"That will be enough," he muttered, and loosened the reins. But scarcely
had he driven a few paces, when he stopped and looked the cart over
again.

"Perhaps it's not enough, after all?" he questioned fearfully, cut down
five more boughs, laid them onto the already full cart, and drove on.

He drove slowly, pace by pace, and his thoughts travelled slowly too, as
though keeping step with the thin horse.

Antosh was calculating how much salt and how much soap, how much
petroleum and how much tobacco he could buy for the return for his ware.
At length the calculating tired him, and he resolved to put it off till
he should have the cash. Then the calculating would be done much more
easily.

But when he reached the town, and saw that the booths were already
covered with fir-boughs, he felt a pang at his heart. The booths and the
houses seemed to be twirling round him in a circle, and dancing. But he
consoled himself with the thought that every year, when he drove into
town, he found many booths already covered. Some cover earlier, some
later. The latter paid the best.

"I shall ask higher prices," he resolved, and all the while fear tugged
at his heart. He drove on. Two Jewish women were standing before a
house; they pointed at the cart with their finger, and laughed aloud.

"Why do you laugh?" queried Antosh, excitedly.

"Because you are too soon with your fir-boughs," they answered, and
laughed again.

"How too soon?" he asked, astonished. "Too soon--too soon--" laughed the
women.

"Pfui," Antosh spat, and drove on, thinking, "Berko said himself, 'In a
week.' I am only two days ahead."

A cold sweat covered him, as he reflected he might have made a wrong
calculation, founded on what Berko had told him. It was possible that he
had counted the days badly--had come too late! There is no doubt: all
the booths are covered with fir-boughs. He will have no salt, no
tobacco, no soap, and no petroleum.

Sadly he followed the slow paces of his languid horse, which let his
weary head droop as though out of sympathy for his master.

Meantime the Jews were crowding out of the synagogues in festal array,
with their prayer-scarfs and prayer-books in their hands. When they
perceived the peasant with the cart of fir-boughs, they looked
questioningly one at the other: Had they made a mistake and begun the
festival too early?

"What have you there?" some one inquired.

"What?" answered Antosh, taken aback. "Fir-boughs! Bu