"Well, I couldn't talk about it to you at all if you wasn't. And if they had been Jews—my own people—and had gone back on me like that, it would've been just a little too much. They were just tough kids—and so they didn't know any better. If they had been Jews they wouldn't have taught me to steal, they wouldn't have done what they—God, my father and mother were right about it, for sure!"
"Your father and mother? Why, what had they to do with it?"
"Oh, you know how parents are. They used to warn me against going with those tough kids. They seemed to know from the beginning that something'd happen out of it. They said—you know, it's like old folks—that Christian boys would never want to go with me unless to gain their own ends—and then to desert me, see? They wanted me to go with the Jewish boys I'd been going with all my life, before then. But I laughed and didn't listen. And—and when I had to pay back for all the things I stole, it was—well, it was the Jewish boys I knew who clubbed together and earned money by odd jobs after school—and if it wasn't for them, I'd be in the workhouse."
"But all Christian boys aren't like the ones you went with," I argued.
"No, I suppose not. But I like to think that all Jewish boys are like the ones on this street. They made a good Jew of me!"
I turned on him quickly. "Did they? How?"
"They made me proud of being one of them. They made me feel the close something-or-other—well, I ain't much when it comes to speeches but you know what I mean."
Perhaps I did, but I would not admit it to myself. Perhaps I did see the faith reborn in him through the faith that other boys had given him. Perhaps, too, I could picture something of the welling joy that had come to his parents when he returned to the only right path that their simple, unquestioning eyes could see. And how jealously they must be guarding him now, to keep him in that code which was their life's law and had become his daily lesson!
"Don't you see?" he begged. "Can't you? Why, a fellow's just got to have a side to fight on—and to fight for. And he's got to believe that his side is the only one, the right one. Life wouldn't be worth living without it. You don't know what it means to be fighting for the right!"
From below came the droning of the unquiet streets. A little higher up a hot wind went almost noiselessly among the chimneys, so that we heard but faint sighs. The roof garden was in darkness, naught gleaming but the little glass bowl of gold fish. There was a sense of utter darkness and loneliness—and yet into it had come, like the glad, brave blast of New Year's trumpet, a battle cry of the One God. A battle cry which made throb the heart of a young, rough boy; a battle cry which would be his whole life's secret well of gratitude and bravery.