.

"Whatever have you got there?" he laughs.

"Why are you in such a hurry to know?" she asks, and sits down beside him, brings from under her apron a picture in fine woolwork, Adam and Eve, and shows it him, saying:

"There, now you see! It was worked by a girl I know-for me, for us. I shall hang it up in our room, opposite the bed."

"Yours or mine?"

"You wait, Eleazar! You will see the house I shall arrange for you-a paradise, I tell you, just a little paradise! Everything in it will have to shine, so that it will be a pleasure to step inside."

"And every evening when work is done, we two shall sit together, side by side, just as we are doing now," and he puts an arm around her.

"And you will tell me everything, all about everything," she says, laying a hand on his shoulder, while with the other she takes hold of his chin, and looks into his eyes.

They feel so happy, so light at heart.

Everything in the house has taken on an air of kindliness, there is a soft, attractive gloss on every object in the room, on the walls and the table, the familiar things make signs to her, and speak to her as friend to friend.

The two are silent, lost in their own thoughts.

"Look," she says to him, and takes her bank-book out of the chest, "two hundred and forty rubles already. I shall make it up to three hundred, and then you won't have to say, 'I took you just as you were.'"

"Go along with you, you are very unjust, and I'm cross with you, Feigele."

"Why? Because I tell you the truth to your face?" she asks, looking into his face and laughing.

He turns his head away, pretending to be offended.

"You little silly, are you feeling hurt? I was only joking, can't you see?"

So it goes on, till the old mother's face peeps out from behind the curtain, warning them that it is time to go to rest, when the young couple bid each other good-night.

Reb Yainkel, Feigele's father, fell ill.

It was in the beginning of winter, and there was war between winter and summer: the former sent a snowfall, the latter a burst of sun. The snow turned to mud, and between times it poured with rain by the bucketful.

This sort of weather made the old man ill: he became weak in the legs, and took to his bed.

There was no money for food, and still less for firing, and Feigele had to lend for the time being.

The old man lay abed and coughed, his pale, shrivelled face reddened, the teeth showed between the drawn lips, and the blue veins stood out on his temples.

They sent for the doctor, who prescribed a remedy.

The mother wished to pawn their last pillow, but Feigele protested, and gave up part of her wages, and when this was not enough, she pawned her jacket-anything sooner than touch the dowry.

And he, Eleazar, came every evening, and they sat together beside the well-known table in the lamplight.

"Why are you so sad, Feigele?"

"How can you expect me to be cheerful, with father so ill?"

"God will help, Feigele, and he will get better."

"It's four weeks since I put a farthing into the savings-bank."

"What do you want to save for?"

"What do I want to save for?" she asked with a startled look, as though something had frightened her. "Are you going to tell me that you will take me without a dowry?"

"What do you mean by 'without a dowry'? You are worth all the money in the world to me, worth my whole life. What do I want with your money? See here, my five fingers, they can earn all we need. I have two hundred rubles in the bank, saved from my earnings. What do I want with more?"

They are silent for a moment, with downcast eyes. "And your mother?" she asks quietly.

"Will you please tell me, are you marrying my mother or me? And what concern is she of yours?"

Feigele is silent.

"I tell you again, I'll take you just as you are-and you'll take me the same, will you?"

She puts the corner of her apron to her eyes, and cries quietly to herself.

There is stillness around. The lamp sheds its brightness over the little room, and casts their shadows onto the walls.

The heavy sleeping of the old people is audible behind the curtain.

And her head lies on his shoulder, and her thick black hair hides his face.

"How kind you are, Eleazar," she whispers through her tears.

And she opens her whole heart to him, tells him how it is with them now, how bad things are, they have pawned everything, and there is nothing left for to-morrow, nothing but the dowry!

He clasps her lovingly, and dries her cheeks with her apron end, saying: "Don't cry, Feigele, don't cry. It will all come right. And to-morrow, mind, you are to go to the postoffice, and take a little of the dowry, as much as you need, until your father, God helping, is well again, and able to earn something, and then...."

"And then ..." she echoes in a whisper.

"And then it will all come right," and his eyes flash into hers. "Just as you are ..." he whispers.

And she looks at him, and a smile crosses her face.

She feels so happy, so happy.

Next morning she went to the postoffice for the first time with her bank-book, took out a few rubles, and gave them to her mother.

The mother sighed heavily, and took on a grieved expression; she frowned, and pulled her head-kerchief down over her eyes.

Old Reb Yainkel lying in bed turned his face to the wall.

The old man knew where the money came from, he knew how his only child had toiled for those few rubles. Other fathers gave money to their children, and he took it-

It seemed to him as though he were plundering the two young people. He had not long to live, and he was robbing them before he died.

As he thought on this, his eyes glazed, the veins on his temple swelled, and his face became suffused with blood.

His head is buried in the pillow, and turns to the wall, he lies and thinks these thoughts.

He knows that he is in the way of the children's happiness, and he prays that he may die.

And she, Feigele, would like to come into a fortune all at once, to have a lot of money, to be as rich as any great lady.

And then suppose she had a thousand rubles now, this minute, and he came in: "There, take the whole of it, see if I love you! There, take it, and then you needn't say you love me for nothing, just as I am."

They sit beside the father's bed, she and her Eleazar.

Her heart overflows with content, she feels happier than she ever felt before, there are even tears of joy on her cheeks.

She sits and cries, hiding her face with her apron.

He takes her caressingly by the hands, repeating in his kind, sweet voice, "Feigele, stop crying, Feigele, please!"

The father lies turned with his face to the wall, and the beating of his heart is heard in the stillness.

They sit, and she feels confidence in Eleazar, she feels that she can rely upon him.

She sits and drinks in his words, she feels him rolling the heavy stones from off her heart.

The old father has turned round and looked at them, and a sweet smile steals over his face, as though he would say, "Have no fear, children, I agree with you, I agree with all my heart."

And Feigele feels so happy, so happy....

The father is still lying ill, and Feigele takes out one ruble after another, one five-ruble-piece after another.

The old man lies and prays and muses, and looks at the children, and holds his peace.

His face gets paler and more wrinkled, he grows weaker, he feels his strength ebbing away.

Feigele goes on taking money out of the savings-bank, the stamps in her book grow less and less, she knows that soon there will be nothing left.

Old Reb Yainkel wishes in secret that he did not require so much, that he might cease to hamper other people!

He spits blood-drops, and his strength goes on diminishing, and so do the stamps in Feigele's book. The day he died saw the last farthing of Feigele's dowry disappear after the others.

Feigele has resumed her seat by the bright lamp, and sews and sews till far into the night, and with every seam that she sews, something is added to the credit of her new account.

This time the dowry must be a larger one, because for every stamp that is added to the account-book there is a new grey hair on Feigele's black head.

A JEWISH CHILD

The mother came out of the bride's chamber, and cast a piercing look at her husband, who was sitting beside a finished meal, and was making pellets of bread crumbs previous to saying grace.

"You go and talk to her! I haven't a bit of strength left!"

"So, Rochel-Leoh has brought up children, has she, and can't manage them! Why! People will be pointing at you and laughing-a ruin to your years!"

"To my years?! A ruin to yours! My children, are they? Are they not yours, too? Couldn't you stay at home sometimes to care for them and help me to bring them up, instead of trapesing round-the black year knows where and with whom?"

"Rochel, Rochel, what has possessed you to start a quarrel with me now? The bridegroom's family will be arriving directly."

"And what do you expect me to do, Moishehle, eh?! For God's sake! Go in to her, we shall be made a laughing-stock."

The man rose from the table, and went into the next room to his daughter. The mother followed.

On the little sofa that stood by the window sat a girl about eighteen, her face hidden in her hands, her arms covered by her loose, thick, black hair. She was evidently crying, for her bosom rose and fell like a stormy sea. On the bed opposite lay the white silk wedding-dress, the Chuppeh-Kleid, with the black, silk Shool-Kleid, and the black stuff morning-dress, which the tailor who had undertaken the outfit had brought not long ago. By the door stood a woman with a black scarf round her head and holding boxes with wigs.

"Channehle! You are never going to do me this dishonor? to make me the talk of the town?" exclaimed the father. The bride was silent.

"Look at me, daughter of Moisheh Groiss! It's all very well for Genendel Freindel's daughter to wear a wig, but not for the daughter of Moisheh Groiss? Is that it?"

"And yet Genendel Freindel might very well think more of herself than you: she is more educated than you are, and has a larger dowry," put in the mother.

The bride made no reply.

"Daughter, think how much blood and treasure it has cost to help us to a bit of pleasure, and now you want to spoil it for us? Remember, for God's sake, what you are doing with yourself! We shall be excommunicated, the young man will run away home on foot!"

"Don't be foolish," said the mother, took a wig out of a box from the woman by the door, and approached her daughter. "Let us try on the wig, the hair is just the color of yours," and she laid the strange hair on the girl's head.

The girl felt the weight, put up her fingers to her head, met among her own soft, cool, living locks, the strange, dead hair of the wig, stiff and cold, and it flashed through her, Who knows where the head to which this hair belonged is now? A shuddering enveloped her, and as though she had come in contact with something unclean, she snatched off the wig, threw in onto the floor and hastily left the room.

Father and mother stood and looked at each other in dismay.

The day after the marriage ceremony, the bridegroom's mother rose early, and, bearing large scissors, and the wig and a hood which she had brought from her home as a present for the bride, she went to dress the latter for the "breakfast."

But the groom's mother remained outside the room, because the bride had locked herself in, and would open her door to no one.

The groom's mother ran calling aloud for help to her husband, who, together with a dozen uncles and brothers-in-law, was still sleeping soundly after the evening's festivity. She then sought out the bridegroom, an eighteen-year-old boy with his mother's milk still on his lips, who, in a silk caftan and a fur cap, was moving about the room in bewildered fashion, his eyes on the ground, ashamed to look anyone in the face. In the end she fell back on the mother of the bride, and these two went in to her together, having forced open the door between them.

"Why did you lock yourself in, dear daughter. There is no need to be ashamed."

"Marriage is a Jewish institution!" said the groom's mother, and kissed her future daughter-in-law on both cheeks.

The girl made no reply.

"Your mother-in-law has brought you a wig and a hood for the procession to the Shool," said her own mother.

The band had already struck up the "Good Morning" in the next room.

"Come now, Kallehshi, Kalleh-leben, the guests are beginning to assemble."

The groom's mother took hold of the plaits in order to loosen them.

The bride bent her head away from her, and fell on her own mother's neck.

"I can't, Mame-leben! My heart won't let me, Mame-kron!"

She held her hair with both hands, to protect it from the other's scissors.

"For God's sake, my daughter? my life," begged the mother.

"In the other world you will be plunged for this into rivers of fire. The apostate who wears her own hair after marriage will have her locks torn out with red hot pincers," said the other with the scissors.

A cold shiver went through the girl at these words.

"Mother-life, mother-crown!" she pleaded.

Her hands sought her hair, and the black silky tresses fell through them in waves. Her hair, the hair which had grown with her growth, and lived with her life, was to be cut off, and she was never, never to have it again-she was to wear strange hair, hair that had grown on another person's head, and no one knows whether that other person was alive or lying in the earth this long time, and whether she might not come any night to one's bedside, and whine in a dead voice:

"Give me back my hair, give me back my hair!"

A frost seized the girl to the marrow, she shivered and shook.

Then she heard the squeak of scissors over her head, tore herself out of her mother's arms, made one snatch at the scissors, flung them across the room, and said in a scarcely human voice:

"My own hair! May God Himself punish me!"

That day the bridegroom's mother took herself off home again, together with the sweet-cakes and the geese which she had brought for the wedding breakfast for her own guests. She wanted to take the bridegroom as well, but the bride's mother said: "I will not give him back to you! He belongs to me already!"

The following Sabbath they led the bride in procession to the Shool wearing her own hair in the face of all the town, covered only by a large hood.

But may all the names she was called by the way find their only echo in some uninhabited wilderness.

A summer evening, a few weeks after the wedding: The young man had just returned from the Stübel, and went to his room. The wife was already asleep, and the soft light of the lamp fell on her pale face, showing here and there among the wealth of silky-black hair that bathed it. Her slender arms were flung round her head, as though she feared that someone might come by night to shear them off while she slept. He had come home excited and irritable: this was the fourth week of his married life, and they had not yet called him up to the Reading of the Law, the Chassidim pursued him, and to-day Chayyim Moisheh had blamed him in the presence of the whole congregation, and had shamed him, because she, his wife, went about in her own hair. "You're no better than a clay image," Reb Chayyim Moisheh had told him. "What do you mean by a woman's saying she won't? It is written: 'And he shall rule over thee.'"

And he had come home intending to go to her and say: "Woman, it is a precept in the Torah! If you persist in wearing your own hair, I may divorce you without returning the dowry," after which he would pack up his things and go home. But when he saw his little wife asleep in bed, and her pale face peeping out of the glory of her hair, he felt a great pity for her. He went up to the bed, and stood a long while looking at her, after which he called softly:

"Channehle ... Channehle ... Channehle...."

She opened her eyes with a frightened start, and looked round in sleepy wonder:

"Nosson, did you call? What do you want?

"Nothing, your cap has slipped off," he said, lifting up the white nightcap, which had fallen from her head.

She flung it on again, and wanted to turn towards the wall.

"Channehle, Channehle, I want to talk to you."

The words went to her heart. The whole time since their marriage he had, so to say, not spoken to her. During the day she saw nothing of him, for he spent it in the house-of-study or in the Stübel. When he came home to dinner, he sat down to the table in silence. When he wanted anything, he asked for it speaking into the air, and when really obliged to exchange a word with her, he did so with his eyes fixed on the ground, too shy to look her in the face. And now he said he wanted to talk to her, and in such a gentle voice, and they two alone together in their room!

"What do you want to say to me?" she asked softly.

"Channehle," he began, "please, don't make a fool of me, and don't make a fool of yourself in people's eyes. Has not God decreed that we should belong together? You are my wife and I am your husband, and is it proper, and what does it look like, a married woman wearing her own hair?"

Sleep still half dimmed her eyes, and had altogether clouded her thought and will. She felt helpless, and her head fell lightly towards his breast.

"Child," he went on still more gently, "I know you are not so depraved as they say. I know you are a pious Jewish daughter, and His blessed Name will help us, and we shall have pious Jewish children. Put away this nonsense! Why should the whole world be talking about you? Are we not man and wife? Is not your shame mine?"

It seemed to her as though someone, at once very far away and very near, had come and was talking to her. Nobody had ever yet spoken to her so gently and confidingly. And he was her husband, with whom she would live so long, so long, and there would be children, and she would look after the house!

She leant her head lightly against him.

"I know you are very sorry to lose your hair, the ornament of your girlhood, I saw you with it when I was a guest in your home. I know that God gave you grace and loveliness, I know. It cuts me to the heart that your hair must be shorn off, but what is to be done? It is a rule, a law of our religion, and after all we are Jews. We might even, God forbid, have a child conceived to us in sin, may Heaven watch over and defend us."

She said nothing, but remained resting lightly in his arm, and his face lay in the stream of her silky-black hair with its cool odor. In that hair dwelt a soul, and he was conscious of it. He looked at her long and earnestly, and in his look was a prayer, a pleading with her for her own happiness, for her happiness and his.

"Shall I?" ... he asked, more with his eyes than with his lips.

She said nothing, she only bent her head over his lap.

He went quickly to the drawer, and took out a pair of scissors.

She laid her head in his lap, and gave her hair as a ransom for their happiness, still half-asleep and dreaming. The scissors squeaked over her head, shearing off one lock after the other, and Channehle lay and dreamt through the night.

On waking next morning, she threw a look into the glass which hung opposite the bed. A shock went through her, she thought she had gone mad, and was in the asylum! On the table beside her lay her shorn hair, dead!

She hid her face in her hands, and the little room was filled with the sound of weeping!

A SCHOLAR'S MOTHER

The market lies foursquare, surrounded on every side by low, whitewashed little houses. From the chimney of the one-storied house opposite the well and inhabited by the baker, issues thick smoke, which spreads low over the market-place. Beneath the smoke is a flying to and fro of white pigeons, and a tall boy standing outside the baker's door is whistling to them.

Equally opposite the well are stalls, doors laid across two chairs and covered with fruit and vegetables, and around them women, with head-kerchiefs gathered round their weary, sunburnt faces in the hottest weather, stand and quarrel over each other's wares.

"It's certainly worth my while to stand quarrelling with you! A tramp like you keeping a stall!"

Yente, a woman about forty, whose wide lips have just uttered the above, wears a large, dirty apron, and her broad, red face, with the composed glance of the eyes under the kerchief, gives support to her words.

"Do you suppose you have got the Almighty by the beard? He is mine as well as yours!" answers Taube, pulling her kerchief lower about her ears, and angrily stroking down her hair.

A new customer approached Yente's stall, and Taube, standing by idle, passed the time in vituperations.

"What do I want with the money of a fine lady like you? You'll die like the rest of us, and not a dog will say Kaddish for you," she shrieked, and came to a sudden stop, for Taube had intended to bring up the subject of her own son Yitzchokel, when she remembered that it is against good manners to praise one's own.

Yente, measuring out a quarter of pears to her customer, made answer:

"Well, if you were a little superior to what you are, your husband wouldn't have died, and your child wouldn't have to be ashamed of you, as we all know he is."

Whereon Taube flew into a rage, and shouted:

"Hussy! The idea of my son being ashamed of me! May you be a sacrifice for his littlest finger-nail, for you're not worthy to mention his name!"

She was about to burst out weeping at the accusation of having been the cause of her husband's death and of causing her son to be ashamed of her, but she kept back her tears with all her might in order not to give pleasure to Yente.

The sun was dropping lower behind the other end of the little town, Jews were hurrying across the market-place to Evening Prayer in the house-of-study street, and the Cheder-boys, just let out, began to gather round the well.

Taube collected her few little baskets into her arms (the door and the chairs she left in the market-place; nobody would steal them), and with two or three parting curses to the rude Yente, she quietly quitted the scene.

Walking home with her armful of baskets, she thought of her son Yitzchokel.

Yente's stinging remarks pursued her. It was not Yente's saying that she had caused her husband's death that she minded, for everyone knew how hard she had worked during his illness, it was her saying that Yitzchokel was ashamed of her, that she felt in her "ribs." It occurred to her that when he came home for the night, he never would touch anything in her house.

And thinking this over, she started once more abusing Yente.

"Let her not live to see such a thing, Lord of the World, the One Father!"

It seemed to her that this fancy of hers, that Yitzchokel was ashamed of her, was all Yente's fault, it was all her doing, the witch!

"My child, my Yitzchokel, what business is he of yours?" and the cry escaped her:

"Lord of the World, take up my quarrel, Thou art a Father to the orphaned, Thou shouldst not forgive her this!"

"Who is that? Whom are you scolding so, Taube?" called out Necheh, the rich man's wife, standing in the door of her shop, and overhearing Taube, as she scolded to herself on the walk home.

"Who should it be, housemistress, who but the hussy, the abortion, the witch," answered Taube, pointing with one finger towards the market-place, and, without so much as lifting her head to look at the person speaking to her, she went on her way.

She remembered, as she walked, how, that morning, when she went into Necheh's kitchen with a fowl, she heard her Yitzchokel's voice in the other room disputing with Necheh's boys over the Talmud. She knew that on Wednesdays Yitzchokel ate his "day" at Necheh's table, and she had taken the fowl there that day on purpose, so that her Yitzchokel should have a good plate of soup, for her poor child was but weakly.

When she heard her son's voice, she had been about to leave the kitchen, and yet she had stayed. Her Yitzchokel disputing with Necheh's children? What did they know as compared with him? Did they come up to his level? "He will be ashamed of me," she thought with a start, "when he finds me with a chicken in my hand. So his mother is a market-woman, they will say, there's a fine partner for you!" But she had not left the kitchen. A child who had never cost a farthing, and she should like to know how much Necheh's children cost their parents! If she had all the money that Yitzchokel ought to have cost, the money that ought to have been spent on him, she would be a rich woman too, and she stood and listened to his voice.

"Oi, he should have lived to see Yitzchokel, it would have made him well." Soon the door opened, Necheh's boys appeared, and her Yitzchokel with them. His cheeks flamed.

"Good morning!" he said feebly, and was out at the door in no time. She knew that she had caused him vexation, that he was ashamed of her before his companions.

And she asked herself: Her child, her Yitzchokel, who had sucked her milk, what had Necheh to do with him? And she had poured out her bitterness of heart upon Yente's head for this also, that her son had cost her parents nothing, and was yet a better scholar than Necheh's children, and once more she exclaimed:

"Lord of the World! Avenge my quarrel, pay her out for it, let her not live to see another day!"

Passers-by, seeing a woman walking and scolding aloud, laughed.

Night came on, the little town was darkened.

Taube reached home with her armful of baskets, dragged herself up the steps, and opened the door.

"Mame, it's Ma-a-me!" came voices from within.

The house was full of smoke, the children clustered round her in the middle of the room, and never ceased calling out Mame! One child's voice was tearful: "Where have you been all day?" another's more cheerful: "How nice it is to have you back!" and all the voices mingled together into one.

"Be quiet! You don't give me time to draw my breath!" cried the mother, laying down the baskets.

She went to the fireplace, looked about for something, and presently the house was illumined by a smoky lamp.

The feeble shimmer lighted only the part round the hearth, where Taube was kindling two pieces of stick-an old dusty sewing-machine beside a bed, sign of a departed tailor, and a single bed opposite the lamp, strewn with straw, on which lay various fruits, the odor of which filled the room. The rest of the apartment with the remaining beds lay in shadow.

It is a year and a half since her husband, Lezer the tailor, died. While he was still alive, but when his cough had increased, and he could no longer provide for his family, Taube had started earning something on her own account, and the worse the cough, the harder she had to toil, so that by the time she became a widow, she was already used to supporting her whole family.

The eldest boy, Yitzchokel, had been the one consolation of Lezer the tailor's cheerless existence, and Lezer was comforted on his death-bed to think he should leave a good Kaddish behind him.

When he died, the householders had pity on the desolate widow, collected a few rubles, so that she might buy something to traffic with, and, seeing that Yitzchokel was a promising boy, they placed him in the house-of-study, arranged for him to have his daily meals in the houses of the rich, and bade him pass his time over the Talmud.

Taube, when she saw her Yitzchokel taking his meals with the rich, felt satisfied. A weakly boy, what could she give him to eat? There, at the rich man's table, he had the best of everything, but it grieved her that he should eat in strange, rich houses-she herself did not know whether she had received a kindness or the reverse, when he was taken off her hands.

One day, sitting at her stall, she spied her Yitzchokel emerge from the Shool-Gass with his Tefillin-bag under his arm, and go straight into the house of Reb Zindel the rich, to breakfast, and a pang went through her heart. She was still on terms, then, with Yente, because immediately after the death of her husband everyone had been kind to her, and she said:

"Believe me, Yente, I don't know myself what it is. What right have I to complain of the householders? They have been very good to me and to my child, made provision for him in rich houses, treated him as if he were no market-woman's son, but the child of gentlefolk, and yet every day when I give the other children their dinner, I forget, and lay a plate for my Yitzchokel too, and when I remember that he has his meals at other people's hands, I begin to cry."

"Go along with you for a foolish woman!" answered Yente. "How would he turn out if he were left to you? What is a poor person to give a child to eat, when you come to think of it?"

"You are right, Yente," Taube replied, "but when I portion out the dinner for the others, it cuts me to the heart."

And now, as she sat by the hearth cooking the children's supper, the same feeling came over her, that they had stolen her Yitzchokel away.

When the children had eaten and gone to bed, she stood the lamp on the table, and began mending a shirt for Yitzchokel.

Presently the door opened, and he, Yitzchokel, came in.

Yitzchokel was about fourteen, tall and thin, his pale face telling out sharply against his black cloak beneath his black cap.

"Good evening!" he said in a low tone.

The mother gave up her place to him, feeling that she owed him respect, without knowing exactly why, and it was borne in upon her that she and her poverty together were a misfortune for Yitzchokel.

He took a book out of the case, sat down, and opened it.

The mother gave the lamp a screw, wiped the globe with her apron, and pushed the lamp nearer to him.

"Will you have a glass of tea, Yitzchokel?" she asked softly, wishful to serve him.

"No, I have just had some."

"Or an apple?"

He was silent.

The mother cleaned a plate, laid two apples on it, and a knife, and placed it on the table beside him.

He peeled one of the apples as elegantly as a grown-up man, repeated the blessing aloud, and ate.

When Taube had seen Yitzchokel eat an apple, she felt more like his mother, and drew a little nearer to him.

And Yitzchokel, as he slowly peeled the second apple, began to talk more amiably:

"To-day I talked with the Dayan about going somewhere else. In the house-of-study here, there is nothing to do, nobody to study with, nobody to ask how and where, and in which book, and he advises me to go to the Academy at Makove; he will give me a letter to Reb Chayyim, the headmaster, and ask him to befriend me."

When Taube heard that her son was about to leave her, she experienced a great shock, but the words, Dayan, Rosh-Yeshiveh, mekarev-sein, and other high-sounding bits of Hebrew, which she did not understand, overawed her, and she felt she must control herself. Besides, the words held some comfort for her: Yitzchokel was holding counsel with her, with her-his mother!

"Of course, if the Dayan says so," she answered piously.

"Yes," Yitzchokel continued, "there one can hear lectures with all the commentaries; Reb Chayyim, the author of the book "Light of the Torah," is a well-known scholar, and there one has a chance of getting to be something decent."

His words entirely reassured her, she felt a certain happiness and exaltation, because he was her child, because she was the mother of such a child, such a son, and because, were it not for her, Yitzchokel would not be there at all. At the same time her heart pained her, and she grew sad.

Presently she remembered her husband, and burst out crying:

"If only he had lived, if only he could have had this consolation!" she sobbed.

Yitzchokel minded his book.

That night Taube could not sleep, for at the thought of Yitzchokel's departure the heart ached within her.

And she dreamt, as she lay in bed, that some great Rabbis with tall fur caps and long earlocks came in and took her Yitzchokel away from her; her Yitzchokel was wearing a fur cap and locks like theirs, and he held a large book, and he went far away with the Rabbis, and she stood and gazed after him, not knowing, should she rejoice or weep.

Next morning she woke late. Yitzchokel had already gone to his studies. She hastened to dress the children, and hurried to the market-place. At her stall she fell athinking, and fancied she was sitting beside her son, who was a Rabbi in a large town; there he sits in shoes and socks, a great fur cap on his head, and looks into a huge book. She sits at his right hand knitting a sock, the door opens, and there appears Yente carrying a dish, to ask a ritual question of Taube's son.

A customer disturbed her sweet dream.

After this Taube sat up whole nights at the table, by the light of the smoky lamp, rearranging and mending Yitzchokel's shirts for the journey; she recalled with every stitch that she was sewing for Yitzchokel, who was going to the Academy, to sit and study, and who, every Friday, would put on a shirt prepared for him by his mother.

Yitzchokel sat as always on the other side of the table, gazing into a book. The mother would have liked to speak to him, but she did not know what to say.

Taube and Yitzchokel were up before daylight.

Yitzchokel kissed his little brothers in their sleep, and said to his sleeping little sisters, "Remain in health"; one sister woke and began to cry, saying she wanted to go with him. The mother embraced and quieted her softly, then she and Yitzchokel left the room, carrying his box between them.

The street was still fast asleep, the shops were still closed, behind the church belfry the morning star shone coldly forth onto the cold morning dew on the roofs, and there was silence over all, except in the market-place, where there stood a peasant's cart laden with fruit. It was surrounded by women, and Yente's voice was heard from afar:

"Five gulden and ten groschen,' and I'll take the lot!"

And Taube, carrying Yitzchokel's box behind him, walked thus through the market-place, and, catching sight of Yente, she looked at her with pride.

They came out behind the town, onto the highroad, and waited for an "opportunity" to come by on its way to Lentschitz, whence Yitzchokel was to proceed to Kutno.

The sky was grey and cold, and mingled in the distance with the dingy mist rising from the fields, and the road, silent and deserted, ran away out of sight.

They sat down beside the barrier, and waited for the "opportunity."

The mother scraped together a few twenty-kopek-pieces out of her pocket, and put them into his bosom, twisted up in his shirt.

Presently a cart came by, crowded with passengers. She secured a seat for Yitzchokel for forty groschen, and hoisted the box into the cart.

"Go in health! Don't forget your mother!" she cried in tears.

Yitzchokel was silent.

She wanted to kiss her child, but she knew it was not the thing for a grown-up boy to be kissed, so she refrained.

Yitzchokel mounted the cart, the passengers made room for him among them.

"Remain in health, mother!" he called out as the cart set off.

"Go in health, my child! Sit and study, and don't forget your mother!" she cried after him.

The cart moved further and further, till it was climbing the hill in the distance.

Taube still stood and followed it with her gaze; and not till it was lost to view in the dust did she turn and walk back to the town.

She took a road that should lead her past the cemetery.

There was a rather low plank fence round it, and the gravestones were all to be seen, looking up to Heaven.

Taube went and hitched herself up onto the fence, and put her head over into the "field," looking for something among the tombs, and when her eyes had discovered a familiar little tombstone, she shook her head:

"Lezer, Lezer! Your son has driven away to the Academy to study Torah!"

Then she remembered the market, where Yente must by now have bought up the whole cart-load of fruit. There would be nothing left for her, and she hurried into the town.

She walked at a great pace, and felt very pleased with herself. She was conscious of having done a great thing, and this dissipated her annoyance at the thought of Yente acquiring all the fruit.

Two weeks later she got a letter from Yitzchokel, and, not being able to read it herself, she took it to Reb Yochanan, the teacher, that he might read it for her.

Reb Yochanan put on his glasses, cleared his throat thoroughly, and began to read:

"Le-Immi ahuvossi hatzenuoh" ...

"What is the translation?" asked Taube.

"It is the way to address a mother," explained Reb Yochanan, and continued.

Taube's face had brightened, she put her apron to her eyes and wept for joy.

The reader observed this and read on.

"What is the translation, the translation, Reb Yochanan?" the woman kept on asking.

"Never mind, it's not for you, you wouldn't understand-it is an exposition of a passage in the Gemoreh."

She was silent, the Hebrew words awed her, and she listened respectfully to the end.

"I salute Immi ahuvossi and Achoissai, Sarah and Goldeh, and Ochi Yakov; tell him to study diligently. I have all my 'days' and I sleep at Reb Chayyim's," gave out Reb Yochanan suddenly in Yiddish.

Taube contented herself with these few words, took back the letter, put it in her pocket, and went back to her stall with great joy.

"This evening," she thought, "I will show it to the Dayan, and let him read it too."

And no sooner had she got home, cooked the dinner, and fed the children, than she was off with the letter to the Dayan.

She entered the room, saw the tall bookcases filled with books covering the walls, and a man with a white beard sitting at the end of the table reading.

"What is it, a ritual question?" asked the Dayan from his place.

"No."

"What then?"

"A letter from my Yitzchokel."

The Dayan rose, came up and looked at her, took the letter, and began to read it silently to himself.

"Well done, excellent, good! The little fellow knows what he is saying," said the Dayan more to himself than to her.

Tears streamed from Taube's eyes.

"If only he had lived! if only he had lived!"

"Shechitas chutz ... Rambam ... Tossafos is right ..." went on the Dayan.

"Her Yitzchokel, Taube the market-woman's son," she thought proudly.

"Take the letter," said the Dayan, at last, "I've read it all through."

"Well, and what?" asked the woman.

"What? What do you want then?"

"What does it say?" she asked in a low voice.

"There is nothing in it for you, you wouldn't understand," replied the Dayan, with a smile.

Yitzchokel continued to write home, the Yiddish words were fewer every time, often only a greeting to his mother. And she came to Reb Yochanan, and he read her the Yiddish phrases, with which she had to be satisfied. "The Hebrew words are for the Dayan," she said to herself.

But one day, "There is nothing in the letter for you," said Reb Yochanan.

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing," he said shortly.

"Read me at least what there is."

"But it is all Hebrew, Torah, you won't understand."

"Very well, then, I won't understand...."

"Go in health, and don't drive me distracted."

Taube left him, and resolved to go that evening to the Dayan.

"Rebbe, excuse me, translate this into Yiddish," she said, handing him the letter.

The Dayan took the letter and read it.

"Nothing there for you," he said.

"Rebbe," said Taube, shyly, "excuse me, translate the Hebrew for me!"

"But it is Torah, an exposition of a passage in the Torah. You won't understand."

"Well, if you would only read the letter in Hebrew, but aloud, so that I may hear what he says."

"But you won't understand one word, it's Hebrew!" persisted the Dayan, with a smile.

"Well, I won't understand, that's all," said the woman, "but it's my child's Torah, my child's!"

The Dayan reflected a while, then he began to read aloud.

Presently, however, he glanced at Taube, and remembered he was expounding the Torah to a woman! And he felt thankful no one had heard him.

"Take the letter, there is nothing in it for you," he said compassionately, and sat down again in his place.

"But it is my child's Torah, my Yitzchokel's letter, why mayn't I hear it? What does it matter if I don't understand? It is my own child!"

The Dayan turned coldly away.

When Taube reached home after this interview, she sat down at the table, took down the lamp from the wall, and looked silently at the letter by its smoky light.

She kissed the letter, but then it occurred to her that she was defiling it with her lips, she, a sinful woman!

She rose, took her husband's prayer-book from the bookshelf, and laid the letter between its leaves.

Then with trembling lips she kissed the covers of the book, and placed it once more in the bookcase.

THE SINNER

So that you should not suspect me of taking his part, I will write a short preface to my story.

It is written: "A man never so much as moves his finger, but it has been so decreed from above," and whatsoever a man does, he fulfils God's will-even animals and birds (I beg to distinguish!) carry out God's wishes: whenever a bird flies, it fulfils a precept, because God, blessed is He, formed it to fly, and an ox the same when it lows, and even a dog when it barks-all praise God with their voices, and sing hymns to Him, each after his manner.

And even the wicked who transgresses fulfils God's will in spite of himself, because why? Do you suppose he takes pleasure in transgressing? Isn't he certain to repent? Well, then? He is just carrying out the will of Heaven.

And the Evil Inclination himself! Why, every time he is sent to persuade a Jew to sin, he weeps and sighs: Woe is me, that I should be sent on such an errand!

After this little preface, I will tell you the story itself.

Formerly, before the thing happened, he was called Reb Avròhom, but afterwards they ceased calling him by his name, and said simply the Sinner.

Reb Avròhom was looked up to and respected by the whole town, a God-fearing Jew, beloved and honored by all, and mothers wished they might have children like him.

He sat the whole day in the house-of-study and learned. Not that he was a great scholar, but he was a pious, scrupulously observant Jew, who followed the straight and beaten road, a man without any pride. He used to recite the prayers in Shool together with the strangers by the door, and quite quietly, without any shouting or, one may say, any special enthusiasm. His prayer that rose to Heaven, the barred gates opening before it till it entered and was taken up into the Throne of Glory, this prayer of his did not become a diamond there, dazzling the eye, but a softly glistening pearl.

And how, you ask, did he come to be called the Sinner? On this wise: You must know that everyone, even those who were hardest on him after the affair, acknowledged that he was a great lover of Israel, and I will add that his sin and, Heaven defend us, his coming to such a fall, all proceeded from his being such a lover of Israel, such a patriot.

And it was just the simple Jew, the very common folk, that he loved.

He used to say: A Jew who is a driver, for instance, and busy all the week with his horses and cart, and soaked in materialism for six days at a stretch, so that he only just manages to get in his prayers-when he comes home on Sabbath and sits down to table, and the bed is made, and the candles burning, and his wife and children are round him, and they sing hymns together, well, the driver dozing off over his prayer-book and forgetting to say grace, I tell you, said Reb Avròhom, the Divine Presence rests on his house and rejoices and says, "Happy am I that I chose me out this people," for such a Jew keeps Sabbath, rests himself, and his horse rests, keeps Sabbath likewise, stands in the stable, and is also conscious that it is the holy Sabbath, and when the driver rises from his sleep, he leads the animal out to pasture, waters it, and they all go for a walk with it in the meadow.

And this walk of theirs is more acceptable to God, blessed is He, than repeating "Bless the Lord, O my soul." It may be this was because he himself was of humble origin; he had lived till he was thirteen with his father, a farmer, in an out-of-the-way village, and ignorant even of his letters. True, his father had taken a youth into the house to teach him Hebrew, but Reb Avròhom as a boy was very wild, wouldn't mind his book, and ran all day after the oxen and horses.

He used to lie out in the meadow, hidden in the long grasses, near him the horses with their heads down pulling at the grass, and the view stretched far, far away, into the endless distance, and above him spread the wide sky, through which the clouds made their way, and the green, juicy earth seemed to look up at it and say: "Look, sky, and see how cheerfully I try to obey God's behest, to make the world green with grass!" And the sky made answer: "See, earth, how I try to fulfil God's command, by spreading myself far and wide!" and the few trees scattered over the fields were like witnesses to their friendly agreement. And little Avròhom lay and rejoiced in the goodness and all the work of God. Suddenly, as though he had received a revelation from Heaven, he went home, and asked the youth who was his teacher, "What blessing should one recite on feeling happy at sight of the world?" The youth laughed, and said: "You stupid boy! One says a blessing over bread and water, but as to saying one over this world-who ever heard of such a thing?"

Avròhom wondered, "The world is beautiful, the sky so pretty, the earth so sweet and soft, everything is so delightful to look at, and one says no blessing over it all!"

At thirteen he had left the village and come to the town. There, in the house-of-study, he saw the head of the Academy sitting at one end of the table, and around it, the scholars, all reciting in fervent, appealing tones that went to his heart.

The boy began to cry, whereupon the head of the Academy turned, and saw a little boy with a torn hat, crying, and his hair coming out through the holes, and his boots slung over his shoulder, like a peasant lad fresh from the road. The scholars laughed, but the Rosh ha-Yeshiveh asked him what he wanted.

"To learn," he answered in a low, pleading voice.

The Rosh ha-Yeshiveh had compassion on him, and took him as a pupil. Avròhom applied himself earnestly to the Torah, and in a few days could read Hebrew and follow the prayers without help.

And the way he prayed was a treat to watch. You should have seen him! He just stood and talked, as one person talks to another, quietly and affectionately, without any tricks of manner.

Once the Rosh ha-Yeshiveh saw him praying, and said before his whole Academy, "I can learn better than he, but when it comes to praying, I don't reach to his ankles." That is what he said.

So Reb Avròhom lived there till he was grown up, and had married the daughter of a simple tailor. Indeed, he learnt tailoring himself, and lived by his ten fingers. By day he sat and sewed with an open prayer-book before him, and recited portions of the Psalms to himself. After dark he went into the house-of-study, so quietly that no one noticed him, and passed half the night over the Talmud.

Once some strangers came to the town, and spent the night in the house-of-study behind the stove. Suddenly they heard a thin, sweet voice that was like a tune in itself. They started up, and saw him at his book. The small lamp hanging by a cord poured a dim light upon him where he sat, while the walls remained in shadow. He studied with ardor, with enthusiasm, only his enthusiasm was not for beholders, it was all within; he swayed slowly to and fro, and his shadow swayed with him, and he softly chanted the Gemoreh. By degrees his voice rose, his face kindled, and his eyes began to glow, one could see that his very soul was resolving itself into his chanting. The Divine Presence hovered over him, and he drank in its sweetness. And in the middle of his reading, he got up and walked about the room, repeating in a trembling whisper, "Lord of the World! O Lord of the World!"

Then his voice grew as suddenly calm, and he stood still, as though he had dozed off where he stood, for pure delight. The lamp grew dim, and still he stood and stood and never moved.

Awe fell on the travellers behind the stove, and they cried out. He started and approached them, and they had to close their eyes against the brightness of his face, the light that shone out of his eyes! And he stood there quite quietly and simply, and asked in a gentle voice why they had called out. Were they cold?

And he took off his cloak and spread it over them.

Next morning the travellers told all this, and declared that no sooner had the cloak touched them than they had fallen asleep, and they had seen and heard nothing more that night. After this, when the whole town had got wind of it, and they found out who it was that night in the house-of-study, the people began to believe that he was a Tzaddik, and they came to him with Petitions, as Chassidim to their Rebbes, asking him to pray for their health and other wants. But when they brought him such a petition, he would smile and say: "Believe me, a little boy who says grace over a piece of bread which his mother has given him, he can help you more than twenty such as I."

Of course, his words made no impression, except that they brought more petitions than ever, upon which he said:

"You insist on a man of flesh and blood such as I being your advocate with God, blessed is He. Hear a parable: To what shall we liken the thing? To the light of the sun and the light of a small lamp. You can rejoice in the sunlight as much as you please, and no one can take your joy from you; the poorest and most humble may revive himself with it, so long as his eyes can behold it, and even though a man should sit, which God forbid, in a dungeon with closed windows, a reflection will make its way in through the chinks, and he shall rejoice in the brightness. But with the poor light of a lamp it is otherwise. A rich man buys a quantity of lamps and illumines his house, while a poor man sits in darkness. God, blessed be He, is the great light that shines for the whole world, reviving and refreshing all His works. The whole world is full of His mercy, and His compassion is over all His creatures. Believe me, you have no need of an advocate with Him; God is your Father, and you are His dear children. How should a child need an advocate with his father?"

The ordinary folk heard and were silent, but our people, the Chassidim, were displeased. And I'll tell you another thing, I was the first to mention it to the Rebbe, long life to him, and he, as is well known, commanded Reb Avròhom to his presence.

So we set to work to persuade Reb Avròhom and talked to him till he had to go with us.

The journey lasted four days.

I remember one night, the moon was wandering in a blue ocean of sky that spread ever so far, till it mingled with a cloud, and she looked at us, pitifully and appealingly, as though to ask us if we knew which way she ought to go, to the right or to the left, and presently the cloud came upon her, and she began struggling to get out of it, and a minute or two later she was free again and smiling at us.

Then a little breeze came, and stroked our faces, and we looked round to the four sides of the world, and it seemed as if the whole world were wrapped in a prayer-scarf woven of mercy, and we fell into a slight melancholy, a quiet sadness, but so sweet and pleasant, it felt like on Sabbath at twilight at the Third Meal.

Suddenly Reb Avròhom exclaimed: "Jews, have you said the blessings on the appearance of the new moon?" We turned towards the moon, laid down our bundles, washed our hands in a little stream that ran by the roadside, and repeated the blessings for the new moon.

He stood looking into the sky, his lips scarcely moving, as was his wont. "Sholom Alechem!" he said, turning to me, and his voice quivered like a violin, and his eyes called to peace and unity. Then an awe of Reb Avròhom came over me for the first time, and when we had finished sanctifying the moon our melancholy left us, and we prepared to continue our way.

But still he stood and gazed heavenward, sighing: "Lord of the Universe! How beautiful is the world which Thou hast made by Thy goodness and great mercy, and these are over all Thy creatures. They all love Thee, and are glad in Thee, and Thou art glad in them, and the whole world is full of Thy glory."

I glanced up at the moon, and it seemed that she was still looking at me, and saying, "I'm lost; which way am I to go?"

We arrived Friday afternoon, and had time enough to go to the bath and to greet the Rebbe.

He, long life to him, was seated in the reception-room beside a table, his long lashes low over his eyes, leaning on his left hand, while he greeted incomers with his right. We went up to him, one at a time, shook hands, and said "Sholom Alechem," and he, long life to him, said nothing to us. Reb Avròhom also went up to him, and held out his hand.

A change came over the Rebbe, he raised his eyelids with his fingers, and looked at Reb Avròhom for some time in silence.

And Reb Avròhom looked at the Rebbe, and was silent too.

The Chassidim were offended by such impertinence.

That evening we assembled in the Rebbe's house-of-study, to usher in the Sabbath. It was tightly packed with Jews, one pushing the other, or seizing hold of his girdle, only beside the ark was there a free space left, a semicircle, in the middle of which stood the Rebbe and prayed.

But Reb Avròhom stood by the door among the poor guests, and prayed after his fashion.

"To Kiddush!" called the beadle.

The Rebbe's wife, daughters, and daughters-in-law now appeared, and their jewelry, their precious stones, and their pearls, sparkled and shone.

The Rebbe stood and repeated the prayer of Sanctification.

He was slightly bent, and his grey beard swept his breast. His eyes were screened by his lashes, and he recited the Sanctification in a loud voice, giving to every word a peculiar inflection, to every sign an expression of its own.

"To table!" was called out next.

At the head of the table sat the Rebbe, sons and sons-in-law to the left, relations to the right of him, then the principal aged Jews, then the rich.

The people stood round about.

The Rebbe ate, and began to serve out the leavings, to his sons and sons-in-law first, and to the rest of those sitting at the table after.

Then there was silence, the Rebbe began to expound the Torah. The portion of the week was Numbers, chapter eight, and the Rebbe began:

"When a man's soul is on a low level, enveloped, Heaven defend us, in uncleanness, and the Divine spark within the soul wishes to rise to a higher level, and cannot do so alone, but must needs be helped, it is a Mitzveh to help her, to raise her, and this Mitzveh is specially incumbent on the priest. This is the meaning of 'the seven lamps shall give light over against the candlestick,' by which is meant the holy Torah. The priest must bring the Jew's heart near to the Torah; in this way he is able to raise it. And who is the priest? The righteous in his generation, because since the Temple was destroyed, the saint must be a priest, for thus is the command from above, that he shall be the priest...."

"Avròhom!" the Rebbe called suddenly, "Avròhom! Come here, I am calling you."

The other went up to him.

"Avròhom, did you understand? Did you make out the meaning of what I said?

"Your silence," the Rebbe went on, "is an acknowledgment. I must raise you, even though it be against my will and against your will."

There was dead stillness in the room, people waiting to hear what would come next.

"You are silent?" asked the Rebbe, now a little sternly.

"You want to be a raiser of souls? Have you, bless and preserve us, bought the Almighty for yourself? Do you think that a Jew can approach nearer to God, blessed is He, through you? That you are the 'handle of the pestle' and the rest of the Jews nowhere? God's grace is everywhere, whichever way we turn, every time we move a limb we feel God! Everyone must seek Him in his own heart, because there it is that He has caused the Divine Presence to rest. Everywhere and always can the Jew draw near to God...."

Thus answered Reb Avròhom, but our people, the Rebbe's followers, shut his mouth before he had made an end, and had the Rebbe not held them back, they would have torn him in pieces on the spot.

"Leave him alone!" he commanded the Chassidim.

And to Reb Avròhom he said:

"Avròhom, you have sinned!"

And from that day forward he was called the Sinner, and was shut out from everywhere. The Chassidim kept their eye on him, and persecuted him, and he was not even allowed to pray in the house-of-study.

And I'll tell you what I think: A wicked man, even when he acts according to his wickedness, fulfils God's command. And who knows? Perhaps they were both right!

ISAAC DOB BERKOWITZ

Born, 1885, in Slutzk, Government of Minsk (Lithuania), White Russia; was in America for a short time in 1908; contributor to Die Zukunft; co-editor of Ha-Olam, Wilna; Hebrew and Yiddish writer; collected works: Yiddish, Gesammelte Schriften, Warsaw, 1910; Hebrew, Sippurim, Cracow, 1910.

COUNTRY FOLK

Feivke was a wild little villager, about seven years old, who had tumbled up from babyhood among Gentile urchins, the only Jewish boy in the place, just as his father Mattes, the Kozlov smith, was the only Jewish householder there. Feivke had hardly ever met, or even seen, anyone but the people of Kozlov and their children. Had it not been for his black eyes, with their moody, persistent gaze from beneath the shade of a deep, worn-out leather cap, it would have puzzled anyone to make out his parentage, to know whence that torn and battered face, that red scar across the top lip, those large, black, flat, unchild-like feet. But the eyes explained everything-his mother's eyes.

Feivke spent the whole summer with the village urchins in the neighboring wood, picking mushrooms, climbing the trees, driving wood-pigeons off their high nests, or wading knee-deep in the shallow bog outside to seek the black, slippery bog-worms; or else he found himself out in the fields, jumping about on the top of a load of hay under a hot sky, and shouting to his companions, till he was bathed in perspiration. At other times, he gathered himself away into a dark, cool barn, scrambled at the peril of his life along a round beam under the roof, crunched dried pears, saw how the sun sprinkled the darkness with a thousand sparks, and-thought. He could always think about Mikita, the son of the village elder, who had almost risen to be conductor on a railway train, and who came from a long way off to visit his father, brass buttons to his coat and a purse full of silver rubles, and piped to the village girls of an evening on the most cunning kind of whistle.

How often it had happened that Feivke could not be found, and did not even come home to bed! But his parents troubled precious little about him, seeing that he was growing up a wild, dissolute boy, and the displeasure of Heaven rested on his head.

Feivke was not a timid child, but there were two things he was afraid of: God and davvening. Feivke had never, to the best of his recollection, seen God, but he often heard His name, they threatened him with It, glanced at the ceiling, and sighed. And this embittered somewhat his sweet, free days. He felt that the older he grew, the sooner he would have to present himself before this terrifying, stern, and unfamiliar God, who was hidden somewhere, whether near or far he could not tell. One day Feivke all but ran a danger. It was early on a winter morning; there was a cold, wild wind blowing outside, and indoors there was a black stranger Jew, in a thick sheepskin, breaking open the tin charity boxes. The smith's wife served the stranger with hot potatoes and sour milk, whereupon the stranger piously closed his eyes, and, having reopened them, caught sight of Feivke through the white steam rising from the dish of potatoes-Feivke, huddled up in a corner-and beckoned him nearer.

"Have you begun to learn, little boy?" he questioned, and took his cheek between two pale, cold fingers, which sent a whiff of snuff up Feivke's nose. His mother, standing by the stove, reddened, and made some inaudible answer. The black stranger threw up his eyes, and slowly shook his head inside the wide sheepskin collar. This shaking to and fro of his head boded no good, and Feivke grew strangely cold inside. Then he grew hot all over, and, for several nights after, thousands of long, cold, pale fingers pursued and pinched him in his dreams.

They had never yet taught him to recite his prayers. Kozlov was a lonely village, far from any Jewish settlement. Every Sabbath morning Feivke, snug in bed, watched his father put on a mended black cloak, wrap himself in the Tallis, shut his eyes, take on a bleating voice, and, turning to the wall, commence a series of bows. Feivke felt that his father was bowing before God, and this frightened him. He thought it a very rash proceeding. Feivke, in his father's place, would sooner have had nothing to do with God. He spent most of the time while his father was at his prayers cowering under the coverlet, and only crept out when he heard his mother busy with plates and spoons, and the pungent smell of chopped radishes and onions penetrated to the bedroom.

Winters and summers passed, and Feivke grew to be seven years old, just such a Feivke as we have described. And the last summer passed, and gave way to autumn.

That autumn the smith's wife was brought to bed of a seventh child, and before she was about again, the cold, damp days were upon them, with the misty mornings, when a fish shivers in the water. And the days of her confinement were mingled for the lonely village Jewess with the Solemn Days of that year into a hard and dreary time. She went slowly about the house, as in a fog, without help or hope, and silent as a shadow. That year they all led a dismal life. The elder children, girls, went out to service in the neighboring towns, to make their own way among strangers. The peasants had become sharper and worse than formerly, and the smith's strength was not what it had been. So his wife resolved to send the two men of the family, Mattes and Feivke, to a Minyan this Yom Kippur. Maybe, if two went, God would not be able to resist them, and would soften His heart.

One morning, therefore, Mattes the smith washed, donned his mended Sabbath cloak, went to the window, and blinked through it with his red and swollen eyes. It was the Eve of the Day of Atonement. The room was well-warmed, and there was a smell of freshly-stewed carrots. The smith's wife went out to seek Feivke through the village, and brought him home dishevelled and distracted, and all of a glow. She had torn him away from an early morning of excitement and delight such as could never, never be again. Mikita, the son of the village elder, had put his father's brown colt into harness for the first time. The whole contingent of village boys had been present to watch the fiery young animal twisting between the shafts, drawing loud breaths into its dilated and quivering nostrils, looking wildly at the surrounding boys, and stamping impatiently, as though it would have liked to plow away the earth from under its feet. And suddenly it had given a bound and started careering through the village with the cart behind it. There was a glorious noise and commotion! Feivke was foremost among those who, in a cloud of dust and at the peril of their life, had dashed to seize the colt by the reins.

His mother washed him, looked him over from the low-set leather hat down to his great, black feet, stuffed a packet of food into his hands, and said:

"Go and be a good and devout boy, and God will forgive you."

She stood on the threshold of the house, and looked after her two men starting for a distant Minyan. The bearing of seven children had aged and weakened the once hard, obstinate woman, and, left standing alone in the doorway, watching her poor, barefoot, perverse-natured boy on his way to present himself for the first time before God, she broke down by the Mezuzeh and wept.

Silently, step by step, Feivke followed his father between the desolate stubble fields. It was a good ten miles' walk to the large village where the Minyan assembled, and the fear and the wonder in Feivke's heart increased all the way. He did not yet quite understand whither he was being taken, and what was to be done with him there, and the impetus of the brown colt's career through the village had not as yet subsided in his head. Why had Father put on his black mended cloak? Why had he brought a Tallis with him, and a white shirt-like garment? There was certainly some hour of calamity and terror ahead, something was preparing which had never happened before.

They went by the great Kozlov wood, wherein every tree stood silent and sad for its faded and fallen leaves. Feivke dropped behind his father, and stepped aside into the wood. He wondered: Should he run away and hide in the wood? He would willingly stay there for the rest of his life. He would foregather with Nasta, the barrel-maker's son, he of the knocked-out eye; they would roast potatoes out in the wood, and now and again, stolen-wise, milk the village cows for their repast. Let them beat him as much as they pleased, let them kill him on the spot, nothing should induce him to leave the wood again!

But no! As Feivke walked along under the silent trees and through the fallen leaves, and perceived that the whole wood was filled through and through with a soft, clear light, and heard the rustle of the leaves beneath his step, a strange terror took hold of him. The wood had grown so sparse, the trees so discolored, and he should have to remain in the stillness alone, and roam about in the winter wind!

Mattes the smith had stopped, wondering, and was blinking around with his sick eyes.

"Feivke, where are you?"

Feivke appeared out of the wood.

"Feivke, to-day you mustn't go into the wood. To-day God may yet-to-day you must be a good boy," said the smith, repeating his wife's words as they came to his mind, "and you must say Amen."

Feivke hung his head and looked at his great, bare, black feet. "But if I don't know how," he said sullenly.

"It's no great thing to say Amen!" his father replied encouragingly. "When you hear the other people say it, you can say it, too! Everyone must say Amen, then God will forgive them," he added, recalling again his wife and her admonitions.

Feivke was silent, and once more followed his father step by step. What will they ask him, and what is he to answer? It seemed to him now that they were going right over away yonder where the pale, scarcely-tinted sky touched the earth. There, on a hill, sits a great, old God in a large sheepskin cloak. Everyone goes up to him, and He asks them questions, which they have to answer, and He shakes His head to and fro inside the sheepskin collar. And what is he, a wild, ignorant little boy, to answer this great, old God?

Feivke had committed a great many transgressions concerning which his mother was constantly admonishing him, but now he was thinking only of two great transgressions committed recently, of which his mother knew nothing. One with regard to Anishka the beggar. Anishka was known to the village, as far back as it could remember, as an old, blind beggar, who went the round of the villages, feeling his way with a long stick. And one day Feivke and another boy played him a trick: they placed a ladder in his way, and Anishka stumbled and fell, hurting his nose. Some peasants had come up and caught Feivke. Anishka sat in the middle of the road with blood on his face, wept bitterly, and declared that God would not forget his blood that had been spilt. The peasants had given the little Zhydek a sound thrashing, but Feivke felt now as if that would not count: God would certainly remember the spilling of Anishka's blood.

Feivke's second hidden transgression had been committed outside the village, among the graves of the peasants. A whole troop of boys, Feivke in their midst, had gone pigeon hunting, aiming at the pigeons with stones, and a stone of Feivke's had hit the naked figure on the cross that stood among the graves. The Gentile boys had started and taken fright, and those among them who were Feivke's good friends told him he had actually hit the son of God, and that the thing would have consequences; it was one for which people had their heads cut off.

These two great transgressions now stood before him, and his heart warned him that the hour had come when he would be called to account for what he had done to Anishka and to God's son. Only he did not know what answer he could make.

By the time they came near the windmill belonging to the large strange village, the sun had begun to set. The village river with the trees beside it were visible a long way off, and, crossing the river, a long high bridge.

"The Minyan is there," and Mattes pointed his finger at the thatched roofs shining in the sunset.

Feivke looked down from the bridge into the deep, black water that lay smooth and still in the shadow of the trees. The bridge was high and the water deep! Feivke felt sick at heart, and his mouth was dry.

"But, Tate, I won't be able to answer," he let out in despair.

"What, not Amen? Eh, eh, you little silly, that is no great matter. Where is the difficulty? One just ups and answers!" said his father, gently, but Feivke heard that the while his father was trying to quiet him, his own voice trembled.

At the other end of the bridge there appeared the great inn with the covered terrace, and in front of the building were moving groups of Jews in holiday garb, with red handkerchiefs in their hands, women in yellow silk head-kerchiefs, and boys in new clothes holding small prayer-books. Feivke remained obstinately outside the crowd, and hung about the stable, his black eyes staring defiantly from beneath the worn-out leather cap. But he was not left alone long, for soon there came to him a smart, yellow-haired boy, with restless little light-colored eyes, and a face like a chicken's, covered with freckles. This little boy took a little bottle with some essence in it out of his pocket, gave it a twist and a flourish in the air, and suddenly applied it to Feivke's nose, so that the strong waters spurted into his nostril. Then he asked:

"To whom do you belong?"

Feivke blew the water out of his nose, and turned his head away in silence.

"Listen, turkey, lazy dog! What are you doing there? Have you said Minchah?"

"N-no...."

"Is the Jew in a torn cloak there your father?"

"Y-yes ... T-tate...."

The yellow-haired boy took Feivke by the sleeve.

"Come along, and you'll see what they'll do to your father."

Inside the room into which Feivke was dragged by his new friend, it was hot, and there was a curious, unfamiliar sound. Feivke grew dizzy. He saw Jews bowing and bending along the wall and beating their breasts-now they said something, and now they wept in an odd way. People coughed and spat sobbingly, and blew their noses with their red handkerchiefs. Chairs and stiff benches creaked, while a continual clatter of plates and spoons came through the wall.

In a corner, beside a heap of hay, Feivke saw his father where he stood, looking all round him, blinking shamefacedly and innocently with his weak, red eyes. Round him was a lively circle of little boys whispering with one another in evident expectation.

"That is his boy, with the lip," said the chicken-face, presenting Feivke.

At the same moment a young man came up to Mattes. He wore a white collar without a tie and with a pointed brass stud. This young man held a whip, which he brandished in the air like a rider about to mount his horse.

"Well, Reb Smith."

"Am I ... I suppose I am to lie down?" asked Mattes, subserviently, still smiling round in the same shy and yet confiding manner.

"Be so good as to lie down."

The young man gave a mischievous look at the boys, and made a gesture in the air with the whip.

Mattes began to unbutton his cloak, and slowly and cautiously let himself down onto the hay, whereupon the young man applied the whip with might and main, and his whole face shone.

"One, two, three! Go on, Rebbe, go on!" urged the boys, and there were shouts of laughter.

Feivke looked on in amaze. He wanted to go and take his father by the sleeve, make him get up and escape, but just then Mattes raised himself to a sitting posture, and began to rub his eyes with the same shy smile.

"Now, Rebbe, this one!" and the yellow-haired boy began to drag Feivke towards the hay. The others assisted. Feivke got very red, and silently tried to tear himself out of the boy's hands, making for the door, but the other kept his hold. In the doorway Feivke glared at him with his obstinate black eyes, and said:

"I'll knock your teeth out!"

"Mine? You? You booby, you lazy thing! This is our house! Do you know, on New Year's Eve I went with my grandfather to the town! I shall call Leibrutz. He'll give you something to remember him by!"

And Leibrutz was not long in joining them. He was the inn driver, a stout youth of fifteen, in a peasant smock with a collar stitched in red, otherwise in full array, with linen socks and a handsome bottle of strong waters against faintness in his hands. To judge by the size of the bottle, his sturdy looks belied a peculiarly delicate constitution. He pushed towards Feivke with one shoulder, in no friendly fashion, and looked at him with one eye, while he winked with the other at the freckled grandson of the host.

"Who is the beauty?"

"How should I know? A thief most likely. The Kozlov smith's boy. He threatened to knock out my teeth."

"So, so, dear brother mine!" sang out Leibrutz, with a cold sneer, and passed his five fingers across Feivke's nose. "We must rub a little horseradish under his eyes, and he'll weep like a beaver. Listen, you Kozlov urchin, you just keep your hands in your pockets, because Leibrutz is here! Do you know Leibrutz? Lucky for you that I have a Jewish heart: to-day is Yom Kippur."

But the chicken-faced boy was not pacified.

"Did you ever see such a lip? And then he comes to our house and wants to fight us!"

The whole lot of boys now encircled Feivke with teasing and laughter, and he stood barefooted in their midst, looking at none of them, and reminding one of a little wild animal caught and tormented.

It grew dark, and quantities of soul-lights were set burning down the long tables of the inn. The large building was packed with red-faced, perspiring Jews, in flowing white robes and Tallesim. The Confession was already in course of fervent recital, there was a great rocking and swaying over the prayer-books and a loud noise in the ears, everyone present trying to make himself heard above the rest. Village Jews are simple and ignorant, they know nothing of "silent prayer" and whispering with the lips. They are deprived of prayer in common a year at a time, and are distant from the Lord of All, and when the Awful Day comes, they want to take Him by storm, by violence. The noisiest of all was the prayer-leader himself, the young man with the white collar and no tie. He was from town, and wished to convince the country folk that he was an adept at his profession and to be relied on. Feivke stood in the stifling room utterly confounded. The prayers and the wailful chanting passed over his head like waves, his heart was straitened, red sparks whirled before his eyes. He was in a state of continual apprehension. He saw a snow-white old Jew come out of a corner with a scroll of the Torah wrapped in a white velvet, gold-embroidered cover. How the gold sparkled and twinkled and reflected itself in the illuminated beard of the old man! Feivke thought the moment had come, but he saw it all as through a mist, a long way off, to the sound of the wailful chanting, and as in a mist the scroll and the old man vanished together. Feivke's face and body were flushed with heat, his knees shook, and at the same time his hands and feet were cold as ice.

Once, while Feivke was standing by the table facing the bright flames of the soul-lights, a dizziness came over him, and he closed his eyes. Thousands of little bells seemed to ring in his ears. Then some one gave a loud thump on the table, and there was silence all around. Feivke started and opened his eyes. The sudden stillness frightened him, and he wanted to move away from the table, but he was walled in by men in white robes, who had begun rocking and swaying anew. One of them pushed a prayer-book towards him, with great black letters, which hopped and fluttered to Feivke's eyes like so many little black birds.

He shook visibly, and the men looked at him in silence: "Nu-nu, nu-nu!" He remained for some time squeezed against the prayer-book, hemmed in by the tall, strange men in robes swaying and praying over his head. A cold perspiration broke out over him, and when at last he freed himself, he felt very tired and weak. Having found his way to a corner close to his father, he fell asleep on the floor.

There he had a strange dream. He dreamt that he was a tree, growing like any other tree in a wood, and that he saw Anishka coming along with blood on his face, in one hand his long stick, and in the other a stone-and Feivke recognized the stone with which he had hit the crucifix. And Anishka kept turning his head and making signs to some one with his long stick, calling out to him that here was Feivke. Feivke looked hard, and there in the depths of the wood was God Himself, white all over, like freshly-fallen snow. And God suddenly grew ever so tall, and looked down at Feivke. Feivke felt God looking at him, but he could not see God, because there was a mist before his eyes. And Anishka came nearer and nearer with the stone in his hand. Feivke shook, and cold perspiration oozed out all over him. He wanted to run away, but he seemed to be growing there like a tree, like all the other trees of the wood.

Feivke awoke on the floor, amid sleeping men, and the first thing he saw was a tall, barefoot person all in white, standing over the sleepers with something in his hand. This tall, white figure sank slowly onto its knees, and, bending silently over Mattes the smith, who lay snoring with the rest, it deliberately put a bottle to his nose. Mattes gave a squeal, and sat up hastily.

"Ha, who is it?" he asked in alarm.

It was the young man from town, the prayer-leader, with a bottle of strong smelling-salts.

"It is I," he said with a dégagé air, and smiled. "Never mind, it will do you good! You are fasting, and there is an express law in the Chayyé Odom on the subject."

"But why me?" complained Mattes, blinking at him reproachfully. "What have I done to you?"

Day was about to dawn. The air in the room had cooled down; the soul-lights were still playing in the dark, dewy window-panes. A few of the men bedded in the hay on the floor were waking up. Feivke stood in the middle of the room with staring eyes. The young man with the smelling-bottle came up to him with a lively air.

"O you little object! What are you staring at me for? Do you want a sniff? There, then, sniff!"

Feivke retreated into a corner, and continued to stare at him in bewilderment.

No sooner was it day, than the davvening recommenced with all the fervor of the night before, the room was as noisy, and very soon nearly as hot. But it had not the same effect on Feivke as yesterday, and he was no longer frightened of Anishka and the stone-the whole dream had dissolved into thin air. When they once more brought out the scroll of the Law in its white mantle, Feivke was standing by the table, and looked on indifferently while they uncovered the black, shining, crowded letters. He looked indifferently at the young man from town swaying over the Torah, out of which he read fluently, intoning with a strangely free and easy manner, like an adept to whom all this was nothing new. Whenever he stopped reading, he threw back his head, and looked down at the people with a bright, satisfied smile.

The little boys roamed up and down the room in socks, with smelling-salts in their hands, or yawned into their little prayer-books. The air was filled with the dust of the trampled hay. The sun looked in at a window, and the soul-lights grew dim as in a mist. It seemed to Feivke he had been at the Minyan a long, long time, and he felt as though some great misfortune had befallen him. Fear and wonder continued to oppress him, but not the fear and wonder of yesterday. He was tired, his body burning, while his feet were contracted with cold. He got away outside, stretched himself out on the grass behind the inn and dozed, facing the sun. He dozed there through a good part of the day. Bright red rivers flowed before his eyes, and they made his brains ache. Some one, he did not know who, stood over him, and never stopped rocking to and fro and reciting prayers. Then-it was his father bending over him with a rather troubled look, and waking him in a strangely gentle voice:

"Well, Feivke, are you asleep? You've had nothing to eat to-day yet?"

"No...."

Feivke followed his father back into the house on his unsteady feet. Weary Jews with pale and lengthened noses were resting on the terrace and the benches. The sun was already low down over the village and shining full into the inn windows. Feivke stood by one of the windows with his father, and his head swam from the bright light. Mattes stroked his chin-beard continually, then there was more davvening and more rocking while they recited the Eighteen Benedictions. The Benedictions ended, the young man began to trill, but in a weaker voice and without charm. He was sick of the whole thing, and kept on in the half-hearted way with which one does a favor. Mattes forgot to look at his prayer-book, and, standing in the window, gazed at the tree-tops, which had caught fire in the rays of the setting sun. Nobody was expecting anything of him, when he suddenly gave a sob, so loud and so piteous that all turned and looked at him in astonishment. Some of the people laughed. The prayer-leader had just intoned "Michael on the right hand uttereth praise," out of the Afternoon Service. What was there to cry about in that? All the little boys had assembled round Mattes the smith, and were choking with laughter, and a certain youth, the host's new son-in-law, gave a twitch to Mattes' Tallis:

"Reb Kozlover, you've made a mistake!"

Mattes answered not a word. The little fellow with the freckles pushed his way up to him, and imitating the young man's intonation, repeated, "Reb Kozlover, you've made a mistake!"

Feivke looked wildly round at the bystanders, at his father. Then he suddenly advanced to the freckled boy, and glared at him with his black eyes.

"You, you-kob tebi biessi!" he hissed in Little-Russian.

The laughter and commotion increased; there was an exclamation: "Rascal, in a holy place!" and another: "Aha! the Kozlover smith's boy must be a first-class scamp!" The prayer-leader thumped angrily on his prayer-book, because no one was listening to him.

Feivke escaped once more behind the inn, but the whole company of boys followed him, headed by Leibrutz the driver.

"There he is, the Kozlov lazy booby!" screamed the freckled boy. "Have you ever heard the like? He actually wanted to fight again, and in our house! What do you think of that?"

Leibrutz went up to Feivke at a steady trot and with the gesture of one who likes to do what has to be done calmly and coolly.

"Wait, boys! Hands off! We've got a remedy for him here, for which I hope he will be thankful."

So saying, he deliberately took hold of Feivke from behind, by his two arms, and made a sign to the boy with yellow hair.

"Now for it, Aarontche, give it to the youngster!"

The little boy immediately whipped the smelling-bottle out of his pocket, took out the stopper with a flourish, and held it to Feivke's nose. The next moment Feivke had wrenched himself free, and was making for the chicken-face with nails spread, when he received two smart, sounding boxes on the ears, from two great, heavy, horny hands, which so clouded his brain that for a minute he stood dazed and dumb. Suddenly he made a spring at Leibrutz, fell upon his hand, and fastened his sharp teeth in the flesh. Leibrutz gave a loud yell.

There was a great to-do. People came running out in their robes, women with pale, startled faces called to their children. A few of them reproved Mattes for his son's behavior. Then they dispersed, till there remained behind the inn only Mattes and Feivke. Mattes looked at his boy in silence. He was not a talkative man, and he found only two or three words to say:

"Feivke, Mother there at home-and you-here?"

Again Feivke found himself alone on the field, and again he stretched himself out and dozed. Again, too, the red streams flowed before his eyes, and someone unknown to him stood at his head and recited prayers. Only the streams were thicker and darker, and the davvening over his head was louder, sadder, more penetrating.

It was quite dark when Mattes came out again, took Feivke by the hand, set him on his feet, and said, "Now we are going home."

Indoors everything had come to an end, and the room had taken on a week-day look. The candles were gone, and a lamp was burning above the table, round which sat men in their hats and usual cloaks, no robes to be seen, and partook of some refreshment. There was no more davvening, but in Feivke's ears was the same ringing of bells. It now seemed to him that he saw the room and the men for the first time, and the old Jew sitting at the head of the table, presiding over bottles and wine-glasses, and clicking with his tongue, could not possibly be the old man with the silver-white beard who had held the scroll of the Law to his breast.

Mattes went up to the table, gave a cough, bowed to the company, and said, "A good year!"

The old man raised his head, and thundered so loudly that Feivke's face twitched as with pain:

"Ha?"

"I said-I am just going-going home-home again-so I wish-wish you-a good year!"

"Ha, a good year? A good year to you also! Wait, have a little brandy, ha?"

Feivke shut his eyes. It made him feel bad to have the lamp burning so brightly and the old man talking so loud. Why need he speak in such a high, rasping voice that it went through one's head like a saw?

"Ha? Is it your little boy who scratched my Aarontche's face? Ha? A rascal is he? Beat him well! There, give him a little brandy, too-and a bit of cake! He fasted too, ha? But he can't recite the prayers? Fie! You ought to be beaten! Ha? Are you going home? Go in health! Ha? Your wife has just been confined?-Perhaps you need some money for the holidays? Ha? What do you say?"

Mattes and Feivke started to walk home. Mattes gave a look at the clear sky, where the young half-moon had floated into view. "Mother will be expecting us," he said, and began to walk quickly. Feivke could hardly drag his feet.

On the tall bridge they were met by a cool breeze blowing from the water. Once across the bridge, Mattes again quickened his pace. Presently he stopped to look around-no Feivke! He turned back and saw Feivke sitting in the middle of the road. The child was huddled up in a silent, shivering heap. His teeth chattered with cold.

"Feivke, what is the matter? Why are you sitting down? Come along home!"

"I won't"-Feivke clattered out with his teeth-"I c-a-n-'t-"

"Did they hit you so hard, Feivke?"

Feivke was silent. Then he stretched himself out on the ground, his hands and feet quivering.

"Cold-."

"Aren't you well, Feivke?"

The child made an effort, sat up, and looked fixedly at his father, with his black, feverish eyes, and suddenly he asked:

"Why did you cry there? Tate, why? Tell me, why?!"

"Where did I cry, you little silly? Why, I just cried-it's Yom Kippur. Mother is fasting, too-get up, Feivke, and come home. Mother will make you a poultice," occurred to him as a happy thought.

"No! Why did you cry, while they were laughing?" Feivke insisted, still sitting in the road and shaking like a leaf. "One mustn't cry when they laugh, one mustn't!"

And he lay down again on the damp ground.

"Feivele, come home, my son!"

Mattes stood over the boy in despair, and looked around for help. From some way off, from the tall bridge, came a sound of heavy footsteps growing louder and louder, and presently the moonlight showed the figure of a peasant.

"Ai, who is that? Matke the smith? What are you doing there? Are you casting spells? Who is that lying on the ground?"

"I don't know myself what I'm doing, kind soul. That is my boy, and he won't come home, or he can't. What am I to do with him?" complained Mattes to the peasant, whom he knew.

"Has he gone crazy? Give him a kick! Ai, you little lazy devil, get up!" Feivke did not move from the spot, he only shivered silently, and his teeth chattered.

"Ach, you devil! What sort of a boy have you there, Matke? A visitation of Heaven! Why don't you beat him more? The other day they came and told tales of him-Agapa said that-"

"I don't know, either, kind soul, what sort of a boy he is," answered Mattes, and wrung his bands in desperation.

Early next morning Mattes hired a conveyance, and drove Feivke to the town, to the asylum for the sick poor. The smith's wife came out and saw them start, and she stood a long while in the doorway by the Mezuzeh.

And on another fine autumn morning, just when the villagers were beginning to cart loads of fresh earth to secure the village against overflowing streams, the village boys told one another the news of Feivke's death.

THE LAST OF THEM

They had been Rabbonim for generations in the Misnagdic community of Mouravanke, old, poverty-stricken Mouravanke, crowned with hoary honor, hidden away in the thick woods. Generation on generation of them had been renowned far and near, wherever a Jewish word was spoken, wherever the voice of the Torah rang out in the warm old houses-of-study.

People talked of them everywhere, as they talk of miracles when miracles are no more, and of consolation when all hope is long since dead-talked of them as great-grandchildren talk of the riches of their great-grandfather, the like of which are now unknown, and of the great seven-branched, old-fashioned lamp, which he left them as an inheritance of times gone by.

For as the lustre of an old, seven-branched lamp shining in the darkness, such was the lustre of the family of the Rabbonim of Mouravanke.

That was long ago, ever so long ago, when Mouravanke lay buried in the dark Lithuanian forests. The old, low, moss-grown houses were still set in wide, green gardens, wherein grew beet-root and onions, while the hop twined itself and clustered thickly along the wooden fencing. Well-to-do Jews still went about in linen pelisses, and smoked pipes filled with dry herbs. People got a living out of the woods, where they burnt pitch the whole week through, and Jewish families ate rye-bread and groats-pottage.

A new baby brought no anxiety along with it. People praised God, carried the pitcher to the well, filled it, and poured a quart of water into the pottage. The newcomer was one of God's creatures, and was assured of his portion along with the others.

And if a Jew had a marriageable daughter, and could not afford a dowry, he took a stick in his hand, donned a white shirt with a broad mangled collar, repeated the "Prayer of the Highway," and set off on foot to Volhynia, that thrice-blessed wonderland, where people talk with a "Chirik," and eat Challeh with saffron even in the middle of the week-with saffron, if not with honey.

There, in Volhynia, on Friday evenings, the rich Jewish householder of the district walks to and fro leisurely in his brightly lit room. In all likelihood, he is a short, plump, hairy man, with a broad, fair beard, a gathered silk sash round his substantial figure, a cheery singsong "Sholom-Alechem" on his mincing, "chiriky" tongue, and a merry crack of the thumb. The Lithuanian guest, teacher or preacher, the shrunk and shrivelled stranger with the piercing black eyes, sits in a corner, merely moving his lips and gazing at the floor-perhaps because he feels ill at ease in the bright, nicely-furnished room; perhaps because he is thinking of his distant home, of his wife and children and his marriageable daughter; and perhaps because it has suddenly all become oddly dear to him, his poor, forsaken native place, with its moiling, poverty-struck Jews, whose week is spent pitch-burning in the forest; with its old, warm houses-of-study; with its celebrated giants of the Torah, bending with a candle in their hand over the great hoary Gemorehs.

And here, at table, between the tasty stuffed fish and the soup, with the rich Volhynian "stuffed monkeys," the brusque, tongue-tied guest is suddenly unable to contain himself, and overflows with talk about his corner in Lithuania.

"Whether we have our Rabbis at home?! N-nu!!"

And thereupon he holds forth grandiloquently, with an ardor and incisiveness born of the love and the longing at his heart. The piercing black eyes shoot sparks, as the guest tells of the great men of Mouravanke, with their fiery intellects, their iron perseverance, who sit over their books by day and by night. From time to time they take an hour and a half's doze, falling with their head onto their fists, their beards sweeping the Gemoreh, the big candle keeping watch overhead and waking them once more to the study of the Torah.

At dawn, when the people begin to come in for the Morning Prayer, they walk round them on tiptoe, giving them their four-ells' distance, and avoid meeting their look, which is apt to be sharp and burning.

"That is the way we study in Lithuania!"

The stout, hairy householder, good-natured and credulous, listens attentively to the wonderful tales, loosens the sash over his pelisse in leisurely fashion, unbuttons his waistcoat across his generous waist, blows out his cheeks, and sways his head from side to side, because-one may believe anything of the Lithuanians!

Then, if once in a long, long while the rich Volhynian householder stumbled, by some miracle or other, into Lithuania, sheer curiosity would drive him to take a look at the Lithuanian celebrity. But he would stand before him in trembling and astonishment, as one stands before a high granite rock, the summit of which can barely be discerned. Is he terrified by the dark and bushy brows, the keen, penetrating looks, the deep, stern wrinkles in the forehead that might have been carved in stone, they are so stiffly fixed? Who can say? Or is he put out of countenance by the cold, hard assertiveness of their speech, which bores into the conscience like a gimlet, and knows of no mercy?-for from between those wrinkles, from beneath those dark brows, shines out the everlasting glory of the Shechinah.

Such were the celebrated Rabbonim of Mouravanke.

They were an old family, a long chain of great men, generation on generation of tall, well-built, large-boned Jews, all far on in years, with thick, curly beards. It was very seldom one of these beards showed a silver hair. They were stern, silent men, who heard and saw everything, but who expressed themselves mostly by means of their wrinkles and their eyebrows rather than in words, so that when a Mouravanke Rav went so far as to say "N-nu," that was enough.

The dignity of Rav was hereditary among them, descending from father to son, and, together with the Rabbinical position and the eighteen gulden a week salary, the son inherited from his father a tall, old reading-desk, smoked and scorched by the candles, in the old house-of-study in the corner by the ark, and a thick, heavy-knotted stick, and an old holiday pelisse of lustrine, the which, if worn on a bright Sabbath-day in summer-time, shines in the sun, and fairly shouts to be looked at.

They arrived in Mouravanke generations ago, when the town was still in the power of wild highwaymen, called there "Hydemakyes," with huge, terrifying whiskers and large, savage dogs. One day, on Hoshanah Rabbah, early in the morning, there entered the house-of-study a tall youth, evidently village-born and from a long way off, barefoot, with turned-up trousers, his boots slung on a big, knotted stick across his shoulders, and a great bundle of big Hoshanos. The youth stood in the centre of the house-of-study with his mouth open, bewildered, and the boys quickly snatched his willow branches from him. He was surrounded, stared at, questioned as to who he was, whence he came, what he wanted. Had he parents? Was he married? For some time the youth stood silent, with downcast eyes, then he bethought himself, and answered in three words: "I want to study!"

And from that moment he remained in the old building, and people began to tell wonderful tales of his power of perseverance-of how a tall, barefoot youth, who came walking from a far distance, had by dint of determination come to be reckoned among the great men in Israel; of how, on a winter midnight, he would open the stove doors, and study by the light of the glowing coals; of how he once forgot food and drink for three days and three nights running, while he stood over a difficult legal problem with wrinkled brows, his eyes piercing the page, his fingers stiffening round the handle of his stick, and he motionless; and when suddenly he found the solution, he gave a shout "Nu!" and came down so hard on the desk with his stick that the whole house-of-study shook. It happened just when the people were standing quite quiet, repeating the Eighteen Benedictions.

Then it was told how this same lad became Rav in Mouravanke, how his genius descended to his children and children's children, till late in the generations, gathering in might with each generation in turn. They rose, these giants, one after the other, persistent investigators of the Law, with high, wrinkled foreheads, dark, bushy brows, a hard, cutting glance, sharp as steel.

In those days Mouravanke was illuminated as with seven suns. The houses-of-study were filled with students; voices, young and old, rang out over the Gemorehs, sang, wept, and implored. Worried and tired-looking fathers and uncles would come into the Shools with blackened faces after the day's pitch-burning, between Afternoon and Evening Prayer, range themselves in leisurely mood by the doors and the stove, cock their ears, and listen, Jewish drivers, who convey people from one town to another, snatched a minute the first thing in the morning, and dropped in with their whips under their arms, to hear a passage in the Gemoreh expounded. And the women, who washed the linen at the pump in summer-time, beat the wet clothes to the melody of the Torah that came floating into the street through the open windows, sweet as a long-expected piece of good news.

Thus Mouravanke came to be of great renown, because the wondrous power of the Mouravanke Rabbonim, the power of concentration of thought, grew from generation to generation. And in those days the old people went about with a secret whispering, that if there should arise a tenth generation of the mighty ones, a new thing, please God, would come to pass among Jews.

But there was no tenth generation; the ninth of the Mouravanke Rabbonim was the last of them.

He had two sons, but there was no luck in the house in his day: the sons philosophized too much, asked too many questions, took strange paths that led them far away.

Once a rumor spread in Mouravanke that the Rav's eldest son had become celebrated in the great world because of a book he had written, and had acquired the title of "professor." When the old Rav was told of it, he at first remained silent, with downcast eyes. Then he lifted them and ejaculated:

"Nu!"

And not a word more. It was only remarked that he grew paler, that his look was even more piercing, more searching than before. This is all that was ever said in the town about the Rav's children, for no one cared to discuss a thing on which the old Rav himself was silent.

Once, however, on the Great Sabbath, something happened in the spacious old house-of-study. The Rav was standing by the ark, wrapped in his Tallis, and expounding to a crowded congregation. He had a clear, resonant, deep voice, and when he sent it thundering over the heads of his people, the air seemed to catch fire, and they listened dumbfounded and spellbound.

Suddenly the old man stopped in the midst of his exposition, and was silent. The congregation thrilled with speechless expectation. For a minute or two the Rav stood with his piercing gaze fixed on the people, then he deliberately pulled aside the curtain before the ark, opened the ark doors, and turned to the congregation:

"Listen, Jews! I know that many of you are thinking of something that has just occurred to me, too. You wonder how it is that I should set myself up to expound the Torah to a townful of Jews, when my own children have cast the Torah behind them. Therefore I now open the ark and declare to you, Jews, before the holy scrolls of the Law, I have no children any more. I am the last Rav of our family!"

Hereupon a piteous wail came from out of the women's Shool, but the Rav's sonorous voice soon reduced them to silence, and once more the Torah was being expounded in thunder over the heads of the open-mouthed assembly.

Years, a whole decade of them, passed, and still the old Rav walked erect, and not one silver hair showed in his curly beard, and the town was still used to see him before daylight, a tall, solitary figure carrying a stick and a lantern, on his way to the large old Bes ha-Midrash, to study there in solitude-until Mouravanke began to ring with the fame of her Charif, her great new scholar.

He was the son of a poor tailor, a pale, thin youth, with a pointed nose and two sharp, black eyes, who had gone away at thirteen or so to study in celebrated, distant academies, whence his name had spread round and about. People said of him, that he was growing up to be a Light of the Exile, that with his scholastic achievements he would outwit the acutest intellects of all past ages; they said that he possessed a brain power that ground "mountains" of Talmud to powder. News came that a quantity of prominent Jewish communities had sent messengers, to ask him to come and be their Rav.

Mouravanke was stirred to its depths. The householders went about greatly perturbed, because their Rav was an old man, his days were numbered, and he had no children to take his place.

So they came to the old Rav in his house, to ask his advice, whether it was possible to invite the Mouravanke Charif, the tailor's son, to come to them, so that he might take the place of the Rav on his death, in a hundred and twenty years-seeing that the said young Charif was a scholar distinguished by the acuteness of his intellect the only man worthy of sitting in the seat of the Mouravanke Rabbonim.

The old Rav listened to the householders with lowering brows, and never raised his eyes, and he answered them one word:

"Nu!"

So Mouravanke sent a messenger to the young Charif, offering him the Rabbinate. The messenger was swift, and soon the news spread through the town that the Charif was approaching.

When it was time for the householders to go forth out of the town, to meet the young Charif, the old Rav offered to go with them, and they took a chair for him to sit in while he waited at the meeting-place. This was by the wood outside the town, where all through the week the Jewish townsfolk earned their bread by burning pitch. Begrimed and toil-worn Jews were continually dropping their work and peeping out shamefacedly between the tree-stems.

It was Friday, a clear day in the autumn. She appeared out of a great cloud of dust-she, the travelling-wagon in which sat the celebrated young Charif. Sholom-Alechems flew to meet him from every side, and his old father, the tailor, leant back against a tree, and wept aloud for joy.

Now the old Rav declared that he would not allow the Charif to enter the town till he had heard him, the Charif, expound a portion of the Torah.

The young man accepted the condition. Men, women, and little children stood expectant, all eyes were fastened on the tailor's son, all hearts beat rapidly.

The Charif expounded the Torah standing in the wagon. At first he looked fairly scared, and his sharp black eyes darted fearfully hither and thither over the heads of the silent crowd. Then came a bright idea, and lit up his face. He began to speak, but his was not the familiar teaching, such as everyone learns and understands. His words were like fiery flashes appearing and disappearing one after the other, lightnings that traverse and illumine half the sky in one second of time, a play of swords in which there are no words, only the clink and ring of finely-tempered steel.

The old Rav sat in his chair leaning on his old, knobbly, knotted stick, and listened. He heard, but evil thoughts beset him, and deep, hard wrinkles cut themselves into his forehead. He saw before him the Charif, the dried-up youth with the sharp eyes and the sharp, pointed nose, and the evil thought came to him, "Those are needles, a tailor's needles," while the long, thin forefinger with which the Charif pointed rapidly in the air seemed a third needle wielded by a tailor in a hurry.

"You prick more sharply even than your father," is what the old Rav wanted to say when the Charif ended his sermon, but he did not say it. The whole assembly was gazing with caught breath at his half-closed eyelids. The lids never moved, and some thought wonderingly that he had fallen into a doze from sheer old age.

Suddenly a strange, dry snap broke the stillness, the old Rav started in his chair, and when they rushed forward to assist him, they found that his knotted, knobbly stick had broken in two.

Pale and bent for the first time, but a tall figure still, the old Rav stood up among his startled flock. He made a leisurely motion with his hand in the direction of the town, and remarked quietly to the young Charif:

"Nu, now you can go into the town!"

That Friday night the old Rav came into the house-of-study without his satin cloak, like a mourner. The congregation saw him lead the young Rav into the corner near the ark, where he sat him down by the high old desk, saying:

"You will sit here."

He himself went and sat down behind the pulpit among the strangers, the Sabbath guests.

For the first minute people were lost in astonishment; the next minute the house-of-study was filled with wailing. Old and young lifted their voices in lamentation. The young Rav looked like a child sitting behind the tall desk, and he shivered and shook as though with fever.

Then the old Rav stood up to his full height and commanded:

"People are not to weep!"

All this happened about the Solemn Days. Mouravanke remembers that time now, and speaks of it at dusk, when the sky is red as though streaming with fire, and the men stand about pensive and forlorn, and the women fold their babies closer in their aprons.

At the close of the Day of Atonement there was a report that the old Rav had breathed his last in robe and prayer-scarf.

The young Charif did not survive him long. He died at his father's the tailor, and his funeral was on a wet Great Hosannah day. Aged folk said he had been summoned to face the old Rav in a lawsuit in the Heavenly Court.

A FOLK TALE

THE CLEVER RABBI

The power of man's imagination, said my Grandmother, is very great. Hereby hangs a tale, which, to our sorrow, is a true one, and as clear as daylight.

Listen attentively, my dear child, it will interest you very much.

Not far from this town of ours lived an old Count, who believed that Jews require blood at Passover, Christian blood, too, for their Passover cakes.

The Count, in his brandy distillery, had a Jewish overseer, a very honest, respectable fellow.

The Count loved him for his honesty, and was very kind to him, and the Jew, although he was a simple man and no scholar, was well-disposed, and served the Count with heart and soul. He would have gone through fire and water at the Count's bidding, for it is in the nature of a Jew to be faithful and to love good men.

The Count often discussed business matters with him, and took pleasure in hearing about the customs and observances of the Jews.

One day the Count said to him, "Tell me the truth, do you love me with your whole heart?"

"Yes," replied the Jew, "I love you as myself."

"Not true!" said the Count. "I shall prove to you that you hate me even unto death."

"Hold!" cried the Jew. "Why does my lord say such terrible things?"

The Count smiled and answered: "Let me tell you! I know quite well that Jews must have Christian blood for their Passover feast. Now, what would you do if I were the only Christian you could find? You would have to kill me, because the Rabbis have said so. Indeed, I can scarcely hold you to blame, since, according to your false notions, the Divine command is precious, even when it tells us to commit murder. I should be no more to you than was Isaac to Abraham, when, at God's command, Abraham was about to slay his only son. Know, however, that the God of Abraham is a God of mercy and lovingkindness, while the God the Rabbis have created is full of hatred towards Christians. How, then, can you say that you love me?"

The Jew clapped his hands to his head, he tore his hair in his distress and felt no pain, and with a broken heart he answered the Count, and said: "How long will you Christians suffer this stain on your pure hearts? How long will you disgrace yourselves? Does not my lord know that this is a great lie? I, as a believing Jew, and many besides me, as believing Jews-we ourselves, I say, with our own hands, grind the corn, we keep the flour from getting damp or wet with anything, for if only a little dew drop onto it, it is prohibited for us as though it had yeast.

"Till the day on which the cakes are baked, we keep the flour as the apple of our eye. And when the flour is baked, and we are eating the cakes, even then we are not sure of swallowing it, because if our gums should begin to bleed, we have to spit the piece out. And in face of all these stringent regulations against eating the blood of even beasts and birds, some people say that Jews require human blood for their Passover cakes, and swear to it as a fact! What does my lord suppose we are likely to think of such people? We know that they swear falsely-and a false oath is of all things the worst."

The Count was touched to the heart by these words, and these two men, being both upright and without guile, believed one the other.

The Count believed the Jew, that is, he believed that the Jew did not know the truth of the matter, because he was poor and untaught, while the Rabbis all the time most certainly used blood at Passover, only they kept it a secret from the people. And he said as much to the Jew, who, in his turn, believed the Count, because he knew him to be an honorable man. And so it was that he began to have his doubts, and when the Count, on different occasions, repeated the same words, the Jew said to himself, that perhaps after all it was partly true, that there must be something in it-the Count would never tell him a lie!

And he carried the thought about with him for some time.

The Jew found increasing favor in his master's eyes. The Count lent him money to trade with, and God prospered the Jew in everything he undertook. Thanks to the Count, he grew rich.

The Jew had a kind heart, and was much given to good works, as is the way with Jews.

He was very charitable, and succored all the poor in the neighboring town. And he assisted the Rabbis and the pious in all the places round about, and earned for himself a great and beautiful name, for he was known to all as "the benefactor."

The Rabbis gave him the honor due to a pious and influential Jew, who is a wealthy man and charitable into the bargain.

But the Jew was thinking:

"Now the Rabbis will let me into the secret which is theirs, and which they share with those only who are at once pious and rich, that great and pious Jews must have blood for Passover."

For a long time he lived in hope, but the Rabbis told him nothing, the subject was not once mentioned. But the Jew felt sure that the Count would never have lied to him, and he gave more liberally than before, thinking, "Perhaps after all it was too little."

He assisted the Rabbi of the nearest town for a whole year, so that the Rabbi opened his eyes in astonishment. He gave him more than half of what is sufficient for a livelihood.

When it was near Passover, the Jew drove into the little town to visit the Rabbi, who received him with open arms, and gave him honor as unto the most powerful and wealthy benefactor. And all the representative men of the community paid him their respects.

Thought the Jew, "Now they will tell me of the commandment which it is not given to every Jew to observe."

As the Rabbi, however, told him nothing, the Jew remained, to remind the Rabbi, as it were, of his duty.

"Rabbi," said the Jew, "I have something very particular to say to you! Let us go into a room where we two shall be alone."

So the Rabbi went with him into an empty room, shut the door, and said:

"Dear friend, what is your wish? Do not be abashed, but speak freely, and tell me what I can do for you."

"Dear Rabbi, I am, you must know, already acquainted with the fact that Jews require blood at Passover. I know also that it is a secret belonging only to the Rabbis, to very pious Jews, and to the wealthy who give much alms. And I, who am, as you know, a very charitable and good Jew, wish also to comply, if only once in my life, with this great observance.

"You need not be alarmed, dear Rabbi! I will never betray the secret, but will make you happy forever, if you will enable me to fulfil so great a command.

"If, however, you deny its existence, and declare that Jews do not require blood, from that moment I become your bitter enemy.

"And why should I be treated worse than any other pious Jew? I, too, want to try to perform the great commandment which God gave in secret. I am not learned in the Law, but a great and wealthy Jew, and one given to good works, that am I in very truth!"

You can fancy-said my Grandmother-the Rabbi's horror on hearing such words from a Jew, a simple countryman. They pierced him to the quick, like sharp arrows.

He saw that the Jew believed in all sincerity that his coreligionists used blood at Passover.

How was he to uproot out of such a simple heart the weeds sown there by evil men?

The Rabbi saw that words would just then be useless.

A beautiful thought came to him, and he said: "So be it, dear friend! Come into the synagogue to-morrow at this time, and I will grant your request. But till then you must fast, and you must not sleep all night, but watch in prayer, for this is a very grave and dreadful thing."

The Jew went away full of gladness, and did as the Rabbi had told him. Next day, at the appointed time, he came again, wan with hunger and lack of sleep.

The Rabbi took the key of the synagogue, and they went in there together. In the synagogue all was quiet.

The Rabbi put on a prayer-scarf and a robe, lighted some black candles, threw off his shoes, took the Jew by the hand, and led him up to the ark.

The Rabbi opened the ark, took out a scroll of the Law, and said:

"You know that for us Jews the scroll of the Law is the most sacred of all things, and that the list of denunciations occurs in it twice.

"I swear to you by the scroll of the Law: If any Jew, whosoever he be, requires blood at Passover, may all the curses contained in the two lists of denunciations be on my head, and on the head of my whole family!"

The Jew was greatly startled.

He knew that the Rabbi had never before sworn an oath, and now, for his sake, he had sworn an oath so dreadful!

The Jew wept much, and said:

"Dear Rabbi, I have sinned before God and before you. I pray you, pardon me and give me a hard penance, as hard as you please. I will perform it willingly, and may God forgive me likewise!"

The Rabbi comforted him, and told no one what had happened, he only told a few very near relations, just to show them how people can be talked into believing the greatest foolishness and the most wicked lies.

May God-said my Grandmother-open the eyes of all who accuse us falsely, that they may see how useless it is to trump up against us things that never were seen or heard.

Jews will be Jews while the world lasts, and they will become, through suffering, better Jews with more Jewish hearts.

GLOSSARY AND NOTES

[Abbreviations: Dimin. = diminutive; Ger. = German, corrupt German, and Yiddish; Heb. = Hebrew, and Aramaic; pl. = plural; Russ. = Russian; Slav. = Slavic; trl. = translation.

Pronunciation: The transliteration of the Hebrew words attempts to reproduce the colloquial "German" (Ashkenazic) pronunciation. Ch is pronounced as in the German Dach.]

Additional Service. See Eighteen Benedictions.

Al-Chet (Heb.). "For the sin"; the first two words of each line of an Atonement Day prayer, at every mention of which the worshipper beats the left side of his breast with his right fist.

Alef-Bes (Heb.). The Hebrew alphabet.

Ashré (Heb.). The first word of a Psalm verse used repeatedly in the liturgy.

?us Klemenke! (Ger.). Klemenke is done for!

Azoi (= Ger. also). That's the way it is!

Badchen (Heb.). A wedding minstrel, whose quips often convey a moral lesson to the bridal couple, each of whom he addresses separately.

Bar-Mitzveh (Heb.). A boy of thirteen, the age of religious majority.

Bas-Kol (Heb.). "The Daughter of the Voice"; an echo; a voice from Heaven.

Beigel (Ger.). Ring-shaped roll.

Bes ha-Midrash (Heb.). House-of-study, used for prayers, too.

Bittul-Torah (Heb.). Interference with religious study.

Bobbe (Slav.). Grandmother; midwife.

Borshtsh (Russ.). Sour soup made of beet-root.

Cantonist (Ger.). Jewish soldier under Czar Nicholas I, torn from his parents as a child, and forcibly estranged from Judaism.

Challeh (Heb.). Loaves of bread prepared for the Sabbath, over which the blessing is said; always made of wheat flour, and sometimes yellowed with saffron.

Charif (Heb.). A Talmudic scholar and dialectician.

Chassidim (sing. Chossid) (Heb.). "Pious ones"; followers of Israel Baal Shem, who opposed the sophisticated intellectualism of the Talmudists, and laid stress on emotionalism in prayer and in the performance of other religious ceremonies. The Chassidic leader is called Tzaddik ("righteous one"), or Rebbe. See art. "Hasidim," in the Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. vi.

Chayyé Odom. A manual of religious practice used extensively by the common people.

Cheder (pl. Chedorim) (Heb.). Jewish primary school.

Chillul ha-Shem (Heb.). "Desecration of the Holy Name"; hence, scandal.

Chirik (Heb.). Name of the vowel "i"; in Volhynia "u" is pronounced like "i."

Davvening. Saying prayers.

Dayan (pl. Dayonim) (Heb.). Authority on Jewish religious law, usually assistant to the Rabbi of a town.

Din Torah (Heb.). Lawsuit.

Dreier, Dreierlech (Ger.). A small coin.

Eighteen Benedictions. The nucleus of each of the three daily services, morning, afternoon, evening, and of the "Additional Service" inserted on Sabbaths, festivals, and the Holy Days, between the morning and afternoon services. Though the number of benedictions is actually nineteen, and at some of the services is reduced to seven, the technical designation remains "Eighteen Benedictions." They are usually said as a "silent prayer" by the congregation, and then recited aloud by the cantor, or precentor.

Eretz Yisroel (Heb.). Palestine.

Erev (Heb.). Eve.

Eruv (Heb.). A cord, etc., stretched round a town, to mark the limit beyond which no "burden" may be carried on the Sabbath.

Fast of Esther. A fast day preceding Purim, the Feast of Esther.

"Fountain of Jacob." A collection of all the legends, tales, apologues, parables, etc., in the Babylonian Talmud.

Four-Corners (trl. of Arba Kanfos). A fringed garment worn under the ordinary clothes; called also Tallis-koton. See Deut. xxii. 12.

Four Ells. Minimum space required by a human being.

Four Questions. Put by the youngest child to his father at the Seder.

Ganze Goyim (Ger. and Heb.). Wholly estranged from Jewish life and customs. See Goi.

Gass (Ger.). The Jews' street.

Gehenna (Heb.). The nether world; hell.

Gemoreh (Heb.). The Talmud, the Rabbinical discussion and elaboration of the Mishnah; a Talmud folio. It is usually read with a peculiar singsong chant, and the reading of argumentative passages is accompanied by a gesture with the thumb. See, for instance, pp. 17 and 338.

Gemoreh-K?plech (Heb. and Ger.). A subtle, keen mind; precocious.

Gevir (Heb.). An influential, rich man.-Gevirish, appertaining to a Gevir.

Goi (pl. Goyim) (Heb.). A Gentile; a Jew estranged from Jewish life and customs.

Gottinyu (Ger. with Slav. ending). Dear God.

Great Sabbath, The. The Sabbath preceding Passover.

Haggadah (Heb.). The story of the Exodus recited at the home service on the first two evenings of Passover.

Hoshanah (pl. Hoshanos) (Heb.). Osier withe for the Great Hosannah.

Hoshanah-Rabbah (Heb.). The seventh day of the Feast of Tabernacles; the Great Hosannah.

Hostre Chassidim. Followers of the Rebbe or Tzaddik who lived at Hostre.

Kaddish (Heb.). Sanctification, or doxology, recited by mourners, specifically by children in memory of parents during the first eleven months after their death, and thereafter on every anniversary of the day of their death; applied to an only son, on whom will devolve the duty of reciting the prayer on the death of his parents; sometimes applied to the oldest son, and to sons in general.

Kalleh (Heb.) Bride.

Kalleh-leben (Heb. and Ger.). Dear bride.

Kallehshi (Heb. and Russ. dimin.). Dear bride.

Kasha (Slav.). Pap.

Kedushah (Heb.). Sanctification; the central part of the public service, of which the "Holy, holy, holy," forms a sentence.

Kerbel, Kerblech (Ger.). A ruble.

Kiddush (Heb.). Sanctification; blessing recited over wine in ushering in Sabbaths and holidays.

Klaus (Ger.). "Hermitage"; a conventicle; a house-of-study.

Kob tebi biessi (Little Russ.) "Demons take you!"

Kol Nidré (Heb.). The first prayer recited at the synagogue on the Eve of the Day of Atonement.

Kosher (Heb.). Ritually clean or permitted.

Kosher-Tanz (Heb. and Ger.). Bride's dance.

K?st (Ger.). Board.-Auf K?st. Free board and lodging given to a man and his wife by the latter's parents during the early years of his married life.

"Learn." Studying the Talmud, the codes, and the commentaries.

Le-Chayyim (Heb.). Here's to long life!

Lehavdil (Heb.). "To distinguish." Elliptical for "to distinguish between the holy and the secular"; equivalent to "excuse the comparison"; "pardon me for mentioning the two things in the same breath," etc.

Likkute Zevi (Heb.). A collection of prayers.

Lokshen. Macaroni.-Toras-Lokshen, macaroni made in approved style.

Maariv (Heb.). The Evening Prayer, or service.

Maggid (Heb.). Preacher.

Maharsho (MaHaRSHO). Hebrew initial letters of Morenu ha-Rab Shemuel Edels, a great commentator.

Malkes (Heb.). Stripes inflicted on the Eve of the Day of Atonement, in expiation of sins. See Deut. xxv. 2, 3.

Maskil (pl. Maskilim) (Heb.). An "intellectual." The aim of the "intellectuals" was the spread of modern general education among the Jews, especially in Eastern Europe. They were reproached with secularizing Hebrew and disregarding the ceremonial law.

Matzes (Heb.). The unleavened bread used during Passover.

Mechuteneste (Heb.). Mother-in-law; prospective mother-in-law; expresses chiefly the reciprocal relation between the parents of a couple about to be married.

Mechutton (Heb.). Father-in-law; prospective father-in-law; expresses chiefly the reciprocal relation between the parents of a couple about to be married.

Mehereh (Heb.). The "quick" dough for the Matzes.

Melammed (Heb.). Teacher.

Mezuzeh (Heb.). "Door-post;" Scripture verses attached to the door-posts of Jewish houses. See Deut. vi. 9.

Midrash (Heb.). Homiletic exposition of the Scriptures.

Minchah (Heb.). The Afternoon Prayer, or service.

Min ha-Mezar (Heb.). "Out of the depth," Ps. 118. 5.

Minyan (Heb.). A company of ten men, the minimum for a public service; specifically, a temporary congregation, gathered together, usually in a village, from several neighboring Jewish settlements, for services on New Year and the Day of Atonement.

Mishnah (Heb.). The earliest code (ab. 200 C. E.) after the Pentateuch, portions of which are studied, during the early days of mourning, in honor of the dead.

Misnaggid (pl. Misnagdim) (Heb.). "Opponents" of the Chassidim. The Misnagdic communities are led by a Rabbi (pl. Rabbonim), sometimes called Rav.

Mitzveh (Heb.). A commandment, a duty, the doing of which is meritorious.

Nashers (Ger.). Gourmets.

Nishkoshe (Ger. and Heb.). Never mind!

Nissan (Heb.). Spring month (March-April), in which Passover is celebrated.

Olenu (Heb.). The concluding prayer in the synagogue service.

Olom ha-Sheker (Heb.). "The world of falsehood," this world.

Olom ha-Tohu (Heb.). World of chaos.

Olom ho-Emess (Heb.). "The world of truth," the world-to-come.

Parnosseh (Heb.). Means of livelihood; business; sustenance.

Piyyutim (Heb.). Liturgical poems for festivals and Holy Days recited in the synagogue.

Porush (Heb.). Recluse.

Prayer of the Highway. Prayer on setting out on a journey.

Prayer-scarf. See Tallis.

Pud (Russ.). Forty pounds.

Purim (Heb.). The Feast of Esther.

Rashi (RaSHI). Hebrew initial letters of Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac, a great commentator; applied to a certain form of script and type.

Rav (Heb.). Rabbi.

Rebbe. Sometimes used for Rabbi; sometimes equivalent to Mr.; sometimes applied to the Tzaddik of the Chassidim; and sometimes used as the title of a teacher of young children.

Rebbetzin. Wife of a Rabbi.

Rosh-Yeshiveh (Rosh ha-Yeshiveh) (Heb.). Headmaster of a Talmudic Academy.

Scape-fowls (trl. of Kapporos). Roosters or hens used in a ceremony on the Eve of the Day of Atonement.

Seder (Heb.). Home service on the first two Passover evenings.

Seliches (Heb.). Penitential prayers.

Seventeenth of Tammuz. Fast in commemoration of the first breach made in the walls of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar.

Shalom (Heb. in Sefardic pronunciation). Peace. See Sholom Alechem.

Shamash (Heb.). Beadle.

Shechinah (Heb.). The Divine Presence.

Shegetz (Heb.). "Abomination;" a sinner; a rascal.

Shlimm-Mazel (Ger. and Heb.). Bad luck; luckless fellow.

Shmooreh-Matzes (Heb.). Unleavened bread specially guarded and watched from the harvesting of the wheat to the baking and storing.

Shochet (Heb.). Ritual slaughterer.

Shofar (Heb.). Ram's horn, sounded on New Year's Day and the Day of Atonement. See Lev. xxiii. 24.

Sholom (Shalom) Alechem (Heb.). "Peace unto you"; greeting, salutation, especially to one newly arrived after a journey.

Shomer. Pseudonym of a Yiddish author, Nahum M. Schaikewitz.

Shool (Ger., Schul'). Synagogue.

Shulchan Aruch (Heb.). The Jewish code.

Silent Prayer. See Eighteen Benedictions.

Solemn Days. The ten days from New Year to the Day of Atonement inclusive.

Soul-lights. Candles lighted in memory of the dead.

Stuffed monkeys. Pastry filled with chopped fruit and spices.

Tallis (popular plural formation, Tallesim) (Heb.). The prayer-scarf.

Tallis-koton (Heb.). See Four-Corners.

Talmid-Chochem (Heb.). Sage; scholar.

Talmud Torah (Heb.). Free communal school.

Tano (Heb.). A Rabbi cited in the Mishnah as an authority.

Tararam. Noise; tumult; ado.

Tate, Tatishe (Ger. and Russ. dimin.). Father.

Tefillin-S?cklech (Heb. and Ger.). Phylacteries bag.

Tisho-b'ov (Heb.). Ninth of Ab, day of mourning and fasting to commemorate the destruction of Jerusalem; hence, colloquially, a sad day.

Torah (Heb.). The Jewish Law in general, and the Pentateuch in particular.

Tsisin. Season.

Tzaddik (pl. Tzaddikim) (Heb.). "Righteous"; title of the Chassidic leader.

U-mipné Chatoénu (Heb.). "And on account of our sins," the first two words of a prayer for the restoration of the sacrificial service, recited in the Additional Service of the Holy Days and the festivals.

U-Nesanneh-Toikef (Heb.). "And we ascribe majesty," the first two words of a Piyyut recited on New Year and on the Day of Atonement.

Verfallen! (Ger.). Lost; done for.

Vershok (Russ.). Two inches and a quarter.

Vierer (Ger.). Four kopeks.

Vivat. Toast.

Yeshiveh (Heb.). Talmud Academy.

Yohrzeit (Ger.). Anniversary of a death.

Yom Kippur (Heb.). Day of Atonement.

Yom-tov (Heb.). Festival.

Zhydek (Little Russ.). Jew.

P. 15. "It was seldom that parties went 'to law' ... before the Rav."-The Rabbi with his Dayonim gave civil as well as religious decisions.

P. 15. "Milky Sabbath."-All meals without meat. In connection with fowl, ritual questions frequently arise.

P. 16. "Reuben's ox gores Simeon's cow."-Reuben and Simeon are fictitious plaintiff and defendant in the Talmud; similar to John Doe and Richard Roe.

P. 17. "He described a half-circle," etc.-See under Gemoreh.

P. 57. "Not every one is worthy of both tables!"-Worthy of Torah and riches.

P. 117. "They salted the meat."-The ritual ordinance requires that meat should be salted down for an hour after it has soaked in water for half an hour.

P. 150. "Puts off his shoes!"-To pray in stocking-feet is a sign of mourning and a penance.

P. 190. "We have trespassed," etc.-The Confession of Sins.

P. 190. "The beadle deals them out thirty-nine blows," etc.-see Malkes.

P. 197. "With the consent of the All-Present," etc.-The Introduction to the solemn Kol Nidré prayer.

P. 220. "He began to wear the phylacteries and the prayer-scarf," etc.-They are worn first when a boy is Bar-Mitzveh (which see); Ezrielk was married at the age of thirteen.

P. 220. "He could not even break the wine-glass," etc.-A marriage custom.

P. 220. "Waving of the sacrificial fowls."-See Scape-fowls.

P. 220. "The whole company of Chassidim broke some plates."-A betrothal custom.

P. 227. "Had a double right to board with their parents 'forever.'"-See K?st.

P. 271. "With the consent of the All-Present," etc.-See note under p. 197.

P. 273. "Nothing was lacking for their journey from the living to the dead."-See note under p. 547.

P. 319. "Give me a teacher who can tell," etc.-Reference to the story of the heathen who asked, first of Shammai, and then of Hillel, to be taught the whole of the Jewish Law while standing on one leg.

P. 326. "And those who do not smoke on Sabbath, raised their eyes to the sky."-To look for the appearance of three stars, which indicate nightfall, and the end of the Sabbath.

P. 336. "Jeroboam the son of Nebat."-The Rabbinical type for one who not only sins himself, but induces others to sin, too.

P. 401. "Thursday."-See note under p. 516.

P. 403. "Monday," "Wednesday," "Tuesday."-See note under p. 516.

P. 427. "Six months' 'board.'"-See K?st.

P. 443. "I knew Hebrew grammar, and could write Hebrew, too."-See Maskil.

P. 445. "A Jeroboam son of Nebat."-See note under p. 336.

P. 489. "In a snow-white robe."-The head of the house is clad in his shroud at the Seder on the Passover.

P. 516. "She knew that on Wednesdays Yitzchokel ate his 'day'," etc.-At the houses of well-to-do families meals were furnished to poor students, each student having a specific day of the week with a given family throughout the year.

P. 547. "Why had he brought ... a white shirt-like garment?"-The worshippers in the synagogue on the Day of Atonement wear shrouds.

P. 552. "Am I ... I suppose I am to lie down?"-See Malkes.

P. 574. "In a hundred and twenty years."-The age attained by Moses and Aaron; a good old age. The expression is used when planning for a future to come after the death of the person spoken to, to imply that there is no desire to see his days curtailed for the sake of the plan.

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