den terror.

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Berele. "When people die, they let one
know--"

"Perhaps they wrote, and the carrier won't give us the letter--"

"Ai, that's chatter enough!" Berele was quite cross. "Shut up, donkey!
You make me laugh," he went on, to reassure Yainkele, "they are all
alive and well."

Yainkele became cheerful again, and all at once he gave a bound into the
air, and exclaimed with eager eyes:

"Berele, do what I say! Let's write by the post!"

"Right you are!" agreed Berele. "Only I've no money."

"I have four kopeks; they are over from the ten I got last night. You
know, at my 'Thursday' they give me ten kopeks for supper, and I have
four over.

"And I have one kopek," said Berele, "just enough for a post-card."

"But which of us will write it?" asked Yainkele.

"I," answered Berele, "I am the eldest, I'm a first-born son."

"But I gave four kopeks!"

"A first-born is worth more than four kopeks."

"No! I'll write half, and you'll write half, ha?"

"Very well. Come and buy a card."

And the two brothers ran to buy a card at the postoffice.

"There will be no room for anything!" complained Yainkele, on the way
home, as he contemplated the small post-card. "We will make little tiny
letters, teeny weeny ones!" advised Berele.

"Father won't be able to read them!"

"Never mind! He will put on his spectacles. Come along--quicker!" urged
Yainkele. His heart was already full of words, like a sea, and he wanted
to pour it out onto the bit of paper, the scrap on which he had spent
his entire fortune.

They reached their lodging, and settled down to write.

Berele began, and Yainkele stood and looked on.

"Begin higher up! There is room there for a whole line. Why did you put
'to my beloved Father' so low down?" shrieked Yainkele.

"Where am I to put it, then? In the sky, eh?" asked Berele, and pushed
Yainkele aside.

"Go away, I will leave you half. Don't confuse me!--You be quiet!" and
Yainkele moved away, and stared with terrified eyes at Berele, as he sat
there, bent double, and wrote and wrote, knitted his brows, and dipped
the pen, and reflected, and wrote again.

"That's enough!" screamed Yainkele, after a few minutes.

"It's not the half yet," answered Berele, writing on.

"But I ought to have more than half!" said Yainkele, crossly. The
longing to write, to pour out his heart onto the post-card, was
overwhelming him.

But Berele did not even hear: he had launche