Ha! ha! ha! Everybody thinks that Busie and I are sister and brother. She calls my mother "mother," and my father "father." And we two live together like sister and brother, and love one another, like sister and brother.
Like sister and brother? Then why is Busie ashamed before me?
It happened once that we two were left alone in the house—we two by ourselves in the whole house. It was evening, towards nightfall. My father had gone to the synagogue to recite the mourners' prayer after my dead brother Benny, and my mother had gone out to buy matches. Busie and I crept into a corner, and I told her stories. Busie likes me to tell her stories—fine stories of "Cheder," or from the "Arabian Nights." She crept close to me, and put her hand into mine.
"Tell me something, Shemak, tell me."
Softly fell the night around us. The shadows crept slowly up the walls, paused on the floor, and stole all around. We could hardly, hardly see one another's face. I felt her hand trembling. I heard her little heart beating. I saw her eyes shining in the dark. Suddenly she drew her hand from mine.
"What is it, Busie?"
"We must not."
"What must we not?"
"Hold each other's hands."
"Why not? Who told you that?"