The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, June 12, 1904, Page 3

” THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. ow could get rich on h They often give ten nstead of Supy and vou ne.” gogue door bang be- fore we parted he sai rst ‘day,’ potatoes ing, 1t k br vy of herring) y don’t even Regular are rich—Barll, the ders and ed once an sleep with there i1s plenty of llke you. You ars a pddenly warmed over nd tears of joy rose to hraim dearly from ay be because he i fellow, but I am sure 1 with that pure, un- h a homeless Grphan first friend. CHAPTER IV. THE WAYS OF THE TALMUD- TORAH. As I have previously intimated I was in those early days of a very diffident disposition. The boys at school dis- liked me for my reserve, mistaking my melancholy shyness for pride. If it bad not been for Ephraim, the only friend I bad, the boys would have pil- fered all my belongings and would probably have resorted to physical tor- ture. But ybody feared him. He was the biggest and strongest of the boys, #0 naturally his word was law to them. Time slowly healed the wound made By the death of my mother, and little by lttle I became accustomed to my new life of poverty—nay, more, I even began to be almost happy. Perhaps if It had not been my fortune to gain the friendship of Ephraim life would not have run so smoothly, but with him everything else was forgotten. Al- though we were quite different in mind snd dirpos yet our souls seemed to cleave to one another. Hand in tand we would leave the town limits end lose ourselves in the far-stretching flelds of blooming rye, waving wheat end oats, and hear the swishing of the rple stelks above our h2ads as we uld run breathlessly through the swaying crops, or sitting upon some montory we would look miles away less expanses of growing grain, by the tickling winds in wave- de, when everything seemed ting and swimming—the grass, the s leaves, the ears of grain, the 1—when everything swam iing tides. Ephraim could any voice, and he would cuckoo, whistle with purit f the canary, or chirp rds and Ephraim could kittens we would roil wrestle, vie in throw- Cphraim beat me yell in order to hear uld shout mysell rd to hear the resounding over e e tant forest until his hand over my sh me to silence. What gir those voices W ! wgelic from fund in- rophets, a T Zeclesiastes ns, and ns. My profi- red about anl I uriosity. People the syn agogue ding a the next t hesitation. f me, and the ge by ad became so rical scenes of I read a pessage described would th all the vividness of ould see the celestial, and prophet, Isaiah, his f garb thrown loosely lark bearded ing eyes heaven- 3, fearlessly pouring forth his flery nce and foretelling the doom of d see the weeping his head bent down, h his hands, sitting by ruins of the holy city and bewailing he downfall of his people and their s—I would even fancy that I e prophet’s groans; I would jel—the cabalistic dreamer and mystic—standing by the river of Che- ber and beholding visions In the open heavens. Dy g this period I almost lived in the books of the prophets; their words were ever in my mind, their visions al- ways reflected v vy in my imagina- ers, his frosts and long winter school e In the morning till ten at night. Fragmentary scenes of the school arise my mind. I see the schoolroom, sometimes overheated and sometime: ring cold, but al- ways close an with its lamps from the ceil- y covered with i nd snow so it is scarcely possible to look through them, the floor thick vith dirt, which ke on accumulat- nd scarcely, ever feeling roke of a broom: fifty or oys cudgeling their brains over t obselete studies, with their torn caps, through which their hair pro- trudes, and with torn boots, through which toes peep out, and which have been mended so often that there is al- most nothing left to patch upon; and ng crusts of bread, ended on long v e windows th 1 see them munc which they receive from the institution days when they have no “days, g parrotlike grace after swal- the last mouthful, and wishing ad been a few bites more. And see the school at night. It is t Outside, the winds are ing the drifting snow. ome noise in the flue. stretched on the warm Dutch , with Ephraim b y side, snor- ing complacently; the other boys lie on the narrow benches which stand against the walls of the Talmud-Torah, on tt and Jowin there ing their fists as pillows. I am sleepless. I raise myself on my elbows and glance about me. To my right is D the erstwhile noisy synagogue—gloomy, awe-inspiring. The ner-tomid (the perpetual light) is glimmering before the oren-kodesh (ark), casting its great shadow upon the w; 1l. . To my left s the large schoolroom, in which a small light is burning; the shadows of the suspended, slightly oscillating lamps appear like so many colossal spiders on the walls. What a babel of voices! Some of the children on the benches snore and groan and unconsciously make broken complaint against the There is a sudden shrieking creeching. I know whose voice it of “Yankle Snub nose,” as we call him; he is a little, hammered- down, small-faced skinny boy whose size has been diminished by the con- stant pounding of the teacher. He has Jjust moved this semester from Gorgle's class to Gazlen’s, or rather from the former’s thongs to the latter’s cane. Nobody in the tlass knows as much about the Iinflexibility of Shlomka’s cane as does Yankle; only the other day it broke on his back. He Is now probably dreaming that Gazlen is pull- ing his ears or that he is being flogged. Suddenly he stops; the snoring of the slumberers becomes louder and louder. 5 il i " Teay szz s AE A4 FEAEFUL SV HES ZYES Another sleepy voice is heard. Ze- mach, give me one bite—a bite— a little bite. Hold it between your hands d see if I don't take a little bite.” I hear the boy kick the bench; perhaps because he cannot get a “bite.” I hear several voices at once *“Hit him—hit bu pig’s snout!” “I'll knock the him, stuffing out of you!” “I only had one ce of bread and onion!"” “Abii (one of the Talmudic authorities) says it t be divided in halves “Ha! ha! Catch him—catch him—ha!” (he rolled off the bench)! And so I lie and think until I decide to pull the blanket over my head and wander away also to dreamland. Another summer and another winter glided by, with the same monotonous “day eating,” sleeping on the comforta- ble Dutch oven, receiving of occasional raps from Shiomka's stick, diving in the Talmudic ocean, and soaring high, high into the spheres whither Isaiah, Ezekiel and King David transported me. Although my physical being was confined within the narrow walls of the dirty Talmud-Torah, my fancy took flight to Mount Lebanon, Mount Moriah, to the realm of Judea, and sometimes descended to the Valley of Sharon, where I plucked the sweetest of roses. In our leisure hours Ephraim and I would read the “Menoras-Ha- moer,” a book abounding in legends and mystic tales, and other cabalistic books that told of devils and flying angels and seraphs. The following summer Ephraim de- cided to leave the Talmud-Torah and g0 to some other town. “Listen, Shrolke,” he said to me one summer evening. “I am already a big boy, and I can read a page of Talmud without any assistance. Why should I stay here when I can go to any town and get ‘days’ and see the world?” His words filled me with dismay. But I sympathized with his desire to leave this place, so I agreed that his plan was a good one. S “But before I leave I must take re- venge on Shlomka.” I hated the idea of vengeance. Be- sides, Shlomka was our teacher, and I thought he had a right to beat us. I begged Ephraim not to do any harm to the schoolmaster. “Oh, you are like a girl—always afraid of everybody,” he answered al- most contemptuously. “Why did he pull your ears yesterday? Couldn’t he tell vou to sit down without slapping your face first?"” I was silenced. The following morning, when Shlom- ka came to school, he found on the wall a ccal-drawn cartoon of himself in the act of spanking a pupil. The class was silent fram fear, but satisfaction could be read in their countenances.. The teacher glanced at the wall and then looked threateningly at his pupile. He was puzzled as to who was the perpetrator of this atro- T T = cious deed, but he did not hesitate. He began with the pupil nearest him and caned each in order until he had fin- ished the round, and the whole class was screaming and writhing with pain. But as he was going to lay the gtick aside he heard one whisper: “Shrolke did the work and everybody gets paid for it.” “Ha! You—you—" he burst out, bear- ing down upon me, with the stick raised ready to strike. “You—you— you— you think you are like your brother, who betrayed his father for the smile of a shikse (gentile girl), hey? You think you will also throw me into prison, hey? You think you will denounce me that I use Christian blood for the Passover, hey? You think you will get the sledevatel against me, hey? You think you will on my head and I'll say ‘thank you,” hey?” With each “hey” there came a blow. But suddenly the stick was arrested; Ephraim had jumped behind Shlomka and selzed his hand. “'Stop Jbeating him!"” shouted Ephraim in & command- ing volce. “He did not draw your pic- ture on the wall. T did it.” . Shlomka stood astounded; then the arteries on Mis forehead swelled® till \ BEFORE $g‘ &v STAEE they looked like blue cords, and his face began to work ominously. We ex- pected to see him fall upon this revo- lutionist and rend him. But Ephraim was undaunted. “I am not your wife or any of these little cowards,” he went on. “If you raise your hand on me I'll break your fat nose.” Shlomka made a move for the stick, which was trembling in Ephraim's hand. But he instantly reversed his apparent decision and sat down, shak- ing his finger at his pupil. “I'll not soil my hands on you, you rascal,” Shlom- ka Gazlen said, panting and quivering. “The gaboim (officers) of the Talmud- Torah~will settle my account with you.” Without saying a word, Ephralm broke Shlomka’s stick on his knee and left the class. He did not return until after evening service, when hg came up to me and sald in a whisper: “I am not done with him yet. To-morrow is my last day here, and T'll leave him a token of friendship.” On summer afternoons at about 3 o'clock Shlomka and Gorgle would grant their classes a recess Of about half an hour, during which Shlomka would take a nap with his arms folded upon the table and Gorgle would go home to feed his goat. The next day Ephraim did not appear at school un- til this recess period. The boys were all out in the yard, and Shlomka was peacefully snoring, his beard spread out on the cracked, worm-eaten table. “Hold this,” Ephraim said to me in apparent haste, pulllng a candle from his pocket.. I could not divine what was in his mind, but I did as he bade me. He lighted the candle In my hand, and sald: “Come, quick.” 1 I hesitated. “Oh, you coward! Come!” he ordered angrily. 1 followed with a leaping heart to where Shlomka sat asleep.. Ephralm praduced a piece of sealing-wax, melted it, and sealed Shlomka’s beard to the table. “To the ‘Bloody Hill,’” he whispered as he ran out of the Talmud-Torah. The picture of the teacher awakening and trylng to raise his sealed beard from the table I leave to the reader’s imagination. At about the time Shlomka was pro- bably arousing from his nap two boys stood on the “high hill” which over- towered my birthplace, clasped in each other's arms. ‘The taller one smiled humorously, his face bright with the satisfaction of- victory; the eyes of the smaller were filled with tears. “We'll soon meet again,” sald the taller of the two hopefully, as he took up his lttle bundie. “We'll soon meet again,” echoed the smaller one weakly; and he watched the disappearing form of his only places of safety. quent and disastrous. friend through tears that came faster than they could be wiped away. CHAPTER V. “THE LITHUANIAN ERA.” After Ephraim had left me I re- mained absolutely solitary in the midst of my wretched schoolmates. I hoped Ephralm would write to me, but weeks passed by without bringing me word. Then misfortune fell again, and I was again thrown out upon the world. It was on the first day of the Jewish month of Allul, toward the end of the It was a half-holiday and all I sat alone in the to put out the flames. vouring as thatched log houses. I reached the marketplace. already crcwded with heaps of furni- ture and other household goods, on top of which their owners sat on guard. By this time all the houses in town were ablaze, and a violent wind fanned the fire into embracing sheets of flame. straw from the thatched roofs, and firebrands driven by the fierce wind, flew in the air me- 4In8 they had saved. But I was so The heavy timbers of the Utterly despairing that I was Indiffer- well-constructed houses fell with roars €0t to the downpour. Drawing myselt into the flaring debris beneath. Here toBether, I let the rain wash me clean. and there a man tried to save his home by throwing on it pails of water, but The town was doomed. my face with my cap from the scorching heat, I ran toward “the outskirts of the town. The town was surrounded with a &aPpear one by one, slowly, as if they “Bloody Shrank from looking down upon the the boys were out. classroom before a big folio of the Tal- mud, my whole attention concentrated on a case in which “the defendant’s ox gored the cow of the plaintiff, and it was found that the plaintiff's cow gave .to its offspring:*it being unknown whether the premature birth had occurred before o defendant’s ox gored the plaintiff’s Defendant claims that curred before, and the plaintiff alleges that the birth was given after the gor- ing and by reason thereof.” ttle jurist as I had become, it was quite a puzzle for me to extricate my- Burning wisps premature birt all in vain. chain of hills, among T S S — == S RS S cHsr 9 PAZED KELPLESS CLANCE 47 YOorsrre self from the hair-splitting reasoning Hill” was the most prominent. for and against the parties to this Suddenly wild shrieks reached my ears: “Fire! Nothing is more terrifying to Lithu- To these poverty- and 1 climbed “Bloody HilL"” anlans than fire. inhabitants solute destitution. property Insured; Few have their most of them have nothing to insure but their decayed for which they can scarcely spare the premium. Every Lithuanian town is visited at least every twenty years by a destruc- tive fire which literally wipes it out of existence, so that these disasters have become distinct epochs of each town's dates back to the first fire, the second, or the third. At the terrifying cry, followed by the tolling of the sonorous fire bell, I seized the Old Testament which my mother had left me, stowed it safely in my in- side coat pocket, and rushed in fright out of the Talmud-Torah. A vast volume of smoke swept over the school Before I was half-way to the original fire a score of houses were in an incredibly short time half the town was in flames. toward the marketplace—a frge open square which the fire could not reach. The streets were filled with rebuild their “four corners.” in the general grief. them I had cccasion to dred to console whom had burned down, my beneractors burning, and shouting; women were wringing their hands and weeping bitterly; chil- dren, holding on to their mother’s cried * and ' screamed; roamed about, lowing and bellowing. Mothers rushed with their children in men staggered under the which they carried to their arms; the outskirts, Collisions were fre- there mounds and hillocks of charcoal Every one was and ashes belched forth spurts of trying to save his family and his own flames. How small my birthplace No one made any effort looked—like a private graveyard! The conflagra- But misfortunes never come singly, tion soared higher and higher; flicker- they say. It was not enough that we ing streaks flashed from every side; broad blazes swept right and left, de- they went the straw- soft rolls of thunder were heard. Soon had lost our homes by fire; as dark- ness began to settle about our misery, drops of rain began to fall, and blind- It was Ing flashes of lightning ripped across the black sky. In ancother minute the sky seemed to break open, and it rained as though another deluge had come upon us. What little had been saved from the fire was ruined by water. The people about me covered their heads with pails, pans or boards, or sought shelter under tables and bed- A NIGHT IN A FOREST. After a-time the rain ceased, the clouds broke and the stars began to misery below.' I arose, but I was so stiff and numb that I could hardly stretch a limb. I bdgan to walk, pain- fully at first, without the least knowl- edge where my feet were taking me. Jhe darkness about me added gloom to my despair. I now felt more than ever that I was an orphan—a lonely child in the great egotistic world. Now and then, however, a star twin- kled hope to me, and not infrequently a shrill cricket, leaping in the wet grass, seemed to offer me courage. Presently I found myself in the skirts of a forest; it was dense and deep—a genuine Russian forest. I recalled a wdiftle Open space a few hundred yards within this forest, which had been my fayorite resort on pleasant Sabbath afternoons. I had always loved the mighty solitude of the forest; there seemed to be a certain kinship to my weary melancholy. But now I re- mained standing with trembling fear. The moaning of the fire victims still rang in my ears; all the horrible storles of beasts and robbers I had heard in my childhood haunted my brain. The least noise mgde my flesh creep. I ad- vanced a step and stopped again. A wind swayed the boughs of a sapling and emitted something like a sigh, as if it were pitying the poor orphan standing near it. Then silence again. The large forest slept; all nature rested. I held my breath. I put my feet down softly and tock the path that led to my favorite retreat. The clear moon, peeping through the thick foliage, escorted me step by step. On my way I annoyed a number of birds in their ne in bushes; their flutter of wings and twitter were perhaps complaints against me, but I also com- plained and nobody heeded my grum- bling. At last 1 reached my favorite spot, and being utterly fatigued I stretched myself upon the long soft grass and forgot all my troubles in dreamland. I found myself on the peak of a high mountain, very high, almost reaching the clouds, with a staff, bud- ding leaves and blossoming, in one hand, and in the other I had a musty- looking little book, like the one my mother had left me. Enchanting mel- odies reached my ears. 1 glanced down. At the foot of the height I stood upon there ran a broad stream, in which people rede about in small barges; and across the flowing water stood a magnificent structure, the lower part of which resembled our synagogue and the upper looked like an ancient Grecian temple. A num- ber of people stood in the doorway of this singular edifice and motioned to ime to drop my burdens—the staff and the little book—for they became heavy, yet they were dear to me, so I hesi- tated. The multitude below renewed their invitation, and the longer I hesi- tated the more demonstrative became the crowd. They began to threaten me that unless I drop my staff and book and come down willingly they would pull me down. But their threats gave me courage and lent warmth to my blood. Then the vocif- erous throng began climbing the slope of the mountain, yet I did not budge; I feared them not. They soon reached me and showered crushing blows upon me, but I did not care; I did not even aftempt to return a blow. The staff and the book now became precious to me, and I pressed them to my breast with all my might. Hard as they pulled at the leaves of the book, they could not tear a leaf. The only In- jury it sustained was a little dirt from my perspiring hands in clasping Jdt tightly. Then a hundred hands seized me and began pulling me down, but I suddenly felt my strength becoming herculean and I forced them all back, remaining in my lofty position and laughing them all to scorn. In another instant the sun appeared resplendently. My bleeding wounds, which the mob had inflicted upon me, began to heal, and the blood in my veins now coursed warmer and swifter. I ran J“was feeling young again. I erected diagonally across the flelds, now lald my stooped shoulders, straightened my waste by hundreds of trampling feet bowed head, washed my bespattered and by household goods scattered upon face. Suddenly the crowd below reap- to the top of peared; agaln the flowing stream at 1 seated myself upon & the foot of the mountain; again the huge rock which crowned the hill, and curious structure; but now the crowd looked down upon my burning birth- below sent friendly greetings to me. The sky was clouded with heavy Without hesitation I flung the staff curtains of black smoke that overhung and the book aside a: began to de- and myriads of scend the precipitous slope, when I sparks and cinders flying around in lost my balance and rolled down, down, with down, until—I woke. burnished gold and crimson and dotted I sat down in the soft, moist grass its zenith with constellationlike groups. All the people about me were weeping day was just breaking. A gauzelike —poor mothers who foresaw starvation bluish mist hung over the forest, and for the babies in their arms; marriage- the moisture of the night dripped, tip. able maidens whose dowries were now tip, tip, from bough to bough, from leaf gone and who were doomed to spin- to leaf. Here and there pearl-like had always beads of dew, hanging on grass-blades, been penned in the “pale” by Russian- twinkled like diamond studs in green barbarity andcould not clearly sce by fleece. From the heart of the woods what miracle they would be able to there echoed early morning sounds— I joined the horn of a distant shepherd; the More than all of faint lowing of a cow, the bleating of for a sheep, the lash of a whip like.a ring- those poor people had friends and kin- ing pistol-shot. Silence for a moment. But I languidly rested on my elbow. A Talmud-Torah rustle above my head drew my eyes and thither; a canary-finch skipped around “day” givers ruined—whither could I restlessly, gently swinging the boughs turn? I had no friend, no kindred, as of a tree. Then she began to sing. if I were born of the rock I sat upon. pirst her crisp sweet notes came in My head fell between both my hands, gport warbles, but soon, as if heated by and I wept until I could weep no per own enthusiasm, her song swelled In my fancy I compared this i, a thrilling string of puriing, quiver- fire to that which reduced the Holy jng melodies. City to ashes, and like a little Jere- ryck—tchiruck—tchi—tchi—tehi,” an- miah I sat by the ruins of my town other forest singer struck In; then fol- and *bewailed the loss of my people. A few hours later the whole town, olink, the chaffinch, as well as the with the exception of a few houses in chirping and whistling and humming was transformed to an and buzzing of all other birds and flying expanse of glowing ashes. Here and and creeping insects that help awaken and sleeplly glanced about me. The lowed the notes of the cuckoo, the bob- the mighty forest. This weird concert stirred all my senses and made me for- get all else in the world. Every thrill jerked and tugged at my heart as if those dwellers of the woods had Inves- ible strings attached to it. But soon the disaster of the preced- ing day flashed through my mind. I realized anew that I was a friendless wanderer. Again I asked myself, Whither should I go? My native town was no more, and what did I know of the rest of the world? I thought of Ephraim—but where was he? At length I arose, washed my face In a little brook near by, dried it with my arba-kanfas, and started through the forest, giving myself blindly over to chance. After a long walk, which almost ex- hausted me—for I had had nothing to eat since the previous morning—I faintly heard hilarious shouts. I turned into the direction from which the voices came, and soon found my- self nearing the edge of the forest. Now the cries sounded very distinctly “Tu-ha! tu-ha! tu-ha!™ and I knew I was approaching a group of swine- herds. My heart began to throb fret- fully. I crept forward cautlously and peered from behind a bush. There were five of them, lying on their stomachs in the grass, with several lean and shaggy dogs stretched beside them. As I watched them they took up their pipes, made of willow bark, and In turn played their peasant melodies—aweet, eloquent, wild, yet how, simple! One could read in their rustic airs their people’s history, their character, their manners, their hopes and aspirations. As they played they knocked their heels together as if beating time to their music, and their dogs, as If n a kind of ectasy, rolled their tails and leaped about restlessly, opening and snapping their jaws, or barked at nothing in particular. Envy filled my heart. I wished I, too, were a swineherd rolling over deep grass in the shade of trees and piping melodies. I wished I had ndver been born a Jew, but a gentile like these boys. “Is it mot enough to\bear the burden of man, that I must in addition bear the burden of the Jew?” I said to myself bitterly. Despite the Innocent happiness of these boys I feared them as possible enemies. I was going to slip away un- observed, when I happened to think of “He is right—I am a cow- ard,” I said to myself. This reproach- ful thought lent courage to my nerves, and I stepped into the open and walked toward the swineherds. They beheld me approaching them— a slim boy of fifteen, my untrimmed dark-brown hair hanging down my neck, the four fringes of my arba- kanfas dangling about me, hatless coatless, my breeches tattered and patched, my boots so mended that the patches needed patches—ragged, hun- gry, exhausted. They beheld all this, yet they saw but one thing—the Jew “This is a Sjid (a slanderous name for Jew),” 1 heard one remark. I was immediately surrounded by the peasant boys, among whom I stood half-paralyzed with fear. They were dressed in unbleached linen shirts and in trousers of the same material. Their feet were bare, and their flaxen hair hung around their shoulders like fringes of raw hemp. “Certainly. a Sjid,” sald the biggest of them. ‘Can’t you see his black breeches?” JoeRosenberg GChe Best Friend San Francisco Women Sver Had HIS CORSETS HAVE MADE SAN FRANCISCO WOMEN FAMOUS FOR THEIR BEAUTIFUL FORMS. . . 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