Page:Yiddish Tales.djvu/191

 SABBATH 187

It brought with it before her eyes the dreadf ud words : widow, orphans, poor little fatherless children. ..

These alarmed her more than her present distress.

How can children grow up without a father? Now, even though he's ill, he keeps an eye on them, tells them to say their prayers and to study. Who is to watch over them if he dies ?

"Don't punish me, Lord of the World, for my bad thought," she begged with her whole heart. "I will take it upon myself to suffer and trouble for all, only don't let him die, don't let me be called by the bitter name of widow, don't let my children be called orphans !"

He sits upon his couch, his head a little thrown back and leaning against the wall. In one hand he holds a prayer-book he is receiving the Sabbath into his house. His pale lips scarcely move as he whispers the words before him, and his thoughts are far from the prayer. He knows that he is dangerously ill, he knows what his wife has to suffer and bear, and not only is he powerless to help her, but his illness is her heaviest burden, what with the extra expense incurred on his account and the trouble of looking after him. Besides which, his weak- ness makes him irritable, and his anger has more than once caused her unmerited pain. He sees and knows it all, and his heart is torn with grief. "Only death can help us," he murmurs, and while his lips repeat the words of the prayer-book, his heart makes one request to God and only one : that God should send kind Death to deliver him from his trouble and misery.