I would not have you believe that I was readily sympathetic with every case I met. These boys and girls—though I rarely had to do with the latter—were all Jewish. The appearance of some of them would perhaps have justified my aunt's antipathy to the East Side. Those that were new to the settlement, I noticed, were shabby, dull, rough of speech, surly of manners. It would need a few weeks before I could see how subtle, yet how fundamental, were the changes which the settlement would have wrought in them.
I was shy, too, in the presence of so many boys: shy of their hastily-offered friendship, their rushing eagerness to bring me into all their schemes and boyish dreams. But I was still young enough to know those dreams upon my own account: young enough to feel with little Mosche, a cripple, who wanted so much to become an expert at the swinging of Indian clubs, and who was forever dropping the heavy things in clumsy weakness; young enough to realize how much his mother's love meant to thirteen-year-old Frank Cohen, who had been caught stealing fruit from a corner grocery and was "on parole."
But the feeling in itself was not enough, evidently. I must try and try to make that feeling eloquent—to make these boys feel, in turn, the sureness and helpfulness of my understanding. Sometimes it was torture. It is harder to conquer shyness than to slap a dragon.
Mr. Richards saw this in me—watched the struggle, appreciated it. He spoke of it to me, once, and I did not hesitate to tell him how I felt. How inadequate, how chagrined and humbled in the face of all the poverty and suffering which life down here disclosed.
"It was the same when I first came down here," he said to me in turn. "But I gained courage. Thank God for that!"
He said it quietly, but there was a good deal of fervor in the tones. It surprised me, somehow, because, I had never before heard him mention the name of the Deity. It gave me a new question to ask.
"Why is it that you don't lay more stress on religion down here? Don't the boys and girls need it?"
"Need it? Who doesn't?" A shadow crossed his face. His vivacity gave way for a moment before deep thoughtfulness. "But they get all they need, these kids. They are mostly all of them members of strictly orthodox Jewish families. Religion is given them at all hours in their own homes. Many of them get more of it than they can ever need. They get so much of it that they flee from it, just anxious for the freedom of the streets and the novelty of the bar room and the brothel and the gambling den. I have made investigations. I know that half of the East Side boys who land in the police court have been driven there by the religious strictness of their parents."
"Mr. Richards," I began ... but stopped in dismay. What I had been about to say was no more nor less than a hot, strong denial of his opinion. I felt sure he was wrong—and yet it seemed humorous to me that I, who a year ago, had hated all things Jewish, was now defending all the worth and venerability of its ritual.
"I do not agree with you altogether," I said lamely. "But ... but still, don't think I am a very enthusiastic Jew. Because I'm not."