They were good friends and true, were Isaac and Alice. To be sure, they were not exactly what most people would consider a well-assorted or naturally allied pair; for Isaac was a great strapping fellow of about thirty, who could speak Yiddish much better than English, while Alice was a sweet little girl of not quite five, whose childish prattle had a decidedly Yankee twang, and whose cradle had stood many thousands of miles from the spot where Isaac’s infantile eyes had first opened upon a strange and troublesome world. Yet that they were close friends was an undeniable, if somewhat unaccountable, fact. People who saw the stalwart young Lithuanian Hebrew carpenter, with the dark ringlets and raven beard and the golden-haired and blue-eyed little Down East maiden as they sat together and conversed during the midday hour when Isaac was eating his frugal lunch, or as they sauntered hand in hand through the streets of the little Massachusetts town, would 169often smile and wonder and make comments, sometimes jocular and sometimes sarcastic to each other; but neither Isaac nor Alice cared what anybody said. They were not afraid of scandal and were sublimely indifferent to public opinion. They were just good friends and that was all about it. They had been good friends from the first moment they met, several weeks after Isaac had set foot upon the hospitable shore of America, and had exhausted the greater part of his physical energy and about all of his financial resources and of his store of courage and hope in the effort to persuade the land of the free and the home of the brave to provide him with a livelihood. He had entered at the port of New York and tried for a week or so to find employment at his trade in the metropolis. But there must have been a plethora of carpenters in the great city at that time; for wherever he applied, the answer was the same, “No one wanted.” He had then determined to try the smaller towns and cities, and had wandered on foot through Connecticut, and had applied at hundreds of shops in the many industrial communities of that State, all the time growing fainter and weaker and more discouraged; and had never heard any other response to his request for work than the same monotonous 170refrain, which had now grown terrible in its suggestion of despair, “No one wanted.” At last he had drifted, he hardly knew how, into Massachusetts and had entered the little town of Atbury. Hope had almost left him, and grim thoughts of suicide filled his mind while he wandered aimlessly through the neat and well-kept streets of the town. In the course of his wanderings he saw a wooden building, upon the front of which a large sign proclaimed that within was a carpenter shop, and that the owner’s name was Thomas Jones. Mechanically Isaac entered the large open doorway on his usual quest. He had no anticipation of success; and when Mr. Jones, who was a handsome middle-aged man of typical Yankee appearance and very brusque and short-spoken, returned the usual answer to his timid query, he turned to go away with a sinking heart, in which the dull pain was not perceptibly keener than it had previously been.
But this time an unprecedented incident occurred. A pretty little blond-haired, blue-eyed girl, a mere tot, was standing next to the proprietor when the stranger entered the shop, and she gazed at his handsome though careworn features while he made his pitiable appeal for work, with an expression of evident liking, 171mingled with sympathy and pity. When he turned to depart, surprise and sorrow showed themselves plainly in the face of the child; and turning to her father—as you have, no doubt, already guessed, sweet reader, it was Alice, Thomas Jones’s only and dearly beloved child—she said: “Why, aren’t you going to give the poor man work, papa? Just see how sad he looks. Don’t let him go.”
“Do you want me to keep him, little one?” asked the father, gazing at the pleading face of his little daughter with amused parental fondness.
“Yes I do, papa,” said Alice. “I think he is a very good man and I want you to keep him.”
“Well,” said Thomas Jones, “for your sake I’ll give him a chance.”
 
NOTHING PLEASED THEM BETTER THAN A “HORSEY-BACK” RIDE
 
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Isaac was not yet out of the shop and the loud voice of the master carpenter at once brought him back. He speedily demonstrated his ability in his trade and was retained, his employer impressing upon him that it was the intercession of the little girl which had given him his opportunity. Isaac bowed low before the child with reverential gratitude and imprinted upon her tiny hand a grateful kiss. Thus began their friendship, and it became very warm and sincere indeed. Alice took naturally to the broadshouldered, 172pleasant-faced young foreigner; and Isaac, who was not only deeply grateful to the child for having steered the almost shipwrecked vessel of his life into the safe harbor of employment and bread, but was also thoroughly social and companionable by disposition, did all in his power to amuse and entertain his young benefactor. They were not allowed to meet during work hours, for Father Jones, though a loving and indulgent parent, was a strict and uncompromising task-master, and would tolerate no unbusiness-like interruptions during the time allotted to work; but during the noonday intermission for meals, when Alice would seek Isaac in whatever part of the town he happened to be employed after the close of work in the late afternoon, when Isaac returned to his master’s house where was his home, they were sure to be together, and would romp and “carry on” to their heart’s content. Nothing pleased them better than a “horsey-back” ride, when Isaac would act as the fiery though remarkably docile steed, and Alice rode her mount in greater security than the most practised equestrienne. Isaac would trot and gallop, and pace and paw, and prance and snort, and whinny and neigh, like the very war-horse of Job, all the time holding his little rider in a firm and loving grasp; while 173Alice, with streaming locks and flashing eyes, would cry “Gee-up!” and “Whoa!” and pull his hair for reins and belabor his shoulders with her tiny fists, according to the most approved rules of the equestrian art. There were plenty of other forms of amusement as well. Sometimes they would play “blind-man’s buff,” when Isaac would begin the game by permitting himself to be tightly bandaged across the eyes, and would then grope around the room in an endeavor to catch Alice. But somehow or other he was always very clumsy in this game; and Alice never had the least trouble to avoid his aimless reachings out, and would enjoy herself highly, slipping in and out right in front of his very face and touching him on all sides. And when finally his hand would land on Alice, apparently by accident, and capture her, and it would be her turn to submit to be bandaged and to try to capture him, he seemed even clumsier in his movements. He never seemed to know how to evade the “blind man,” but was continually getting in the way; and in two or three minutes at the utmost, Alice’s tiny hands would seize him in their firm grasp, and her shrill cry of triumph would proclaim that he was a prisoner. He also taught Alice some queer Russian games, which were a source of never-failing amazement and 174amusement (about equally divided) to all the boys and girls in the neighborhood. Then sometimes on a holiday, or when work happened to be slack, they would go out together berrying, and would come home with big canfuls of blackberries, or blueberries, or huckleberries, or raspberries, or some of the other sorts of berries which grew at the roadsides or in the fields, Alice looking very happy, and Isaac rather tired and scratched about the hands; for it was an open secret that while Alice had most of the fun, Isaac had most of the trouble, and worked his very hardest to fill the can with the ripest and finest berries that could be found, so that the expedition should be properly fruitful of results. In these and a hundred other ways Isaac endeavored to please his employer’s little daughter, and his efforts were highly successful, so successful, indeed, that the child grew to look upon him with warm affection, and was never so happy as when in his company.
Nor was Alice the only one who regarded Isaac with affection. Her parents were almost equally warm in their sentiments. Thomas Jones thought much of him because he was a thorough master of his trade, tremendously strong, and absolutely faithful and reliable. Any task assigned to him, however arduous, 175was always performed with scrupulous exactness and conscientiousness, and no complaint or objection ever escaped his lips. Mrs. Jones liked him because he was sober, polite, and cleanly in his habits, and because he took such pains to please and amuse her little daughter. To be sure, there were some points about him which they did not exactly like, but his many good qualities counterbalanced these defects. One of these points was that he would not labor on the Sabbath or Jewish holidays. This difficulty had arisen the very first week of his employment, but the superior character of his work had induced Mr. Jones then to retain him, and afterward he had grown accustomed to dispensing with the services of Isaac on Saturdays or on any other day when he declared the rules of his religion required abstention from labor. Another matter which seemed very peculiar to both Mr. and Mrs. Jones was that, although Isaac boarded with them, he never ate flesh in any form and refused to partake of many other dishes which appeared on their table. But, as the Joneses were kind-hearted and tolerant people, and had besides a genuine liking for Isaac, they overlooked these matters, and, if they reflected on them at all, merely thought them the natural result of his religious views.
176Many were the arguments which the Joneses had with some of their neighbors on account of Isaac and the peculiar position which he occupied in their household. Bigotry and narrow-mindedness are not unknown even in free America, where, theoretically, a man’s race and religion should have no influence, favorable or unfavorable, upon the opinion which is held concerning him, and where, if anywhere, the principle enunciated by the rabbis in the Talmud should prevail—“Thy deeds shall recommend thee, thy deeds shall condemn thee.” Some of the good Christian people of Atbury, who thought, like Sancho Panza, that the most essential characteristic of a Christian was a sound hatred of the Jews, could not conceal their amazement, nay, their righteous indignation, that a Jew should be a fav............