ted a conversation with
him.

"Tell me, Yuedel heart, how is it I have fallen into such bad repute
among you that you will not even drink a drop of wine in my house? And
why do you say that I am 'one of them,' and not pious? A little while
ago you spoke differently of me."

"Ett! It just slipped from my tongue, and the truth is you may be what
you please, you are a good man."

"No, Yuedel, don't try to get out of it! Tell me openly (it doesn't
concern me, but I am curious to know), why this sudden revulsion of
feeling about me, this change of opinion? Tell me, Yuedel, I beg of you,
speak freely!"

My gentle words and my friendliness gave Yuedel great encouragement. The
poor fellow, with whom not one of "them" has as yet spoken kindly! When
he saw that I meant it, he began to scratch his head; it seemed as if in
that minute he forgave me all my "heresies," and he looked at me kindly,
and as if with pity. Then, seeing that I awaited an answer, he gave a
twist to his earlock, and said gently and sincerely:

"You wish me to tell you the truth? You insist upon it? You will not be
offended?"

"You know that I never take offence at anything you say. Say anything
you like, Yuedel heart, only speak."

"Then I will tell you: the town and everyone else is very angry with you
on account of your Palestinian earth: you want to do something new, buy
earth and plough it and sow--and where? in our land of Israel, in our
Holy Land of Israel!"

"But why, Yuedel dear, when they thought I was buying Palestinian earth
to bestrew me after death, was I looked upon almost like a saint?"

"E, that's another thing! That showed that you held Palestine holy, for
a land whose soil preserves one against being eaten of worms, like any
other honest Jew."

"Well, I ask you, Yuedel, what does this mean? When they thought I was
buying sand for after my death, I was a holy man, a lover of Palestine,
and because I want to buy earth and till it, earth in your Holy Land,
our holy earth in the Holy Land, in which our best and greatest counted
it a privilege to live, I am a blot on Israel. Tell me, Yuedel, I ask
you: _Why_, because one wants to bestrew himself with Palestinian earth
after death, is one an orthodox Jew; and when one desires to give
oneself wholly to Palestine in life, should one be 'one of them'? Now I
ask you--all those Palestinian Jews who came to me with their bags of
sand, and were my very good friends, and full of anxiety to pr