chuppe_.

Of late Itzig had had little time to think of his family. In the house
and in the hovel, wherever the cholera had knocked for admittance, there
was Itzig Maier, performing his duties with an unfailing
regularity--preparing the shrouds, attiring the dead and comforting the
mourners--all unmindful that he might be the next victim. His services
were in constant demand and money was actually pouring in upon him.

The first to visit, aid and counsel the stricken community was Rabbi
Jeiteles, whose unselfish devotion to duty led him from house to house,
administering simple remedies to the suffering, closing the eyes of the
dead and consoling the grieving survivors. He knew no fear, no
hesitation. To his wife's anxious words of warning he had but one reply,
"We are all in God's hands."

Earnestly he went about his work, conscious of his danger, yet putting
all thought of self aside until he, too, fell a victim to the dread
destroyer.

One day, while performing the last sad rites over a dead child, he was
stricken, and before he could be removed to his home he had breathed his
last.

Great was the grief in the Jewish community in Kief. From one end of the
quarter to the other the inhabitants mourned for thirty days, bewailing
the death of their beloved Rabbi, as though each household had lost a
revered parent.

The plague continued its ravages, and the people in their wild terror
resorted to the _bal-shem_ for amulets and talismans. On every door
could be read the inscription, "Not at home." But the cholera would not
be put off by so flimsy a device and entered unbidden. Even the death of
a grave-digger did not stay the dread disease, although it had been
prophesied that such an event would end the trouble. The cabalistic
books were ransacked for charms and mystic signs with which to resist
the power of the conqueror, but all in vain.

One morning Itzig ran as fast as his shuffling legs would bear him, up
the dirty lane that led to his abode, and fell rather than walked into
the low door that led into his hut. His wife was engaged in washing a
baby--the seventh--and Beile, an ill-favored, sallow-complexioned girl,
sat at the window sewing.

"Jentele," cried Itzig, sinking into a chair, "God has been good to us!"

"Have you just found that out?" asked his wife, petulantly. "What is the
matter? Have you come into a fortune?"

"Beile, leave the room," said Itzig.

"Why, father?"

"Leave the room! I want