It may have been through distrust of the marital state that Joseph remained single till the advanced age of twenty-five. Then he took unto himself an orphan girl as poor as he, namely, Rachel, the daughter of Israel Kimanyer of pious memory.
My grandmother was such a gentle, cheerful soul, when I knew her, that I imagine she must have been a merry bride. I should think my grandfather would have taken great satisfaction in her society, as her attempts to show him the world through rose-hued spectacles would have given him frequent opportunity to parade his grievances and recite his wrongs. But from all reports it appears that he was never satisfied, and if he did not make his wife unhappy it was because he was away from home so much. He was absent the greater part of the time; for a glazier, even if he were a better workman than my grandfather, could not make a living in Yuchovitch. He became a country peddler, trading between Polotzk and Yuchovitch, and taking in all the desolate little hamlets scattered along that route. Fifteen rubles' worth of goods was a big bill to carry out of Polotzk. The stock consisted of cheap pottery, tobacco, matches, boot grease, and axle grease. These he bartered for country produce, including grains in small quantity, bristles, rags, and bones. Money was seldom handled in these transactions.
A rough enough life my grandfather led, on the road at all seasons, in all weathers, knocking about at smoky little inns, glad sometimes of the hospitality of some peasant's hut, where the pigs slept with the family. He was doing well if he got home for the holidays with a little white flour for a cake, and money enough to take his best coat out of pawn. The best coat, and the candlesticks, too, would be repawned promptly on the first workday; for it was not for the like of Joseph of Yuchovitch to live with idle riches around him.
For the credit of Yuchovitch it must be recorded that my grandfather never had to stay away from the synagogue for want of his one decent coat to wear. His neighbor Isaac, the village money lender, never refused to give up the pledged articles on a Sabbath eve, even if the money due was not forthcoming. Many Sabbath coats besides my grandfather's, and many candlesticks besides my grandmother's, passed most of their existence under Isaac's roof, waiting to be redeemed. But on the eve of Sabbath or holiday Isaac delivered them to their respective owners, came they empty-handed or otherwise; and at the expiration of the festival the grateful owners brought them promptly back, for another season of retirement.
While my grandfather was on the road, my grandmother conducted her humble household in a capable, housewifely way. Of her six children, three died young, leaving two daughters and an only son, my father. My grandmother fed and dressed her children the best she could, and taught them to thank God for what they had not as well as for what they had. Piety was about the only positive doctrine she attempted to drill them in, leaving the rest of their education to life and the rebbe.
Promptly when custom prescribed, Pinchus, the petted only son, was sent to heder. My grandfather being on the road at the time, my grandmother herself carried the boy in her arms, as was usual on the first day. My father distinctly remembers that she wept on the way to the heder; partly, I suppose, from joy at starting her son on a holy life, and partly from sadness at being too poor to set forth the wine and honey-cake proper to the occasion. For Grandma Rachel, schooled though she was to pious contentment, probably had her moments of human pettiness like the rest of us.
My father distinguished himself for scholarship from the first. Five years old when he entered heder, at eleven he was already a yeshibah bahur—a student in the seminary. The rebbe never had occasion to use the birch on him. On the contrary, he held him up as an example to the dull or lazy pupils, praised him in the village, and carried his fame to Polotzk.
My grandmother's cup of pious joy was overfilled. Everything her boy did was pleasant in her sight, for Pinchus was going to be a scholar, a godly man, a credit to the memory of his renowned grandfather, Israel Kimanyer. She let nothing interfere with his schooling. When times were bad, and her husband came home with his goods unsold, she borrowed and begged, till the rebbe's fee was produced. If bad luck continued, she pleaded with the rebbe for time. She pawned not only the candlesticks, but her shawl and Sabbath cap as well, to secure the scant rations that gave the young scholar strength to study. More than once in the bitter winter, as my father remembers, she carried him to heder on her back, because he had no shoes; she herself walking almost barefoot in the cruel snow. No sacrifice was too great for her in the pious cause of her boy's education. And when there was no rebbe in Yuchovitch learned enough to guide him in the advanced studies, my father was sent to Polotzk, where he lived with his poor relations, who were not too poor to help support a future rebbe or rav. In Polotzk he continued to distinguish himself for scholarship, till people began to prophesy that he would live to be famous; and everybody who remembered Israel Kimanyer regarded the promising grandson with double respect.
At the age of fifteen my father was qualified to teach beginners in Hebrew, and he was engaged as instructor in two families living six versts apart in the country. The boy tutor had to make himself useful, after lesson hours, by caring for the horse, hauling water from the frozen pond, and lending a hand at everything. When the little sister of one of his pupils died, in the middle of the winter, it fell to my father's lot to take the body to the nearest Jewish cemetery, through miles of desolate country, no living soul accompanying him.
After one term of this, he tried to go on with his own studies, sometimes in Yuchovitch, sometimes in Polotzk, as opportunity dictated. He made the journey to Polotzk beside his father, jogging along in the springless wagon on the rutty roads. He took a boy's pleasure in the gypsy life, the green wood, and the summer storm; while his father sat moody beside him, seeing nothing but the spavins on the horse's hocks, and the mud in the road ahead.