A Soldier of Liberty.
Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast, How shall you flee away and be at rest: The wild-dove hath her nest, the fox his cave, Mankind their country—Israel but the grave! BYRON.
THE fact that he was approaching his twenty-first year preyed heavily upon Ephraim Levi. Day by day he grew more somber, taciturn and unhappy. To be sure there is no cause for unhappiness when one becomes of age—a man—and there is much cause for rejoicing. But for poor Ephraim the event was not a matter for rejoicing; for a few months hence he knew that he would be obliged to leave the paternal roof and shoulder the musket in the Roumanian army; and there was nothing that he dreaded more. Yet, Ephraim was far from being a coward.
“Say, Ephraim,” yelled at him one day one of his Christian neighbors, a certain Stephen Kurza.
Ephraim, who was crossing one of the thoroughfares, stopped for a moment, and, seeing Kurza, only quickened his footsteps.
Kurza was a man who always took delight in tormenting the Jews, and especially Ephraim. He held the position of medical inspector in the army and examined new recruits.
“Say, Ephraim,” yelled he again, louder, “I want to ask you something.”
This time Ephraim paused, and looked questioningly at the Jew-baiter.
“Ephraim,” says Kurza, “is it true that you don’t like soldiering in our army? I wouldn’t believe it when they told me that, and I thought I’d ask you