I could not understand what she said. It was in Yiddish, and I have never learned that tongue. But here and there I caught a word which gave me enough of her meaning. She was telling me that Frank had spoken to her of me last night when he returned from the blessed settlement. He always came to her bedside, nowadays, knowing that she would be awake and waiting to hear where he had been. And so he had whispered, while his father slept, of the strange young man who was so kind--a Jew, like them--and yet who had no faith in God. Then suddenly she began to beg something. "Mutter, mutter," was all I could make of it--and I guessed that she was asking me of my mother, and wondering why I did not listen at her knee as Frank had done at his own mother's. And when I told her that my mother was dead, tears came into her eyes, and this was the finest sympathy I had ever known. For she put her big, buttery hand on mine and shook her head. "You must learn to know God," I think she said. "He alone can take your mother's place. He made my son what I longed he should be. He will make you what you most desire. In God alone is there happiness." And so Frank and I went out and down the dirty, narrow stairs, and came into a street of Heaven itself--a street of early sunlight, and a clear sky above--and morning smiles upon the faces of all passersby. Or so it seemed to me, at any rate. Because, for once in my life, I had seen the happiness of mother and child swept up into glory that is God's. And I laughed to think of Mr. Richard's remark that religion works harm among these East Side people. XIV AN UNGRATEFUL NEPHEW The summer came to an end only too quickly. I had enjoyed every moment of it, every opportunity. I had built up three clubs of which I was personal leader; I had given service in the gymnasium and playground; I had helped in the development of a roof-garden cordiality between the settlement workers and the mothers of children on the street. Mr. Richards, the last night I was there, presented me with a loving-cup on behalf of the other workers. It was at supper that he did this, in front of them all. He called upon me, then, to describe to them the most interesting experience I had had in the course of the summer. So I told them the incident of Frank Cohen and his mother--but I do not think they saw much that was interesting about it. Mr. Richards may have, perhaps, because he must have remembered that dictum of his which the incident disproved; but even he could guess little of the impression it had made upon my thought and character.