o undress yourself, to pull your own little shirt over
your own head, and to stretch yourself face downwards. The rest Boaz
managed.

And not only did Boaz flog the boys himself, but his assistants helped
him--his lieutenants, as he called them, naturally under his direction,
lest they might not deliver the full number of strokes. "A little less
learning and a little more flogging," was his rule. He explained the
wisdom of his system in this way: "Too much learning dulls a boy, and a
whipping too many does not hurt. Because, what a boy learns goes
straight to his head, and his senses are quickened and his brains
loaded. With the floggings it is the exact opposite. Before the effects
of the flogging reach the brain the blood is purified, and by this means
the brain is cleared. Well, do you understand?"

And Boaz never ceased from purifying our blood, and clearing our brain.
And woe unto us! We did not believe any more in the good angel that
looked down upon us from above. We realized that it was only a
fairy-tale, an invented story by which we were fooled into going to
Boaz's "_Cheder_." And we began to sigh and groan because of our
sufferings under Boaz. And we also began to make plans, to talk and
argue how to free ourselves from our galling slavery.

* * *

In the melancholy moments between daylight and darkness, when the fiery
red sun is about to bid farewell to the cold earth for the night--in
these melancholy moments, when the happy daylight is departing, and on
its heels is treading silently the still night, with its lonely
secrets--in these melancholy moments, when the shadows are climbing on
the walls growing broader and longer--in these melancholy moments
between the afternoon and the evening prayers, when the teacher is at
the synagogue, and his wife is milking the goat or washing the crockery,
or making the "_Borsht_"--then we youngsters came together at
"_Cheder_," beside the stove. We sat on the floor, our legs curled up
under us, like innocent lambs. And there in the evening darkness, we
talked of our terrible Titus, our angel of death, Boaz. The bigger boys,
who had been at "_Cheder_" some time, told us the most awful tales of
Boaz. They swore by all the oaths they could think of that Boaz had
flogged more than one boy to death, that he had already driven three
women into their graves, and that he had buried his one and only son. We
heard such wild tales that our hair stood on end. The older boys talk