matter how you expressed your thought and feeling any more than it could affect the sum whether you counted your money this way or that way. And so Jerucham never gave a thought to his English, and what he knew of it in the way of speaking and reading and writing had come to him. by sheer force of association, without effort on his part. "Vat 's him?" Jerucham presently asked, pointing with his finger at the writing. "Vat for a vord is 'slew'?" "Oh, don't you know? I killed ten thousand Indians," Joseph answered, clicking his heels and saluting. "No," Jerucham said, shaking his head, "not right. Killing not right. God don't like. Indians gut people. Everybody gut people. I tell you vat you can slew all right." Damping his middle finger with his tongue, Jerucham proceeded to the rescue of the Indians. He rubbed out the word, and with a huge carpenter's-pencil he put down instead "muskitis." "See, Joseph," he thereupon observed, "muskitis all right to slew. Gut boy can slew him. A whole million you can slew him." "I don't want that," Joseph whimpered, shaking himself, with head downcast. His lower lip protruded, and his eyes glistened portentously. "Vy not?" Jerucham argued. "Muskitis gut to kill. He's bad. He bite and make sicks. All kind of sicks he make. Gut to finish mit him and make him no more. Dat's right." He But Joseph was no utilitarian. might slaughter mosquitos when he could, but he would not have it inscribed to his glory. He was a warrior, with a mighty sword in his hand. Let old men do battle with mosquitos. Indians for Joseph. He wanted his Indians back. "I killed ten thousand Indians, I tell you," Joseph said, pulling himself up. "You must put 'em back for me now," he added imperiously. Jerucham shook his head contemplatively, and presently he mused to himself, oblivious of Joseph's mandate: "Gewalt! gewalt! man! man! man! What dost want, man, child of earth? God has given thee life, long, bright days of life, and a great bright world to work in. Sit and work and keep thy peace and be happy. But no, no. Always it wills himself kill, kill, kill. And always it wills himself kill somebody bigger and stronger than himself, and always many, many. A little mite, the littlest scrap of a man, only a little while ago begun to walk and talk, it dreams himself of killing ten thousand Indians. Not otherwise; Indians it must be! Gewalt! gewalt! gewalt! True, as the verse says: 'For the nature of man's heart is evil from his youth.' Ha! wait! wait! wait! Good! good! good!" All aglow with the excitement of a sudden inspiration, Jerucham hastened to his little sanctum, his right hand pressing against his forehead as if to keep the onrush of thought within bounds, lest it ooze through and scatter. In a moment he sat at his table, feverishly fingering the back leaves of his commentary till he came upon the pages touching the story of Noah, where occurs the verse referred to (Genesis viii, 21). The whole world was forgotten, and Joseph with it. Jerucham had a new page to write, perhaps two pages. He did not see Joseph again till the end of the week. With his two inseparables, the teddybear and the sword, Joseph put in his second visit to the basement in the same unobtrusive, informal way. "Ah, gut boy Joseph! gut liddle boy!" Jerucham exclaimed, much pleased. "Not angry mit me, Joseph-no, not angry?" "Mama said I could come here," Joseph answered, "because--because she said I could; that's why." "You like me, Joseph?" Jerucham asked, looking up with file in hand. "Are you real nice?" Joseph returned, viewing the old man with much concern. "Vat your mama t'ink?" "Oh, I think she-she must think yes, because- because I think she must.” "Nu, gut," Jerucham said. "Und you und me vill be gut friends alvays. Und I tell you vat I do for you. I take your teddy-bear und I make him in a machine inside, und I make him go, und I make him cry-fine! fine! Real bear I make him. I make him do everyt'ing." Joseph did not know how slow a worker Jerucham was. Still, he bore himself bravely when it came to the test. Joseph had understanding and also faith. He knew that his teddy-bear was to come back to him a real bear at the end of time, and he practised patience during the long days of incubation under the hands of Jerucham. Now that Joseph had a vested interest in the place, he came regularly every day, and spent much of his time there. One afternoon Joseph appeared at the steps leading down to the basement, and there he halted for a time. The hesitation was not his. He was not alone. "Come, come, Joseph!" Jerucham called out presently, looking up from his work. "Vy not you come? Vy you 'fraid?" Then, perceiving that Joseph was in company of somebody whose face he could not well see from the depth of his basement, Jerucham stepped forward to meet the two, wiping his glasses on the way. She was a young woman, dressed in a chocolate-colored skirt and a short navyblue coat, both severely plain of build. Still, there are some women that shed their own grace over the clothes they wear, however simple and unfashionable these be. She looked smart in her dress, and you would have said nothing could give her a better showing. A knitted red tam-o'-shanter sat carelessly over her rich auburn hair, and it made her look conspicuously girlish. Jerucham adjusted his glasses and scanned the pretty features. He was struck with the family likeness between the two creatures, the one as dainty and as fresh as the other. "Ah!" Jerucham exclaimed, throwing up his head, the red patch again showing at his cheek-bones. "Come," he continued -"come in mit him! Don't shame yourself; you all right in here. Your liddle bruder is great friends mit me. come in." Come in, "How do you know this is my brother?" the young woman said in a mellow, warm contralto, accepting the invitation to come in. "Sure, this is mama!" Joseph broke in almost fiercely. He had been asked not to tell, for a time at least; but his pride in his mama was too great to permit of her being mistaken for a mere sister. "Ah!" Jerucham said a second time. The red patch at his cheek-bones spread and deepened. He fell back a step or two and bowed with an awkward obsequious ness. Joseph's mama was quite another story, and a bigger one. She had been figuring largely in Joseph's conversations with Jerucham, and Jerucham had built up certain lofty theories about her, and there. she was in the flesh. The initial formality over, Jerucham viewed her up and down anew, this time from a right fatherly attitude. "You Joseph's mama-you?" he commented presently. "I'm s'prise'. I'm big s'prise'. You so young. How young you marry—” Even as the speech, the intonation was blurred and undefined. It left it impossible to tell whether Jerucham intended his last sentence as an exclamation or the still more uncalled-for query. But Joseph's mama was both quick-witted and goodnatured. She saw at a glance that the old man was perfectly innocent of intentional offensiveness. It was a way he had. He was different. And so Joseph's mama forgot all the rest, and she smiled contentedly at that emphatic indorsement of her youthful appearance. It was her right. It would be the right of any woman past eighteen, and Joseph's mama was at least twentyfour. "Your husman far avay-far? Sicksick?" Jerucham presently began. She bit her lip. She was displeased and astonished. "Why," she returned, "how could you know that?" back soon all right. Dat mean he 's sick -not?" "Oh!" she sighed with relief. If that was the way the knowledge had come to the old man, it could not be helped; and there was little harm in it. "You vork yourself now?" Jerucham pushed his inquisitiveness. "You play? Play theater?" "No, I play only the piano in a sort of theater-a moving-picture place." "You get much?" She smiled indulgently as she answered: "Oh, they don't pay over-much there, and there's no reason why they should. Anybody can do that tinkle-tinkle-thump. You would n't know the difference if a cat did it chasing a mouse over the keys. But you've got to be clever, though, to get the place," she concluded in an undertone to herself. "And that's what they pay you for." Jerucham's features gathered into an expression of great tenderness as he looked her over in the light of this new revelation. With hand pressing against his breast, he heaved a deep sigh, shaking his head sadly: "Ah, I'm pity for you! I'm pity!" "Gracious!" she exclaimed, receding from him. "Is this how all your people behave? Don't you know it is n't nice to tell others that you pity them?" "Vy not?" Jerucham returned, untouched. "Vy not, ven I mean it? I mean it true. Mit all mein heart I mean it." "But why should you? Why should you be sorry for me? You don't know me, and you don't know that there's anything to be sorry for." "I know I know gut. I verstand everyt'ing. Mein heart say it to me. I like you a big much. I know. I see. Und you must go make dem dinkle-dinkle in dat pig place, und you get so liddle, mit your sick husman far away, und mit your so fine liddle boy to keep. Dat's vy I'm very pity. You too gut, too nice. You get right to be rich, plenty rich, mit grand house, und mit atombils und servan's. Dat 's vy it 's so pity." His persistent disregard of all form of delicacy, combined with his uncouth mode of expression, finally grew responsible for the young woman's inclination to view this man of giant intellect as a mental defective. Still, it was the merest subconscious feeling. She knew he was no ordinary man, no bare vulgarian. He was different; that was it. She knew it. She had known it before ever she had seen him. And so, then, at last, instead of being offended, she was captivated by his astonishing freedom of manner. Her heart, too, was touched by his childlike transparency. "The old dear!" she muttered under her breath. "He really means it all from his heart. And he seems to trust a deal to his intuition." And presently, with a growing sense of intimacy, born of perfect trustfulness, she said to him, drawing nearer, and shaking a forefinger at his nose in playful admonition: "But, you know, you really must n't ever tell people that you pity them or are sorry for them, no matter how you care for them and no matter how true it is." And when she had said that it began to seem to her as if some unknown agency had appointed her his guardian angel, to look after his manners and train him the way men should go. Jerucham shrugged his shoulder. He could not see "vy not," when he "meant it true," and, above all, when he liked her such a "big much." "Did you never marry and have daughters of your own?" she presently asked. "Oh," he smiled, "me have gran'daughters bigger like you. Much daughters und sons, und dey all marry mit families. But vat 's daughters und sons? If dey gut, gut, und you like; und if no gut, den you don't like. Vat 's daughters? Vat's sons? You feed 'em and grow dem till dey make big; und den, ven not much gut, it all de same like strangers. Ps'aw! Vat 's daughters? Vat 's sons? Not more like odders ven you can't like. Vat I care! Mein sons come mit atombils to take me rides. Dey t'ink big t'ing not to shame himself mit dem ole fadder mit dem big Jew whiskies. Tpui! I don' vant rides. Dey give me money; vat 's dat? Vy not? Dey plenty rich, und dey cost me much money ven I grow him. Ps'aw! Vat's money? I don' vant money. I live eighty years-eighty years next middle summer. Vat I vant money? People talk sons und daughters; people talk childrens-oi-yoi, childrens! childrens! So terrible fuss mit childrens! Vat 's childrens? Vat 's sons und daughters? Ps'aw!" Joseph's mama could not well divine the cause of the old man's bitterness. It was a question outside the range of her interests. It was not for her to see that Jerucham and his offspring were the products of two conflicting civilizations. They were an alien mix-up that would not fuse. He was in America, and was not at all of it; while they, grown rich before they got time to grow American, had their Americanization bulging out in lumps from under their skin, giving them unease and unloveliness. One does not bolt one's food without doing damage to the stomach. Neither does the soul of an alien assimilate a fresh civilization at a gulp without coming out a distortion. Still one thing she had a clear perception of, and that was the utter loneliness of this man, weighted with years, bent of figure, and infirm of leg. And the woman and the mother in her rose at a bound. She longed to make herself of some comfort to him. She wished she could come every day to look after him and warm his heart. She wanted him for her second baby. And presently, with a freedom of movement, as if she had been used to the place and to the man all her life, she stepped into the little living-room to see if there was not some little thing she might do for him. Her eye passed over the table, piled with great tomes, dog-eared in many places, and smaller prints, some still open. It was a spot severely sacred, that neither called for, nor would yet brook, the touch of a woman's hand. Her attention was fastened on the bed, and the look of it gave her the thrill of satisfaction one gets on finding the very thing one is seeking. The bed was plentifully supplied with clean, good linen, but it was all in disorder, as if it had not been made for days past. And that was just what it was, too. Only twice a week a hired old woman came for some odd minutes to tidy up the place, and she was not due again now till the following day. Jerucham had remained at his table, busy with the inside of Joseph's teddybear, Joseph watching him intently, with both hands under the chin, and plying him with questions. But presently Jerucham paused, straining his ear in the direction of the back room, with his open fist for trumpet. He thought he heard the sound of the patting of pillows. And then when he saw what that lovely young creature was doing for him on her very first visit, the very first time she ever had looked at him, the red patch came to his cheek-bones, his mouth expanded, and his hand pressed against his breast. Passing him in the entrance, where he still remained when she had completed her work, her sparkling eye met his with a look half shamefaced, half defiant. As though it would say, "It 's been kind of free-making, but it does n't matter how you take it." "You like dem angels," he said to her, patting her small hand, which she gave him upon going away. "Angels make gut, gut, gut alvays, mitdout ask und mitdout vy. Dat 's how God tell him. Dat 's how God tell you, mitdout your know. I look mein eye to mein bet, und I say, 'Angel come to mein house."" She promised to come again, but she could not do that often. Her day was well occupied with covering distances to give some odd piano lessons and hunt up possible fresh pupils. Only now and then. she found half an hour to spare for a visit to the basement. Mostly Joseph would announce it the day before that his mama was coming on the morrow. And when the day was there, Jerucham put on a fresh collar, and at odd moments, as he |