Breklins are very poor, their life is a never-ending
struggle with poverty, and they have come to the conclusion that the
cheapest way of waging it, and especially in winter, is to lie in bed
under a great heap of old clothes and rags of every description.

Breklin is a house-painter, and from Christmas to Purim (I beg to
distinguish!) work is dreadfully slack. When you're not earning a
crooked penny, what are you to do?

In the first place, you must live on "cash," that is, on the few dollars
scraped together and put by during the "season," and in the second
place, you must cut down your domestic expenses, otherwise the money
won't hold out, and then you might as well keep your teeth in a drawer.

But you may neither eat nor drink, nor live at all to mention--if it's
winter, the money goes all the same: it's bitterly cold, and you can't
do without the stove, and the nights are long, and you want a lamp.

And the Breklins saw that their money would _not_ hold out till
Purim--that their Fast of Esther would be too long. Coal was beyond
them, and kerosene as dear as wine, and yet how could they possibly
spend less? How could they do without a fire when it was so cold?
Without a lamp when it was so dark? And the Breklins had an "idea"!

Why sit up at night and watch the stove and the lamp burning away their
money, when they might get into bed, bury themselves in rags, and defy
both poverty and cold? There is nothing in particular to do, anyhow.
What should there be, a long winter evening through? Nothing! They only
sat and poured out the bitterness in their heart one upon the other,
quarrelled, and scolded. They could do that in bed just as well, and
save firing and light into the bargain.

So, at the first approach of darkness, the bed was made ready for Mr.
Breklin, and his wife put to sleep their only, three-year-old child.
Avremele did not understand why he was put to bed so early, but he asked
no questions. The room began to feel cold, and the poor little thing was
glad to nestle deep into the bedcoverings.

The lamp and the fire were extinguished, the stove would soon go out of
itself, and the Breklin family slept.

They slept, and fought against poverty by lying in bed.

It was waging cheap warfare.

* * * * *

Having had his first sleep out, Breklin turns to his wife:

"What do you suppose the time to be now, Yudith?"

Yudith listens attentively.

"It must be past eigh