Page:Yiddish Tales.djvu/398

 394 RAISIN

"I just happened to be passing, you understand, and I saw you sitting so I knew you were at home well, I thought one ought to call neighbors "

"Well, welcome, welcome !" said Loibe-Bares, smiling. "You've come at the right moment. Sit down."

A stone rolled off Chayyim's heart at this reply, and, with a glance at the two little boys, he quietly took a seat.

"Leah, give Eeb 'Chayyim a glass of tea," commanded Loibe-Bares.

"Quite a kind man!" thought Chayyim. "May the Almighty come to his aid !"

He gave his host a grateful look, and would gladly have fallen onto the Gevir's thick neck, and kissed him.

"Well, and what are you about?" inquired his host.

"Thanks be to God, one lives !"

The maid handed him a glass of tea. He said, "Thank you," and then was sorry : it is not the proper thing to thank a servant. He grew red and bit his lips.

"Have some jelly with it!" Loibe-Bares suggested.

"An excellent man, an excellent man !" thought Chay- yim, astonished. "He is sure to lend."

"You deal in something?" asked Loibe-Bares.

"Why, yes," answered Chayyim. "One's little bit of business, thank Heaven, is no worse than other peo- ple's!"

"What price are oats fetching now?" it occurred to the Gevir to ask.

Oats had fallen of late, but it seemed better to Chay- yim to say that they had risen.

"They have risen very much !" he declared in a mer- cantile tone of voice.