oger
rather cold. What a fight she was making, this daughter of his, against
what overwhelming odds. But all he said to her was this:

"Now let's look at something more cheerful, my dear."

"Very well," she answered with a smile. "We'll go and see Isadore Freedom."

"Who's he?"

"Isadore Freedom," said Deborah, "is the beginning of something tremendous.
He came from Russian Poland--and the first American word he learned over
there was 'freedom.' So in New York he changed his name to that--very
solemnly, by due process of law. It cost him seven dollars. He had nine
dollars at the time. Isadore is a flame, a kind of a torch in the
wilderness."

"How does the flame earn his living?"

"At first in a sweatshop," she replied. "But he came to my school five
nights a week, and at ten o'clock when school was out he went to a little
basement cafe, where he sat at a corner table, drank one glass of Russian
tea and studied till they closed at one. Then he went to his room, he told
me, and used to read himself to sleep. He slept as a rule four hours. He
said he felt he needed it. Now he's a librarian earning fifteen dollars a
week, and having all the money he needs he has put the thought of it out of
his life and is living for education--education in freedom. For Isadore has
studied his name until he thinks he knows what it means."

They found him in a small public library on an ill-smelling ghetto street.
The place had been packed with people, but the clock had just struck ten
and the readers were leaving reluctantly, many with books under their arms.
At sight of Deborah and her father, Isadore leaped up from his desk and
came quickly to meet them with outstretched hands.

"Oh, this is splendid! Good evening!" he cried. Hardly more than a boy,
perhaps twenty-one, he was short of frame but large of limb. He had wide
stooping shoulders and reddish hollows in his dark cheeks. Yet there was a
springiness in his step, vigor and warmth in the grip of his hand, in the
very curl of his thick black hair, in his voice, in his enormous smile.

"Come," he said to Roger, when the greetings were over. "You shall see my
library, sir. But I want that you shall not see it alone. While you look
you must close for me your eyes and see other libraries, many, many, all
over the world. You must see them in big cities and in very little towns
to-night. You must see people, millions there, hungry, hungry people. Now I
shall show you their food an