The mother scraped together a few twenty-kopek-pieces out of her pocket,
and put them into his bosom, twisted up in his shirt.
Presently a cart came by, crowded with passengers. She secured a seat
for Yitzchokel for forty groschen, and hoisted the box into the cart.
"Go in health! Don't forget your mother!" she cried in tears.
Yitzchokel was silent.
She wanted to kiss her child, but she knew it was not the thing for a
grown-up boy to be kissed, so she refrained.
Yitzchokel mounted the cart, the passengers made room for him among
them.
"Remain in health, mother!" he called out as the cart set off.
"Go in health, my child! Sit and study, and don't forget your mother!"
she cried after him.
The cart moved further and further, till it was climbing the hill in the
distance.
Taube still stood and followed it with her gaze; and not till it was
lost to view in the dust did she turn and walk back to the town.
She took a road that should lead her past the cemetery.
There was a rather low plank fence round it, and the gravestones were
all to be seen, looking up to Heaven.
Taube went and hitched herself up onto the fence, and put her head over
into the "field," looking for something among the tombs, and when her
eyes had discovered a familiar little tombstone, she shook her head:
"Lezer, Lezer! Your son has driven away to the Academy to study Torah!"
Then she remembered the market, where Yente must by now have bought up
the whole cart-load of fruit. There would be nothing left for her, and
she hurried into the town.
She walked at a great pace, and felt very pleased with herself. She was
conscious of having done a great thing, and this dissipated her
annoyance at the thought of Yente acquiring all the fruit.
Two weeks later she got a letter from Yitzchokel, and, not being able to
read it herself, she took it to Reb Yochanan, the teacher, that he might
read it for her.
Reb Yochanan put on his glasses, cleared his throat thoroughly, and
began to read:
"Le-Immi ahuvossi hatzenuoh" ...
"What is the translation?" asked Taube.
"It is the way to address a mother," explained Reb Yochanan, and
continued.
Taube's face had brightened, she put her apron to her eyes and wept for
joy.
The reader observed this and read on.
"What is the translation, the translation, Reb Yochanan?" the woman kept
on asking.
"Never mind, it's not for you, you wouldn't understand--it is an
exposition of a passage in the Gemoreh."
She was silent, the Hebrew words awed her, and she listened respectfully
to the end.
"I salute Immi ahuvossi and Achoissai, Sarah and Goldeh, and Ochi Yakov;
tell him to study diligently. I have all my 'days' and I sleep at Reb
Chayyim's," gave out Reb Yochanan suddenly in Yiddish.
Taube contented herself with these few words, took back the letter, put
it in her pocket, and went back to her stall with great joy.
"This evening," she thought, "I will show it to the Dayan, and let him
read it too."
And no sooner had she got home, cooked the dinner, and fed the children,
than she was off with the letter to the Dayan.
She entered the room, saw the tall bookcases filled with books covering
the walls, and a man with a white beard sitting at the end of the table
reading.
"What is it, a ritual question?" asked the Dayan from his place.
"No."
"What then?"
"A letter from my Yitzchokel."
The Dayan rose, came up and looked at her, took the letter, and began to
read it silently to himself.
"Well done, excellent, good! The little fellow knows what he is saying,"
said the Dayan more to himself than to her.
Tears streamed from Taube's eyes.
"If only _he_ had lived! if only he had lived!"
"Shechitas chutz ... Rambam ... Tossafos is right ..." went on the
Dayan.
"Her Yitzchokel, Taube the market-woman's son," she thought proudly.
"Take the letter," said the Dayan, at last, "I've read it all through."
"Well, and what?" asked the woman.
"What? What do you want then?"
"What does it say?" she asked in a low voice.
"There is nothing in it for you, you wouldn't understand," replied the
Dayan, with a smile.
Yitzchokel continued to write home, the Yiddish words were fewer every
time, often only a greeting to his mother. And she came to Reb Yochanan,
and he read her the Yiddish phrases, with which she had to be satisfied.
"The Hebrew words are for the Dayan," she said to herself.
But one day, "There is nothing in the letter for you," said Reb
Yochanan.
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing," he said shortly.
"Read me at least what there is."
"But it is all Hebrew, Torah, you won't understand."
"Very well, then, I _won't_ understand...."
"Go in health, and don't drive me distracted."
Taube left him, and resolved to go that evening to the Dayan.
"Rebbe, excuse me, translate this into Yiddish," she said, handing him
the letter.
The Dayan took the letter and read it.
"Nothing there for you," he said.
"Rebbe," said Taube, shyly, "excuse me, translate the Hebrew for me!"
"But it is Torah, an exposition of a passage in the Torah. You won't
understand."
"Well, if you would only read the letter in Hebrew, but aloud, so that I
may hear what he says."
"But you won't understand one word, it's Hebrew!" persisted the Dayan,
with a smile.
"Well, I _won't_ understand, that's all," said the woman, "but it's my
child's Torah, my child's!"
The Dayan reflected a while, then he began to read aloud.
Presently, however, he glanced at Taube, and remembered he was
expounding the Torah to a woman! And he felt thankful no one had heard
him.
"Take the letter, there is nothing in it for you," he said
compassionately, and sat down again in his place.
"But it is my child's Torah, my Yitzchokel's letter, why mayn't I hear
it? What does it matter if I don't understand? It is my own child!"
The Dayan turned coldly away.
When Taube reached home after this interview, she sat down at the table,
took down the lamp from the wall, and looked silently at the letter by
its smoky light.
She kissed the letter, but then it occurred to her that she was defiling
it with her lips, she, a sinful woman!
She rose, took her husband's prayer-book from the bookshelf, and laid
the letter between its leaves.
Then with trembling lips she kissed the covers of the book, and placed
it once more in the bookcase.