experiences. Had I but had my parents to encourage me, perhaps I shoul

nd words, the clasp and kiss which only his parents can give him. And I w

that I could not possibly pass each day's recitations creditably. And yet

specialist. He charged her a pretty price to examine me and t

s what makes him melancholy. Let him study, let him get out and meet boys of

or was gone, and she and I sat opposite each other at the table, where the glass a

e cloth, "I'm sure we can find something to interest and amuse you, dear. How

nd even balked at the idea of installing a billiard table in our apartment-which seemed t

luttered and she changed the subject quickly, as if she had accidently hit upo

eded was Faith. A boy needs it-needs it as much as he

school so exhausted that I could only throw myself upon my bed, behind a locked door, and sob and sigh and shiver as if with the ague. Everything that had happened

r-that these were only rough, ill-bred boys to whom I ought not lower myself to pay attention. But a boy of fourteen finds it hard to argue himself into bravery, and I failed miserably, ridiculously at the task. Years later, I was

teful, for all that she attempted to do for me, but I know that all her care was misdirected. It was, besides, cruelly lacking in all of

were jolly, healthy boys-most of them from the poorer sections of the city-who went up to Van Cortlandt Park on Saturday afternoon

boys would not be right for me; that I must avoid this stigma of Judaism as I would avoid a crime. She said it was for my own good-but I cannot believe it very heartily. She was tryin

t any supper-a fact which did not worry her too much, since she was in a hurry to dress and go off to a studio party of some silly sort. And when she

but I was not used to the streets at night-and a white, wraith-like fog was beginning t

loneliness-here in the open, where the dampness brought the scent of wit

t through dark lanes that were branched over with creaking branches. I saw the lake, black, cold, with the stippled reflections of shore lights shining up from its edges. I felt the mo

nd were half lost in the mist. The automobiles that went up and down the pavements, which were wet and shining like the ba

f houses I saw one thing that loo

t against the sky. There was something about it that was forbidding, deep, sombre. The lower fron

sidewalk's edge. A long string of them, too, as if m

ecesses, there came from within the so

t a c

night-and I knew that this was a sy

they had been wont to take me with them when they went on Friday nights. And those had been dull, wearisome nights for me-but I had spent them at my parent's sid

th the triumph and fancy of its treble. Louder, richer, louder-and I, who stood outside in t

the voice of the cantor at his solemn chantings-and this too brought me a distinct memory of the can

ing God-my God. And when, soon thereafter, the doors swung open in the black of the arches and bathed

ls resplendent-of golden tracery and colors. And then people began coming thro

of course-and I heard a man among them talking rat

ance had nurtured in me sprang up anew. A sense of anti-climax, of disgu

n away, back throug

ave understood it. But I did. And, boy as I was, I knew now that I needed some Faith, some link to the c

own people had become deep-seated-had g