adise!) and had fooled them.

"What about her money?"

"A cow has flown over the roof and laid an egg!"

In that same night Reb Binyomin's cow (a real cow) calved, and the
unfortunate consequence was that she died. The Funeral Society took the
calf, and buried "Aunt" Leah at its own expense.

Well, money or no money, inheritance or no inheritance, Reb Binyomin's
old mother left him a quilt, a large, long, wide, wadded quilt. As an
article of house furniture, a quilt is a very useful thing, especially
in a house where there is a wife (no evil eye!) and a goodly number of
children, little and big. Who doesn't see that? It looks simple enough!
Either one keeps it for oneself and the two little boys (with whom Reb
Binyomin used to sleep), or else one gives it to the wife and the two
little girls (who also sleep all together), or, if not, then to the two
bigger boys or the two bigger girls, who repose on the two bench-beds in
the parlor and kitchen respectively. But this particular quilt brought
such perplexity into Reb Binyomin's rather small head that he (not of
you be it spoken!) nearly went mad.

"Why I and not she? Why she and not I? Or they? Or the others? Why they
and not I? Why them and not us? Why the others and not them? Well, well,
what is all this fuss? What did we cover them with before?"

Three days and three nights Reb Binyomin split his head and puzzled his
brains over these questions, till the Almighty had pity on his small
skull and feeble intelligence, and sent him a happy thought.

"After all, it is an inheritance from one's one and only mother (peace
be upon her!), it is a thing from Thingland! I must adapt it to some
useful purpose, so that Heaven and earth may envy me its possession!"
And he sent to fetch Yitzchok-Yossel Broitgeber, the tailor, who could
make every kind of garment, and said to him:

"Reb Yitzchok-Yossel, you see this article?"

"I see it."

"Yes, you see it, but do you understand it, really and truly understand
it?"

"I think I do."

"But do you know what this is, ha?"

"A quilt."

"Ha, ha, ha! A quilt? I could have told you that myself. But the stuff,
the material?"

"It's good material, beautiful stuff."

"Good material, beautiful stuff? No, I beg your pardon, you are not an
expert in this, you don't know the value of merchandise. The real
artisan, the true expert, would say: The material is light, soft, and
elastic, like a lung, a sound and healthy lung. The stu