kissed a child? "As for me," she said, "I must be content with whatever he gives me; but what have the little children done?"

Hatzkel spent little time at home. He went to work early, and came back late, some days not at all. She did not know where he went nor what he earned,-only that he paid the rent and gave her a few dollars each week.

Her wifely instinct told her that all was not well before it came to her ears that Hatzkel was seen frequently in the company of Fannie Goldin. Fannie had been in America only two years, but she dressed well and looked young and fresh. When Chaye understood what was going on, her heart beat and her head swam. She felt her weakness, and could do nothing but scold. He said he could not live with such a woman.

"The

"I am a good American husband," said Hatzkel. rent is paid and you and the children have a home. If you do not like me, I am willing to give you a divorce at any time."

The threat kept Chaye quiet; but one evening when she got on the street-car after a tiresome day, a child asleep in her arms, and two others following after, she saw him and Fannie together in a front seat. They greeted her from afar, and she was left to struggle home with the children, alone.

Chaye did not sleep that night, nor did Hatzkel come home. When she saw him again, her heart was full of bitterness.

You said you would divorce me," she cried. "Come, I am ready!"

They went to the rabbi, and Hatzkel asked him to write a bill of divorce.

"She does not want to live with me any longer," Hatzkel explained.

"How can I," asked Chaye, "when he goes about the city with another woman? I am covered with shame. I am the laughing-stock of all honest women."

"It is bad. I will write," said the rabbi.

Then he wrote, and Chaye's breast heaved. She loved Hatzkel, and he was the father of her children.

"Is it right, rabbi," she asked, "that he should put me off? Is it right that I should bear this heavy burden, when I have been a true wife to him in the sight of man and God?"

"You are changing again," said Hatzkel. "That is her right," answered the rabbi.

As soon as she sees Fannie, she will want to come here again."

The name aroused her womanhood.

way."

Write it, rabbi. God will help me. I cannot live this

Soon the writing was finished. Chaye's mind was torn by a hundred doubts. If she only had some one to direct her! She knew that she was a simple, ignorant woman.

"Is this justice, rabbi?" she asked. "He took me from my home, took my youth, and now throws me away. What will people say? What do you say, rabbi?"

"If you can live together," answered the rabbi, “I will tear the writing. I do what you ask me."

"If you tear it," said Hatzkel, "I will not come here again. We cannot live together, her tongue is too sharp. I have only to mention the name Fannie"

་་

“I am ready, rabbi," said Chaye, not waiting to hear more. "Give it to me, I am no longer wife. But the children-the children!"

"Yes, what of the children?" asked the rabbi, who had not thought of them before. "This is important. What of the children?"

"I am not unreasonable," said Hatzkel. "She may have them."

S

V

ON THE WING

HLOMO KAFTAN, his wife and four children, arrived

in town and went straight to the Friendly Inn. They

must have had the address, for they asked no questions and found the place at once. It was evening when they came and the Superintendent began to ask them questions; but Shlomo shook his red beard, and said: "You see the woman is not well. I will answer your questions to-morrow."

The family was fed, and room was made for the children. Shlomo did not appear put out by strange surroundings. He took everything calmly, and went so far as to say that the Friendly Inn was not a credit to a city where so many Jews lived.

The questions asked Shlomo the next day were not answered promptly or good-naturedly. Whence came he? From New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and many other places. The Superintendent did not know the name of so many cities. What did he do for a living? He was a peddler, a shoemaker, a teacher, a cantor, and he could write Russian. Where was he going? That was his own affair.

His wife was a little, subdued woman, who did not look strong, and she held a young baby in her arms. The other children were dressed in clothes that took no heed of their size or of the season of the year. The children's appetites were good, but the woman ate very little.

They remained a few days, and the Superintendent became restive. He did not know what to do with the family, and Shlomo gave him little satisfaction. He became convinced that Shlomo was a traveller, who went from city to city living on the train or in a Friendly Inn.

"We cannot keep you any longer," said the Superintendent; you have been here five days, and now you must go.”

and

"Give us tickets to Cincinnati, and we will go."

"No," said the Superintendent, "we will not give you tickets, you will go nevertheless."

"We shall see," said Shlomo.

The Superintendent was not to be answered in this way, and he made preparations for putting them out. He had gathered their baggage together, when he was called to the women's sleeping room. He found Mrs. Kaftan in a dead faint upon her bed.

The baggage was stored away again, and the doctor was sent for. He came, and examined Mrs. Kaftan, and said that she was sick, but he could not tell what ailed her.

"I shall be better able to judge to-morrow," he said.

Shlomo came back in the evening, and went to bed as if

nothing had happened. He did not excite himself over his wife's condition, but simply said, "We cannot go while she is sick."

The Superintendent was baffled and helpless. The next day the doctor was still undecided as to the woman, but he thought the baby had fever. He came again in the afternoon, and now the child was quite sick. The woman was unchanged.

Shlomo, who was out all day, came again in the evening, and when he was told his child was sick he showed more interest. "What did the doctor say?" he asked.

"There is fever."

"Is that all? We do not mind fevers."

The directors of the Friendly Inn came together to consider the case, and there was much discussion. One said, "The man is a tramp." Another, "We have no right to encourage his travel. No wonder his wife and child are sick."

When Shlomo came in that evening, he went to the Superintendent, and said: "We leave to-morrow. Here are our tickets," and he waved them in front of the Superintendent.

"Where did you get them?"

"That's my business. I charge money to tell."

When Mrs. Kaftan heard of the tickets, she got out of bed as if nothing had happened. The Superintendent was astounded. If they had not been going the next day he would have said something sharp.

Shlomo got his baggage, when he was ready to go, the woman took up the child, the other children took their bundles, and all were loaded for the trip. The baby looked sick, but no one heeded it.

When the doctor came and was told what had happened, he said: "I am not surprised. She looked sick, but I could find nothing."

Then he remembered: "But what of the baby?"

They took that, too."

Too bad, too bad. How long have they been gone?"

"Since ten this morning. What was the matter with the child?"

"Diphtheria."

K

away.

THE FIRST COURTSHIP

HARRY KEMP

AA got his mate by capture-by real capture, not by the still vigorous though sham ceremonial of later days,

when the woman willingly allowed herself to be carried

For a long time the instinct for mating had swelled within Kaa's heart. The cries of the green and crimson-colored birds in the forest had lost their raucousness and now sounded softer, almost musical. It was the first mad month of primeval spring. The flowers had burst forth into a riotous smothering profusion of bloom. New life and motion seethed in everything.

Kaa sat on the bank of the great, bitter-tasting, inland ocean that at that time covered what is now transformed into rolling miles of wheat. The waves were dappled with the mauve and dark violet colors of late twilight. Strange emotions stirred in Kaa's breast-emotions which later were to be the poetry, sculpture, and music of the world. The obscure seed of all æsthetic loveliness, the first coherent love-impulse, was sprouting in his heart.

For one day, as he was gouging up shellfish out of the sand with a stick, he had first seen HER, small and brown and lithebodied, slipping away among the bushes. She had stopped and peered at him from between the rustling leaves, with two piercing motionless black eyes, like those of an alarmed wild thing's. Then she had disappeared.

Now Kaa, unlike other cave-men, had remembered this incident. Nor had he subsequently forgotten her and sought out another. For days and days after that he had been irresistibly propelled to the same place, there to watch for her. At times he had caught vanishing glimpses of her. . . .

.

Suddenly he leaped to his feet. . . Here she was once more. She had appeared unexpectedly, as if she had stepped forth out of his very thought.

She heard the rustling and crackling of branches and leaves as Kaa disappeared, but she did not glimpse him. She stood