when
they saw me playing there, some of them would stop and make fun of me
and tease me with remarks about the Jews. I was a boy without much
spirit. I always resented the taunts--but I always lacked the courage to
call back ... and if my eyes did blaze involuntarily with anger, I
usually turned away so that these bigger boys should not be able to see
them.

My fear was behind it all. I was afraid to fight back. And, being
ashamed of my cowardice, I grew quickly ashamed of that which had proved
it. I grew ashamed of being a Jew.

Terribly, bitterly ashamed. So mortified, indeed, that it was more than
I could do to speak of it to my father. And, usually, I could talk of
anything to him. Once he himself mentioned it to me: asked me whether I
was not proud of my race, whether I could not look with true contempt
and easy forgiveness upon those rowdies who had taunted me. I tried to
take that attitude ... but I was not big and strong enough for it. I
tried it only once--and then one of the big bullies of that fashionable
preparatory school, on his way down the block, grew angry at my lordly
unconcern towards his teasing, and hit me with his fist, and cut my lip
open. I kicked him in the shins, I remember, and ran swiftly away.

That didn't help matters. I was as much a weakling as ever. When I went
to public school, I used to cry with a snivelling vexation because the
toughs of my class made fun of me. One of them had a little sister in
the class below us, and I was very fond of her. I remember how, on St.
Valentine's day, I stole into her class room at lunch time and, while
she was absent, stuck a lacy, gaudy and beribboned missive in her desk.
I didn't understand, then, why the teacher tittered so nervously when I
asked her permission to do it. But, when my own lunch was done, and I
was back at my desk, I lifted the lid of it only to find that same
valentine rammed into one corner, crushed and torn almost in half, and
scrawled with the word, "Sheeny!"

Nor did the little romantic flight end there. For the next day, after
sister and brother had been comparing notes, the former marched
straight up to me, pulled my nose, and warned me to keep away, once and
for all, from the true American daughter of a true American family, and
to confine my sentiments to "some little Jew girl!"

I knew none of that sort. What few boys and girls of my own race I had
met at playtime or at Sunday school, I purposely shunned. I thought, if