Don't be afraid. I'm in my right mind, and you shall
not lose your place in Paradise."

But the wife was not satisfied with the reply, and continued to mutter
and to weep. There were goings-on in the town, too. The place was aboil
with excitement. Of course they talked about Reb Shloimeh; nobody could
make out what had come to him all of a sudden.

"That is the teacher's work!" explained one of a knot of talkers.

"And we thought Reb Shloimeh such a sage, such a clever man, so
book-learned. How can the teacher (may his name perish!) have talked him
over?"

"It's a pity on the children's account!" one would exclaim here and
there. "In the Talmud Torah, under his direction, they wanted for
nothing, and what's to become of them now! They'll be running wild in
the streets!"

"What then? Do you mean it would be better to make Gentiles of them?"

"Well, there! Of course, I understand!" he would hasten to say,
penitently. And a resolution was passed, to the effect that the children
should not be allowed to attend the Talmud Torah.

Reb Shloimeh stood at his window, and watched the excited groups in the
street, saw how the men threw themselves about, rocked themselves, bit
their beards, described half-circles with their thumbs, and he smiled.

In the evening the teachers came and told him what had been said in the
town, and how all held that the children were not to be allowed to go to
the Talmud Torah. Reb Shloimeh was a little disturbed, but he composed
himself again and thought:

"Eh, they will quiet down, never mind! They won't do it to _me_!----"

Entering the Talmud Torah on Sunday, he was greeted by four empty walls.
Even two orphans, who had no relations or protector in the town, had not
come. They had been frightened and talked at and not allowed to attend,
and free meals had been secured for all of them, so that they should not
starve.

For the moment Reb Shloimeh lost his head. He glanced at the teachers as
though ashamed in their presence, and his glance said, "What is to be
done now?"

Suddenly he pulled himself together.

"No!" he exclaimed, "they shall not get the better of me," and he ran
out of the Talmud Torah, and was gone.

He ran from house to house, to the parents and relations of the
children. But they all looked askance at him, and he accomplished
nothing: they all kept to it--"No!"

"Come, don't be silly! Send, send the children to the Talmud Torah," he
begged. "You will see, you wil