A SCHOLAR'S MOTHER 519
The eldest boy, Yitzchokel, had been the one conso- lation of Lezer the tailor's cheerless existence, and Lezer was comforted on his death-bed to think he should leave a good Kaddish behind him.
When he died, the householders had pity on the deso- late widow, collected a few rubles, so that she might buy something to traffic with, and, seeing that Yitzchokel was a promising boy, they placed him in the house-of- etudy, arranged for him to have his daily meals in the houses of the rich, and bade him pass his time over the Talmud.
Taube, when she saw her Yitzchokel taking his meals with the rich, felt satisfied. A weakly boy, what could she give him to eat ? There, at the rich man's table, he had the best of everything, but it grieved her that he should eat in strange, rich houses she herself did not know whether she had received a kindness or the reverse, when he was taken off her hands.
One day, sitting at her stall, she spied her Yitzchokel emerge from the Shool-Gass with his Tefillin-bag under his arm, and go straight into the house of Reb Zindel the rich, to breakfast, and a pang went through her heart. She was still on terms, then, with Yente, because immediately after the death of her husband everyone had been kind to her, and she said :
"Believe me, Yente, I don't know myself what it is. "What right have I to complain of the householders? They have been very good to me and to my child, made provision for him in rich houses, treated him as if he were no market-woman's son, but the child of gentle- folk, and yet every day when I give the other children
