He Believed in Fasting.
Translated from the Yiddish of Scholom Aleichem
WHAT Dr. Tanner could not accomplish, Chayim Chaikin, a plain, every-day Jew of a little town in Lithuania, succeeded in doing. Dr. Tanner wished to prove that a man could fast for forty days, and with great difficulty keep up his fast for twenty-eight days—no more. Even then they made him swallow pieces of ice, gave him tea-spoonfuls of water, felt his pulse, and there was a great ado about it.
Chayim Chaikin proved that a man could fast a great deal more than forty days; of course, as a rule, not one after another, but during the year. It might have amounted to a hundred days, if not more. What is the use of spoonfuls of water? What is the use of bits of ice? To fast means not to eat and not to drink for a full day—fully twenty-four hours—and no doctor to sit at his side, nor anyone to feel his pulse; nothing of the kind!
Chayim Chaikin is a poor devil, with a houseful of children, and from these children he makes a living. His children are nearly all girls, and work in a factory, making cigarette wrappers. They earn—one twelve cents; the other, six centsa day. The trouble is that there are more consumers in the family than producers. For every producer there are three mouths, and from these earnings rent must be paid—a wet corner in a cellar—and out of these earnings everyone has got to be dressed and shod. Dresses they all have, but shoes, only one pair for two. And, finally, one has to eat. Of course, the food is poor enough. A piece of bread with a tatse of garlic, once in a while farina or salted mackerel, which makes you so thirsty that you keep on drinking all night. At the table you have to be very careful in distributing the bread—as careful as if it were cake. One loaf is bought, and no
sooner put on the table than it is cut up and has disappeared.
“Oh, this eating; this eating!” says Chayim Chaikin, the father, as he sees how the children swallow big morsels of bread, and he would like to take a bite himself, but if he were to take something the two little tots—Fradke and Bailke—would be without supper. So he divides his portion into two pieces, and gives them to the two little ones—Fradke and Bailke.
“Fradke and Bailke, here you have a piece of bread each. It will be your supper!”
Fradke and Bailke stretch forth their thin and dirty hands, and look into their father's eyes. They don't believe him. F'erhaps he is making fun of them. Children are gluttons. They play with their father's portion of bread for a while, and, finally take a bite, and another bite, until their mother sees it and begins to shout, always interrupted by a spell of coughing.
“How they will eat! How they will eat! All the time!”
She takes from their hands what is left, and Fradke and Bailke go away as if they had been whipped. Their father sees it, and pities them very much, very much indeed—but he does not say anything. He cannot say anything. He must not say anything. What is he there for? A worthless potsherd. He is the last and the least. Of no use to his children; of no use to himself!
He does not work, poor devil. Indeed, he does not do the least bit of work. Not that he does not like to work, or that he considers it beneath him but there is no work to be done, and his family is packed like herring in a barrel—and starve.
God has made everything for our good. Chayim has six children. Other people