The sheer drama of the thing got her. In fact, the thing
she had set herself to do to-day had in it very little of
religion. Mrs. Brandeis had been right about that. It was
a test of endurance, as planned. Fanny had never fasted in
all her healthy life. She would come home from school to
eat formidable stacks of bread and butter, enhanced by brown
sugar or grape jelly, and topped off with three or four
apples from the barrel in the cellar. Two hours later she
would attack a supper of fried potatoes, and liver, and tea,
and peach preserve, and more stacks of bread and butter.
Then there were the cherry trees in the back yard, and the
berry bushes, not to speak of sundry bags of small, hard
candies of the jelly-bean variety, fitted for quick and
secret munching during school. She liked good things to
eat, this sturdy little girl, as did her friend, that blonde
and creamy person, Bella Weinberg.
The two girls exchanged meaningful glances during the
evening service. The Weinbergs, as befitted their station,
sat in the third row at the right, and Bella had to turn
around to convey her silent messages to Fanny. The evening
service was brief, even to the sermon. Rabbi Thalmann and
his congregation would need their strength for to-morrow's
trial.

The Brandeises walked home through the soft September
night, and the children had to use all their Yom Kippur
dignity to keep from scuffling through the piled-up drifts
of crackling autumn leaves. Theodore went to the cellar and
got an apple, which he ate with what Fanny considered an
unnecessary amount of scrunching. It was a firm, juicy