He shook his head piteously and looked into Meir's face with his dark eyes which expressed stupefied astonishment at his own misery. Meir, with his hand still on the head of the sickly child, who was finishing his bread, listened to the speech of the miserable fellow. His mouth expressed pity, but the frowning brows and drooped eyelids gave to his face the expression of angry reverie.
"Schmul," he said, "and why are you so often out of work?"
Schmul became plainly confused, and raised his hand to his head, disarranging his skull cap which covered his long dishevelled hair.
"I will tell you," continued Meir; "they don't give you work because from the stuff which they give you to make dresses you cut large pieces and keep them."
Schmul seized his skull cap in both hands.
"My poor head," he groaned. "Morejne, what have you told me? Your mouth said a very ugly thing against me."
He jumped, bent nearly to the ground, and then jumped again.
"Nu, it's true, Morejne, I will open my heart to you I used to cut off and keep pieces of the stuff, and why did I do it? Because my children were naked. I clothed them with it. And when my blind mother was sick I sold it and bought a piece of meat for her. Morejne, your eye must not look angrily on me! Were I as rich as Reb Jankiel and Morejne Calman—had I as much money as they make from the work of our hands and the sweat of our brows, I would not steal!"
"And for what are Reb Jankiel and Morejne Calman taking your money?" began Meir thoughtfully, and he wished to continue, but Schmul stretched himself and interrupted suddenly:
"Nu, they have a right to it. They are elders over us. What they do is sacred. When one listens to them it is as if one listened to God himself."