me, or he can't. What am I to do with him?" complained
Mattes to the peasant, whom he knew.

"Has he gone crazy? Give him a kick! Ai, you little lazy devil, get up!"
Feivke did not move from the spot, he only shivered silently, and his
teeth chattered.

"Ach, you devil! What sort of a boy have you there, Matke? A visitation
of Heaven! Why don't you beat him more? The other day they came and told
tales of him--Agapa said that--"

"I don't know, either, kind soul, what sort of a boy he is," answered
Mattes, and wrung his bands in desperation.

* * * * *

Early next morning Mattes hired a conveyance, and drove Feivke to the
town, to the asylum for the sick poor. The smith's wife came out and saw
them start, and she stood a long while in the doorway by the Mezuzeh.

And on another fine autumn morning, just when the villagers were
beginning to cart loads of fresh earth to secure the village against
overflowing streams, the village boys told one another the news of
Feivke's death.

THE LAST OF THEM

They had been Rabbonim for generations in the Misnagdic community of
Mouravanke, old, poverty-stricken Mouravanke, crowned with hoary honor,
hidden away in the thick woods. Generation on generation of them had
been renowned far and near, wherever a Jewish word was spoken, wherever
the voice of the Torah rang out in the warm old houses-of-study.

People talked of them everywhere, as they talk of miracles when miracles
are no more, and of consolation when all hope is long since dead--talked
of them as great-grandchildren talk of the riches of their
great-grandfather, the like of which are now unknown, and of the great
seven-branched, old-fashioned lamp, which he left them as an inheritance
of times gone by.

For as the lustre of an old, seven-branched lamp shining in the
darkness, such was the lustre of the family of the Rabbonim of
Mouravanke.

That was long ago, ever so long ago, when Mouravanke lay buried in the
dark Lithuanian forests. The old, low, moss-grown houses were still set
in wide, green gardens, wherein grew beet-root and onions, while the hop
twined itself and clustered thickly along the wooden fencing. Well-to-do
Jews still went about in linen pelisses, and smoked pipes filled with
dry herbs. People got a living out of the woods, where they burnt pitch
the whole week through, and Jewish families ate rye-bread and
groats-pottage.

A new baby brought no anxiety alo