"I am hurrying off to school," I answered, and grew red as fire. "A scholar, all of a sudden. What do you say to such a saint?" he muttered, and glared at me. I barely managed to finish my breakfast, and say grace. "Well, why are you not off to '_Cheder_,' my saint?" asked my father. "Why do you hunt him so?" asked my mother. "Let the child sit a minute." I was in the attic. Deep, deep in a hole lay the beautiful knife. It lay there in silence. "What are you doing in the attic?" called out my father. "You good-for-nothing! You street-boy! Tkeh-heh-heh-heh!" "I am looking for something," I answered. I nearly fell down with fright. "Something? What is the something? What sort of a thing is that something?" "A--a bo--ok. An--an old '_Ge--gemar--ra_.'" "What? A '_Gemarra_'? In the attic? Ah, you scamp you! Come down at once. Come down. You'll get it from me. You street-boy! You dog-beater! You rascal! Tkeh-heh-heh-heh!" I was not so much afraid of my father's anger as that the pocket-knife might be found. Who could tell? Perhaps some one would go up to the attic to hang out clothes to dry, or to paint the rafters? The knife must be taken down from there, and hidden in a better place. I went about in fear and trembling. Every glance at my father told me that he knew, and that now, now he was going to talk to me of the guest's knife. I had a place for it--a grand place. I would bury it in the ground, in a hole near the wall. I would put some straw on the spot to mark it. The moment I came from "_Cheder_" I ran out into the yard. I took the knife carefully from my pocket, but had no time to look at it, when my father called out: "Where are you at all? Why don't you go and say your prayers? You swine-herd you! You are a water-carrier! Tkeh-heh-heh!" But whatever my father said to me, and as much as the teacher beat me, it was all rubbish to me when I came home, and had the pleasure of seeing my one and only dear friend--my little knife. The pleasure was, alas! mixed with pain, and embittered by fear--by great fear. * * * It is the summer time. The sun is setting. The air grows somewhat cooler. The grass emits a sweet odour. The frogs croak, and the thick clouds fly by, without rain, across the moon. They wish to swallow her up. The silvery white moon hides herself every minute, and shows herself again. It seemed to me that she was flying and flying, but was still on the same spot. My father sat down on the grass, in a long mantle. He had one hand in the bosom of his coat, and with the other he smoothed down the grass. He looked up at the star-spangled sky, and coughed and coughed. His face was like death, silvery white. He was sitting on the exact spot where the little knife was hidden. He knew nothing of what was in the earth under him. Ah, if he only knew! What, for instance, would he say, and what would happen to me?