into the family of Reb Hershele was of such frequent occurrence that very few would perhaps have known anything about Sheeka's appearance had he happened to be a girl instead of a boy, whose admission into the Abrahamitic rite took place at the synagogue on the eighth day after his birth. Reb Hershele's poverty was proverbial. It is said that once when one of his children cried for bread, he exclaimed: "Who can feed you all the time? I have not handled a shovel for over a week!" Hershele believed not in race suicide. As soon as he lost one wife through death or divorce, he managed to espouse another. The people some say Reb Hershele himself knew not whether Sheeka was the son of his fifth or sixth wife.

Sheeka showed talent for music at a very tender age. Dr. Anushke, the only physician in the town, a non-Jew, had a special fondness for the child, and when

he was but four years old the doctor presented him with a small violin on which Anushke, himself somewhat of a violinist, gave him instructions. In less than a year Sheeka played before the Polish nobles and the military and civil high officials who would throw money to him. Thus he soon was of incalculable assistance to Reb Hershele, who now no longer minded feeding his offspring even though he did not handle his shovel for ever so long. When his precocious son was ten years old Reb Hershele was enabled to say adieu to his shovel, though he continued to follow the vocation of "Pod Shammes" for the sake of the prestige it lent. The young fiddler made enormous strides, and soon his fame spread beyond the bounds of his native town, Ostrowo. He was bidden to play before the Gubernator at Lomza and even for the nobility at Warsaw. There was no fête or concert of any importance

in which Sheeka did not take part. When but nine years old a Russian military officer, after hearing him play, tossed a ruble at him, exclaiming: "Here, ‘Yevrayski doosha' (Jew soul), for your bewitching playing." Sheeka not only refused to accept the ruble, but threw his violin at his offender. Thenceforth no amount of money could induce him to play at any occasion at which that official was present.

"It is in vain, she will not listen to me! She evades me whenever her eyes espy me. In vain are all my efforts to persuade her to grant me a 'rendezvous,' futile all my declarations of love. All my pleadings fail to awaken any emotion in her heart. I am at the end of all my strategy. Wherefore hope when her soul does not respond? Unresponded love is like sweet strains to the deaf ear. It is in vain, ah yes—it is in vain!" Thus philosophized

Sheeka the musician as he destroyed a missive which he had just written to Shprintza Wielnik. Sheeka's was not an act of impetuosity. He reasoned that Miss Wielnik, with all her personal charms, besides a dowry and her social connections, rightfully aspired to a different husband than he, the poor fiddler. He also was well aware of his physical shortcomings. Despite the grief caused him by her heedlessness to his attentions, he entertained but the best wishes for her future. Like one convinced of the absolute necessity of the amputation of a member of one's body desires its speedy occurrence, even so did he wish for the early event of her marriage to Itscha Dombriner, who, it was rumored, was to become the fiancé of Shprintza Wielnik.

If experience counts for aught, Solomon, reputed to have been the wisest of men, and who, above all, had perhaps wider

experience in love affairs than any man that ever lived, must surely have known what he was about when he made the assertion that many waters are unable to extinguish the burning fire of love.

"Love, sole lord and monarch of itself
Allows no ties, no dictates but its own.
To that mysterious arbitrary power,
Reason points out and duty pleads in vain."

Despite his strong reasoning and resolutions, Sheeka was powerless against himself. His reason and will-power, the master of which he was in aught else, forsook him this time. His burning love burst out anew like a suppressed volcano, consuming all fear, all reasoning, and he vowed to renew his courting even had he to go through paths where wolves would fear to prey.

In many countries New Year's eve, called in German "Silvester Abend," and the Nuptial's eve, or "Charivari," in