Orchard Street beams on Houston Street and ends on Canal Street, near the Manhattan Bridge. But this street is better known to our foreign population than any other thoroughfare, not excluding Fifth Avenue or even Broadway.

The reason for such renown is to be found in the reputation of Orchard Street as a market for everything under the sun. From before sunrise to late in the night both sides of the street are lined with double rows of pushcarts from which all sorts of wares are sold to the passer-by. From Houston to Rivington Street the space is exclusively reserved for edibles; meat, fish, vegetables, bread and fruit is sold in the open air by howling venders to bargaining customers, each one yelling his offer on the top of his voice; quarreling, disputing, cursing, using what is most spicy in the gutters of the street lingo.

There are also stores on Orchard Street, but they are used only as storage houses and for rainy days. Otherwise the owner of the store displays his merchandise on the width of the sidewalk, just leaving a goatpath for the customers, as they do in Calcutta, in Constantinople, or in Nijni Novigorod since all times. But the market of edibles ends on the corner of Rivington Street. From there to Canal Street, Orchard pushcarts carry merchandise of a different character. On one pushcart are four hundred dollar fur coats, water-bottles and furniture polish, and on the next one is a medley of all kinds of ten-cent jewelry sold for "only a penny a piece." And you never can tell what may be on the next pushcart. One day, silk shirts and the next day rubber boots or marble statues. At some other time "genuine" cut glass and a day later Syrian rugs, old coats, pants, socks, watches, soap, a phonograph, or, for a diversion, a player-piano is brought on the sidewalk and tried in the open. It is the good old Bazaar so dear to Eastern people the world over; the Bazaar which gives an opportunity to outwit, outbargain, and outcheat one another. The vender always swears by the heads of his wife and children that the merchandise costs him more than he asks for, and there is play and sport to let the customer go away and watch and recognize in his gait and the way he holds his head whether he expects to be called back. It is sport to watch him stop and turn his head to offer a few cents more. Then, the merchant makes believe he does not hear him. Sure that he had reached the bottom, the customer returns to the pushcart, fingers over the thing he wants to buy, pays, and is happy. One cannot purchase such happiness in a one-price store.

On Orchard Street lived Solomon Berman and his wife. They had no children. He was a Hebrew teacher. This does not mean that he knew Hebrew more than to read the prayers. But he knew enough to teach the children of the neighborhood the holy characters; enough to enable them to enter the common of men at the age of thirteen and become Jews among Jews; enough to keep them in the clan and retard the crumbling of the great rock of Israel.

In the neighborhood, Berman had a reputation as a very conscientious teacher and as a loving husband. It was said that he fasted two days a week, not because he was so religious, but because he wanted his wife to have more food those two days. She was very thin and ailing!

Early every morning Berman, in his long coat and slipper shoes, went into the street to do the marketing for the day. There was no pleasure in it for him; he never bargained. But surely no merchant ever made a penny profit on what Reb Berman bought—it was known how poor they were. The poverty of a Hebrew teacher is proverbial. Still, has that not always been so? Was it not even forbidden to take money for teaching? A teacher was only entitled to compensation for the time he spent with the pupil, but not for the knowledge he imparted.

Things went on nicely enough until Mrs. Berman took to her bed, meaning, that one morning she could not leave the bed. Her husband was the only one to attend her. They had no friends. The women of the neighborhood are helping their men till late at night and have no time for friendship, even on Saturday. The whole of the Sabbath is given to make up for lost sleep.

Reb Solomon Berman called the physician of the neighborhood. The young medicus advised the sick woman should be taken to a hospital, but Mrs. Berman would not hear of it. "What? Separate from my husband after thirty years' life under one roof!"

"But, dear, dear," pleaded halfheartedly Solomon Berman. "Leah, dear, maybe, maybe——"

Mrs. Berman used woman's most convincing argument: tears, and the hospital was no longer spoken of. The doctor returned a few days later. The condition of the woman had become worse. The house was untidy and there was no fire in the stove.

"Only in a hospital could she be saved," he told the distracted husband. But the sick woman would not hear of it.

"If I have to die, I want to die in my house, Solomon."

Meanwhile the pupils had a happy time. The teacher dismissed them as soon as they came in in the afternoons, after their school hours.

Reb Berman discovered that there were more than two fasting days in a week for a truly religious man. The druggist charged full prices.

The visiting physician was touched by the devotion of the old couple. He visited them twice a day and when he had a little more time he took off his coat and helped tidy up the house, and built a fire in the kitchen stove. He had no idea how poor they were, because as far as Mrs. Berman was concerned she always had what he prescribed for her. The young man did not know of the Sabbath clothes that were pawned and of the new fast days Reb Berman had discovered. He had refused to take fee for every time he came, but once or twice he had accepted a dollar bill Solomon Berman pressed in his hand.

He thought Reb Berman's heightened pallor was due only to worry and the physician exercised everything he knew, and even more, to get the sick woman on her feet. It took a long time; it took the whole winter to get the woman out of bed and danger. But the young physician was happy to have saved the woman's life.

Meanwhile Reb Berman's earning capacity had fallen to zero.

At first the parents of the pupils knew nothing of the daily dismissal by Reb Berman. When they finally noticed that the children were not forging ahead, they decided that the teacher had become slack in his methods. Thus the offspring of Orchard Street was sent to some other tutor, and Orchard Street always acts as a unit.

When the news had finally gone out about the teacher's wife's sickness, Mrs. Goldman was very sorry and Mrs. Schwartz sighed deeply, but Jewish children had to be taught Hebrew under all circumstances. It was the sacred duty of parents——

True, his wife was getting better, but Solomon Berman began to question himself whether he was doing all in his power for her!

That doctor who came daily, fee or no fee, to visit the sick one, was he really a good doctor? Was he not a little like Reb Solomon Berman himself? was it not possible that the physician knew as much about medicine as he, Reb Berman, knew Hebrew? just enough for the children of the poor? If he were a good physician would he not be in great demand, charge a big fee and have no time to come daily and help tidy up the room and build the fire? The old man's imagination was sharpened by hunger and worry. When his wife was finally permitted to leave the bed he drew a deep breath.

The doctor, who had meanwhile scented the terrible poverty, dared not offend the Rabbi by offering help. But when Mrs. Berman was convalescing, he called the husband aside and said to him: "She is all right now. All she needs is proper care, strengthening food. I know you can't give it to her. Here is twenty dollars. I want you to spend the money only for her, and may God help you." The doctor was so afraid of a refusal he hurried out of the room ere the old man had had time to think or speak.

About a week later the physician went to see his patient again. He found her in a terrible condition of weakness due especially to lack of proper nourishment.

"Man, what did you do with the money?"

"With that money, doctor, I called a bigger doctor, a Professor, a gentile, from uptown."