The _Rube's_ own conception of her function as a safeguard against fire was quite other.
Moses was out all day working or looking for work, or praying or listening to _Drashes_, by the _Maggid_ or other great preachers.

Such charities as brightened and warmed the Ghetto Moses usually came in for.
Bread, meat and coal tickets, god-sends from the Society for Restoring the Soul, made odd days memorable.

Blankets were not so easy to get as in the days of poor Gittel's confinements.
What little cooking there was to do was done by Esther before or after school; she and her children usually took their mid-day meal with them in the shape of bread, occasionally made ambrosial by treacle The Ansells had more fast days than the Jewish calendar, which is saying a good deal.

Providence, however, generally stepped in before the larder had been bare twenty-four hours.
As the fast days of the Jewish calendar did not necessarily fall upon the Ansell fast days, they were an additional tax on Moses and his mother.

Yet neither ever wavered in the scrupulous observance of them, not a crumb of bread nor a drop of water passing their lips.