338 PINSKI
"It's a pity on the children's account !" one would exclaim here and there. "In the Talmud Torah, under his direction, they wanted for nothing, and what's to become of them now ! They'll be running wild in the streets !"
"What then? Do you mean it would be better to make Gentiles of them?"
"Well, there ! Of course, I understand !" he would hasten to say, penitently. And a resolution was passed, to the effect that the children should not be allowed to attend the Talmud Torah.
Eeb Shloimeh stood at his window, and watched the excited groups in the street, saw how the men threw themselves about, rocked themselves, bit their beards, described half -circles with their thumbs, and he smiled.
In the evening the teachers came and told him what had been said in the town, and how all held that the children were not to be allowed to go to the Talmud Torah. Eeb Shloimeh was a little disturbed, but he composed himself again and thought :
"Eh, they will quiet down, never mind ! They won't do it to me! "
Entering the Talmud Torah on Sunday, he was greeted by four empty walls. Even two orphans, who had no relations or protector in the town, had not come. They had been frightened and talked at and not allowed to attend, and free meals had been secured for all of them, so that they should not starve.
For the moment Keb Shloimeh lost his head. He glanced at the teachers as though ashamed in their presence, and his glance said, "What is to be done now?"
