property?"

"I mean the Levada--a big field that stretches away and away, without a
beginning and without an end. It is covered with a green mantle,
sprinkled with yellow flowers, and nailed down with little red nails. It
gives out a delicious odour. The most fragrant spices in the world are
there. I have trees there beyond the counting, tall many-branched trees.
I have a little hill there that I sit on when I like. Or else, by
pronouncing the Holy Name, I can rise up and fly away like an eagle,
across the clouds, over fields and woods, over seas and deserts until I
come to the other side of the mountain of darkness."

"And from there," puts in Busie, "you walk seven miles until you come to
a little stream."

"No. To a thick wood. First I go in and out of the trees, and after that
I come to the little stream."

"You swim across the water, and count seven times seven."

"And there appears before me a little old man with a long beard."

"He asks you: 'What is your desire?'"

"I say to him: 'Bring me the Queen's daughter.'"

Busie takes her hand from mine, and runs down the hill. I run after her.

"Busie, why are you running off?"

Busie does not answer. She is vexed. She likes the story I told her
excepting the part about the Queen's daughter.

* * *

You have not forgotten who Busie is? I told you once. But if you have
forgotten, I will tell you again.

I had an older brother, Benny. He was drowned. He left after him a
water-mill, a young widow, two horses, and a little child. The mill was
neglected; the horses were sold; the widow married again, and went away,
somewhere far; and the child was brought to us. This child was Busie.

Ha! ha! ha! Everybody thinks that Busie and I are sister and brother.
She calls my mother "mother," and my father "father." And we two live
together like sister and brother, and love one another, like sister and
brother.

Like sister and brother? Then why is Busie ashamed before me?

It happened once that we two were left alone in the house--we two by
ourselves in the whole house. It was evening, towards nightfall. My
father had gone to the synagogue to recite the mourners' prayer after my
dead brother Benny, and my mother had gone out to buy matches. Busie and
I crept into a corner, and I told her stories. Busie likes me to tell
her stories--fine stories of "_Cheder_," or from the "Arabian Nights."
She crept close to me, and put her hand into mine.

"Tell me something, Sh