real neighborliness that roamed unrestrained and without prejudice
until brought up with a round turn at the barrier of traditional
orthodoxy. I remember well one instance of that kind. There lived in
our town a single family of Jews, well-to-do tradespeople, gentle
and good, and socially popular. There lived also a Gentile woman
of wealth, a mother in the strictly Lutheran Israel, who fed and
clothed the poor and did no end of good. She was a very pious woman.
It so happened that the Jewess and the Christian were old friends.
But one day they strayed upon dangerous ground. The Jewess saw it
and tried to turn the conversation from the forbidden topic.

"Well, dear friend," she said, soothingly, "some day, when we meet
in heaven, we shall all know better."

The barrier was reached. Her friend fairly bristled as she made
reply:

"What! Our heaven? No, indeed! We may be good friends here, Mrs----,
but there--really, you will have to excuse me."

[Illustration: A Cobblestone paved Alley]

Narrow streams are apt to run deep. An incident which I set down in
justice to the uncompromising orthodoxy of that day, made a strong
impression on me. The two concerned in it were my uncle, a generous,
bright, even a brilliant man, but with no great bump of reverence,
and the deacon in the village church where they lived. He was the
exact opposite of my uncle: hard, unlovely, but deeply religious.
The two were neighbors and quarrelled about their fence-line. For
months they did not speak. On Sunday the deacon strode by on his way