e is a barrel with a stave missing," knowingly declared his
neighbors. "He never spends a cent; and he belongs nowheres." For "to
belong," on New York's East Side, is of no slight importance. It means
being a member in one of the numberless congregations. Every decent Jew
must join "A Society for Burying Its Members," to be provided at least
with a narrow cell at the end of the long road. Zelig was not even a
member of one of these. "Alone, like a stone," his wife often sighed.

In the cloakshop where Zelig worked he stood daily, brandishing his
heavy iron on the sizzling cloth, hardly ever glancing about him. The
workmen despised him, for during a strike he returned to work after
two days' absence. He could not be idle, and thought with dread of the
Saturday that would bring him no pay envelope.

His very appearance seemed alien to his brethren. His figure was tall,
and of cast-iron mold. When he stared stupidly at something, he looked
like a blind Samson. His gray hair was long, and it fell in disheveled
curls on gigantic shoulders somewhat inclined to stoop. His shabby
clothes hung loosely on him; and, both summer and winter, the same old
cap covered his massive head.

He had spent most of his life in a sequestered village in Little Russia,
where he tilled the soil and even wore the national peasant costume.
When his son and only child, a poor widower with a boy of twelve on
his hands, emigrated to America, the father's heart bled. Yet he chose
to stay in his native village at all hazards, and to die there. One day,
however, a letter arrived from the son that he was sick; this sad news
was followed by words of a more cheerful nature--"and your grandson
Moses goes to public school. He is almost an American; and he is not
forced to forget the God of Israel. He will soon be confirmed. His Bar
Mitsva is near." Zelig's wife wept three days and nights upon the
receipt of this letter. The old man said little; but he began to sell
his few possessions.

To face the world outside his village spelled agony to the poor rustic.
Still he thought he would get used to the new home which his son had
chosen. But the strange journey with locomotive and steamship bewildered
him dreadfully; and the clamor of the metropolis, into which he was
flung pell-mell, altogether stupefied him. With a vacant air he regarded
the Pandemonium, and a petrifaction of his inner being seemed to take
place. He became "a barrel with a stave missing." No