Page:Jewish Fairy Book (Gerald Friedlander).djvu/85



HERE was once upon a time a very poor man who had a wife and five children. It happened one day that there was no food in the house. The wife told her husband that she had nothing to give the children.

"And I am sorry to say," he cried, "I haven't a penny. I cannot find any work and I don't know what will become of us. God help us, I cannot see any way out of our misfortune."

"Cheer up, dear husband; go down to the marketplace and perhaps you will be in luck's way and find some job. You are no fool, and you often say, 'God neither slumbers nor sleeps' but watches over all of us."

"To whom can I turn when I get there? I don't know a soul there. As you know we haven't a relative in the town, and as for friends, well we know what they are worth. When we had money we had plenty of friends, but when we lost our wealth we also lost our friends."

"There is, good husband, still one Friend left."

"You mean the good God?"

"Of course I do. Now don't waste time, for we