——
TRUST
My first halting-place was Tishewitz. I took lodgings with an acquaintance, Reb Bòruch. He sent for the beadle and a few householders.
While I was waiting for them, I stood by the window and looked at the market-place. The market-place is a large square bounded on each side by a row of grimy, tumbledown houses, some roofed with straw, but the majority, with shingle. All are one-storied with a broad veranda supported by rotten beams.
Pushing out from the veranda and not far apart, one from the other, stand the huckstresses over the stalls with rolls, bread, peas, beans, and various kinds of fruit.
The market-women are in a state of great commotion. I must have impressed them very much.
"Bad luck to you!" screams one, "don't point at him with your finger; he can see!"
The women know that I have come to take notes in writing. They confide the secret one to another so softly that I overhear every word, even inside the house.
"They say it is he himself!"