The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-12-05
THE SLIPPER-MAKER'S FAST.

fore Yom Kippur. Three days and three
nights he had worked without sleep,
almost without taking time to eat, to
make ready the two dozen slippers that
we're to enable him to fast the fourth
day and night for condolences sake, and
now they were nearly done. AS he
saw the end of his task near, he worked
faster and faster while the tenement
slept.
Three years he had shaved for the
sweater, stinted and starved himself,
before he had saved enough to send for
his wife and children awaiting his sum-
mons in the city by the Black Sea.
Since they came they had shaved and
starved together, for wages had become
steadily less, work more grinding, an d
hours longer and later. Still of that he
thought little. They had known little
else there or here, and they were to-
gether now. The past was dead; the
future WAS their own, even in the Allen
street tenement. toiling night and day
at starvation wages. Tomorrow was
the feast, their first Yom Kippur since
they had come together ain,-Esther,
his wife, and Ruth and little Ben,-the
feast when, priest and patriarch of his
own house, he might forget his bondage
and be free. Poor little Ben! The hand
that smoothed the soft leather on the
last took tenderer, lingering touch as
he glanced toward the stool where the
child had sat watching him work till
his eyes grew small. Brave little Ben,
almost yet baby, yet 80 patient. SO
wise. and so strong!
The deep bre athing of the sleeping
children reached him from their crib,
He smiled and listened with The half
finished slipper in hissshand. AS he sat
thus great drowsiness.came upon him.
de nodded once. twice; his hands sank
into his lap. his head fell forward upon
his chest. In the silence of the NOR ming
he slept, worn out with utter WEAKNESS,
He awoke with a guilty start to find
the irst rays of the dawn struggling
through the window, and his task yet
undone. With desperate energy he
seized the unfinished slipper to resume
his work. His unsteady hand upset the
little lamp by his side, upon which his
Furnishing iron was heating. The oil
biazed up on the floor and ran toward
the nearly finished pile of work. The
cloth on the table caught fire. In a
fever of terror and excitement the slip.
per-maker caught it in his hands, wrung
1T and tore at it to smother the flames.
His hands were burned, but what of
that? The slippers, the slippers! If
they we're burned, it was ruin. There
would be no Yom Kippur, no Feast of
Atonement, no fast.-rather, no end of
it; starvation for him and his.
He beat the fire with his hands and
trampled it with his feet as it burned
and spread out on the floor. 1t only
fared up more brightly, His hair and
his beard caught fire. With despair
ing shrek, he gave it up and fell before
the precious slippers. barring the way
of the flames to them with his body.
The shrek woke his wife. She sprang
out of bed, snatched up blanket, and
threw it upon the fire. 1t went out,
was smothered under the blanket. The
slipper maker sat up. painting and
grateful. His Yom Kippur was saved.
Some one passing in the street had
seen the glare in the window, and sent
an alarm for the firemen. They came,
and climbed the many stairs to no pur-
pose, There was nothing for them to
do. The slipper maker went back to
his bench, working as if his life depend
ed upon it, as indeed it nearly had. Few
of the tenants in the big building ever
knew that there had been fire. They
awoke to hear Of il when all Jewtown
was stirring with preparations for the
feast.
The fire was reported on the police re-
turns. When the reporters came to see
about it, the slipper was asleep,
his task ended at last. His wife, little
woman with patient voice. was setting
the things on the table for the family
dinner that was to usher in the long
fast. Two half naked children played
about her knee. asking eager questions
about it, The precious slippers were
there. finished and ready. two dozen. all
safe. heard their story from the wo-
man herself. Asked if her husband had
often to work so hard and what he made
by it; she shrugged her shoulders and
said 1.-The rent and crust"
And yet all this labor and effort to en-.
able him to fast one day according to
the old dispensation, when all the rest
OF the days he tasted according to the
new. = Jacob A. Riis, in November