year. All the doctors in Polotzk
attended her in turn, and one doctor came all the way from Vitebsk.
Every country practitioner for miles around was consulted, every
quack, every old wife who knew a charm. The apothecaries ransacked
their shops for drugs the names of which they had forgotten, and kind
neighbors brought in their favorite remedies. There were midnight
prayers in the synagogue for my mother, and petitions at the graves of
her parents; and one awful night when she was near death, three pious
mothers who had never lost a child came to my mother's bedside and
bought her, for a few kopecks, for their own, so that she might gain
the protection of their luck, and so be saved.

Still my poor mother lay on her bed, suffering and wasting. The house
assumed a look of desolation. Everybody went on tiptoe; we talked in
whispers; for weeks at a time there was no laughter in our home. The
ominous night lamp was never extinguished. We slept in our clothes
night after night, so as to wake the more easily in case of sudden
need. We watched, we waited, but we scarcely hoped.

Once in a while I was allowed to take a short turn in the sick-room.
It was awful to sit beside my mother's bed in the still night and see
her helplessness. She had been so strong, so active. She used to lift
sacks and barrels that were heavy for a man, and now she could not
raise a spoon to her mouth. Sometimes she did not know me when I gave
her the medicine, and when she knew me, she did not care. Would she
ever care any more? She looked strange and small in the shadows of the
bed. Her hair had been cut off after the first few months; her short
curls were almost covered by the ice bag. Her cheeks were red, red,
but her hands were so white as they had never been before. In the
still night I wondered if she cared to live.

The night lamp burned on. My father grew old. He was always figuring
on a piece of paper. We children knew the till was empty when the
silver candlesticks were taken away to be pawned. Next, superfluous
featherbeds were sold for what they would bring, and then there came a
day when grandma, with eyes blinded by tears, groped in the big
wardrobe for my mother's satin dress and velvet mantle; and after that
it did not matter any more what was taken out of the house.

Then everything took a sudden turn. My mother began to improve, and at
the same time my father was offered a good position as superintendent
of a gristmill.

As so