Jesses Star by Ellen Schwartz Read Free Book Online Page A

“Yossi, what were you thinking? You could have been killed —”
    The Rebbe interrupted, “Far away, Yossi? Did you chase them far?”
    Yossi shook free of Mama. At the rate the soldiers were running, he didn’t think they’d stop for a long time. He grinned. “Far, far away.”
    â€œBut how, Yossi?” Sadie said. “How did you do it?”
    Yossi looked around. All the people were looking at him with wonderment. With awe. With respect. He had said he would do it, and he had. Finally, the people believedhim. This was the moment he had waited for. He smiled mischievously. “Oh … I just used my stilts.”
    â€œHis stilts!” Golda cried. “I always knew those stilts would come in handy. If I said it once, I said it a thousand times: ‘Yossi Mendelsohn, he’s so clever with those stilts!’ I knew it in my bones, friends.”
    The Rebbe put up his hand. “Enough, Golda.” He turned to Yossi, pride and puzzlement mixed on his face. “My boy, I don’t know how you did it — and I don’t I think I want to know,” he added with a twinkle, “but I fear we have misjudged you. Somehow you, a mere lad, outwitted the soldiers. Like David, who slew Goliath, with cunning — and a little help from God — you have saved us, Yossele.”
    Yossi felt a hand squeeze his shoulder. He looked up into Papa’s smiling eyes. He looked around at all the faces. Some people’s eyes were filled with tears. Others were smiling. All were looking at him as if hewere a hero. Even Jonah. Even those who had laughed at him and mocked him.
    Yossi grinned, basking in the admiration. How sweet it was! No more clumsy Yossi. No more stupid Yossi.
    â€œBut this is no time for praise,” the Rebbe went on. “There’s not a moment to lose. Now is our chance. Grab your bags, my friends, and let’s be off — to freedom!”
    The villagers of Braslav hurried down the road to Vladstok, led by a young boy with two long sticks tucked under his arm.

Chapter Ten
    Weeks later, Yossi stood on the deck of an enormous ship. Wind whipped his face, and he had to hold onto his cloth cap with both hands to keep it from flying overboard.
    Yossi scanned from side to side. Maybe today, the sailors had said. But all Yossi could see were waves, endless curls of gray-green waves, and now sooty-looking gulls withlong black beaks. Lord, he was weary of the endless water!
    Still, it was better than the alternative. Better than remaining in Braslav.
    It had been a long, hard journey to the sea. Hiding by day, tramping through woods by night, always fearful, always hungry, grateful for the shelter given by Jews in small villages along the way. Once they’d huddled in a coal cellar while soldiers’ boots had thundered on the wooden planks overhead. Another time they’d hidden in a hayloft while soldiers had burned the village to the ground. Afterward, the survivors had joined their ranks. Week after week, through rain squalls and snowstorms, village by village, hiding place to hiding place, they’d made their way across Russia, through Austria, across Germany, by boat to England where, with the last of their money, they’d booked passage on a steam-ship bound for Canada.
    Canada. Yossi turned the name over and over in his mind. It had enormous forests,he’d heard, and great rushing rivers, and mountains so high that snow never melted from their summits. It sounded like a beautiful, abundant land. Best of all, it had no soldiers to force the people into misery and starvation. In Canada, he’d heard, you could be a Jew, and chant the prayers, and celebrate the holidays, and no one hated you for it, or wanted to harm you or kill you. That was the most wonderful thing of all.
    Yossi scanned the horizon. Waves, nothing but waves. When would they ever — Wait. Was that …? That distant speck … That darker smudge