families, including young people and children. For these last we had a school. Among them were four or five Mussalmans. I always helped and encouraged them in keeping all their religious observances. I took care to see that they offered their daily namaz. There were Christian and Parsi youngsters too, whom I considered it my duty to encourage to follow their respective religious observances.
During this month, there, I persuaded the Mussalman youngsters to observe the ramzan fast. I had of course decided to observe pradosha myself, but I now asked the Hindu, Parsi and Christian youngsters to join me. I explained to them that it was always a good thing to join with others in any matter of self-denial. Many of the Farm inmates welcomed my proposal. The Hindu and the Parsi youngsters did not copy the Mussalman ones in every detail; it was not necessary. The Mussalman youngsters had to wait for their breakfast until sunset, whereas the others did not do so, and were thus able to prepare delicacies for the Mussalman friends and serve them. Nor had the Hindu and other youngsters to keep the Mussalmans company when they had their last meal before sunrise next morning, and of course all except the Mussalmans allowed themselves water.
The result of these experiments was that all were convinced of the value of fasting, and a splendid esprit de corps grew up among them.
We were all vegetarians on Tolstoy Farm, thanks, I must gratefully confess, to the readiness of all to respect my feelings. The Mussalman youngsters must have missed their meat during ramzan , but none of them ever let me know that they did so. They delighted in and relished the vegetarian diet, and the Hindu youngsters often prepared vegetarian delicacies for them, in keeping with the simplicity of the Farm.
I have purposely digressed in the midst of this chapter on fasting, as I could not have given these pleasant reminiscences anywhere else, and I