166 SHOLOM-ALECHEM
says she, "who asked you to console him with that sort of nonsense? You'd better see about getting him a proper teacher," says she, "a private teacher, a Eussian, for grammar !"
You hear that? Now I must have two teachers for him one teacher and a Rebbe are not enough. Up and down, this way and that way, she got the best of it, as usual.
What next? We engaged a second teacher, a Rus- sian this time, not a Jew, preserve us, hut a real Gen- tile, because grammar in the first class, let me tell you, is no trifle, no shredded horseradish ! Gra-ma-ti-ke, indeed! The two e's! Well, I was telling about the teacher that God sent us for our sins. It's enough to make one blush to remember the way he treated us, as though we had been the mud under his feet. Laughed at us to our face, he did, devil take him, and the one and only thing he could teach him was: tshasnok, tshasnoka, tshasnoku, tshasnokom. If it hadn't been for her, I should have had him by the throat, and out into the street with his blessed grammar. But to her it was all right and as it should be. Now the boy will know which e to put. If you'll believe me, they tormented him through that whole winter, for he was not to be had up for slaughter till about Pentecost. Pentecost over, he went up for examination, and this time he brought home no more two's, but a four and a five. There was great joy we congratulate! we con- gratulate! Wait a bit, don't be in such a hurry with your congratulations ! We don't- know yet for certain whether he has got in or not. We shall not know till
