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.

"Oi, dos Essen, dos Essen seiers!"

Thus Chaike, Chayyim Chaikin's wife, a poor, sick creature, who coughs
all night long.

"No evil eye," says the father, and he looks at his children devouring
whole slices of bread, and would dearly like to take a mouthful himself,
only, if he does so, the two little ones, Fradke and Beilke, will go
supperless.

And he cuts his portion of bread in two, and gives it to the little
ones, Fradke and Beilke.

Fradke and Beilke stretch out their little thin, black hands, look into
their father's eyes, and don't believe him: perhaps he is joking?
Children are nashers, they play with father's piece of bread, till at
last they begin taking bites out of it. The mother sees and exclaims,
coughing all the while:

"It is nothing but eating and stuffing!"

The father cannot bear to hear it, and is about to answer her, but he
keeps silent--he can't say anything, it is not for him to speak! Who is
he in the house? A broken potsherd, the last and least, no good to
anyone, no good to them, no good to himself.

Because the fact is he does nothing, absolutely nothing; not because he
won't do anything, or because it doesn't befit him, but because there is
nothing to do--and there's an end of it! The whole townlet complains of
there being nothing to do! It is just a crowd of Jews driven together.
Delightful! They're packed like herrings in a barrel, they squeeze each
other close, all for love.

"Well-a-day!" thinks Chaikin, "it's something to have children, other
people haven't even that. But to depend on one's children is quite
another thing and not a happy one!" Not that they grudge him his
keep--Heaven forbid! But he cannot take it from them, he really cannot!

He knows how hard they work, he knows how the strength is wrung out of
them to the last drop, he knows it well!

Every morsel of bread is a bit of their health and strength--he drinks
his children's blood! No, the thought is too dreadful!

"Tatinke, why don't you eat?" ask the children.

"To-day is a fast day with me," answers Chayyim Chaikin.

"Another fast? How many fasts have you?"

"Not so many as there are days in the week."

And Chayyim Chaikin speaks the truth when he says that he has many
fasts, and yet there are days on which he ea