I saw then that I was in a sort of hiding-place—a hiding-place under the open sky! I realized that I had escaped from houses, garrets, and cellars, merely to hide in the open field between heaven and earth. I had fled from darkness, to hide in broad daylight!
Indeed, it was not light that I had to fear. Nor was it the sun, the moon, or the sheep. It was only man that I had to avoid.
Mother went away and left us under the protection of the little shepherd boy. And he was a good boy, indeed. He watched us to the best of his ability. As soon as he saw any one approach our place, he called out loudly: "No, no; these are not Jewish boys at all! On my life, they are not!"
As a matter of facet, a stranger did happen to visit our place; but he was only a butcher, who came to buy sheep for slaughtering.
Well, the sun had set, and night came. It was my first night under an open sky. I suffered greatly from fear, for there was no Mezuzah anywhere near me. I put my hand under my Shaatnez clothes, and felt my Tzitzis: they, too, seemed to be in hiding, for they shook in my hand.
Over us the dark night sky was spread out, and it seemed to me that the stars were so many omens whose meaning I could not make out. But I felt certain that they meant nothing good so far as I was concerned. All kinds of whispers, sizzling sounds of the night, reached my ears, and I knew not where they came from.
Looking down, I saw sparks a-twinkling. I knew they were stars reflected in the near-by stream. But soon I thought it was not the water and the stars: the sheen of the water became the broad smile of some giant stretched out flat upon the ground; and the sparks were the twinkling of his eyes. And the sheep were not sheep at all, but some strange creatures moving to and fro, spreading out, and coming together again in knotted masses. I imagined they all were giants bewitched to appear as sheep by day and to become giants again by night. Then I knew too well that the thick, dark forest was behind me; and what doesn't one find in a forest? Is there an unholy spirit that cannot be found there? Z-z-z—— a sudden sizzling whisper reached my ear, and I began to cry.
"Why don't you sleep?" asked the shepherd boy in his broken Yiddish.
"I am afraid!"
"What are you afraid of?"