The Children Read Online Free PDF

Ollie all the time, and what would be the use of that?
    Now I am sitting on the roof, all bruised and hurt. This is what happened.
    I bit Ollie on the nose. When you are fighting with a king, you resort to anything, but I didn’t think of biting him until I found my teeth fastened over his nose. Then I found it was a good thing, so long as I didn’t let go. No matter how much Ollie hurt me, I had only to bite harder to hurt him as much, or more. I didn’t even feel his blows, or think of them very much. I only bit and bit, holding on to Ollie all the while. They were good tactics, while they lasted.
    It ended like this. Something took me by the shoulder, heaving me up. As soon as I felt that, I knew that I had to let go, I knew that the battle was over for the time.
    Ollie came at me like a raging maniac, but he stopped short, and both of us looked at the thing that was holding me.
    She said in Yiddish, “Go and bury your head in muck, little infidel swine!”
    My mother was a big woman, a mountain of a woman, and all over as red as a beet. And with her rage, the scarlet color always increased. Now she looked like a beet, and her shape was the shape of a beet, too. She shook me and shook me, until my brains rattled and my eyes popped, and I whimpered from the pain of her shaking me and the hurt of Ollie’s blows.
    Ollie crouched just short of her, eying her warily. He wasn’t afraid—still, he wasn’t prepared to do battle with a creature of her size.
    â€œGo,” she screamed, “go, heathen, and find yourself a pile of manure!”
    â€œAw, go take a hot crap,” Ollie muttered.
    â€œGo and consort with the devil, son of Edom,” she raged, all the while continuing to shake me. “Go, you with the mind and purpose of a fiend! Go from my sight!”
    â€œDirdy sheeney!”
    â€œNames to call me—filth of the gentile!”
    â€œG’wan, yuh fat louse!”
    Lost entirely, she broke into English. “Vat you call me, doity rotter?”
    â€œYuh stinkin’ Jew!”
    Free for a moment, I noticed Marie. Marie stood there, absorbed, her hands on her knees. Her yellow hair was all thrown about her head and shoulders, and her mouth was wide with wonder. But even then, in the few seconds, I noticed how beautiful she was. What was the use? I loved Marie. Nothing mattered; nothing could change that. I loved her, and I would never stop loving her, and that was the way it would be until the end of time. Then I ran.
    I ran into the hall of our house, and I climbed up to the roof. It was a long way, but I had to be safe; I had to be where my mother would never think of looking for me. Where else could I go but up to the roof? If she found me, she would beat me, beat me long and unmercifully. I had to be safe.
    In the hall, it was dark, with just the faint flares of gas to light the way. But out on the roof it was all sunshine with the delicious smell of hot, steaming tar. I blinked, swayed from side to side. How quiet and peaceful it wash I sit down in a corner, liking the way the soft tar takes hold of my pants, and I lean back against the wall. I am tired and hurt and bleeding in some places; I have just been fighting, and I wonder whether life will ever be anything but battles and fear from one day to another. But it will. Some day I’ll grow up, and in that other world, none of these things happen. Somehow, I know that.
    As much as I hurt, I don’t think about it too long. Have I said before that hurt passes easily? Well, it does. The hot sun bites into my face, and soon I have stopped whimpering. I even smile a little. It was funny in a way, Ollie and my mother screaming at each other.
    Now—now you hurt, but soon it’s over. When I grow up, I will have lots of money and marry Marie. (I love you, Marie.) Then she’ll love me.
    And I begin to think of ways I can make Marie love me. There must be any number of ways for someone as