Page:Yiddish Tales.djvu/323

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REB SHLOIMEH

The seventy-year-old Reb Shloimeh's son, whose home was in the country, sent his two boys to live with their grandfather and acquire town, that is, Gentile, learning.

"Times have changed," considered Reb Shloimeh; "it can't be helped!" and he engaged a good teacher for the children, after making inquiries here and there.

"Give me a teacher who can tell the whole of their Law, as the saying goes, standing on one leg!" he would say to his friends, with a smile.

At seventy-one years of age, Reb Shloimeh lived more indoors than out, and he used to listen to the teacher instructing his grandchildren.

"I shall become a doctor in my old age!" he would say, laughing.

The teacher was one day telling his pupils about mathematical geography. Reb Shloimeh sat with a smile on his lips, and laughing in his heart at the little teacher who told "such huge lies" with so much earnestness.

"The earth revolves," said the teacher to his pupils, and Reb Shloimeh smiles, and thinks, "He must have seen it!" But the teacher shows it to be so by the light of reason, and Reb Shloimeh becomes graver, and ceases smiling; he is endeavoring to grasp the proofs; he wants to ask questions, but can find none that will do, and he sits there as if he had lost his tongue.

The teacher has noticed his grave look, and understands that the old man is interested in the lesson, and