The New Land | Page 9

you have rendered me--and be off."
Samuel rose, his face flushing with anger at the man's insolence, yet glowing with a hope he hardly dared to utter even to himself. For the time had come, he believed, when he might play the hero, as he had done so many times before in his dreams. "I want no reward," he answered quietly, "but if you would render me favor for favor, I would ask you to withdraw the restriction you have placed upon my brethren--those Jews who sought these shores on the 'St. Catarina' and who desire to make their homes here."
The governor smiled grimly. "A true Jew," he muttered, with a sort of grudging admiration for the boy's boldness, "ever ready with his bargain! But I have no longer the power to grant you or refuse you your request." He picked up from the table a long, bulky envelope, from which dangled a red seal. "This came this morning from Holland. Tomorrow I must tell the burghers that the gentlemen of the Board of Directors of the Dutch West India Company have over-ridden my suggestions; they write that I must admit these Jews, provided that the poor among them shall not become a burden to our community, as they at first seemed likely to be, but be supported by their own nation." Again his grim smile. "No fear of that, when even a boy like you thinks of his people before gifts for himself. I wish," he half mused, "I wish that we had at least that virtue of your stiff-necked race."
Little Katrina, grown weary of all this, slipped from her uncle's knees and took Samuel's hand in hers. "Come into the garden," she commanded, "I want you to see my rose bushes and my new kittens and the swing, before supper."
Samuel's eyes sought the governor's face, half-he told her, gently.
Her eager face clouded. "Then you will come and play with me tomorrow?" she asked.
Samuel's eyes sought the governor's face, half-defiantly, half-wistfully. "When your uncle sends for me, I will come," he said, and, bowing in a manner that would have delighted his careful mother, he left the room. Katrina was about to follow him, but her uncle called her back rather sternly.
"Nay, do not pout, my pretty," he told her, "for I will try to find you a worthier playfellow than the son of a Jew trader."
Samuel walked home slowly through the April twilight. In the harbor he could see the dim outlines of the 'St. Catarina,' which had in truth brought the Jewish wanderers to a home in New Amsterdam. But Samuel was not thinking of the wanderers who, after their months of weary waiting, could look toward the future with hopeful eyes; nor did he feel relieved that, since they were not to be deported, the newcomers would surely come to his barmitzvah party. At that moment he thought only of the golden-curled fairy princess who would never romp and play with him again.

A PLACE OF REFUGE
How the Wanderer Came to Rhode Island.
It was bitter cold. The icy wind howling through the forest caught up the snow and whirled it in great eddies against the trees. Reuben Mendoza, staggering through the blinding snowflakes, hugged his little son Benjamin closer to his heart, and prayed desperately that the storm might cease or that he might soon come to a place of refuge. His own limbs were aching with fatigue and cold. He had eaten nothing since early morning and was faint with hunger. Wearied and heartsick, he would have been glad to lie down upon the ground, to sink into sleep, perhaps a painless death, with the snow drifting above him; but he knew that he must struggle on for the sake of the child he was warming in his bosom.
Suddenly Benjamin, half asleep and numb with the cold, stirred a little and complained drowsily that he was hungry. His father paused for a moment and pressed his lean, bearded face against the child's rosy cheeks. "Be patient, little one," he comforted him, "for soon we shall find a lodging for the night. Surely, no one would turn even a Jew away in a storm like this."
Again he plodded on, footsore and discouraged. The wind lashed him like a whip, and, when he raised his head, the snow cut across his forehead like stripes of fire. His lips moving almost mechanically in prayer, Reuben faltered through the storm, until at last utterly exhausted he stumbled to the ground. He tried to gain his feet again, for he thought he saw a light glimmering through the trees; but he was too tired to go farther. Why should he try to reach that light, he asked himself, as he dreamily stretched his tired limbs in the snow. But he felt little