s 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."