I gave him an eager account, he says, of
the stories of Jacob, Benjamin, Moses, and others, which I had puzzled
out from the pictures, by the help of a word here and there that I was
able to translate.

It was inevitable, as we came to Genesis, that I should ask questions.

Rebbe, translating: "In the beginning God created the earth."

Pupil, repeating: "In the beginning--Rebbe, when was the beginning?"

Rebbe, losing the place in amazement: "'S _gehert a kasse_? (Ever
hear such a question?) The beginning was--the beginning--the beginning
was in the beginning, of course! _Nu! nu!_ Go on."

Pupil, resuming: "In the beginning God made the earth.--Rebbe, what
did He make it out of?"

Rebbe, dropping his pointer in astonishment: "What did--? What sort of
a girl is this, that asks questions? Go on, go on!"

The lesson continues to the end. The book is closed, the pointer put
away. The rebbe exchanges his skull-cap for his street cap, is about
to go.

Pupil, timidly, but determinedly, detaining him: "Reb' Lebe, _who made
God_?"

The rebbe regards the pupil in amazement mixed with anxiety. His
emotion is beyond speech. He turns and leaves the room. In his
perturbation he even forgets to kiss the _mezuzah_[2] on the doorpost.
The pupil feels reproved and yet somehow in the right. Who _did_ make
God? But if the rebbe will not tell--will not tell? Or, perhaps, he
does not know? The rebbe--?

It was some time after this conflict between my curiosity and his
obtuseness that I saw my teacher act a ridiculous part in a trifling
comedy, and then I remember no more of him.

Reb' Lebe lingered one day after the lesson. A guest who was about to
depart, wishing to fortify himself for his journey, took a roll of
hard sausage from his satchel and laid it, with his clasp knife, on
the table. He cut himself a slice and ate it standing; and then,
noticing the thin, lean rebbe, he invited him, by a gesture, to help
himself to the sausage. The rebbe put his hands behind his coat tails,
declining the traveller's hospitality. The traveller forgot the other,
and walked up and down, ready in his fur coat and cap, till his
carriage should arrive. The sausage remained on the table, thick and
spicy and brown. No such sausage was known in Polotzk. Reb' Lebe
looked at it. Reb' Lebe continued to look. The stranger stopped to cut
another slice, and repeated his gesture of invitation. Reb' Lebe moved
a step towards the table, but his hands stu