Rabbi and Priest | Page 8

me. I am rich and can give him all he can desire. He shall study Talmud and become a great and famous rabbi, of whom all the world will one day speak in praise. You have still another boy, while my home is dreary for want of a child's presence. What say you?"
But the mother had, long before the conclusion of this appeal, clasped the boy to her bosom, while the tears of love forced themselves through her lashes at the bare suggestion of parting from her first-born.
"God forbid," she cried, "that he should ever leave me; my precious boy." And she embraced him again and again.
Meanwhile, the husband had crossed the room to where a little fellow, scarcely six years of age, lay upon a sofa.
"Well, Jacob, my boy; how do you feel?" he asked, gently.
"A little better, father," murmured the child. "My arm and ear still pain me, but not so much as yesterday."
The boy sat up and attempted to smile, but sank back with a groan.
"Poor child, poor child," said the father, soothingly, "Have patience. In a few days you will be about again."
"Is uncle here? I want to see uncle," cried the boy.
Hirsch Bensef obeyed the call, and, going to the sufferer, kissed his burning brow.
"Why, Jacob; how is this?" he said. "I did not know that you were sick. What is the trouble, my lad?" The child turned his face to the wall and shuddered.
Reb Mordecai shook his head mournfully, while a tear he sought to repress ran down his furrowed cheek.
"It is the old story," he said. "Prejudice and fanaticism, hatred and ignorance."
And while the Sabbath meal waited, the father told his tale in a simple, unaffected manner, and the uncle listened with clenched hands and threatening glances.
The day following the events in the kretschma, little Jacob had wandered, in company with some Christian playmates, through the village, and seeing the door of a barn wide open, his childish curiosity got the better of his discretion, and he peeped in. A brindled cow, with a pretty calf scarcely three days old, attracted his attention, and for some minutes he gazed upon the pair in silent ecstasy. Then, knowing that he was on forbidden ground, he retraced his steps and endeavored to reach the lane where he had left his companions. The master of the farm, however, having witnessed the intrusion from a neighboring window, did not lose the opportunity to vent his anger against the whole tribe of inquisitive Jews. On the following day the cow ran dry. In vain did the calf seek nourishment at the maternal breast; there was nothing to satisfy its cravings.
The farmer, slow as he was in matters of general importance, was far from slow in tracing the melancholy occurrence to its supposed source.
"That accursed Jew has bewitched my cow," was his first thought, and his second was to find the author of the deed and mete out punishment to him.
Throughout the whole of Russia, and even in parts of civilized Germany, Jews are accused of all manner of sorcery. The Cabala is the principal religious authority of the lower classes among the Russian Jews, and this may perhaps inspire such a preposterous notion. The Jews, themselves, frequently believe that some one of their own number is in possession of supernatural secrets which give him wonderful and awful powers. Many were the tortures which these poor people were doomed to endure for their supposed influence over nature's laws.
It was an easy matter to find little Jacob. His hours at the cheder (school) were over. He was sure to be playing upon the streets, and his capture was quickly effected. Seizing the innocent little fellow by the arm, the irate peasant lifted him off his feet, and dragged him by sheer force into the barn, where he confronted the malefactor with his victim.
"So, you thought you could bewitch my cow," he hissed. "But I saw you, Jew, and, by our holy Czar, I swear that, unless you repair the damage, I shall feed your carcass to the dogs."
Poor Jacob was too terrified to understand of what crime he had been accused. He looked piteously at his tormentor, and burst into tears.
"Well?" cried the peasant, impatiently; "will you take off the spell, or shall I call my dog?"
The child, knowing that such threats were not made in vain, endeavored to plead his innocence, but the bellowing of the hungry calf outweighed the sobbing of the boy, and with an angry oath Jacob was struck to the ground, and a ferocious bull-dog, but little more brutal than his master, was set upon the helpless little fellow.
"Please, Mr. Farmer, don't kill me," he pleaded, groaning in pain.
"Will you cure my cow?" demanded the peasant.
"I'll try to; I'll do my best," sobbed the boy,