ar God, who was hidden somewhere, whether near or far he
could not tell. One day Feivke all but ran a danger. It was early on a
winter morning; there was a cold, wild wind blowing outside, and indoors
there was a black stranger Jew, in a thick sheepskin, breaking open the
tin charity boxes. The smith's wife served the stranger with hot
potatoes and sour milk, whereupon the stranger piously closed his eyes,
and, having reopened them, caught sight of Feivke through the white
steam rising from the dish of potatoes--Feivke, huddled up in a
corner--and beckoned him nearer.

"Have you begun to learn, little boy?" he questioned, and took his cheek
between two pale, cold fingers, which sent a whiff of snuff up Feivke's
nose. His mother, standing by the stove, reddened, and made some
inaudible answer. The black stranger threw up his eyes, and slowly shook
his head inside the wide sheepskin collar. This shaking to and fro of
his head boded no good, and Feivke grew strangely cold inside. Then he
grew hot all over, and, for several nights after, thousands of long,
cold, pale fingers pursued and pinched him in his dreams.

They had never yet taught him to recite his prayers. Kozlov was a lonely
village, far from any Jewish settlement. Every Sabbath morning Feivke,
snug in bed, watched his father put on a mended black cloak, wrap
himself in the Tallis, shut his eyes, take on a bleating voice, and,
turning to the wall, commence a series of bows. Feivke felt that his
father was bowing before God, and this frightened him. He thought it a
very rash proceeding. Feivke, in his father's place, would sooner have
had nothing to do with God. He spent most of the time while his father
was at his prayers cowering under the coverlet, and only crept out when
he heard his mother busy with plates and spoons, and the pungent smell
of chopped radishes and onions penetrated to the bedroom.

Winters and summers passed, and Feivke grew to be seven years old, just
such a Feivke as we have described. And the last summer passed, and gave
way to autumn.

That autumn the smith's wife was brought to bed of a seventh child, and
before she was about again, the cold, damp days were upon them, with the
misty mornings, when a fish shivers in the water. And the days of her
confinement were mingled for the lonely village Jewess with the Solemn
Days of that year into a hard and dreary time. She went slowly about the
house, as in a fog, without help or hope, and sil