rl was "finished" when she could read her prayers in
Hebrew, following the meaning by the aid of the Yiddish translation
especially prepared for women. If she could sign her name in Russian,
do a little figuring, and write a letter in Yiddish to the parents of
her betrothed, she was called _wohl gelehrent_--well educated.

Fortunately for me, my parents' ideals soared beyond all this. My
mother, although she had not stirred out of Polotzk, readily adopted
the notion of a liberal education imported by my father from cities
beyond the Pale. She heartily supported him in all his plans for us
girls. Fetchke and I were to learn to translate as well as pronounce
Hebrew, the same as our brother. We were to study Russian and German
and arithmetic. We were to go to the best _pension_ and receive a
thorough secular education. My father's ambition, after several years'
sojourn in enlightened circles, reached even beyond the _pension_; but
that was flying farther than Polotzk could follow him with the naked
eye.

I do not remember our first teacher. When our second teacher came we
were already able to read continuous passages. Reb' Lebe was no great
scholar. Great scholars would not waste their learning on mere girls.
Reb' Lebe knew enough to teach girls Hebrew. Tall and lean was the
rebbe, with a lean, pointed face and a thin, pointed beard. The beard
became pointed from much stroking and pulling downwards. The hands of
Reb' Lebe were large, and his beard was not half a handful. The
fingers of the rebbe were long, and the nails, I am afraid, were not
very clean. The coat of Reb' Lebe was rusty, and so was his skull-cap.
Remember, Reb' Lebe was only a girls' teacher, and nobody would pay
much for teaching girls. But lean and rusty as he was, the rebbe's
pupils regarded him with entire respect, and followed his pointer with
earnest eyes across the limp page of the alphabet, or the thumbed page
of the prayer-book.

For a short time my sister and I went for our lessons to Reb' Lebe's
heder, in the bare room off the women's gallery, up one flight of
stairs, in a synagogue. The place was as noisy as a reckless
expenditure of lung power could make it. The pupils on the bench
shouted their way from _aleph_ to _tav_, cheered and prompted by the
growl of the rebbe; while the children in the corridor waiting their
turn played "puss in the corner" and other noisy games.

Fetchke and I, however, soon began to have our lessons in private, a