A Boy and the Law

Summary

Czarist snow smothers the shtetl’s last embers when a teenage firebrand, banished from his gilded parlor to a frost-bitten ghetto, trades Talmudic lullabies for clandestine manifestos, ink still warm on the presses of the Eneckva cell. A Cossack saber ends his father’s gallant defense of a tavern girl, turning the boy’s grief into gunpowder; pamphlets replace prayers, and oratory becomes the new shofar. Betrayed by a tutor’s cowardice, he is hurled into a dungeon whose stones echo with Romanov decrees, yet a midnight rope, a cliff’s jagged grin, and a peasant’s rough-spun tunic spirit him across borders, across oceans, across identities. Salt Lake City’s alkali dust greets the refugee: newsprint under his fingernails, truant officers at his heels, a judge with prairie kindness in his eyes offers not a sentence but a plow, a ballot, a future. From czarist outlaw to elected mayor of an 800-acre utopia of ploughshares and second chances, the boy who once spat at the law now writes it in loam and letter-home, mailing photographs and crumpled dollars to a mother who once packed exile into a single trunk.

Synopsis

Around 1903, in czarist Russia, William ("Willie") Eckstein is at boarding school when he receives a letter from his mother describing how their prosperous Jewish family has been forced by government edict to pack up their belongings and move to a poor village. Willie joins the Eneckva, a secret Nihilist society that meets on the outskirts of town, and quickly becomes a leader because of his speaking ability. In the meantime, Cossacks kill Willie's father for defending a tavern waitress. At school, a teacher finds one of Willie's pamphlets and turns him in to local authorities, who ransack his room and throw Willie and two friends into jail. Other boys come to their rescue, however, and they escape down a cliff. Willie hurries home to his mother, to tell her he is fleeing Russia, and she gives him a peasant suit that will allow him to travel without being molested. He flees to America, where he claims he will "live free from the law." After reaching the United States, Willie makes his way to Salt Lake City, Utah, where his uncle owns a clothing store. He starts his new life as a newspaper boy, but becomes a hoodlum and ends up in the hands of truant officers. Summoned to the Parental Court of Judge Willis Brown, Willie at first defies the judge, but later realizes that Brown sincerely wishes to help him. Supported by local progressive women who see the need of moral education for wayward children rather than punishment in a reform school, Judge Brown is given an 800-acre farm for the purpose of building a community for juveniles. He chooses eighteen young felons, including Willie, and drives them to the farm to start building "Boy Town," and Willie is soon elected mayor. At Boy Town, the youths practice discipline and self-government, learning how to farm the land, deal with troublemakers, and earn a profitable living. Many of the boys grow into successful, law-abiding adults. Judge Brown sends Willie to an Eastern college, and then to a university in Missouri, where Willie studies agriculture. Finally, Judge Brown makes him the manager of a large private farm, and the young man becomes a U.S. citizen. He also sends his mother one of his regular letters with a money-order enclosed, along with a photograph of himself, and then dreams of her joy in receiving it. The judge comes in, presses Willie's hands, and assures the sleeping youth that his belief in a square game will help him prosper and be an example for other boys.