A LITTLE BOY
The innkeeper's pretty little boy, with his shrugs and pouts, and his curls full of feathers, haunts me.
Now he stands before me with a small onion in his hand, and he cries—he wants two; or I hear him at evening prayer, repeating the Kaddish in his plaintive child-voice, so tearfully earnest that it goes to my very heart. When the Chossid slapped the Maskil, the child turned pale and green with fright, so that I took him by the hand and led him out of the room.
"Come for a walk."
"A walk?" he stammers.
The pale face flushes.
"Do you never go out for a walk?"
"Not now. When my mother, peace be upon her, was alive, she used to take me out walking Sabbaths and holidays. My father, long life to him, says it's better to sit at one's book."
We were already in the long entrance passage. A "Shield of David" shone redly from a lamp some way off. I could not see his face, but the thin little hand trembled as it lay in mine.
We stepped out into the street.