LATE 417
twirling round him in a circle, and dancing. But he consoled himself with the thought that every year, when he drove into town, he found many booths already covered. Some cover earlier, some later. The latter paid the best.
"I shall ask higher prices," he resolved, and all the while fear tugged at his heart. He drove on. Two Jewish women were standing before a house; they pointed at the cart with their finger, and laughed aloud.
"Why do you laugh ?" queried Antosh, excitedly.
"Because you are too soon with your fir-boughs," they answered, and laughed again.
"How too soon?" he asked, astonished. "Too soon too soon " laughed the women.
"Pfui," Antosh spat, and drove on, thinking, "Berko said himself, 'In a week.' I am only two days ahead."
A cold sweat covered him, as he reflected he might have made a wrong calculation, founded on what Berko had told him. It was possible that he had counted the days badly had come too late! There is no doubt: all the booths are covered with fir-boughs. He will have no salt, no tobacco, no soap, and no petroleum.
Sadly he followed the slow paces of his languid horse, which let his weary head droop as though out of sym- pathy for his master.
Meantime the Jews were crowding out of the syna- gogues in festal array, with their prayer-scarfs and prayer-books in their hands. When they perceived the peasant with the cart of fir-boughs, they looked ques- tioningly one at the other: Had they made a mistake and begun the festival too early?
