One of the dolls slipped from my hand and fell to the floor.
“Urim!” cried the little one, slipping hastily from her father’s knee to pick it up. Tenderly she examined the doll’s head; it was unscathed. Then she looked up at me and held out her arms, and her mouth formed into a rosebud. It was a charming picture, altogether out of place—naïve, picturesque, utterly delightful.
“You must go to bed,” said her father, sternly. “The foolish thing wants you to kiss her.”
We became friends—Koppel, Rebecca, Urim, Thummim, and I.
“I was reading the Pentateuch aloud one night,” explained Koppel, “and she caught the words Urim and Thummim. They pleased her, and she has not forgotten them.”
I have not said that Rebecca was pretty. She was more than pretty; there was a light in her baby face that bespoke a glorious womanhood. There was a quiet dignity in her baby manners that can be found only among the children of the Orient. She was a winsome child, and during the day, when her father was at work, the children from far and near would come to make a pet of her.
The strike was at an end, and Koppel was discharged. When I came to the house a few days later Rebecca was eating a piece of dry bread, saving a few crumbs for Urim and Thummim. Koppel, in gloomy silence, was watching her.
“She is not well,” he said. “She has had nothing to eat but bread for three days. I must send her to an institution.”
The next morning the doctor was there, prescribing for her in a perfunctory way, for it was merely a charity case. She smiled feebly when she saw me, and handed me a doll that lay beside her.
“It’s Thummim,” I said. “Won’t you give me Urim?”