Oh, that good angel—that good angel! It would have been better if my mother had never mentioned his name, because when Boaz came over, took hold of me with his dry, bony hand and thrust me into a chair at the table, I was almost faint, and I raised my head to the ceiling. I got a good portion from Boaz for this. He pulled me by the ear and shouted:
"Devil, what are you looking at?"
Of course, "the child that had only recovered from the measles" began to wail. It was then he had his first good taste of the teacher's floggings. "A little boy must not look where it is forbidden. A little boy must not bleat like a calf."
. . . . .
Boaz's system of teaching was founded on one thing—whippings. Why whippings? He explained the reason by bringing forward the case of the horse. Why does a horse go? Because it is afraid. What is it afraid of? Whippings. And it is the same with a child. A child must be afraid. He must fear God and his teacher, and his father and his mother, a sin and a bad thought. And in order that a child should be really afraid, he must be laid down, in true style, and given a score or so lashes. There is nothing better in the world than the rod. May the whip live long!
So says Boaz. He takes the strap slowly in his hands, without haste, examines it on all sides as one examines a citron. Then he betakes himself to his work in good earnest, cheerfully singing a song by way of accompaniment.
Wonder of wonders! Boaz never counts the strokes, and never makes a mistake. Boaz flogs, and is never angry. Boaz is not a bad tempered man. He is only angry when a boy will not let himself be whipped, tries to tear himself free, or kicks out his legs. Then it is different. At such times Boaz's eyes are bloodshot, and he flogs without counting and without singing his little song. A little boy must be still while his teacher flogs him. A little boy must have manners, even when he is being flogged.
Boaz is also angry if a boy laughs when he is being whipped. (There are children who laugh when they are beaten. People say this is a disease.) To Boaz laughing is a danger to the soul. Boaz has never laughed as long as he is alive. And he hates to see any one else laughing. One might easily have promised the greatest reward to the person who could swear he once saw Boaz laughing. Boaz is not a man for laughter. His face is not made for it. If Boaz laughed, he would surely look more terrible than another man crying. (There are such faces in the world.) And really, what sort of a thing is laughter? It is only idlers who laugh, empty-headed gools, good-for-nothings, devil-may-care sort of people. Those who have to work for a living, or carry on their shoulders the burden of a knowledge of the Holy Law and of the ways of the world, have no time to laugh. Boaz never has time. He is either teaching or whipping. That is to say, he teaches while he whips, and whips while he teaches. It would be hard to divide these two—to say where teaching ended and whipping began.
And you must know that Boaz never whipped us for nothing. There was always a reason for it. It was either for not learning our lessons, for not wanting to pray well, for not obeying our fathers and mothers, for not looking in, and for not looking out, for just looking, for praying too quickly, for praying too slowly, for speaking too loudly, for speaking too softly, for a torn coat, a lost button, a pull or a push, for dirty hands, a soiled book, for being greedy, for running, for playing—and so on, and so on, without an end.
One might say we were whipped for every sin that a human being can commit. We were whipped for the sake of the next world as well as this world. We were whipped on the eve of every Sabbath, every feast and every fast. We were told that if we had not earned the whippings yet, we would earn them soon, please God. And Boaz gave us all the whippings we ought to have had from our friends and relatives. They gave the pleasant task in to his hands. Then we got whippings of which the teacher said: