Having found himself face to face with the crowd of children, he stood still in the middle of the road, burrowing his bare feet in the dust, which early in the morning is so deliciously cool. In fear, he half opened the dark lips of his fair mouth,—the next second he leaped right on to the sidewalk.
"Catch him!" the children started to shout gaily and in a chorus. "A Jewish boy! Catch the Jew boy!"
I waited, thinking that he would run away. His thin, big-eyed face was all fear; his lips quivered; he stood there amid the shouts and the mocking laughter. Pressing his shoulders against the fence and hiding his hands behind his back, he stretched and strangely appeared to have grown bigger.
But suddenly he spoke,—very calmly and in a distinct and correct Russian.
"If you wish,—I will show you some tricks."
I took this offer for a means of self-defence. But the children at once became interested. The larger and coarser boys alone looked with distrust and suspicion on the little Jewish boy. The children of our street were in a state of guerilla warfare with the children of other streets; in addition, they were deeply convinced of their own superiority and were loath to brook the rivalry of other children.
The smaller boys approached the matter more simply.
"Come on, show us," they shouted.
The handsome, slim boy moved away from the fence, bent his thin body backward, and touching the ground with his hands, he tossed up his feet and remained standing on his arms, shouting:
"Hop! Hop! Hop!"