en a great commotion was noticed
among the people of Number Five and those of the corresponding number in
the men's division. There was a good reason for it. You remember that it
was April and Passover was coming on; in fact, it began that night. The
great question was, Would we be able to keep it exactly according to the
host of rules to be obeyed? You who know all about the great holiday can
understand what the answer to that question meant to us. Think of all
the work and care and money it takes to supply a family with all the
things proper and necessary, and you will see that to supply a few
hundred was no small matter. Now, were they going to take care that all
was perfectly right, and could we trust them if they promised, or should
we be forced to break any of the laws that ruled the holiday?

All day long there was talking and questioning and debating and
threatening that "we would rather starve than touch anything we were not
sure of." And we meant it. So some men and women went to the overseer to
let him know what he had to look out for. He assured them that he would
rather starve along with us than allow anything to be in the least
wrong. Still, there was more discussing and shaking of heads, for they
were not sure yet.

There was not a crumb anywhere to be found, because what bread we
received was too precious for any of it to be wasted; but the women made
a great show of cleaning up Number Five, while they sighed and looked
sad and told one another of the good hard times they had at home getting
ready for Passover. Really, hard as it is, when one is used to it from
childhood, it seems part of the holiday, and can't be left out. To sit
down and wait for supper as on other nights seemed like breaking one of
the laws. So they tried hard to be busy.

At night we were called by the overseer (who tried to look more
important than ever in his holiday clothes--not his best, though) to the
feast spread in one of the unoccupied rooms. We were ready for it, and
anxious enough. We had had neither bread nor matzo for dinner, and were
more hungry than ever, if that is possible. We now found everything
really prepared; there were the pillows covered with a snow-white
spread, new oilcloth on the newly scrubbed tables, some little candles
stuck in a basin of sand on the window-sill for the women, and--a sure
sign of a holiday--both gas lamps burning. Only one was used on other
nights.

Happy to see these things, and smel