"Nothing! nothing! hush! hush!" cried Aunt Yente, gesticulating wildly, and the maid came running in from the kitchen, more dead than alive. "Who screamed? What is it? Is there a fire? What is on fire? Where?" "Fire? fire? Where is the fire?" we all shrieked. "Help! help! Gewalt, Jews, to the rescue, fire, fire!" "Which fire? what fire? where fire?! Fire take _you_, you foolish girl, and make cinders of you!" scolded Aunt Yente at the maid. "Now _she_ must come, as though we weren't enough before! Fire, indeed, says she! Into the earth with you, to all black years! Did you ever hear of such a thing? What are you all yelling for? Do you know what it was that frightened you? The best joke in the world, and there's nobody to laugh with! God be with you, it was the clock falling onto the floor--now you know! You hung every sort of thing onto it, and now it is fallen, weighing at least three pud. And no wonder! A man wouldn't have fared better. Did you ever?!" It was only then we came to our senses, rose one by one from the table, went to the clock, and saw it lying on its poor face, killed, broken, shattered, and smashed for evermore! "There is an end to the clock!" said my father, white as the wall. He hung his head, wrung his fingers, and the tears came into his eyes. I looked at my father and wanted to cry, too. "There now, see, what is the use of fretting to death?" said my mother. "No doubt it was so decreed and written down in Heaven that to-day, at that particular minute, our clock was to find its end, just (I beg to distinguish!) like a human being, may God not punish me for saying so! May it be an Atonement for not remembering the Sabbath, for me, for thee, for our children, for all near and dear to us, and for all Israel. Amen, Selah!" FISHEL THE TEACHER Twice a year, as sure as the clock, on the first day of Nisan and the first of Ellul--for Passover and Tabernacles--Fishel the teacher travelled from Balta to Chaschtschevate, home to his wife and children. It was decreed that nearly all his life long he should be the guest of his own family, a very welcome guest, but a passing one. He came with the festival, and no sooner was it over, than back with him to Balta, back to the schooling, the ruler, the Gemoreh, the dull, thick wits, to the being knocked about from pillar to post, to the wandering among strangers, and the longing for home. On the other hand, when Fishel _does_ come home, he is an emperor! His wife Bath-sheba comes out to meet him, pulls at her head-kerchief, blushes red as fire, questions as though in asides, without as yet looking him in the face, "How are you?" and he replies, "How are _you_?" and Froike his son, a boy of thirteen or so, greets him, and the father asks, "Well, Efroim, and how far on are you in the Gemoreh?" and his little daughter Resele, not at all a bad-looking little girl, with a plaited pigtail, hugs and kisses him. "Tate, what sort of present have you brought me?"