178 SHOLOM-ALECHEM
one evening, and see my boy come to meet me, looking strangely red in the face, and without a badge on his cap. Say I to him, "Look here, Moshehl, where's your badge?" Says he to me, "Whatever badge?" Say I, "The button." Says he, "Whatever button?" Say I, "The button off your cap." It was a new cap with a new badge, only just bought for the festival ! He grows redder than before, and says, "Taken off." Say I, "What do you mean by 'taken off'?" Says he, "I am free." Say I, "What do you mean by 'you are free'?" Says he, "We are all free." Say I, "What do you mean by 'we are all free' ?" Says he, "We are not going back any more." Say I, "What do you mean by 'we are not going back' ?" Says he, "We have united in the resolve to stay away." Say I, "What do you mean by 'you' have united in a resolve? Who are 'you'? What is all this? Bless your grandmother," say I, "do you suppose I have been through all this for you to unite in a resolve ? Alas ! and alack !" say I, "for you and me and all of us ! May it please God not to let this be visited on Jewish heads, because always and every- where," say I, "Jews are the scapegoats." I speak thus to him and grow angry and reprove him as a father usually does reprove a child. But I have a wife (long life to her!), and she comes running, and washes my head for me, tells me I don't know what is going on in the world, that the world is quite another world to what it used to be, an intelligent world, an open world, a free world, "a world," says she, "in which all are equal, in which there are no rich and no poor, no masters and no servants, no sheep and no shears, no cats, rats, no
