'I’m glad to know you, Mr. Rudinsky,' she said in a low voice. 'I wish more of my pupils had fathers like David’s.'
Her host changed the subject very neatly.
'And I wish the school children had more teachers like you. David likes you so much.'
'Oh, he liked you!' the wife confirmed. 'Please stay till he veks up. He’ll be sorry to missed your visit.'
While his wife moved quietly around the stove, making tea, Mr. Rudinsky entertained their guest with anecdotes of David’s Hebrew-school days, and of his vain efforts to get at secular books.
'He was just like me,' he said. 'He wanted to learn everything. I couldn’t afford a private teacher, and they wouldn’t take him in the public school. He learned Russian all alone, and if he got a book from somewhere—a history or anything—he wouldn’t eat or drink till he read it all.'
Mrs. Rudinsky often glanced at David’s teacher, to see how her husband’s stories were impressing her. She was too shy with her English to say more than was required of her as hostess, but her face, aglow with motherly pride, showed how she participated in her husband’s enthusiasm.
'You see yourself, ma’am, what he is,' said David’s father, 'but what could I make of him in Russia? I was happy when he got here, only it was a little late. I wished he started in school younger.'
'He has time enough,' said Miss Ralston. 'He’ll get through grammar school before he’s fourteen. He’s twelve now, isn’t he?'
'Yes, ma’am—no, ma’am! He’s really fourteen now, but I made him out younger on purpose.'