"Listen, you, whatever your name is, you surely know whose son Cain was, and the name of his brother?"
This question was as strange to me as if he had asked me when there would be a fair in the sky, or how to make cream-cheese from snow, so that they should not melt. In reality my mind was elsewhere, I don't know where.
"Why do you look at me so?" asked the teacher. "Don't you hear me? I want you to tell me the name of the first man, and the story of Cain and his brother Abel."
The boys were smiling, smothering their laughter. I did not know why.
"Fool, say you do not know, because we have not learnt it," whispered Benny in my ear, digging me with his elbow. I repeated his words, like a parrot. And the "Cheder" was filled with loud laughter.
"What are they laughing at?" I asked myself. I looked at them, and at the teacher. All were rolling with laughter. And, at that moment, I counted the buttons from one hand into the other. There were exactly half a dozen.
"Well, little boy, show me your hands. What are you doing with them?" And the teacher bent down and looked under the table.
You are clever boys, and you will understand yourselves what I had from the teacher, for the buttons, on my first day at "Cheder."
. . . . .
Whippings heal up; shame is forgotten. Benny and I became good friends. We were one soul. This is how it came about:—