A KINDLING INTEREST.
FRANK Marion, on his way to the store one morning, stopped at the office
where Bethany had been installed just a week.
"You will find me dropping in here quite often," he said to Mr. Edmunds,
whom he met coming out of the door. "Since that little cousin of mine is
never to be found at home in the day-time any more, I shall have to call
on him here. He is my right-hand man in Junior League work."
"Who? Jack?" inquired Mr. Edmunds. "He's the most original little piece
I ever saw. Sorry I'm called out just now, Frank. You're always welcome,
you know."
Bethany was seated at her typewriter, so intent on her manuscript that
she did not notice Mr. Marion's entrance. Jack, in his chair by the
window, was working vigorously with slate and pencil at an arithmetic
lesson. As Bethany paused to take the finished page from the machine,
Jack looked up and saw Mr. Marion's tall form in the doorway.
"O, come in!" he cried, joyfully. "I want you to see how nice everything
is here. We have the best times."
Mr. Marion looked across at Bethany, and smiled at the child's delight.
"Tell me about it," he said, drawing a chair up to the window, and
entering into the boy's pleasure with that ready sympathy that was the
secret of his success with all children.
"Well, you see, Bethany wheels me onto the elevator, and up we come. And
it's so nice and cool up here. She hasn't been very busy yet. While she
writes I get my lessons, or draw, or work puzzles. Then, when Mr.
Edmunds and Mr. Porter go off, and she hasn't anything to do, I recite
to her. But the best fun is grocery tales."
"What's 'grocery tales?'" asked Mr. Marion, with flattering interest.
"Do you see that wholesale grocery-store across the street?" asked Jack,
"and all the things sitting around in front? There's almost everything
you can think of, from a broom to a banana. I choose the first thing I
happen to look at, and she tells me a story about it. If it's a
tea-chest, that makes her think of a Chinese story; or if it's a bottle
of olives, something about the knights and ladies of Spain. Yesterday it
was a chicken-coop, and she told me about a lovely visit she had once on
a farm. She says when we come to that coil of rope, it will remind her
of a storm she was in on the Mediterranean; and the coffee means a South
American story; and the watermelons a darkey story; and the brooms
something she read once about an old, blind broom-maker. Then I have
lots of fun watching people pass. So many teams stop at the
watering-trough over there. I like to wonder where everybody comes from,
and imagine what their homes are like. It is almost as good as reading
about them in a book."
"You are a very happy little fellow," said Mr. Marion, patting his
cheek, approvingly. "I am glad you are getting strong so fast, so that
you can go out into this big, discontented world of ours, and teach
other people how to be happy. I've brought you some more work to do. I
want you to look up all these references, and copy them on separate
slips of paper for our next meeting. By the way, Bethany," he said, as
he rose to go, "I had a letter from our Chattanooga Jew this morning. He
is as much in earnest as ever. I wish we could get our League interested
in him and his mission."
"It is a very unpopular movement, Cousin Frank," she answered. "Think of
the prejudices to overcome. How little the general membership of the
Church know or care about the Jews! It seems almost impossible to combat
such indifference. Carlyle says, 'Every noble work is at first
impossible.'"
"Ah, Bethany," he answered, "and Paul says: 'I can do all things through
Christ who strengthened me.' I can't get away from the feeling that God
wants me to take some forward step in the matter. Every paper I pick up
seems to call my attention to it in some way. All the time in my
business I am brought in contact with Jews who want to talk to me about
my religion. They introduce the subject themselves. Ray and I have been
reading Graetz's history lately. I declare it's a puzzle to me how any
one can read an account of all the race endured at the hands of the
Christianity of the Middle Ages, and not be more lenient toward them.
Pharaoh's cruelties were not a tithe of what was dealt out to them in
the name of the gentle Nazarene. No wonder their children were taught to
spit at the mention of such a name."
"O, is that history as bad as 'Fox's Book of Martyrs?'" asked Jack,
eagerly. "We've got that at home, with the awfullest black and yellow
pictures in it of people being burned to death and tortured. I hope, if
it is as interesting, sister will read it out loud."
Bethany made such a grimace of remonstrance that Mr. Marion laughed.
"I'll send the books over to-morrow. You'll not care to read all five
volumes, Jack; but Bethany can select the parts that will interest you
most."
Jack's tenacious memory brought the subject up again that evening at the
table.
"Aunt Harry," he asked, abruptly, pausing in the act of helping himself
to sugar, "do you like the Jews?"
"Why, no, child," she said, hesitatingly. "I can't say that I take any
special interest in them, one way or another. To tell the truth, I've
never known any personally."
"Would you like to know more about them?" he asked, with childish
persistence. "'Cause Bethany's going to read to me about them when
Cousin Frank sends the books over, and you can listen if you like."
"Anything that Bethany reads we shall be glad to hear," answered Miss
Harriet. "At first sister and I thought we would not intrude on you in
the evenings; but the library does look so inviting, and it is so dull
for us to sit with just our knitting-work, since we have stopped reading
by lamp-light, that we can not resist the temptation to go in whenever
she begins to read aloud."
"O, you're home-folks," said Jack.
Bethany had excused herself before this conversation commenced, and was
in the library, opening the mail Miss Caroline had forgotten to give her
at noon. When the others joined her, she held up a little pamphlet she
had just opened.
"Look, Jack! It is from Mr. Lessing, from Chattanooga. It is an article
on 'What shall become of the Jew?' I suppose it is written by one of
them, at least his name would indicate it--Leo N. Levi. It will be
interesting to look at that question from their standpoint."
"Will I like it?" asked Jack.
"No, I think not," she answered, after a rapid glance through its pages.
"We'll have some more of the 'Bonnie Brier-Bush' to-night, and save this
until you are asleep."
Bethany read well, and excelled in Scotch dialect. When she laid down
the book after the story of "A Doctor of the Old School," she saw a big
tear splash down on Miss Harriet's knitting-work, and Miss Caroline was
furtively wiping her spectacles.
"Leave the door open," called Jack, when he had been tucked away for the
night. "Then I can listen if it's nice, or go to sleep if it's dull."
"Do you really care to hear this?" asked Bethany, picking up the
pamphlet.
"Yes," said Miss Caroline, with several emphatic nods. "I'll own I am
very ignorant on the subject; and after something so highly entertaining
as these sweet Scotch tales, it's no more than right that we should take
something improving."
"O sister," called Jack's voice from the next room, "you never told
them about Mr. Lessing, did you?"
"No," answered Bethany. "I never told them any of my Chattanooga
experiences. Maybe it would be better to begin with them, and then you
can understand how I happened to become so interested in the Hebrew
people. The pamphlet can wait until another time."
She tossed it back on the table, and settled herself comfortably in a
big chair.
"I'll begin at the beginning," she said, "and tell you how I was
persuaded into going, and how strangely events linked into each other."
"Can't you just see it all?" murmured Miss Caroline, as Bethany drew a
graphic picture of the mountain outlook, the sunrise, and the crowded
tent. When she came to Lessing's story, Miss Harriet dropped her work in
her lap, and Miss Caroline leaned forward in her chair.
"Dear! dear! It sounds like a chapter out of a romance!" exclaimed Miss
Caroline, when Bethany had finished. "That part about the mother's curse
and being buried in effigy makes me think of the novels that we used to
smuggle into our rooms at school. I wish you could go on and give us
the next chapter. It is intensely interesting."
"Ah, the next chapter," replied Bethany, sadly. "I thought of that at
the time. What can it be but the daily repetition of commonplace events?
He will simply go on to the end in a routine of study and work. He will
preach to whatever audiences he can gather around him. That is all the
world will see. The other part of it, the burden of loneliness laid upon
him because of Jewish scorn and Christian distrust, the soul-struggles,
the spiritual victories, the silent heroism, will be unwritten and
unapplauded, because unseen."
"I don't wonder you are interested," said Miss Harriet. "Would you
believe it, I don't know the difference between an orthodox and a reform
Jew? I think I shall look it up to-morrow in the encyclopedia."
She picked up the little pamphlet, and opened at random.
"Here is a marked paragraph," she said. "'The Jew is everywhere in
evidence. He sells vodki in Russia; he matches his cunning against
Moslem and Greek in Turkey; he fights for existence and endures
martyrdom in the Balkan provinces; he crowds the professions, the arts,
the market-place, the bourse, and the army, in France, England, Austria,
and Germany. He has invaded every calling in America, and everywhere he
is seen; and, what is more to the point, he is felt. He runs through the
entire length of history, as a thin but well-defined line, touched by
the high lights of great events at almost every point.'"
"Where did we leave off with him, sister?" she asked, turning to Miss
Caroline. "Wasn't it at the destruction of the temple, somewhere in the
neighborhood of 70 A. D.? We shall have to trace that line back a
considerable distance, I am thinking, if we would know anything on the
subject."
"Let's trace it then," said Miss Caroline, with her usual alacrity.
Several evenings after, when Bethany came home from the office, she
found a new book on the table, with Miss Caroline's name on the
fly-leaf. It was "The Children of the Ghetto."
"I bought it this afternoon," she explained, a little nervously. "It is
one of Zangwill's. The clerk at the bookstore told me he is called the
Jewish Dickens, and that it is very interesting. Of course, I am no
critic, but it looked interesting, and I thought you might not mind
reading it aloud. Several sentences caught my eye that made me think it
might be as entertaining as 'Old Curiosity Shop,' or 'Oliver Twist.'"
Bethany rapidly scanned several pages. "I believe it is the very thing
to give us an insight into the later day customs and beliefs of the
masses."
She read the headings of several of the chapters aloud, and a sentence
here and there.
"Listen to this!" she exclaimed. "'We are proud and happy in that the
dread unknown God of the infinite universe has chosen our race as the
medium by which to reveal his will to the world. History testifies that
this has verily been our mission, that we have taught the world religion
as truly as Greece has taught beauty and science. Our miraculous
survival through the cataclysms of ancient and modern dynasties is a
proof that our mission is not yet over.'"
"O, I thought it was going to be a story!" exclaimed Jack, in a
disappointed tone.
"It is, dear," answered Bethany. "You can understand part, and I will
explain the rest."
So it came about that, after the Scotch tales were laid aside, the
little group in the library nightly turned their sympathies toward the
children of the London Ghetto, as it existed in the early days of the
century.
"I can never feel the same towards them again," said Miss Caroline, the
night they finished the book. "I understand them so much better. It is
just as the proem says: 'People who have been living in a ghetto for a
couple of centuries are not able to step outside merely because the
gates are thrown down, nor to efface the brands on their souls by
putting off the yellow badges. Their faults are bred of its hovering
miasma of persecution.'"
"Yes," answered Bethany, "I am glad he has given us such a diversity of
types. You know that article that Mr. Lessing sent me says: 'No people
can be fairly judged by its superlatives. It would be silly to judge all
the Chinese by Confucius, or all the Americans by Benedict Arnold. If
the Jews squirm and indignantly protest against Shylock and Fagin and
Svengali, they must be consistent, and not claim as types Scott's
Rebecca and Lessing's Nathan the Wise.' Now, Zangwill has given us a
glimpse of all sorts of people--the 'pots and pans' of material
Judaism, as well as the altar-fires of its most spiritual idealists. I
hope you'll go on another investigating tour, Miss Caroline, and bring
home something else as instructive."
But before Miss Caroline found time to go on another voyage of discovery
among the book-stores, something happened at the office that gave a
deeper interest to their future investigations.
Mr. Edmunds sat at the table a few minutes longer than usual, one
morning after he had finished dictating his letters, to say: "We are
about to make some changes in the office, Miss Hallam. Mr. Porter has
decided to go abroad for a while. Family matters may keep him there
possibly a year. During his absence it is necessary to have some one in
his place; and, after mature deliberation, we have decided to take in a
young lawyer who has two points decidedly in his favor. He has marked
ability, and he will attract a wealthy class of clients. He is a young
Jew, a protege of Rabbi Barthold's. Personally, I have the highest
respect for him, although Mr. Porter is a little prejudiced against him
on account of his nationality. I wondered if you shared that feeling."
"No, indeed!" answered Bethany, quickly. "I have been greatly interested
in studying their history this summer."
"Well, I have never given their past much thought," responded Mr.
Edmunds; "but their relation to the business world has recently
attracted my attention. It is wonderful to me the way they are filling
up the positions of honor and trust all over the world. Statistics show
such a large proportion of them have acquired wealth and prominence.
Still, it is only what we ought to expect, when we remember their
characteristics. They have such 'mental agility,' such power of adapting
themselves to circumstances, and such a resistless energy. Maybe I
should put their temperate habits first, for I can not remember ever
seeing a Jew intoxicated; and as to industry, the records of our county
poor-house show that in all the seventy years of its existence, it has
never had a Jewish inmate. People with such qualities are like cream,
bound to rise to the top, no matter what kind of a vessel they are
poured into."
"Who is this young man?" asked Bethany, coming back to the first
subject.
"David Herschel," responded Mr. Edmunds. "You may have met him."
"David Herschel!" repeated Bethany, incredulously. She caught her breath
in surprise. Was there to be a deliberate crossing of life-threads here,
or had she been caught in some tangle of chance? Maybe this was the
opportunity she had prayed for that morning when she had listened to
Lessing's story, and caught the inspiration of his consecrated life.
A feeling of awe crept over her, that a human voice could so reach the
ear of the Infinite, and draw down an answer to its petition. She was
almost frightened at the thought of the responsibility such an answer
laid upon her. O, the childishness with which we beat against the
portals as we importune high Heaven for opportunities, and then shrink
back when the Almighty hands them out to us, afraid to take and use what
we have most cried for!