Read Online Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories by Sholem Aleichem - Free Book Online Page A

ghouls and goblins? So I pulled up my horse and took a good look at the two. They really did look like women. One was older and had a silk kerchief on her head, while the other was young and wore a wig. Both were beet-red and sweating buckets.
    “Well, well, well, good evening,” I said to them as loudly as I could to show that I wasn’t a bit afraid. “How can I be of service to you? If you’re looking to buy something, I’m afraid I’m all out of stock, unless I can interest you in some fine hunger pangs, a week’s supply of heartache, or a head full of scrambled brains. Anyone for some chilblains, assorted aches and pains, worries to turn your hair gray?”
    “Calm down, calm down,” they said to me. “Just listen to him run on! Say a good word to a Jew and you get a mouthful of bad ones in return. We don’t want to buy anything. We only wanted to ask whether you happened to know the way to Boiberik.”
    “The way to Boiberik?” I did my best to laugh. “You might as well ask whether I know my name is Tevye.”
    “You say your name is Tevye?” they said. “We’re very pleased to meet you, Reb Tevye. We wish you’d explain to us, though, what the joke is all about. We’re strangers around here; we come from Yehupetz and have a summer place in Boiberik. The two of us went out this morning for a little walk, and we’ve been goingaround in circles ever since without finding our way out of these woods. A little while ago we heard someone singing. At first we thought, who knows, maybe it’s a highwayman. But as soon as we came closer and saw that you were, thank goodness, a Jew, you can imagine how much better we felt. Do you follow us?”
    “A highwayman?” I said. “That’s a good one! Did you ever hear the story of the Jewish highwayman who fell on somebody in the forest and begged him for a pinch of snuff? If you’d like, I’d be only too glad to tell it to you.”
    “The story,” they say, “can wait. We’d rather you showed us the way to Boiberik first.”
    “The way to Boiberik?” I say. “You’re standing on it right now. This is the way to Boiberik whether you want to go to Boiberik or not.”
    “But if this is the way to Boiberik,” they say, “why didn’t you say it was the way to Boiberik before?”
    “I didn’t say it was the way to Boiberik,” I say, “because you didn’t ask me if it was the way to Boiberik.”
    “Well,” they say, “if it is the way to Boiberik, would you possibly happen to know by any chance just how long a way to Boiberik it is?”
    “To Boiberik,” I say, “it’s not a long way at all. Only a few miles. About two or three. Maybe four. Unless it’s five.”
    “Five miles?” screamed both women at once, wringing their hands and all but bursting into tears. “Do you have any idea what you’re saying?
Only
five miles!”
    “Well,” I said, “what would you like me to do about it? If it were up to me, I’d make it a little shorter. But there are worse fates than yours, let me tell you. How would you like to be stuck in a wagon creeping up a muddy hill with the Sabbath only an hour away? The rain whips straight in your face, your hands are numb, your heart is too weak to beat another stroke, and suddenly … bang! Your front axle’s gone and snapped.”
    “You’re talking like a half-wit,” said one of the two women. “I swear, you’re off your trolley. What are you telling us fairy tales from the Arabian Nights for? We haven’t the strength to take another step. Except for a cup of coffee with a butter roll for breakfast, we haven’t had a bite of food all day—and you expect us to stand here listening to your stories?”
    “That,” I said, “is a different story. How does the saying go? It’sno fun dancing on an empty stomach. And you don’t have to tell me what hunger tastes like; that’s something I happen to know. Why, it’s not at all unlikely that I haven’t seen a cup of coffee and a butter roll for over a