he wailed through the streets,
leaning on Mrs. Pelz. By the time she returned to her house the children
were back from school; but seeing that Benny was not there, she chased
them out in the street, crying:

"Out of here, you robbers, gluttons! Go find Benny!" Hanneh Breineh
crumpled into a chair in utter prostration. "_Oi weh!_ he's lost! Mine
life; my little bird; mine only joy! How many nights I spent nursing him
when he had the measles! And all that I suffered for weeks and months
when he had the whooping-cough! How the eyes went out of my head till I
learned him how to walk, till I learned him how to talk! And such a
smart child! If I lost all the others, it wouldn't tear me so by the
heart."

She worked herself up into such a hysteria, crying, and tearing her
hair, and hitting her head with her knuckles, that at last she fell into
a faint. It took some time before Mrs. Pelz, with the aid of neighbors,
revived her.

"Benny, mine angel!" she moaned as she opened her eyes.

Just then a policeman came in with the lost Benny.

"_Na, na_, here you got him already!" said Mrs. Pelz "Why did you carry
on so for nothing? Why did you tear up the world like a crazy?"

The child's face was streaked with tears as he cowered, frightened and
forlorn. Hanneh Breineh sprang toward him, slapping his cheeks, boxing
his ears, before the neighbors could rescue him from her.

"Woe on your head!" cried the mother. "Where did you lost yourself?
Ain't I got enough worries on my head than to go around looking for you?
I didn't have yet a minute's peace from that child since he was born."

"See a crazy mother!" remonstrated Mrs. Pelz, rescuing Benny from
another beating. "Such a mouth! With one breath she blesses him when he
is lost, and with the other breath she curses him when he is found."

Hanneh Breineh took from the window-sill a piece of herring covered with
swarming flies, and putting it on a slice of dry bread, she filled a cup
of tea that had been stewing all day, and dragged Benny over to the
table to eat.

But the child, choking with tears, was unable to touch the food.

"Go eat!" commanded Hanneh Breineh. "Eat and choke yourself eating!"

* * *

"Maybe she won't remember me no more. Maybe the servant won't let me
in," thought Mrs. Pelz as she walked by the brownstone house on
Eighty-fourth Street where she had been told Hanneh Breineh now lived.
At last she summoned up enough courage to climb the steps. She was al