Page:Yiddish Tales.djvu/190

 186 ROSENTHAL

"God will help, he will soon get well, and will surely find some work. God will not desert us," so she reflected, and meantime she was not sitting idle.

The very difficulty of her position roused her courage, and gave her strength.

She sold her small store of jewelry, and set up a little shop.

Three years have passed since then.

However it may be, God has not abandoned her, and however bitter and sour the struggle for Parnosseh may have been, she had her bit of bread. Only his health did not return, he grew daily weaker and worse. She glanced at her sick husband, at his pale, emaciated face, and tears fell from her eyes.

During the week she has no time to think how un- happy she is. Parnosseh, housework, attendance on the children and the sick man these things take up all her time and thought. She is glad when it comes to bedtime, and she can fall, dead tired, onto her bed.

But on Sabbath, the day of rest, she has time to think over her hard lot and all her misery and to cry herself out.

"When will there be an end of my troubles and suffer- ing?" she asked herself, and could give no answer whatever to the question beyond despairing tears. She saw no ray of hope lighting her future, only a great, wide, shoreless sea of trouble.

It flashed across her:

"When he dies, things will be easier."

But the thought of his death only increased her appre- hension.