But the moment the step of the avenger was
heard on the stairs, little Sarah would betake herself to the corner and
howl with the pain of Isaac's pummellings. She had a strong love of
abstract justice and felt that if the wrongdoer were to go unpunished,
there was no security for the constitution of things.

To-day's holiday did not pass without an outbreak of this sort. It
occurred about tea-time. Perhaps the infants were fractious because
there was no tea. Esther had to economize her resources and a repast at
seven would serve for both tea and supper. Among the poor, combination
meals are as common as combination beds and chests. Esther had quieted
Sarah by slapping Isaac, but as this made Isaac howl the gain was
dubious. She had to put a fresh piece of coal on the fire and sing to
them while their shadows contorted themselves grotesquely on the beds
and then upwards along the sloping walls, terminating with twisted necks
on the ceiling.

Esther usually sang melancholy things in minor keys. They seemed most
attuned to the dim straggling room. There was a song her mother used to
sing. It was taken from a _Purim-Spiel_, itself based upon a Midrash,
one of the endless legends with which the People of One Book have
broidered it, amplifying every minute detail with all the exuberance of
oriental imagination and justifying their fancies with all the ingenuity
of a race of lawyers. After his brethren sold Joseph to the Midianite
merchants, the lad escaped from the caravan and wandered foot-sore and
hungry to Bethlehem, to the grave of his mother, Rachel. And he threw
himself upon the ground and wept aloud and sang to a heart-breaking
melody in Yiddish.

Und hei weh ist mir,
Wie schlecht ist doch mir,
Ich bin vertrieben geworen
Junger held voon dir.

Whereof the English runs:

Alas! woe is me!
How wretched to be
Driven away and banished,
Yet so young, from thee.

Thereupon the voice of his beloved mother Rachel was heard from the
grave, comforting him and bidding him be of good cheer, for that his
future should be great and glorious.

Esther could not sing this without the tears trickling down her cheeks.
Was it that she thought of her own dead mother and applied the lines to
herself? Isaac's ill-humor scarcely ever survived the anodyne of these
mournful cadences. There was another melodious wail which Alte
Belcovitch had brought from Poland. The chorus ran:

Man nemt awek die