That day Lezer the carrier was the best man in the world in their eyes,
they would not have been ashamed to eat him up with horse and cart for
very love. They wrote an answer at once--for letter-paper they used to
tear out, with fluttering hearts, the first, imprinted pages in the
Gemoreh--and gave it that evening to Lezer the carrier. Lezer took it
coldly, pushed it into the breast of his coat, and muttered something
like "All right!"
"What did he say, Berele?" asked Yainkele, anxiously.
"I think he said 'all right,'" Berele answered doubtfully.
"I think he said so, too," Yainkele persuaded himself. Then he gave a
sigh, and added fearfully:
"He may lose the letter!"
"Bite your tongue out!" answered Berele, angrily, and they went sadly
away to supper.
And three times a week, early in the morning, when Lezer the carrier
came driving, the two brothers flew, not ran, to the Dalissovke Inn, to
ask for an answer to their letter; and Lezer the carrier grew more
preoccupied and cross, and answered either with mumbled words, which the
brothers could not understand, and dared not ask him to repeat, or else
not at all, so that they went away with heavy hearts. But one day they
heard Lezer the carrier speak distinctly, so that they understood quite
well:
"What are you doing here, you two? What do you come plaguing me for?
Letter? Fiddlesticks! How much do you pay me? Am I a postman? Eh? Be off
with you, and don't worry."
The brothers obeyed, but only in part: their hearts were like lead,
their thin little legs shook, and tears fell from their eyes onto the
ground. And they went no more to Lezer the carrier to ask for a letter.
"I wish he were dead and buried!" they exclaimed, but they did not mean
it, and they longed all the time just to go and look at Lezer the
carrier, his horse and cart. After all, they came from Dalissovke, and
the two brothers loved them.
* * * * *
One day, two or three weeks after the carrier sent them about their
business in the way described, the two brothers were sitting in the
house of the poor relation and talking about home. It was summer-time,
and a Friday afternoon.
"I wonder what father is doing now," said Yainkele, staring at the small
panes in the small window.
"He must be cutting his nails," answered Berele, with a melancholy
smile.
"He must be chopping up lambs' feet," imagined Yainkele, "and Mother is
combing Chainele, and Chainele is crying."
"Now we've talked nonsense enough!" decided Berele. "How can we know
what is going on there?"
"Perhaps somebody's dead!" added Yainkele, in sudden terror.
"Stuff and nonsense!" said Berele. "When people die, they let one
know--"
"Perhaps they wrote, and the carrier won't give us the letter--"
"Ai, that's chatter enough!" Berele was quite cross. "Shut up, donkey!
You make me laugh," he went on, to reassure Yainkele, "they are all
alive and well."
Yainkele became cheerful again, and all at once he gave a bound into the
air, and exclaimed with eager eyes:
"Berele, do what I say! Let's write by the post!"
"Right you are!" agreed Berele. "Only I've no money."
"I have four kopeks; they are over from the ten I got last night. You
know, at my 'Thursday' they give me ten kopeks for supper, and I have
four over.
"And I have one kopek," said Berele, "just enough for a post-card."
"But which of us will write it?" asked Yainkele.
"I," answered Berele, "I am the eldest, I'm a first-born son."
"But I gave four kopeks!"
"A first-born is worth more than four kopeks."
"No! I'll write half, and you'll write half, ha?"
"Very well. Come and buy a card."
And the two brothers ran to buy a card at the postoffice.
"There will be no room for anything!" complained Yainkele, on the way
home, as he contemplated the small post-card. "We will make little tiny
letters, teeny weeny ones!" advised Berele.
"Father won't be able to read them!"
"Never mind! He will put on his spectacles. Come along--quicker!" urged
Yainkele. His heart was already full of words, like a sea, and he wanted
to pour it out onto the bit of paper, the scrap on which he had spent
his entire fortune.
They reached their lodging, and settled down to write.
Berele began, and Yainkele stood and looked on.
"Begin higher up! There is room there for a whole line. Why did you put
'to my beloved Father' so low down?" shrieked Yainkele.
"Where am I to put it, then? In the sky, eh?" asked Berele, and pushed
Yainkele aside.
"Go away, I will leave you half. Don't confuse me!--You be quiet!" and
Yainkele moved away, and stared with terrified eyes at Berele, as he sat
there, bent double, and wrote and wrote, knitted his brows, and dipped
the pen, and reflected, and wrote again.
"That's enough!" screamed Yainkele, after a few minutes.
"It's not the half yet," answered Berele, writing on.
"But I ought to have more than half!" said Yainkele, crossly. The
longing to write, to pour out his heart onto the post-card, was
overwhelming him.
But Berele did not even hear: he had launched out into such rhetorical
Hebrew expressions as "First of all, I let you know that I am alive and
well," which he had learnt in "The Perfect Letter-Writer," and his
little bits of news remained unwritten. He had yet to abuse Lezer the
carrier, to tell how many pages of the Gemoreh he had learnt, to let
them know they were to send another parcel, because they had no "Monday"
and no "Wednesday," and the "Tuesday" was no better than nothing.
And Berele writes and writes, and Yainkele can no longer contain
himself--he sees that Berele is taking up more than half the card.
"Enough!" He ran forward with a cry, and seized the penholder.
"Three words more!" begged Berele.
"But remember, not more than three!" and Yainkele's eyes flashed. Berele
set to work to write the three words; but that which he wished to
express required yet ten to fifteen words, and Berele, excited by the
fact of writing, pecked away at the paper, and took up yet another bit
of the other half.
"You stop!" shrieked Yainkele, and broke into hysterical sobs, as he saw
what a small space remained for him.
"Hush! Just 'from me, thy son,'" begged Berele, "nothing else!"
But Yainkele, remembering that he had given a whole vierer toward the
post-card, and that they would read so much of Berele at home, and so
little of him, flew into a passion, and came and tried to tear away the
card from under Berele's hands. "Let me put 'from me, thy son'!"
implored Berele.
"It will do _without_ 'from me, thy son'!" screamed Yainkele, although
he _felt_ that one ought to put it. His anger rose, and he began tugging
at the card. Berele held tight, but Yainkele gave such a pull that the
card tore in two.
"What have you done, villain!" cried Berele, glaring at Yainkele.
"I _meant_ to do it!" wailed Yainkele.
"Oh, but why did you?" cried Berele, gazing in despair at the two torn
halves of the post-card.
But Yainkele could not answer. The tears choked him, and he threw
himself against the wall, tearing his hair. Then Berele gave way, too,
and the little room resounded with lamentations.