Page:Yiddish Tales.djvu/336

 332 PINSKI

suddenly fell on melancholy, it never came into anyone's head that there might be a connection between this and the conversations. The old lady settled that it was a question of the stomach, which had always troubled him, and that perhaps he had taken a chill. At his age such things were frequent. "But how is one to know, when he won't speak?" she lamented, and won- dered which would be best, cod-liver oil or dried raspberries.

Every one else said that he was already in fear of death, and they pitied him greatly. "That is a sickness which no doctor can cure," people said, and shook their heads with sorrowful compassion. They talked to him by the hour, and tried to prevent him from being alone with his thoughts, but it was all no good ; he only grew more depressed, and would often not speak at all.

"Such a man, too, what a pity!" they said, and sighed. "He's pining awayi given up to the contempla- tion of death."

"And if you come to think, why should he fear death ?" they wondered. "If he fears it, what about us ? Och ! och ! och ! Have we so much to show in the next world ?" And Ifeb Shloimeh had a lot to show. Jews would have been glad of a tenth part of his world-to- come, and Christians declared that he was a true Christian, with his love for his fellow-men, and promised him a place in Paradise. "Reb Shloimeh is goodness itself," the town was wont to say. His one lifelong occupation had been the affairs of the community. "They are my life and my delight," he would repeat to his intimate friends, "as indispensable to me as water