e, and partly from sadness at being too poor to set forth the wine
and honey-cake proper to the occasion. For Grandma Rachel, schooled
though she was to pious contentment, probably had her moments of human
pettiness like the rest of us.

My father distinguished himself for scholarship from the first. Five
years old when he entered heder, at eleven he was already a _yeshibah
bahur_--a student in the seminary. The rebbe never had occasion to use
the birch on him. On the contrary, he held him up as an example to the
dull or lazy pupils, praised him in the village, and carried his fame
to Polotzk.

My grandmother's cup of pious joy was overfilled. Everything her boy
did was pleasant in her sight, for Pinchus was going to be a scholar,
a godly man, a credit to the memory of his renowned grandfather,
Israel Kimanyer. She let nothing interfere with his schooling. When
times were bad, and her husband came home with his goods unsold, she
borrowed and begged, till the rebbe's fee was produced. If bad luck
continued, she pleaded with the rebbe for time. She pawned not only
the candlesticks, but her shawl and Sabbath cap as well, to secure the
scant rations that gave the young scholar strength to study. More than
once in the bitter winter, as my father remembers, she carried him to
heder on her back, because he had no shoes; she herself walking
almost barefoot in the cruel snow. No sacrifice was too great for her
in the pious cause of her boy's education. And when there was no rebbe
in Yuchovitch learned enough to guide him in the advanced studies, my
father was sent to Polotzk, where he lived with his poor relations,
who were not too poor to help support a future rebbe or rav. In
Polotzk he continued to distinguish himself for scholarship, till
people began to prophesy that he would live to be famous; and
everybody who remembered Israel Kimanyer regarded the promising
grandson with double respect.

At the age of fifteen my father was qualified to teach beginners in
Hebrew, and he was engaged as instructor in two families living six
versts apart in the country. The boy tutor had to make himself useful,
after lesson hours, by caring for the horse, hauling water from the
frozen pond, and lending a hand at everything. When the little sister
of one of his pupils died, in the middle of the winter, it fell to my
father's lot to take the body to the nearest Jewish cemetery, through
miles of desolate country, no living soul accompanying