scolding so, Taube?" called out Necheh, the
rich man's wife, standing in the door of her shop, and overhearing
Taube, as she scolded to herself on the walk home.

"Who should it be, housemistress, who but the hussy, the abortion, the
witch," answered Taube, pointing with one finger towards the
market-place, and, without so much as lifting her head to look at the
person speaking to her, she went on her way.

She remembered, as she walked, how, that morning, when she went into
Necheh's kitchen with a fowl, she heard her Yitzchokel's voice in the
other room disputing with Necheh's boys over the Talmud. She knew that
on Wednesdays Yitzchokel ate his "day" at Necheh's table, and she had
taken the fowl there that day on purpose, so that her Yitzchokel should
have a good plate of soup, for her poor child was but weakly.

When she heard her son's voice, she had been about to leave the kitchen,
and yet she had stayed. Her Yitzchokel disputing with Necheh's children?
What did they know as compared with him? Did they come up to his level?
"He will be ashamed of me," she thought with a start, "when he finds me
with a chicken in my hand. So his mother is a market-woman, they will
say, there's a fine partner for you!" But she had not left the kitchen.
A child who had never cost a farthing, and she should like to know how
much Necheh's children cost their parents! If she had all the money that
Yitzchokel ought to have cost, the money that ought to have been spent
on him, she would be a rich woman too, and she stood and listened to his
voice.

"Oi, _he_ should have lived to see Yitzchokel, it would have made him
well." Soon the door opened, Necheh's boys appeared, and her Yitzchokel
with them. His cheeks flamed.

"Good morning!" he said feebly, and was out at the door in no time. She
knew that she had caused him vexation, that he was ashamed of her before
his companions.

And she asked herself: Her child, her Yitzchokel, who had sucked her
milk, what had Necheh to do with him? And she had poured out her
bitterness of heart upon Yente's head for this also, that her son had
cost her parents nothing, and was yet a better scholar than Necheh's
children, and once more she exclaimed:

"Lord of the World! Avenge my quarrel, pay her out for it, let her not
live to see another day!"

Passers-by, seeing a woman walking and scolding aloud, laughed.

Night came on, the little town was darkened.

Taube reached home with her armful of ba