"Who is there?" asked a voice in Yiddish.

"It is I," answered I, "and who are you?"

"It is we!" shouted many voices in chorus.

"Cantonists?"

"A Cantonist, too?"

Thus exchanging questions, we met. They turned out to be three
Cantonists, who lived in a village at some distance from Peter's
house. I had never met them before. They, too, had "gone out for
the night," and we had happened to use the same valley.

I love to mention their names. The oldest of them was Jacob, whom
you remember from the punishment he underwent. The others were
Simeon and Reuben. But there in the valley they introduced
themselves to me with the names they were called by at home: Yekil,
Shimele, and Ruvek. I found out later that the valley was their
meeting-place. It was a sort of Klaus, "Rabbi Yekil's Klaus" the
boys called it. Yekil was a boy of about fifteen, who was
well-equipped with knowledge of the Torah when he was taken away
from his home.

In the long years of our exile we had forgotten the Jewish calendar
completely. But Yekil prided himself on being able to distinguish
the days "by their color and smell," especially Fridays; and his
friends confirmed his statements. He used to boast that he could
keep track of every day of the year, and never miss a single day of