know whose son Cain was,
and the name of his brother?"

This question was as strange to me as if he had asked me when there
would be a fair in the sky, or how to make cream-cheese from snow, so
that they should not melt. In reality my mind was elsewhere, I don't
know where.

"Why do you look at me so?" asked the teacher. "Don't you hear me? I
want you to tell me the name of the first man, and the story of Cain and
his brother Abel."

The boys were smiling, smothering their laughter. I did not know why.

"Fool, say you do not know, because we have not learnt it," whispered
Benny in my ear, digging me with his elbow. I repeated his words, like a
parrot. And the "_Cheder_" was filled with loud laughter.

"What are they laughing at?" I asked myself. I looked at them, and at
the teacher. All were rolling with laughter. And, at that moment, I
counted the buttons from one hand into the other. There were exactly
half a dozen.

"Well, little boy, show me your hands. What are you doing with them?"
And the teacher bent down and looked under the table.

You are clever boys, and you will understand yourselves what I had from
the teacher, for the buttons, on my first day at "_Cheder_."

* * *

Whippings heal up; shame is forgotten. Benny and I became good friends.
We were one soul. This is how it came about:--

Next morning I arrived at "_Cheder_" with my Bible in one hand and my
dinner in the other. The boys were excited, jolly. Why? The teacher was
not there. What had happened? He had gone off to a Circumcision with his
wife. That is to say, not with her, God forbid! A teacher never walks
with his wife. The teacher walks before, and his wife after him.

"Let us make a bet," cried a boy with a blue nose. His name was Hosea
Hessel.

"How much shall we bet?" asked another boy, Koppel Bunnas. He had a torn
sleeve out of which peeped the point of a dirty elbow.

"A quarter of the locust-beans."

"Let it be a quarter of the locust-beans. What for? Let us hear."

"I say he will not stand more than twenty-five."

"And I say thirty-six."

"Thirty-six. We shall soon see. Boys, take hold of him."

This was the order of Hosea Hessel, of the blue nose. And several boys
took hold of me, all together, turned me over on the bench, face
upwards. Two sat on my legs, two on my arms, and one held my head, so
that I should not be able to wriggle. And another placed his left
forefinger and thumb at my nose. (It seemed he was left