f she were in her own trifling establishment in
Yuchovitch. Watchful was she as any cat--and harmless as a tame
rabbit. If she caught the maids at fault, she found an excuse for
them at the same time. If she was quite exasperated with the stupidity
of Yakub, the dvornik, she pretended to curse him in a phrase of her
own invention, a mixture of Hebrew and Russian, which, translated,
said, "Mayst thou have gold and silver in thy bosom"; but to the
choreman, who was not a linguist, the mongrel phrase conveyed a sense
of his delinquency.

Grandma Rachel meant to be very strict with us children, and
accordingly was prompt to discipline us; but we discovered early in
our acquaintance with her that the child who got a spanking was sure
to get a hot cookie or the jam pot to lick, so we did not stand in
great awe of her punishments. Even if it came to a spanking it was
only a farce. Grandma generally interposed a pillow between the palm
of her hand and the area of moral stimulation.

The real disciplinarian in our family was my father. Present or
absent, it was fear of his displeasure that kept us in the straight
and narrow path. In the minds of us children he was as much
represented, when away from home, by the strap hanging on the wall as
by his portrait which stood on a parlor table, in a gorgeous frame
adorned with little shells. Almost everybody's father had a strap, but
our father's strap was more formidable than the ordinary. For one
thing, it was more painful to encounter personally, because it was not
a simple strap, but a bunch of fine long strips, clinging as rubber.
My father called it noodles; and while his facetiousness was lost on
us children, the superior sting of his instrument was entirely
effective.

In his leisure, my father found means of instructing us other than by
the strap. He took us walking and driving, answered our questions, and
taught us many little things that our playmates were not taught.
From distant parts of the country he had imported little tricks of
speech and conduct, which we learned readily enough; for we were
always a teachable lot. Our pretty manners were very much admired, so
that we became used to being held up as models to children less
polite. Guests at our table praised our deportment, when, at the end
of a meal, we kissed the hands of father and mother and thanked them
for food. Envious mothers of rowdy children used to sneer, "Those
grandchildren of Raphael the Russian are qu