looking down on the other side of the town. Everything is broad and
comfortable and soft and free, around and about. In places, on the hill
the other side of the synagogue, one sees a little blade of grass, fresh
and green and living. Screaming and fluttering their wings, there fly
past us, over our heads, a swarm of young swallows. And again I am
reminded of the "Song of Songs" I learnt at school:

"The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is
come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land."

I feel curiously light. I imagine I have wings, and can rise up and fly
away.

* * *

A curious noise comes from the town, a roaring, a rushing, a tumult. In
a moment the face of the world is changed for me. Our farm is a
courtyard, our house is a palace. I am a prince, Busie a princess. The
logs of wood that lie at our door are the cedars and firs of the "Song
of Songs." The cat that is warming herself in the sun near the door is a
roe, or a young hart; and the hill on the other side of the synagogue is
the mountain of Lebanon. The women and the girls who are washing and
scrubbing and making everything clean for the Passover are the daughters
of Jerusalem.

Everything, everything is from the "Song of Songs."

I walk about with my hands in my pockets. The nuts shake and rattle.
Busie walks beside me, step by step. I cannot go slowly. I am carried
along. I want to fly, to soar through the air like an eagle. I let
myself go. Busie follows me. I jump from one log of wood to the other.
Busie jumps after me. I am up; she is up. I am down; she is down. Who
will tire first? "How long is this to last?" asks Busie. And I answer
her in the words of the "Song of Songs": "'Until the day break, and the
shadows flee away.' Ba! Ba! Ba! You are tired, and I am not."

* * *

I am glad that Busie does not know what I know. And I am sorry for her.
My heart aches for her. I imagine she is sorrowful. That is her nature.
She is glad and joyous, and suddenly she sits down in a corner and weeps
silently. My mother comforts her, and my father showers kisses on her.
But, it is useless. Busie weeps until she is exhausted. For whom? For
her father who died so young? Or for her mother who married again and
went off without a good-bye? Ah, her mother! When one speaks of her
mother to her, she turns all colours. She does not believe in her
mother. She does not say an unkind word of her, but she does not believe
in her