To fast is all he asks!
Who said drops of water? Who said ice? Not for him! To fast means no food and no drink from one set time to the other, a real four-and-twenty-hours.
And no doctors sit beside him and hold his pulse, whispering, "Hush! Be quiet!"
Well, let us hear the tale!
Chayyim Chaikin is a very poor man, encumbered with many children, and they, the children, support him.
They are mostly girls, and they work in a factory and make cigarette wrappers, and they earn, some one gulden, others half a gulden, a day, and that not every day. How about Sabbaths and festivals and "shtreik" days? One should thank God for everything, even in their out-of-the-way little town strikes are all the fashion!
And out of that they have to pay rent—for a damp corner in a basement.
To buy clothes and shoes for the lot of them! They have a dress each, but they are two to every pair of shoes.
And then food—such as it is! A bit of bread smeared with an onion, sometimes groats, occasionally there is a bit of taran that burns your heart out, so that after eating it for supper, you can drink a whole night.
When it comes to eating, the bread has to be portioned out like cake.