A curious noise comes from the town, a roaring, a rushing, a tumult. In a moment the face of the world is changed for me. Our farm is a courtyard, our house is a palace. I am a prince, Busie a princess. The logs of wood that lie at our door are the cedars and firs of the "Song of Songs." The cat that is warming herself in the sun near the door is a roe, or a young hart; and the hill on the other side of the synagogue is the mountain of Lebanon. The women and the girls who are washing and scrubbing and making everything clean for the Passover are the daughters of Jerusalem. Everything, everything is from the "Song of Songs." I walk about with my hands in my pockets. The nuts shake and rattle. Busie walks beside me, step by step. I cannot go slowly. I am carried along. I want to fly, to soar through the air like an eagle. I let myself go. Busie follows me. I jump from one log of wood to the other. Busie jumps after me. I am up; she is up. I am down; she is down. Who will tire first? "How long is this to last?" asks Busie. And I answer her in the words of the "Song of Songs": "'Until the day break, and the shadows flee away.' Ba! Ba! Ba! You are tired, and I am not." * * * I am glad that Busie does not know what I know. And I am sorry for her. My heart aches for her. I imagine she is sorrowful. That is her nature. She is glad and joyous, and suddenly she sits down in a corner and weeps silently. My mother comforts her, and my father showers kisses on her. But, it is useless. Busie weeps until she is exhausted. For whom? For her father who died so young? Or for her mother who married again and went off without a good-bye? Ah, her mother! When one speaks of her mother to her, she turns all colours. She does not believe in her mother. She does not say an unkind word of her, but she does not believe in her. Of that I am sure. I cannot bear to see Busie weeping. I sit down beside her, and try to distract her thoughts from herself. * * * I keep my hands in my pockets, rattle my nuts, and say to her: "Guess what I can do if I like." "What can you do?" "If I like, all your nuts will belong to me." "Will you win them off me?" "We shall not even begin to play." "Then you will take them from me?" "No, they will come to me of themselves." She lifts her beautiful blue eyes to me--her beautiful, blue, "Song of Songs" eyes. I say to her: "You think I am jesting. Little fool, I know certain magic words." She opens her eyes still wider. I feel big. I explain myself to her, like a great man, a hero: "We boys know everything. There is a boy at school. Sheika the blind one, we call him. He is blind of one eye. He knows everything in the world, even '_Kaballa_.' Do you know what '_Kaballa_' is?" "No. How am I to know?" I am in the seventh heaven because I can give her a lecture on "_Kaballa_."