sian
despotism, about his determination to remain in the States. He ended by
entreating her to plead with grandpa to promise him the money necessary
for a college education.

Old Zelig swooped down upon them with wild eyes. "Much you need it,
you stupid," he thundered at the youngster in unrestrained fury. "You
will continue your studies in Russia, durak, stupid." His timid wife,
however, seemed suddenly to gather courage and she exploded: "Yes, you
should give your savings for the child's education here. Woe is me, in
the Russian universities no Jewish children are taken."

Old Zelig's face grew purple. He rose and abruptly seated himself again.
Then he rushed madly, with a raised, menacing arm, at the boy in whom he
saw the formidable foe--the foe he had so long been dreading.

But the old woman was quick to interpose with a piercing shriek: "You
madman, look at the sick child; you forget from what our son died, going
out like a flickering candle."

That night Zelig tossed feverishly on his bed. He could not sleep. For
the first time, it dawned upon him what his wife meant by pointing to
the sickly appearance of the child. When the boy's father died, the
physician declared that the cause was tuberculosis.

He rose to his feet. Beads of cold sweat glistened on his forehead,
trickled down his cheeks, his beard. He stood pale and panting. Like a
startling sound, the thought entered his mind--the boy, what should be
done with the boy?

The dim, blue night gleamed in through the windows. All was shrouded
in the city silence, which yet has a peculiar, monotonous ring in
it. Somewhere, an infant awoke with a sickly cry which ended in a
suffocating cough. The grizzled old man bestirred himself, and with
hasty steps he tiptoed to the place where the boy lay. For a time
he stood gazing on the pinched features, the under-sized body of the
lad; then he raised one hand, passed it lightly over the boy's hair,
stroking his cheeks and chin. The boy opened his eyes, looked for a
moment at the shriveled form bending over him, then he petulantly
closed them again.

"You hate to look at granpa, he is your enemy, eh?" The aged man's
voice shook, and sounded like that of the child's awaking in the night.
The boy made no answer; but the old man noticed how the frail body
shook, how the tears rolled, washing the sunken cheeks.

For some moments he stood mute, then his form literally shrank to that
of a child's as he bent over the e