Part 7

Most of all I wonder why he keeps on looking into the corner--he never takes his eyes off that corner. What is he looking for, what does he expect to see there? I watch his face growing sadder--he must be suffering from something or other--and all the while he talks to himself, "Directly, directly, in one little minute." He turns to me: "I must ask you to wait a little longer. It will be very soon now--in another minute's time. Just because we want it so badly, you'd think she'd rather burst," he said, and he went back to the corner, stooped, and looked into it.

"What are you looking for there every minute?" I ask him.

"Nothing. But directly--Take my advice: why should you sit there waiting? I will bring the book to you myself. When one wants her to, she won't!"

"All right, it's Friday, so I need not hurry. Why should you have the trouble, as I am already here?" I reply, and ask him who is the "she who won't."

"You see, my wife, who is making cakes, is kept waiting by her too, and I, with the lettering to do on the book, I also wait."

"But _what_ are you waiting for?"

"You see, if the cakes are to take on a nice glaze while baking, they must be brushed over with a yolk."

"Well, and what has that to do with stamping the letters on the cover of the book?"

"What has that to do with it? Don't you know that the glaze-gold which is used for the letters will not stick to the cover without some white of egg?"

"Yes, I have seen them smearing the cover with white of egg before putting on the letters. Then what?"

"How 'what?' That is why we are waiting for the egg."

"So you have sent out to buy an egg?"

"No, but it will be there directly." He points out to me the corner which he has been running to look into the whole time, and there, on the ground, I see an overturned sieve, and under the sieve, a hen turning round and round and cackling.

"As if she'd rather burst!" continued Seinwill. "Just because we want it so badly, she won't lay. She lays an egg for me nearly every time, and now--just as if she'd rather burst!" he said, and began to scratch his head.

And the hen? The hen went on turning round and round like a prisoner in a dungeon, and cackled louder than ever.

To tell the truth, I had inferred at once that Seinwill was persuaded I should wait for my book till the hen had laid an egg, and as I watched Seinwill's wife, and saw with what anxiety she waited for the hen to lay, I knew that I was right, that Seinwill was indeed so persuaded, for his wife called to him:

"Ask the young man for a kopek and send the child to buy an egg in the market. The cakes are getting cold."

"The young man owes me nothing, a few weeks ago he paid me for the whole job. There is no one to borrow from, nobody will lend me anything, I owe money all around, my very hair is not my own."

When Seinwill had answered his wife, he took another peep into the corner, and said:

"She will not keep us waiting much longer now. She can't cackle forever. Another two minutes!"

But the hen went on puffing out her feathers, pecking and cackling for a good deal more than two minutes. It seemed as if she could not bear to see her master and mistress in trouble, as if she really wished to do them a kindness by laying an egg. But no egg appeared.

I _lent_ Seinwill two or three kopeks, which he was to pay me back in work, because Seinwill has never once asked for, or accepted, charity, and the child was sent to the market.

A few minutes later, when the child had come back with an egg, Seinwill's wife had the glistening Sabbath cakes on a shovel, and was placing them gaily in the oven; my book was finished, and the unfortunate hen, released at last from her prison, the sieve, ceased to cackle and to ruffle out her plumage.

SHOLOM-ALECHEM

Pen name of Shalom Rabinovitz; born, 1859, in Pereyaslav, Government of Poltava, Little Russia; Government Rabbi, at twenty-one, in Lubni, near his native place; has spent the greater part of his life in Kieff; in Odessa from 1890 to 1893, and in America from 1905 to 1907; Hebrew, Russian, and Yiddish poet, novelist, humorous short story writer, critic, and playwright; prolific contributor to Hebrew and Yiddish periodicals; founder of Die juedische Volksbibliothek; novels: Stempenyu, Yosele Solovei, etc.; collected works: first series, Alle Werk, 4 vols., Cracow, 1903-1904; second series, Neueste Werk, 8 vols., Warsaw, 1909-1911.

THE CLOCK

The clock struck thirteen!

Don't imagine I am joking, I am telling you in all seriousness what happened in Mazepevke, in our house, and I myself was there at the time.

We had a clock, a large clock, fastened to the wall, an old, old clock inherited from my grandfather, which had been left him by my great-grandfather, and so forth. Too bad, that a clock should not be alive and able to tell us something beside the time of day! What stories we might have heard as we sat with it in the room! Our clock was famous throughout the town as the best clock going--"Reb Simcheh's clock"--and people used to come and set their watches by it, because it kept more accurate time than any other. You may believe me that even Reb Lebish, the sage, a philosopher, who understood the time of sunset from the sun itself, and knew the calendar by rote, he said himself--I heard him--that our clock was--well, as compared with his watch, it wasn't worth a pinch of snuff, but as there _were_ such things as clocks, our clock _was_ a clock. And if Reb Lebish himself said so, you may depend upon it he was right, because every Wednesday, between Afternoon and Evening Prayer, Reb Lebish climbed busily onto the roof of the women's Shool, or onto the top of the hill beside the old house-of-study, and looked out for the minute when the sun should set, in one hand his watch, and in the other the calendar. And when the sun dropt out of sight on the further side of Mazepevke, Reb Lebish said to himself, "Got him!" and at once came away to compare his watch with the clocks. When he came in to us, he never gave us a "good evening," only glanced up at the clock on the wall, then at his watch, then at the almanac, and was gone!

But it happened one day that when Reb Lebish came in to compare our clock with the almanac, he gave a shout:

"Sim-cheh! Make haste! Where are you?"

My father came running in terror.

"Ha, what has happened, Reb Lebish?"

"Wretch, you dare to ask?" and Reb Lebish held his watch under my father's nose, pointed at our clock, and shouted again, like a man with a trodden toe:

"Sim-cheh! Why don't you speak? It is a minute and a half ahead of the time! Throw it away!"

My father was vexed. What did Reb Lebish mean by telling him to throw away his clock?

"Who is to prove," said he, "that my clock is a minute and a half fast? Perhaps it is the other way about, and your watch is a minute and a half slow? Who is to tell?"

Reb Lebish stared at him as though he had said that it was possible to have three days of New Moon, or that the Seventeenth of Tammuz might possibly fall on the Eve of Passover, or made some other such wild remark, enough, if one really took it in, to give one an apoplectic fit. Reb Lebish said never a word, he gave a deep sigh, turned away without wishing us "good evening," slammed the door, and was gone. But no one minded much, because the whole town knew Reb Lebish for a person who was never satisfied with anything: he would tell you of the best cantor that he was a dummy, a log; of the cleverest man, that he was a lumbering animal; of the most appropriate match, that it was as crooked as an oven rake; and of the most apt simile, that it was as applicable as a pea to the wall. Such a man was Reb Lebish.

But let me return to our clock. I tell you, that _was_ a clock! You could hear it strike three rooms away: Bom! bom! bom! Half the town went by it, to recite the Midnight Prayers, to get up early for Seliches during the week before New Year and on the ten Solemn Days, to bake the Sabbath loaves on Fridays, to bless the candles on Friday evening. They lighted the fire by it on Saturday evening, they salted the meat, and so all the other things pertaining to Judaism. In fact, our clock was the town clock. The poor thing served us faithfully, and never tried stopping even for a time, never once in its life had it to be set to rights by a clockmaker. My father kept it in order himself, he had an inborn talent for clock work. Every year on the Eve of Passover, he deliberately took it down from the wall, dusted the wheels with a feather brush, removed from its inward part a collection of spider webs, desiccated flies, which the spiders had lured in there to their destruction, and heaps of black cockroaches, which had gone in of themselves, and found a terrible end. Having cleaned and polished it, he hung it up again on the wall and shone, that is, they both shone: the clock shone because it was cleaned and polished, and my father shone because the clock shone.

And it came to pass one day that something happened.

It was on a fine, bright, cloudless day; we were all sitting at table, eating breakfast, and the clock struck. Now I always loved to hear the clock strike and count the strokes out loud:

"One--two--three--seven--eleven--twelve--thirteen! Oi! _Thirteen?_"

"Thirteen?" exclaimed my father, and laughed. "You're a fine arithmetician (no evil eye!). Whenever did you hear a clock strike thirteen?"

"But I tell you, it _struck_ thirteen!"

"I shall give you thirteen slaps," cried my father, angrily, "and then you won't repeat this nonsense again. Goi, a clock _cannot_ strike thirteen!"

"Do you know what, Simcheh," put in my mother, "I am afraid the child is right, I fancy I counted thirteen, too."

"There's another witness!" said my father, but it appeared that he had begun to feel a little doubtful himself, for after the meal he went up to the clock, got upon a chair, gave a turn to a little wheel inside the clock, and it began to strike. We all counted the strokes, nodding our head at each one the while: one--two--three--seven--nine--twelve--thirteen.

"Thirteen!" exclaimed my father, looking at us in amaze. He gave the wheel another turn, and again the clock struck thirteen. My father got down off the chair with a sigh. He was as white as the wall, and remained standing in the middle of the room, stared at the ceiling, chewed his beard, and muttered to himself:

"Plague take thirteen! What can it mean? What does it portend? If it were out of order, it would have stopped. Then, what can it be? The inference can only be that some spring has gone wrong."

"Why worry whether it's a spring or not?" said my mother. "You'd better take down the clock and put it to rights, as you've a turn that way."

"Hush, perhaps you're right," answered my father, took down the clock and busied himself with it. He perspired, spent a whole day over it, and hung it up again in its place.

Thank God, the clock was going as it should, and when, near midnight, we all stood round it and counted _twelve_, my father was overjoyed.

"Ha? It didn't strike thirteen then, did it? When I say it is a spring, I know what I'm about."

"I always said you were a wonder," my mother told him. "But there is one thing I don't understand: why does it wheeze so? I don't think it used to wheeze like that."

"It's your fancy," said my father, and listened to the noise it made before striking, like an old man preparing to cough: chil-chil-chil-chil-trrrr ... and only then: bom!--bom!--bom!--and even the "bom" was not the same as formerly, for the former "bom" had been a cheerful one, and now there had crept into it a melancholy note, as into the voice of an old worn-out cantor at the close of the service for the Day of Atonement, and the hoarseness increased, and the strike became lower and duller, and my father, worried and anxious. It was plain that the affair preyed upon his mind, that he suffered in secret, that it was undermining his health, and yet he could do nothing. We felt that any moment the clock might stop altogether. The imp started playing all kinds of nasty tricks and idle pranks, shook itself sideways, and stumbled like an old man who drags his feet after him. One could see that the clock was about to stop forever! It was a good thing my father understood in time that the clock was about to yield up its soul, and that the fault lay with the balance weights: the weight was too light. And he puts on a jostle, which has the weight of about four pounds. The clock goes on like a song, and my father becomes as cheerful as a newborn man.

But this was not to be for long: the clock began to lose again, the imp was back at his tiresome performances: he moved slowly on one side, quickly on the other, with a hoarse noise, like a sick old man, so that it went to the heart. A pity to see how the clock agonized, and my father, as he watched it, seemed like a flickering, bickering flame of a candle, and nearly went out for grief.

Like a good doctor, who is ready to sacrifice himself for the patient's sake, who puts forth all his energy, tries every remedy under the sun to save his patient, even so my father applied himself to save the old clock, if only it should be possible.

"The weight is too light," repeated my father, and hung something heavier onto it every time, first a frying-pan, then a copper jug, afterwards a flat-iron, a bag of sand, a couple of tiles--and the clock revived every time and went on, with difficulty and distress, but still it went--till one night there was a misfortune.

It was on a Friday evening in winter. We had just eaten our Sabbath supper, the delicious peppered fish with horseradish, the hot soup with macaroni, the stewed plums, and said grace as was meet. The Sabbath candles flickered, the maid was just handing round fresh, hot, well-dried Polish nuts from off the top of the stove, when in came Aunt Yente, a dark-favored little woman without teeth, whose husband had deserted her, to become a follower of the Rebbe, quite a number of years ago.

"Good Sabbath!" said Aunt Yente, "I knew you had some fresh Polish nuts. The pity is that I've nothing to crack them with, may my husband live no more years than I have teeth in my mouth! What did you think, Malkeh, of the fish to-day? What a struggle there was over them at the market! I asked him about his fish--Manasseh, the lazy--when up comes Soreh Peril, the rich: Make haste, give it me, hand me over that little pike!--Why in such a hurry? say I. God be with you, the river is not on fire, and Manasseh is not going to take the fish back there, either. Take my word for it, with these rich people money is cheap, and sense is dear. Turns round on me and says: Paupers, she says, have no business here--a poor man, she says, shouldn't hanker after good things. What do you think of such a shrew? How long did she stand by her mother in the market selling ribbons? She behaves just like Pessil Peise Avrohom's over her daughter, the one she married to a great man in Schtrischtch, who took her just as she was, without any dowry or anything--Jewish luck! They say she has a bad time of it--no evil eye to her days--can't get on with his children. Well, who would be a stepmother? Let them beware! Take Chavvehle! What is there to find fault with in her? And you should see the life her stepchildren lead her! One hears shouting day and night, cursing, squabbling, and fighting."

The candles began to die down, the shadow climbed the wall, scrambled higher and higher, the nuts crackled in our hands, there was talking and telling stories and tales, just for the pleasure of it, one without any reference to the other, but Aunt Yente talked more than anyone.

"Hush!" cried out Aunt Yente, "listen, because not long ago a still better thing happened. Not far from Yampele, about three versts away, some robbers fell upon a Jewish tavern, killed a whole houseful of people, down to a baby in a cradle. The only person left alive was a servant-girl, who was sleeping on the kitchen stove. She heard people screeching, and jumped down, this servant-girl, off the stove, peeped through a chink in the door, and saw, this servant-girl I'm telling you of, saw the master of the house and the mistress lying on the floor, murdered, in a pool of blood, and she went back, this girl, and sprang through a window, and ran into the town screaming: Jews, to the rescue, help, help, help!"

Suddenly, just as Aunt Yente was shouting, "Help, help, help!" we heard _trrraach!--tarrrach!--bom--dzin--dzin--dzin, bomm!!_ We were so deep in the story, we only thought at first that robbers had descended upon our house, and were firing guns, and we could not move for terror. For one minute we looked at one another, and then with one accord we began to call out, "Help! help! help!" and my mother was so carried away that she clasped me in her arms and cried:

"My child, my life for yours, woe is me!"

"Ha? What? What is the matter with him? What has happened?" exclaimed my father.

"Nothing! nothing! hush! hush!" cried Aunt Yente, gesticulating wildly, and the maid came running in from the kitchen, more dead than alive.

"Who screamed? What is it? Is there a fire? What is on fire? Where?"

"Fire? fire? Where is the fire?" we all shrieked. "Help! help! Gewalt, Jews, to the rescue, fire, fire!"

"Which fire? what fire? where fire?! Fire take _you_, you foolish girl, and make cinders of you!" scolded Aunt Yente at the maid. "Now _she_ must come, as though we weren't enough before! Fire, indeed, says she! Into the earth with you, to all black years! Did you ever hear of such a thing? What are you all yelling for? Do you know what it was that frightened you? The best joke in the world, and there's nobody to laugh with! God be with you, it was the clock falling onto the floor--now you know! You hung every sort of thing onto it, and now it is fallen, weighing at least three pud. And no wonder! A man wouldn't have fared better. Did you ever?!"

It was only then we came to our senses, rose one by one from the table, went to the clock, and saw it lying on its poor face, killed, broken, shattered, and smashed for evermore!

"There is an end to the clock!" said my father, white as the wall. He hung his head, wrung his fingers, and the tears came into his eyes. I looked at my father and wanted to cry, too.

"There now, see, what is the use of fretting to death?" said my mother. "No doubt it was so decreed and written down in Heaven that to-day, at that particular minute, our clock was to find its end, just (I beg to distinguish!) like a human being, may God not punish me for saying so! May it be an Atonement for not remembering the Sabbath, for me, for thee, for our children, for all near and dear to us, and for all Israel. Amen, Selah!"

FISHEL THE TEACHER

Twice a year, as sure as the clock, on the first day of Nisan and the first of Ellul--for Passover and Tabernacles--Fishel the teacher travelled from Balta to Chaschtschevate, home to his wife and children. It was decreed that nearly all his life long he should be the guest of his own family, a very welcome guest, but a passing one. He came with the festival, and no sooner was it over, than back with him to Balta, back to the schooling, the ruler, the Gemoreh, the dull, thick wits, to the being knocked about from pillar to post, to the wandering among strangers, and the longing for home.

On the other hand, when Fishel _does_ come home, he is an emperor! His wife Bath-sheba comes out to meet him, pulls at her head-kerchief, blushes red as fire, questions as though in asides, without as yet looking him in the face, "How are you?" and he replies, "How are _you_?" and Froike his son, a boy of thirteen or so, greets him, and the father asks, "Well, Efroim, and how far on are you in the Gemoreh?" and his little daughter Resele, not at all a bad-looking little girl, with a plaited pigtail, hugs and kisses him.

"Tate, what sort of present have you brought me?"

"Printed calico for a frock, and a silk kerchief for mother. There--give mother the kerchief!"

And Fishel takes a silk (suppose a half-silk!) kerchief out of his Tallis-bag, and Bath-sheba grows redder still, and pulls her head-cloth over her eyes, takes up a bit of household work, busies herself all over the place, and ends by doing nothing.

"Bring the Gemoreh, Efroim, and let me hear what you can do!"

And Froike recites his lesson like the bright boy he is, and Fishel listens and corrects, and his heart expands and overflows with delight, his soul rejoices--a bright boy, Froike, a treasure!

"If you want to go to the bath, there is a shirt ready for you!"

Thus Bath-sheba as she passes him, still not venturing to look him in the face, and Fishel has a sensation of unspeakable comfort, he feels like a man escaped from prison and back in a lightsome world, among those who are near and dear to him. And he sees in fancy a very, very hot bath-house, and himself lying on the highest bench with other Jews, and he perspires and swishes himself with the birch twigs, and can never have enough.

Home from the bath, fresh and lively as a fish, like one newborn, he rehearses the portion of the Law for the festival, puts on the Sabbath cloak and the new girdle, steals a glance at Bath-sheba in her new dress and silk kerchief--still a pretty woman, and so pious and good!--and goes with Froike to the Shool. The air is full of Sholom Alechems, "Welcome, Reb Fishel the teacher, and what are you about?"--"A teacher teaches!"--"What is the news?"--"What should it be? The world is the world!"--"What is going on in Balta?"--"Balta is Balta."

The same formula is repeated every time, every half-year, and Nissel the reader begins to recite the evening prayers, and sends forth his voice, the further the louder, and when he comes to "And Moses declared the set feasts of the Lord unto the children of Israel," it reaches nearly to Heaven. And Froike stands at his father's side, and recites the prayers melodiously, and once more Fishel's heart expands and flows over with joy--a good child, Froike, a good, pious child!

"A happy holiday, a happy holiday!"

"A happy holiday, a happy year!"

At home they find the Passover table spread: the four cups, the bitter herbs, the almond and apple paste, and all the rest of it. The reclining-seats (two small benches with big cushions) stand ready, and Fishel becomes a king. Fishel, robed in white, sits on the throne of his dominion, Bath-sheba, the queen, sits beside him in her new silk kerchief; Efroim, the prince, in a new cap, and the princess Resele with her plait, sit opposite them. Look on with respect! His majesty Fishel is seated on his throne, and has assumed the sway of his kingdom.

* * * * *

The Chaschtschevate scamps, who love to make game of the whole world, not to mention a teacher, maintain that one Passover Eve our Fishel sent his Bath-sheba the following Russian telegram: "Rebyata sobral dyengi vezu prigatovi npiyedu tzarstvovatz," which means: "Have entered my pupils for the next term, am bringing money, prepare the dumplings, I come to reign." The mischief-makers declare that this telegram was seized at Balta station, that Bath-sheba was sought and not found, and that Fishel was sent home with the etape. Dreadful! But I can assure you, there isn't a word of truth in the story, because Fishel never sent a telegram in his life, nobody was ever seen looking for Bath-sheba, and Fishel was never taken anywhere by the etape. That is, he _was_ once taken somewhere by the etape, but not on account of a telegram, only on account of a simple passport! And not from Balta, but from Yehupetz, and not at Passover, but in summer-time. He wished, you see, to go to Yehupetz in search of a post as teacher, and forgot his passport. He thought it was in Balta, and he got into a nice mess, and forbade his children and children's children ever to go in search of pupils in Yehupetz.